Ethics sensitivity and awareness within organizations in Kuwait: An empirical exploration of espoused theory and theory-in-use

This article explores the ethics sensitivity and awareness of a sample of e mployees in six organizations in Kuwait. We identify which sorts of questio nable organizational behaviors are believed to be most unethical by these e mployees, as well as which behaviors are reported to occur most often withi n the organizations. On the whole, the employees evidence a high level of e thical sensitivity, perceiving the moral hazards of all of the behaviors pr esented to them. At the same time, the reported occurrence of these behavio rs within the sampled organizations is relatively high. We produce conclusi ons about the correspondence between moral theory and moral practice within the Kuwaiti workplace. We find a basic correspondence between what is beli eved to be wrong within these organizations, and the types of unethical beh avior reported within them. In general, behaviors thought to be most unethi cal occur less frequently within the organizations.