| Title |
Business culture and dishonesty in the banking industry
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Nature, November 2014
|
| DOI | 10.1038/nature13977 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Alain Cohn, Ernst Fehr, Michel André Maréchal |
| Abstract |
Trust in others' honesty is a key component of the long-term performance of firms, industries, and even whole countries. However, in recent years, numerous scandals involving fraud have undermined confidence in the financial industry. Contemporary commentators have attributed these scandals to the financial sector's business culture, but no scientific evidence supports this claim. Here we show that employees of a large, international bank behave, on average, honestly in a control condition. However, when their professional identity as bank employees is rendered salient, a significant proportion of them become dishonest. This effect is specific to bank employees because control experiments with employees from other industries and with students show that they do not become more dishonest when their professional identity or bank-related items are rendered salient. Our results thus suggest that the prevailing business culture in the banking industry weakens and undermines the honesty norm, implying that measures to re-establish an honest culture are very important. |
Twitter Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 606 tweeters who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 83 | 14% |
| Ecuador | 43 | 7% |
| United Kingdom | 43 | 7% |
| Saudi Arabia | 17 | 3% |
| Spain | 16 | 3% |
| Canada | 16 | 3% |
| Germany | 15 | 2% |
| France | 14 | 2% |
| India | 10 | 2% |
| Other | 84 | 14% |
| Unknown | 265 | 44% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 463 | 76% |
| Scientists | 109 | 18% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 20 | 3% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 14 | 2% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 966 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 10 | 1% |
| Switzerland | 7 | <1% |
| Germany | 7 | <1% |
| United States | 6 | <1% |
| France | 4 | <1% |
| Japan | 3 | <1% |
| Netherlands | 2 | <1% |
| Spain | 2 | <1% |
| Australia | 1 | <1% |
| Other | 10 | 1% |
| Unknown | 914 | 95% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 214 | 22% |
| Student > Master | 144 | 15% |
| Researcher | 106 | 11% |
| Student > Bachelor | 93 | 10% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 60 | 6% |
| Other | 198 | 20% |
| Unknown | 151 | 16% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Economics, Econometrics and Finance | 184 | 19% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 156 | 16% |
| Psychology | 144 | 15% |
| Social Sciences | 81 | 8% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 49 | 5% |
| Other | 159 | 16% |
| Unknown | 193 | 20% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1214. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 May 2023.
All research outputs
#10,743
of 24,471,305 outputs
Outputs from Nature
#1,110
of 95,098 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#60
of 372,630 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature
#14
of 969 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,471,305 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 95,098 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 101.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 969 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 98% of its contemporaries.