Honesty as a value in the interpersonal relationships in organizations

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The crisis caused by COVID-19 has increased interest to the subject of integrity in organizations. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the opinions on the value of honesty, broken down by the group of supervisors and subordinates during the crisis caused by COVID-19. The analysis was carried out in Poland among undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in fields representing disciplines other than management. The paper used a survey method; 102 respondents took part in the survey. 9.52% of men and 5.00% of women in the group of subordinates did not have opinions on this subject. In the group of supervisors, the situation was completely opposite: 6.25% of women and 4.76% of men showed such a result. Significant discrepancies were noticed in the assessment of the importance of honesty depending on the education field of the respondents. The difference between the highest assessments of the importance of this value was 33.70 percentage points in the supervisors’ group, and 38.64 percentage points in the subordinates group. Drawing attention to this problem, which affects all participants of an organization to a different extent, may help to shape the ethical attitudes of future managers and, in consequence, manage their organizations better.

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    • Figure 1. Importance of integrity values in the COVID-19 crisis
    • Figure 2. Importance of subordinates’ integrity values during the COVID-19 crisis (by gender of respondents)
    • Figure 3. Importance of integrity for supervisors during the COVID-19 crisis (by gender of respondents)
    • Figure 4. Telling the truth – a summary for the groups of supervisors and subordinates
    • Figure 5. Not reaching for someone else’s property – a summary for the groups of supervisors and subordinates
    • Figure 6. Performing their duties diligently – overview for the groups of supervisors and subordinates
    • Figure 7. Assessing the value of integrity in the group of supervisors, broken down by education fields completed in the first cycle of studies
    • Figure 8. Assessing the value of honesty in the group of subordinates broken down by education fields completed at the first cycle of studies
    • Table 1. Overview of selected definitions
    • Table 2. Distribution of respondents by education fields
    • Conceptualization
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Data curation
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Formal Analysis
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Funding acquisition
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Investigation
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Methodology
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Project administration
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Resources
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Software
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Supervision
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Validation
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Visualization
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Writing – original draft
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska
    • Writing – review & editing
      Maria Czajkowska-Białkowska