Chemical Engineering October 2016 - 16

Newsfront
Ethics Survey Results:
Your Responses
Responses from 2015 CE ethics survey range from hopeful to cynical, and both similarities and
differences emerge when compared to earlier surveys
IN BRIEF
GENERAL QUESTIONS
RESULTS
ETHICS-RELATED
SCENARIOS
IN READERS' OWN
WORDS
I
n October 2015, Chemical Engineering
conducted a survey among chemical
process industries (CPI) professionals
about workplace ethics and ethical
culture (Chem. Eng., October 2015, pp.
50-55). The survey asked a series of general
questions about ethics culture in the
CPI workplace and presented a number of
hypothetical situations in chemical manufacturing
in which ethics would play a role.
This followup article reports results from that
survey. In some cases, the questions and
ethics scenarios repeated those found in
earlier ethics surveys (see Chem. Eng., April
2007, pp. 50-53 and Chem. Eng., October
2007, pp. 60-67). Thank you to those who
provided responses and input for the survey.
General questions results
In response to the question " In the past 6-10
years, have people become more ethical,
less ethical or remained the same?, " 46%
of the almost 700 respondents said people
have become less ethical than in the past,
while 15% said " more ethical " (38.4% said
people have remained the same). When the
same question was asked in 2007, a smaller
portion (42.8%) of respondents said people
were less ethical, and a larger share said
" more ethical " (21%). In 1980, the total was
41% of respondents saying people were less
ethical, and 16.6% saying " more ethical. "
When questioned about whether they had
done something that would be considered
unethical, 91% of survey respondents said
" no, " compared to 87.5% in 2007. However,
for the question of whether respondents
knew anyone at their company who had
done something unethical, only 60.6% said
" no " (39.4% reported " yes " ) in the 2015 sur16
vey.
In the 2007 survey, it was 63.7% saying
" no " (36.3% " yes).
The following are additional results from
the general questions:
CE readers were also asked whether
they felt punished in some way for making
an ethically sound, but unpopular, decision.
In 2015, 34.4% said " yes, " compared to
29.7% in the 2007 survey.
Question no. 6 in the survey asked how
respondents would rate various groups
within their workplace, including upper-level
managers, technical staff, human resources
and administrative staff. The results indicate
that respondents felt upper management at
their workplace had " average " ethics, while
technical staff was generally rated as having
" above average " ethics.
Question no. 7 asked respondents to say
how much they agreed or disagreed with
the statement " Ethical decision-making is
always good for business. " Over 68% of
respondents chose " Strongly agree, " and
20% chose " Somewhat agree. " Somewhat
disagree came in at only 3.7%, and strongly
disagree was 0.6%. The 2007 results for the
same question were the following: 57.8%
strongly agree; 29.3% agree; 6.8% neutral;
4.8% disagree; 1.3%.
Question no. 8 inquired about to what
extent respondents agreed with the statement
" Social responsibility and ethics are
symbiotically related. " The results for 2015
were the following: Strongly agree = 55.9%;
somewhat agree = 27.2%; neither agree nor
disagree = 10.5%; somewhat disagree =
3.7%; strongly disagree = 2.6%. For 2007,
the results were: 66.1% strongly agree;
24.3 agree; 6.5 neutral; 1% disagree; 2.1%
strongly agree.
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OCTOBER 2016

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Chemical Engineering October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering October 2016