Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes of Malaysian Evangelical Christians in Business - Hong Meng Wong
ABSTRACT. Recent research suggests there may be a link between religiousness and business ethics. This study seeks to add to the understanding of the relationship through a questionnaire survey on Malaysian Christians in business. The questionnaire taps into three different constructs. The religiousness construct is reflected in the level of participation in various common religious activities.

The love of money construct is captured through the Love of Money Scale as used in Luna-Arocas and
Tang [Journal of Business Ethics 50 (2004) 329]. Response to 25 business vignettes taken from Conroy and Emerson [Journal of Business Ethics 50 (2004) 383] would surface ethical attitudes. A convenience sample of 300 was drawn from three large churches in the Kuala Lumpur area each
with a congregation exceeding 1000 together with some representation from the smaller churches. The study finds some differences in the ethical attitudes of Malaysian Christians in business with different levels of religiousness.

The study also finds that those longer in the faith are less accepting of unethical behavior. As such it can be concluded that there are ethical attitude differences between Christians in business with different levels of religiousness. This lends support to the claim of a positive relationship between religion and business ethics. The more significant finding is that even within a somewhat homogenous religious group there are different love of money profiles
resulting in significant differences in ethical attitudes. This suggests that moderating money attitudes can contribute towards stronger ethical attitudes.

KEY WORDS: business ethics, Christians in business,love of money, religious activities, religiousness
Introduction
In recent years, corporate scandals have been on the rise in the United States. However, two cases in 2002 are of special interest to the Christian community. Enron was the biggest bankruptcy in the history of America (Kadlec, 2002) and Worldcom the biggest corporate scandal (Ayres, 2002). Both Kenneth Lay of Enron and Bernard Ebbers of Worldcom were self-professed practicing Christians.

They were both indicted in 2004 and found guilty in 2006. Their business misconduct brought into
question the relationship between Christian religiousness and business ethics.
Self-described ‘‘Christian’’ companies and CEOs have been gaining increasing prominence (Ibrahim
et al., 1991) and are proliferating in the United States in recent years. They believe in the integration of biblical principles and economic activities, usually ascribing their successes to their faith and their active application of such biblical principles. Christian values and economic successes are perceived to be in harmony and even synergistic. Organizations like
the Fellowship of Companies for Christ International and the International Christian Chamber of
Commerce are providing the momentum to organize these companies into effective networks (Ibrahim
and Angelidis, 2005).

This trend is also evident in Malaysia where a number of Christian CEOs of companies listed on
the Bursa Malaysia (the Malaysian Stock Exchange)have self-declared their Christian convictions. This is Hong Meng Wong BEcons(Hons)(Malaya), MBA(Cranfield), DBA(UniSA), FCA, ACIS, is the National Secretary of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship Malaysia. His
more than 30 years of professional experience had been in management consulting, merchant banking, commercial banking and stock broking. Since becoming a Christian in 1981 he has been actively involved in ministering to men in the marketplace. His burden is to help improve the ethics of
Christians in business.

Journal of Business Ethics (2008) 81:169–191 Springer 2007 DOI 10.1007/s10551-007-9487-0
reflected in their public speeches, even in a nonreligious context, and sometimes in their public
documents. A notable example is Francis Yeoh of YTL Corporation. Forbes Magazine listed Francis
Yeoh as one of Southeast Asia’s richest businesspeople for 2005 (Doebele, 2005), and CNBC Asia
Pacific named him as Malaysia CEO of the Year for 2005 (Chan, 2005). He ascribed the phenomenal
success of his group to the blessings of God (Baker, 2003; Ellis, 2002) and that he ‘‘does business with a huge advantage as Christ is his wise advisor’’ (quoted in Ellis, 2002). He was quoted as saying, ‘‘God and Mammon1 converge and God wins all the time. You must be master (of Mammon) and not the other way around.’’(quoted in Baker, 2003).
Prominent business persons with strong public persona and portrayed as committed and practicing
Christians not only have to stand up to public scrutiny but more importantly they are answerable
to their fellow Christians within the community of faith. When Christians in business violate laws and commonly accepted moral standards in pursuit of money, it is more than just a personal moral failing.

The relevance of the Christian faith to business ethics can be brought into question. The recent
deluge of high-profile corporate misbehavior has spurred an increase in the concern for corporate
governance. Legislation and new rules have been enacted to enforce better governance. But for
Christians in business it is not just the law that they have to observe, it is the requirements of their religion. ‘‘The first concern of ethical reflection is how one’s action affects one’s own soul’’ (Novak, 1996, p.159).
The primacy of profits in the business world cannot be denied. But enshrined in the Bible are
such reminders and warnings as ‘‘You cannot serve both God and Money’’ (NIV Bible, Luke 16:13),‘‘For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil’’ (NIV Bible,1Timothy 6:10) and ‘‘What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?’’ (NIV Bible, Matthew 8:36). Some of these biblical precepts have even acquired popular usage in the American culture. It is therefore not unreasonable for society to expect the business people with self declared religious commitment to have ethics that are consistent with the values expected of that faith. If that is what Christianity teaches, then its adherents would be expected to be guided by such teachings in their business conduct. But does the Christian faith make a difference in the business ethics of its adherents? Can it reasonably be expected that self declared Christians in business are more likely to behave ethically in the business arena?

Objective of study In view of the recent scandals involving high-profile Christians in business the relationship between the Christian faith and business ethics needs to be better understood. This study seeks to add to the discussion that is of increasing interest to both the Christian and
the business communities. Using a multi-part questionnaire,the study looks into possible differences in ethical attitudes between different levels of religiousness among Malaysian Christians in business. As empirical research is rather thin in this field of study,it is hoped hat the study could make a meaningful contribution to the discussion. This is very much an
exploratory study. Money is a dominant mediating factor in business decisions. It is also the main
mediating factor in situations where ethics is in question. As such this study would also attempt to look into the possible differences in ethical attitudes among Malaysian Christians in business with different love of money profiles.

