Socializing Retail Employees in Ethical Values: The Effectiveness of the Formal versus Informal Methods

The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of an informal socialization process for reported employee attitudes towards unethical behavior within a large retail organization. This study compares the reported ethical attitudes of full-time employees (N = 203) who were socialized using an informal approach, to the reported ethical attitudes of their managers (N = 274) who were socialized using a formal approach. The results indicate that the informal approach to ethical socialization was not as effective as the formal approach to ethical socialization. Employees were more accepting of unethical behavior than were their managers. Implications are discussed and recommendations for ethical socialization techniques are provided.