Personal infidelity and professional conduct in 4 settings

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: John M. Griffin, University of Texas Austin; Samuel Kruger, University of Texas Austin; Gonzalo Maturana Falcone, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2019-08-13
• Publisher: United States National Academy of Sciences
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2019 the Author(s).
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1905329116
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America)
• Volume: 116
• Issue: 33
• Start Page: 16268
• End Page: 16273
• Grant/Funding Information: We are grateful for research support from the McCombs Research Excellence Grant and to Integra FEC LLC for providing LexisNexis access and research support.
• Keywords: Corporate; Religion; Ethical decision making; Culture; Overconfidence; financial advisors; fraud; Multidisciplinary Sciences; personal conduct; CEOs; Science & Technology; Science & Technology - Other Topics; Executives; police
• Research Categories: Economics, Finance; Economics, Commerce - Business; Psychology, Behavioral; Sociology, Organizational

Abstract

We study the connection between personal and professional behavior by introducing usage of a marital infidelity website as a measure of personal conduct. Police officers and financial advisors who use the infidelity website are significantly more likely to engage in professional misconduct. Results are similar for US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defendants accused of white-collar crimes, and companies with chief executive officers (CEOs) or chief financial officers (CFOs) who use the website are more than twice as likely to engage in corporate misconduct. The relation is not explained by a wide range of regional, firm, executive, and cultural variables. These findings suggest that personal and workplace behavior are closely related.