The study could help Christians in business better understand the role of religion in their business lives and perhaps seek ways to improve their own ethical awareness. It could also help the Church to better understand the often dichotomous behavior of its constituents, and hopefully provide some meaningful insights on how it can better provide the teaching, the support, and the facilities to help Christians in business better integrate their religious lives with their usiness lives. Should the results show that there are no differences, then at least we would
know that religion is really therapeutic as Wuthrow (1994) claimed and Christians in business do not allow religion to affect their business lives. Should that be the case then it may not be reasonable to hold Christians in business to any different standard than the rest of the business world because Christianity may have nothing to do with business ethics. The religious dimension in the misbehavior of Christians in the business world should then not be highlighted.
Therefore, the two research questions for this study are:
170 Hong Meng Wong
1. Are there differences in ethical attitude between Christians in business with different
levels of religiousness?
2. Are there differences in ethical attitude between Christians in business with different
love of money profiles? The ensuing literature review shows that there has been some ground-breaking work done pertaining to the first research question. This study should contribute and perhaps clarify areas of ambiguity from previous studies. The second research question was motivated largely by Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004). The availability of a well-tested and validated
Love of Money Scale makes it feasible to group Christians in business according to their love of
money profiles. As Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004)pointed out, the love of money is an unobservable
construct. Money profiles can be deduced through the Love of Money Scale. The study looks into
differences, if any, between the various money profiles and their ethical attitudes.
Literature review Christianity and business ethics Religion is said to be one of the most important sources of a person’s moral norms (Van Buren, 1995). Western business ethics is generally known to have Judeo-Christian roots (Calkins, 2000; McMahon, 1985). De George (1986) felt that western business ethics started off as an extension of religious ethics. More than any other factors, the commitment to and the practice of a religious faith are strong determinants of personal values. Personal religiosity provides the background for ethical evaluation and
influences both attitude and behavior. The values and roles expected by and of that religion when
internalized can be expected to influence behavior (Magill, 1992; Weaver and Agle, 2002). Although it is generally acknowledged that religion contributes positively towards ethical judgment, the relationship has not been well established. (Longenecker et al.,2004; Vitell et al., 2005).
Longenecker et al. (2004) declared that, ‘‘To date,research has failed to provide a clear assessment of the
significance of religious values as they may affect ethical
attitudes or behavior in business’’ (p. 373). The evidence
is simply not adequate. The relationship between
religiosity and ethics deserves further and deeper
research especially when it comes to personal religiosity
and personal ethical judgments (Vitell et al.,
2005; Weaver and Agle, 2002).
The findings from the relatively small number of
previous empirical studies have been decidedly
mixed and rather inconclusive. For example,
McNichols and Zimmerer (1985) reported that
strong religious beliefs are related to a negative
attitude toward certain unacceptable behaviors. Yet
Clark and Dawson (1996) found that the religious
may be more accepting of ethically questionable
corporate behavior. Agle and Van Buren (1999)
found no support to the relationship between religious
upbringing and corporate social responsibility
and religious practice. It was also found that Christian
beliefs had only a weak influence in the
respondents’ answers to corporate social responsibility.
The weak and inconsistent evidence left them
to conclude that ‘‘religion has only a marginal effect on
people’s attitudes toward corporate social responsibility’’
(Agle and Van Buren, 1999, p. 580).
In more recent studies, the findings had been
more positive. Using church attendance to indicate
religiosity, Conroy and Emerson (2004) found that
religiosity reduced the acceptability of certain ethically
questionable business scenarios. Longenecker
et al. (2004) found that regardless of religious affiliation,
those who self-declared that religion is of
moderate or high level of importance to them had a
higher level of ethical judgment. The evidence was
that religion does influence ethical awareness.
Besides the difficulty in drawing any conclusion
from their findings, Weaver and Agle (2002) noted
three potential difficulties inherent in the research.
First, most of the studies appeared to measure ethical
attitudes which may be affected by social desirability
biases. Second, a variety of definitions and measures
of religiosity were used in the studies. Finally, samples
were usually drawn from undergraduates and
MBA students with limited business experience
(Clark and Dawson, 1996; Kennedy and Lawton,
1998; Van Buren and Agle, 1998) although Agle and
Van Buren (1999) had some executive MBA
respondents. It would appear that only Longenecker
et al. (2004) tapped into the working population
with 1234 responses from a random mailing to
10,000 business leaders extracted from business
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 171
periodicals. The use of students might limit the
generalizability of the results. Students, especially
undergraduates would not have faced the business
scenarios as contained in the vignettes. As such how
they think and feel about the scenario could be in
the abstract and not truly reflective of their attitudes.
Older adults with substantial working experience
might have responded quite differently (Kennedy
and Lawton, 1998).
Religiousness construct
One of the most popular measures of religiousness is
Gordon Allport’s Religious Orientation (Clark and
Dawson, 1996) which describes the concepts of
intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness. Intrinsic religiousness
is where religion provides the meaningendowing
framework, which relates to all of life and
through which all of life is understood. It is
unprejudiced and tolerant, integrative and unifying,
and includes regular church attendance. A person of
intrinsic religiousness internalizes his religious beliefs
and is motivated to live his religion in all aspects of
his daily life. Extrinsic religiousness is the religion of
comfort, security and social convention which is
self-serving, immature and dependent. It is compartmentalized,
prejudiced and exclusionary and
includes irregular church attendance (Clark and
Dawson, 1996; Kennedy and Lawton, 1998).
Intrinsic religiousness correlates more highly than
extrinsic religiousness with religious commitment
(Donahue, 1985). As such intrinsic religiousness may
be hypothesized to have a positive relationship with
ethical beliefs. On the other hand, extrinsic religiousness
is expected to have no relationship with
ethical beliefs (Vitell et al., 2005).
