Materialism, Social Stratification, And Ethics: Evidence From Sme Owners In China

Purpose The study of business ethics has seldom shed light on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) despite their theoretical and practical significance. Drawing from strain perspective, the purpose of this paper is to address this insufficiency and investigate SME owners' ethical attitudes toward money-related deviances. Design/methodology/approach Based on a large sample of 741 Chinese SMEs, an OLS regression analysis was employed to test associated hypotheses. The robustness of results was additionally checked. Findings The results suggest that for stratification variables, education level is positively related to ethical attitudes, whereas household income level is surprisingly negatively associated with ethical attitudes; for materialism facets, success and happiness exert a negative impact on ethical attitudes as hypothesized, but centrality has no associated impact. Originality/value This study advances and complements the dominant behavior approach that emphasizes cognitive and other psychological processes in explaining individual ethical attitudes. It is also seemingly the first study to examine the influence of three materialism facets on entrepreneurial ethical attitudes.