Three out of ten employees in Spain report unethical attitudes in their companies
The Chair in Economic and Business Ethics participates in the report Our Ethics at Work, a global survey led by the Institute of Business Ethics
8 November 2024
85% of Spanish workers say that honesty is something that is commonly practised in their companies, although 28% report unethical behaviour. These are some of the data from the report Our Ethics at Work 2024, drawn up in 16 countries and with more than 12,000 workers from all over the world by the Institute of Business Ethics. In Spain, they have been compiled by the Chair in Economic and Business Ethics at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (Comillas ICADE), which is the second time it has produced the report.
"The objective is to explore the perception of a reasonably representative sample of adult workers in each country with respect to ethics in the day-to-day work place," says José Luis Fernández, Director of the Chair, who reveals that "we interviewed 758 people, half men, half women, 30% of them managers and belonging to SMEs and large companies".
Other results of the report at national level indicate that 70% of Spanish employees consider their superiors to be a good example of ethical behaviour and that 63% have bosses who explain to them the importance of ethics in the work they do. It also highlights that there has been an improvement in the perception of business ethics following the pandemic and reflects workers' concerns about the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), the replacement of humans with automated machines or AI, and discrimination in the workplace.
Globally, 20% of respondents in the 16 countries surveyed mentioned sexual harassment in the workplace, and 13% heard of corruption or bribery. There is also an increase in the number of workers willing to report unethical attitudes (57%) and those who admit that their company is honest (84%). However, while the majority of employees (71%) believe their organisations are taking ethics seriously, high levels of misconduct persist. In fact, 25% say they have been aware of misconduct or illegal activity at work in the past year, compared to 18% in 2021.
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