Besides intrinsic religiousness, Kennedy and Lawton
(1998) also looked at two other dimensions of
religiousness, i.e., fundamentalism and conservatism
in relation to students’ willingness to behave unethically.
They found a negative correlation between
intrinsic religiousness and willingness to behave
unethically. Respondents with high levels of intrinsic
religiousness were less willing to engage in unethical
behavior. Additionally, they found no relationship
between extrinsic religiousness and ethical behavior.
One of the items in the Intrinsic/Extrinsic scale is
the regularity of church attendance. Some
researchers used church attendance as a convenient
and unambiguous measure of religiousness. For
example, Conroy and Emerson (2004) incorporated
several different measures of religiosity in their study
including religious affiliation, church attendance,
prayer/meditation frequency and a self-reported
degree of ‘‘religiosity’’. However, church attendance
provided the ‘‘best and most consistent measure of religiosity’’
(Conroy and Emerson, 2004, p. 387)
Agle and Van Buren (1999) also used attendance
at religious services as one of the measures of religious
practice. Their second measure was whether
the respondent had participated in four types of
activities in the past year. These activities are: regularly
attended religious education classes, participated
regularly in a fellowship or support group,
participated in a religious retreat and discussed your
faith with someone at work.
Love of money construct
If business ethics can be compromised due to the
love of money then it would make sense that the
relationship between Christianity and business ethics
may be mediated through the ‘‘love of money’’
construct. The tension can be said to be between the
love of money and the love of God. It is postulated
that where the love of money is low, the motivation
to behave unethically in business would correspondingly
be low.
Professor Thomas Li-Ping Tang has done considerable
work to develop and validate a Love of
Money Scale (‘‘LOMS’’) which has been tested
across various cultures, languages and religions in
some 26 countries spanning five continents. Luna-
Arocas and Tang (2004) asserted that as the LOMS
‘‘has been very well established across 22 cultures,
researchers may feel confident in using the LOMS and
testing theoretical and conceptual relationships and models
across cultures’’ (p. 332). The love of money construct
is strongly related to the concept of ‘‘greed’’.
It measures one’s values, wants and desires. It assesses
the meaning and importance of money to the
person and may provide the framework for
everyday living. Tang and Chui (2003) found that
there was a direct path, which supported the
assertion that the love of money is related to
unethical behavior.
172 Hong Meng Wong
As the love of money is the root cause of evil; i.e.,
scandals, corruptions, unethical behavior in society,
the availability of the LOMS and the findings by
Tang and associates can contribute to the understanding
of the relationship between Christian religiousness
and business ethics.
The love of money is of supreme importance
conceptually and empirically and deserves
researchers’ further attention because it helps us
understand, predict and control evil or unethical
behaviors. (Luna-Arocas and Tang, 2004,
p. 333)
It can be hypothesized that a person who voluntarily
attends church services and participates in
other religious activities would be imbued with
Christian values. This would moderate his love of
money as dictated by the verse, ‘‘No servant can
serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love
the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise
the other. You cannot serve both God and Money’’
(NIV Bible, Luke 16:13). The relative strength of
the love for money and the love for God can be
expected to be the determining factor when there
is tension between the two. Where the love of
money is stronger, then Christian ethics and love
for God may be sacrificed at the altar of money.
Conversely a strong love for God would preclude
any unethical business behavior.
Therefore, this study seeks to look at the relationship
between religiousness, the love of money
and ethical attitudes. The sample population for the
study would be drawn from Malaysian Christians in
business.
Methodology
This is an anonymous questionnaire survey on a
focused population: Malaysian Christians in business
from a number of selected churches in the greater
Kuala Lumpur area.
The survey instrument
The instrument and methodology to develop the
love of money profiles were drawn from Luna-
Arocas and Tang (2004). The 25 business vignettes
were taken from Conroy and Emerson (2004). The
questionnaire was divided into four parts. Part A,
subtitled ‘‘Money Attitudes’’, had the 15 items from
Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004) for determining the
love of money profiles. Part B, sub-titled, ‘‘Some
Hypothetical Business Scenarios’’, comprised the 25
business vignettes drawn from Conroy and Emerson
(2004). Part C was intended to measure religiousness
and was sub-titled, ‘‘Some common Christian activities’’.
Finally, relevant personal profiles were captured in
Part D.
Part A – money attitudes
The Love of Money Scale was taken directly from
Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004) without any amendment.
It should also be mentioned that as in Luna-
Arocas and Tang (2004), one of the items was reverse
scored, although this was not made evident in
the questionnaire. The reverse scoring was done at
the data analysis stage. Using a five-point Likert
scale, the respondent was asked to state the degree of
agreement to each of the statements; from 1 being
‘‘strongly disagree’’ to 5 being ‘‘strongly agree’’ with 3
being ‘‘neutral’’.
Part B – some hypothetical business scenarios
To tap ethical attitudes, the questionnaire had 25
hypothetical business scenarios taken directly from
Conroy and Emerson (2004). They had culled these
business vignettes from several previously validated
instruments (Clark, 1966; Fritzsche and Becker,
1982; Harris, 1991; Longenecker et al., 1989) with
the view of increasing the reliability of the results as
well as the consistency of approach with previous
business ethics studies. In the process they had a
relatively large number of vignettes covering a broad
spectrum of business ethical scenarios allowing for
analysis across a number of dimensions. Whilst the
ethical connotation may not be exactly the same, the
vignettes appeared to be familiar in most business
environments including Malaysia. Some of the scenarios
presented illegal behavior both in the U.S. as
well as in Malaysia such as environmental pollution,
false investment recommendation, insider trading,
tax evasion, bribery, and software piracy. Others
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 173
presented ethically questionable behavior in the area
of corporate social responsibility, gender bias,
financial reporting and consumer protection. The 25
vignettes were presented in the questionnaire in the
same order as in Conroy and Emerson (2004) with
the same identification alphabets.
In their study Conroy and Emerson (2004) used a
7-point Likert scale ranging from ‘‘never acceptable’’ to
‘‘always acceptable’’. For consistency and the convenience
of the respondents, the present study used a
5-point Likert scale for the entire questionnaire
other than the questions on personal profile.
Research has indicated a 5-point scale is as good as a
7-point scale. Reliability of the ratings did not improve
with an increase in the number of points
(Sekaran, 2000). The 5-point Likert scale in this
section of the questionnaire ranged from 1 for ‘‘always
unacceptable’’ to 5 for ‘‘always acceptable’’ with 3
being ‘‘neutral’’. It should be noted that the ‘‘never
acceptable’’ in Conroy and Emerson (2004) had been
changed to ‘‘always unacceptable’’ to be consistent
with the ‘‘always acceptable’’ at the other end of the
scale.
Where necessary the names and wording of the
vignettes were Malaysianized. The ‘‘$’’ replaced by
‘‘RM’’ (Ringgit Malaysia), and ‘‘Christmas’’ replaced
with ‘‘Hari Raya and Chinese New Year’’, the most
celebrated of Malaysian festivals. Hari Raya is the
Muslim feast celebrated at the end of Ramadan, the
fasting month. In Conroy and Emerson (2004),
vignette ‘‘Q’’ had the lowest degree of acceptability.
They speculated that this might be because the
vignette had two controversial components driving
down the score. To eliminate the problem of having
two controversial components in the vignette it was
decided to drop the second of the components (using
high-pressure sales tactics) and limit the ethical issue
to the illegal act of rolling back the odometers.
As the vignettes were originally addressed to
American respondents there were some concerns
whether Malaysians would be able to understand and
appreciate the scenarios depicted. In the pilot test,
the respondents were specifically asked to note on
the draft questionnaire if they had any problem
comprehending the scenarios. There were no
comments from the 35 test respondents and this
section of the draft questionnaire was adequately
completed by all of them. It should be noted that the
test respondents, and later the target population,
were all from English speaking churches. The
Cronbach-a measure of reliability for the 25 ethical
vignettes was 0.87 indicating a relatively high degree
of reliability.
Part C – some common Christian activities
This part of the questionnaire was intended to
measure religiousness as a construct. In this context
religiousness was defined as the self-declared intensity
of religious activities. The respondent should
have no difficulty in providing an answer as to the
level of participation in a particular religious activity.
Although attendance at church services on Sunday
can be accepted as one of the measures of religiousness,
there are a variety of Christian activities that can
provide an indication on the intensity of religiousness.
In today’s churches, besides the Sunday worship
service, there are other regular church activities
where its congregation is encouraged and motivated
to participate. These include Bible study and Christian
education, prayer meeting, church organized
seminars, home-life groups and special interest
groups. In addition, Christians are also encouraged to
have a personal time of devotion, sometimes called
‘‘quiet time’’ in the morning, reading and meditating
on the ‘‘Word of God’’ and praying. Organizations
like Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship Malaysia
also organize mid-week meetings held during the
lunch hour. A small number of companies controlled
by Christian owners or CEOs have their in-house
mid-week meeting. Others have their in-house
meetings with the permission of non-Christian
owners and top management. Therefore, using the
single measure of attendance at Sunday services may
not be adequate to capture the degree of variation in
levels of Christian activities. In any case since these
various activities are made available, the degree of
participation would give us a measure of a person’s
commitment to the faith and his belief in its impact
upon his business life.
The scale for religiousness was derived from nine
items. Respondents were asked to rate on a 5-point
Likert scale the frequency of their participation in
nine different Christian activities. The scale ranged
from 1 for ‘‘never’’ to 5 for ‘‘very often’’. Besides
Sunday service attendance the other eight religious
activities are available to all the participants. The
174 Hong Meng Wong
measures of religiousness would be their participation
in these activities. It was intended that the
intensity of Christian activities would provide some
degree of differentiation as to the level of religiousness.
Part D – personal profile
In addition to the basic demographic data of age,
gender and race, this section solicited responses on
information relevant to the study such as income
level, position in the company and highest qualification
achieved. Age as a Christian was deemed
important to determine the length of time in the
faith. The respondent was also asked for the reason
or motivation for becoming a Christian. This
question was included as it was felt that a significant
number of Christians in business came into the
faith as a result of some financial difficulties especially
during the economic depression of the mid-
80s, and more recently the Asian financial crisis of
1997.
The sample population
The population of interest to this study was the
Malaysian Christians in business. The Christian
community in Malaysia is rather diverse with most
denominations represented together with a large
number of independent churches not affiliated to the
main denominations. It was decided that the sample
population would be drawn from churches in the
greater Kuala Lumpur area affiliated with the National
Evangelical Christians Fellowship (‘‘NECF’’)
as the NECF was willing to assist and provide
introduction to the pastors of the selected churches.
Further, it was felt that many of the higher profile
Christians in business were attending churches
within the NECF ambit.
A list of 10 churches with English speaking
Sunday worship congregations of 1000 or more was
provided by the NECF, the umbrella body to which
most of the prominent evangelical and charismatic
churches belong. Three churches with the reputation
as fast growing and with a good representation
of business people and professionals were selected
from the NECF list. One is from the Assembly of
God denomination; another is the largest independent
charismatic church in Malaysia and the third is a
native evangelical church with roots in Sabah and
Sarawak. Admittedly this is a sample of convenience
and cannot to taken to be representative of Christians
in Malaysia or even its evangelical community.
To somewhat balance the representation from the
big churches, the questionnaire was also distributed
to participants at a Christian financial seminar. The
participants came from 25 smaller churches in the
Kuala Lumpur North Pastors Fellowship. These
smaller churches have Sunday service attendance
ranging from 50 to 300.
Distribution of the questionnaire
In each of the four locations the questionnaire
package was placed at a prominent and convenient
location to be picked up by whosoever wished to
participate in the survey. A total of 1200 questionnaire
sets were made available at the three large
churches; 400 each to the two churches with Sunday
attendance in excess of 3000 and 200 to the church
with attendance of 1000. The financial seminar was
allotted 100 questionnaires making a total availability
of 1300 questionnaire packages. However, 450
questionnaire packages were returned to or picked
up by the researcher from all the four locations after
the distribution date. This indicated that 850 questionnaire
packages were taken by potential respondents.
Three hundred and fourteen questionnaires
out of 850 were returned to the researcher after
5 weeks. Fourteen questionnaires were rejected for
incompleteness. The remaining 300 useable questionnaires
were available for analysis, working out to
a return rate of 35.3%.
Data analysis and discussion
Profile of respondents
The sample population was drawn from Christiansin-
business who attended church regularly and who
were holding the position of manager or higher in
any business enterprise. It is acknowledged that the
position of manager is an artificial demarcation. Title
is not synonymous with actual decision-making
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 175
authority. It was however deemed useful to limit the
survey to only those in some sort of a decisionmaking
capacity. Positions lower than manager were
assumed in this survey not to have that capacity. The
requirement that the respondent had to be in a
‘‘business enterprise’’ ruled out those in not-for-profit
organizations, charitable organizations, non-governmental
organizations and those working in the
civil service. The profit motive and thus the love of
money in these non-business organizations were
deemed to be less of a burden. The survey also did
not distinguish between the sizes of the business
enterprise as the business vignettes would be familiar
to those in both large and small businesses. Ultimately
the survey was intended to look into the
attitudes of those who do face ethical decisions and
dilemmas in their daily business lives.
A total of 300 useable questionnaires were received.
The profile of the respondents may be
summarized as in Table I. It is a common perception
that from general observations, there are usually
more women than men attending church services.
However, the sample had only about 30% female.
This may be due to the participation criteria of
holding at least a manager’s position.
This could have limited the participation of women
in the survey. The racial composition of the respondents
appeared to be reflective of the population in the
three churches and those attending the seminar.
About 90% were of Chinese descent. Again because of
requirement for respondent to be holding at least a
position of manager, those under 30 years of age accounted
for only 2.3% of the respondents. Seventy-six
percent of the respondents were above 40 years old.
The sample was a relatively high-income group
with 74.3% having annual income of above
RM60,000 (approximately USD16,000) or
RM5000 (approximately USD1350) a month. Of
this, 32.1% earned above RM10,000 (approximately
USD2,700) a month. In terms of managerial
positioning, 45.8% were in top management, i.e.,
chief operating officer, general manager and above.
The rest of the respondents may be considered to
be in middle management. Only 38.5% did not
have a degree or professional qualification.
Therefore, this was a group of relatively wellqualified
respondents. The majority, 58.6%, were in
TABLE I
Profile of respondents
Frequency Percent
(a) Gender
Female 89 29.8
Male 210 70.2
Total 299 100.0
(b) Race
Chinese 269 89.7
Indian 25 8.3
Others 6 2.0
Total 300 100.0
(c) Age group
<30 years 7 2.3 30–40 65 21.7 40–50 143 47.7 >50 85 28.3
Total 300 100.0
(d) Total annual income
Up to 60k 77 25.8
60–120k 126 42.1
120–240k 65 21.7
>240k 31 10.4
Total 299 100.0
(e) Position in company
CEO or equivalent 72 24.6
COO/GM or eqvt 62 21.2
AGM or eqvt 42 14.3
Manager or eqvt 117 39.9
Total 293 100.0
(f) Highest qualification achieved
Non-degree holder 115 38.5
Bachelor degree 64 21.4
Post graduate 52 17.4
Professional qualification 68 22.7
Total 299 100.0
(g) Business organization
Private Ltd company 173 58.6
Stock exch listed coy 47 15.9
Multinational 30 10.2
Others 45 15.3
Total 295 100.0
(h) Age as a Christian
Up to 5 years 37 12.8
6–10 years 42 14.6
11–20 years 76 26.4
>20 years 133 46.2
Total 288 100.0
176 Hong Meng Wong
‘‘Sendirian Berhad’’, or private limited companies.
‘‘Others’’ included sole proprietorships and partnerships.
Those in the bigger companies, i.e., stock
exchange listed companies and multi-nationals
amounted to 26.1%.
In terms of age as a Christian, almost half of the
respondents had been in the faith for more than
20 years. Only 12.8% had been Christians for
5 years or less. Therefore, the sample represented a
group of relatively spiritually matured Christians if
age as a Christian is taken to be indicative of
spirituality.
From the profile, it would appear that the survey
had managed to draw a robust sample from the
targeted population of Malaysian Christians in
business.
Overall responses to ethical vignettes
The 25 vignettes, taken directly from Conroy and
Emerson (2004), presented to the respondents a
spectrum of ethical scenarios common in the
business environment. They covered the key areas
of business decision-making including human
resources, marketing and advertising, accounting
and financial reporting and production. The ethical
considerations would involve legality, integrity,
honesty, and corporate social responsibility. Some
of the scenarios were clearly illegal. Others may be
legal yet presented the respondent with the ethical
consideration of being right, proper and befitting of
a Christian in business. The acceptability of the
ethical scenarios was scored on a five-point Likert
TABLE II
Responses to business ethics vignettes, percentage (and number) responding to each vignette by rating
Vignette Brief description of vignette n Rating Mean SD
1 2 3 4 5
A Pad expense account 282 34.0 (96) 28.0 (79) 25.2 (71) 12.4 (35) 0.4 (1) 2.17 1.05
B Exceed legal limit – pollution 300 62.0 (186) 26.7 (80) 6.0 (18) 5.3 (16) – 1.55 0.83
C Recommend bad stock 299 57.2 (171) 31.1 (93) 6.4 (19) 4.7 (14) 0.7 (2) 1.61 0.85
D Underreport income for tax 299 56.9 (170) 22.1 (66) 11.0 (33) 9.4 (28) 0.7 (2) 1.75 1.03
E Bribe to foreign official 297 40.4 (120) 25.9 (77) 12.5 (37) 18.5 (55) 2.7 (8) 2.17 1.22
F Hire employee to get secret 298 16.4 (49) 28.9 (86) 23.2 (69) 29.5 (88) 2.0 (6) 2.72 1.12
G Collusion to reduce competition 297 9.4 (28) 20.5 (61) 22.6 (67) 39.1 (116) 8.4 (25) 3.16 1.13
H Bribe to purchasing agent 300 13.3 (40) 29.7 (89) 26.7 (80) 29.0 (87) 1.3 (4) 2.75 1.06
I Insider stock purchase 299 40.8 (122) 24.7 (74) 15.1 (45) 16.7 (50) 2.7 (8) 2.16 1.20
J Promotion of friend over other 300 15.0 (45) 29.3 (88) 22.0 (66) 27.0 (81) 6.7 (20) 2.81 1.18
K Safety design flaw cover up 298 48.3 (144) 33.2 (99) 8.7 (20) 7.0 (21) 2.7 (8) 1.83 1.03
L Accounting tricks to conceal 299 24.4 (73) 29.8 (89) 18.7 (56) 25.4 (76) 1.7 (5) 2.50 1.16
M Hire male employee 299 15.4 (46) 29.1 (87) 24.1 (72) 28.1 (84) 3.3 (10) 2.75 1.12
N Deceptive advertising 300 28.3 (85) 28.7 (86) 15.7 (47) 25.3 (76) 2.0 (6) 2.44 1.20
O Hire consultant to deceive 293 56.3 (165) 23.2 (68) 9.2 (27) 6.1 (18) 5.1 (15) 1.81 1.15
P Free software violation of copyright 300 29.7 (89) 32.3 (97) 16.3 (49) 19.3 (58) 2.3 (7) 2.32 1.16
Q Roll back odometer 299 63.2 (189) 29.4 (88) 3.3 (10) 3.0 (9) 1.0 (3) 1.49 0.79
R Editor pulls name from expose 299 38.5 (115) 39.5 (118) 12.0 (36) 8.0 (24) 2.0 (6) 1.96 1.00
S Donate obsolete computers 298 6.7 (20) 14.8 (44) 19.1 (57) 42.6 (127) 16.8 (50) 3.48 1.13
T Announce open to bribe 300 62.0 (186) 25.3 (76) 6.3 (19) 4.0 (12) 2.3 (7) 1.59 0.94
U Bribe manager to make sale 299 44.1 (132) 32.8 (98) 13.4 (40) 8.0 (24) 1.7 (5) 1.90 1.02
V Charitable giving from profits 297 7.4 (22) 16.2 (48) 29.0 (86) 38.7 (115) 8.8 (26) 3.25 1.07
W Cut cost increase risk of harm 300 67.3 (202) 22.3 (67) 6.0 (18) 3.3 (10) 1.0 (3) 1.48 0.83
X Not upgrade smokestack 298 8.4 (25) 16.1 (48) 20.5 (61) 47.3 (141) 7.7 (23) 3.30 1.09
Y Noisy factory in residential area 299 35.8 (107) 35.8 (107) 16.4 (49) 10.0 (30) 2.0 (6) 2.07 1.05
Note. The numbers in parenthesis refer to frequencies.
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 177
scale with one being always unacceptable and five
being always acceptable. The neutral position was
three.
The response from all the participants as a group is
summarized in Table II. The overall mean for the 25
vignettes was 2.28, which was somewhat lower than
the uniformly distributed hypothetical mean of 3.0.
With 3.0 being the neutral position this implied that
as a group, the respondents found the 25 vignettes
generally unacceptable.
Table III arranged the vignettes in descending
order of acceptability for a better view for comparison
purposes. Of the 25 vignettes only four had
mean response scores greater than 3.0; vignettes ‘‘S’’,
‘‘X’’, ‘‘V’’, and ‘‘G’’. This implied that these vignettes
were relatively more acceptable to the
respondents. To Conroy and Emerson (2004),
vignette ‘‘G’’ described an illegal activity. However,
the law against collusion to reduce competition is
not well enunciated in Malaysia. There is no antitrust
legislation in the country and vignette ‘‘G’’
would not be describing an illegal scenario. As
shown in Table II, only 30% of the respondents
found this vignette unacceptable giving it a score of
either 1 or 2 whereas 47.5% gives it a score of 4 or 5.
Similarly, vignette ‘‘S’’ which involves the donation
of obsolete computers to receive a tax deduction and
to improve image had only 21.5% of the respondents
giving it an unacceptable rating of 1 or 2. Vignette
‘‘X’’ describes a situation in which the action of not
upgrading the smokestack was clearly stated to be
still within legal limits and only 20.5% of the
respondents found it unacceptable. Vignette ‘‘V’’
involves charitable giving out of profits thereby
reducing payout to shareholders. This vignette may
not be that familiar to the respondents in Malaysia as
TABLE III
Responses to 25 vignettes in descending order of acceptability
Vignette Brief description of vignette Mean response Standard deviation N Rank
S Donate obsolete computers 3.48 1.13 298 1
X Not upgrade smokestack 3.30 1.09 298 2
V Charitable giving from profits 3.25 1.07 297 3
G Collusion to reduce competition 3.16 1.13 297 4
J Promotion of friend over other 2.81 1.18 300 5
H Bribe to purchasing agent 2.75 1.06 300 6
M Hire male employee 2.75 1.12 299 6
F Hire employee to get secret 2.72 1.12 298 8
L Accounting tricks to conceal 2.50 1.16 299 9
N Deceptive advertising 2.44 1.20 300 10
P Free software violation of copyright 2.32 1.16 300 11
A Pad expense account 2.17 1.05 282 12
E Bribe to foreign official 2.17 1.22 297 12
I Insider stock purchase 2.16 1.20 299 14
Y Noisy factory in residential area 2.07 1.05 299 15
R Editor pulls name from expose 1.96 1.00 299 16
U Bribe manager to make sale 1.90 1.02 299 17
K Safety design flaw cover up 1.83 1.03 298 18
O Hire consultant to deceive 1.81 1.15 293 19
D Underreport income for tax 1.75 1.03 299 20
C Recommend bad stock 1.61 0.85 299 21
T Announce open to bribe 1.59 0.94 300 22
B Exceed legal limit – pollution 1.55 0.83 300 23
Q Roll back odometer 1.49 0.79 299 24
W Cut cost increase risk of harm 1.48 0.83 300 25
178 Hong Meng Wong
the tax laws are different from that of the United
States. Only 23.6% of the respondents found this
vignette unacceptable.
Conroy and Emerson mentioned that besides
vignette G, the others that could be considered
illegal; were ‘‘A’’, ‘‘D’’, ‘‘E’’, ‘‘M’’, ‘‘N’’, ‘‘P’’, and
‘‘Q’’. It was surprising that vignette ‘‘W’’ which was
not illegal had the lowest mean score of 1.48 with
89.6% rating it as unacceptable. ‘‘Slightly higher risk of
harm to babies to reduce cost’’ was the most unacceptable
of the 25 vignettes even though it was not
illegal. Perhaps it was because the vignette described
a situation that had the potential to cause physical
harm to babies. Similarly, vignettes ‘‘O’’ and ‘‘K’’
which increased safety hazard with the potential of
physical harm had low mean scores of 1.81 and 1.83,
respectively.
In addition there were four vignettes involving
bribes or corrupt payments. They were rather well
spread out over the range of unacceptability from a
relatively high mean score of 2.75 for vignette ‘‘H’’ to
1.59 for vignette ‘‘T’’. Vignette ‘‘H’’ involved the
sending of expensive gifts to purchasing agents during
the festive season. Of the four bribery scenarios, there
was the least aversion towards this practice. In
Malaysia the sending of festive gifts just before Hari
Raya (the Muslim celebration at the end of the month
of Ramadan), and Chinese New Year is a common
business practice in customer and supplier relationships.
Even foreign owned multi-nationals have
accommodated this so-called cultural requirement in
their Malaysian business practices. The necessity for
this practice, which may be frowned upon in the
western context and perhaps condemned from a
Christian perspective, may be supported by Hwa
Yung, a notable Malaysian Christian theologian.
The line between a gift and a bribe is often not clear in
non-Western cultures. The law may say that the
latter is illegal, but social customs may require the
giving of the former. Many Christians do not realize
that the tension surrounding this complex issue
was also felt in the Old Testament. Thus, for example,
in six references to bribery in Proverbs, three
(15:27,17:23,22:16) condemn it, but three others
(17:8, 18:16, 21:14) extol it in positive terms! More
importantly, every condemnation of bribery in the
Bible is directed either at those who practice it to
pervert justice, or those who use their positions of
power to oppress others, especially the poor. We do
not find a single condemnation of those who have to
pay because they are in a position ofweakness and are
forced to do so. (Hwa, 1998, p.171)
At the other end of the spectrum, vignette ‘‘T’’
which involved the purchasing agent announcing
that he was open to bribes was the least acceptable of
the four bribery vignettes. The respondents seemed
to differentiate quite distinctly that the need to give a
bribe to do business may be a necessary evil but to
ask for one was really not acceptable. This distinction
seemed to fall within the argument put forth by
Hwa (1998). It is wrong to ask for a bribe but circumstances
may make it necessary to give one. The
other two bribery vignettes may also be considered
as an unavoidable necessity in order to do business.
Vignette ‘‘E’’ with a mean score of 2.17 described a
consulting fee paid to a foreign official to secure a
contract and vignette ‘‘U’’ with a mean score of 1.90
also involved a gift to a purchasing agent. Although
both involve gifts to purchasing agents, the nature of
the two scenarios was viewed to be different by the
respondents. The gift in vignette ‘‘H’’ with a mean
score of 2.75, was given during the festive season to
purchasing agents as a group of business relationships
and not directly related to a specific transaction. This
has to be contrasted with the gift in vignette ‘‘U’’,
with mean score of 1.90, which was targeted at a
specific potentially large customer. Moreover the
scenario in vignette ‘‘U’’ specified that the decision
‘‘violate(s) company policy’’.
Ten of the 25 vignettes had mean scores below
2.0 indicating that these scenarios are generally
unacceptable to the respondents as a group. Of these,
two involve bribes and two were deemed illegal by
Conroy and Emerson (2004). Perhaps vignette ‘‘B’’,
mean score of 1.55 and the third least acceptable of
the 25 vignettes, should also be included as illegal as
the words ‘‘...exceeded legal limits...’’ would indicate
illegality. It is surprising that vignette ‘‘Q’’ is the
second most unacceptable of the vignettes. In
Conroy and Emerson (2004), this is the most
unacceptable vignette. They reasoned that this could
be because the vignette ‘‘...contains two controversial
components – one of which is clearly illegal (rolling back
odometers of used cars)...’’ (p 387). In this study the
illegal component was retained whilst the legally
ambiguous component of using high-pressure sales
techniques was removed. With this change, it would
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 179
be reasonable to expect that the vignette should be
less unacceptable. Nonetheless, the degree of unacceptability
of this vignette remained very high.
Conroy and Emerson (2004) explained that the low
score may not be due so much to the illegal aspect
but that respondents could easily identify with the
‘‘victims’’ in the vignette. Perhaps their explanation
was applicable also to this study.
In summary the overall response to the 25 vignettes
provided an overview of the ethical attitudes of the
respondents. The overall mean to the 25 vignettes at
2.28 did indicate that the attitude of the respondents to
the vignettes was generally one of unacceptability.
However, there was no discernible pattern to the
spread of responses to the vignettes. Those describing
illegal behavior were spread over the spectrum of
unacceptability. This implies that the respondents did
not consider an illegal act as automatically unethical.
Some illegal acts were more acceptable than others.
Similarly, the four vignettes involving bribes were also
well spread out across the spectrum of unacceptability.
Overall response to religiousness scale
Besides attendance at Sunday worship services, the
other eight items in the religiousness scale were
designed to tap into the degree of involvement in
other common religious activities to determine degree
of religiousness. Activities are observable and a
respondent should have no difficulty in determining
his or her level of participation. Response bias, and
in this case religious acceptability bias, is possible.
However the anonymity of the questionnaire should
minimize this effect.
The response to the religiousness scale is summarized
in Table IV. It can be seen that 97% of the
respondents attend Sunday worship services often or
very often. The ‘‘very often’’ group by itself was
86.3%. This was to be expected as the questionnaire
package was addressed to Christians in business
attending the specified churches. The percentage of
the respondents attending small group meetings
scoring four or five for this statement was 74%. Of
this almost half of the respondents, 49%, were
attending very often. Those attending church organized
Bible study often and very often was 40.1%.
The response to the other organized religious
activities showed somewhat lower overall intensity
among the respondents with church organized
prayer meetings rated at 33.4%, Christian conferences
and seminars 25.4%, and fellowship meetings
during the week 24.6%. Personal devotion, i.e.,
having a period of personal prayer and Bible study
usually in the morning was practiced often and very
often by 65% of the respondents. An almost equal
percentage at 59.9% prayed for business issues and
decisions. It would appear that most do this on their
own as only 20.0% pray with business associates and/
or people in the company.
Classifying the respondents into different levels of
religiousness from their responses to the nine reli-
TABLE IV
Responses to religiousness
Measure of religiousness n Rating Mean SD
1 2 3 4 5
1 Sunday church services 300 0.3 (1) 0.7 (2) 2.0 (6) 10.7 (32) 86.3 (259) 4.82 0.52
2 Church small group meetings 300 1.7 (5) 11.7 (35) 12.3 (37) 25.3 (76) 49.0 (147) 4.08 1.11
3 Church Bible studies 299 4.7 (14) 29.1 (87) 26.1 (78) 25.4 (76) 14.7 (44) 3.16 1.14
4 Church prayer meetings 300 8.0 (24) 39.0 (117) 19.7 (59) 20.7 (62) 12.7 (38) 2.91 1.19
5 Christian conferences and seminars 299 3.7 (11) 39.5 (118) 31.4 (94) 20.4 (61) 5.0 (15) 2.84 0.96
6 Fellowship meetings during work week 297 19.2 (57) 38.7 (115) 17.5 (52) 15.5 (46) 9.1 (27) 2.57 1.22
7 Personal Devotion 300 0.3 (1) 7.7 (23) 26.7 (80) 34.7 (104) 30.7 (92) 3.88 0.95
8 Pray for business issues, etc. 299 1.0 (3) 12.0 (36) 27.1 (81) 35.5 (106) 24.4 (73) 3.70 1.00
9 Praying with associates 300 26.3 (79) 37.33 (112) 16.3 (49) 14.3 (43) 5.7 (17) 2.36 1.18
Note. The numbers in parenthesis refers to frequencies.
180 Hong Meng Wong
gious activities produced no meaningful difference
to their ethical attitudes. It would appear that the
other measures of religiousness were not helpful in
looking at the relationship between ethical attitudes
and religiousness. This was similar to the experience
of Conroy and Emerson (2004). They used a
number of different measures for religiousness but
had to settle for participation in worship services as
the main criterion. For this study, there is a high
degree of homogeneity in the respondents to Sunday
Service attendance with 97% attending often and
very often. Determining the level of religiousness
through this dimension would not be fruitful.
To address the first research question, ‘‘Are there
differences in ethical attitude between Christians in business
with different levels of religiousness?’’ required a meaningful
classification of the respondents into different
levels of religiousness based on their participation in
Christian activities. As 97% of the respondents attend
Sunday worship services often or very often this was
taken to be the base activity of Christians. This base
activity was combined with one or more of the other
eight activities to generate different classifications of
religiousness. The Mann–Whitney test was used to
compare differences in their attitude towards the 25
vignettes. A meaningful classification of two level of
religiousness was achieved by combining just two
out of the nine items in the religiousness scale; that
of Sunday service attendance and personal devotion.
Other combinations did not produce meaningful
differentiation. There are 256 respondents (85.3%)
scoring an average of 4.0 or higher for these two
items and 44 (14.7%) scoring less than 4.0. The first
group was classified as the more religious as they
participated often or very often in both these religious
activities. The second group was considered
the less religious group. It was decided that it may be
meaningful to use these two activities as a measure
for religiousness. Attendance at Sunday worship
services is almost obligatory for a practicing Christian,
and for this group of respondents it was certainly
the case. For a Christian in business, the other
activities may prove to be too time consuming. But
personal devotion, i.e., having a personal quiet time
to read and study the Bible, to pray and to meditate
can be done at any convenient time. As it is a personal
activity, the self-declaration of the level of
participation can be a meaningful measure of religiousness.
Using these two levels of religiousness, their
attitude towards the 25 ethical vignettes are summarized
in Table V. As the Likert Scale is an ordinal
scale the Mann–Whitney Test is applied in this
exercise. This method replaces raw data with ranks.
In so doing the focus was on the ordinal relationships
among the raw measures; i.e., ‘‘greater than’’, ‘‘less
than’’ and ‘‘equal to’’. The raw data were not
assumed to be from an interval scale as some
researchers may find it to be convenient (Lowry,
2006). The results showed that there was an overall
difference in the ethical attitudes between the more
religious and the less religious; Z value was )2.368 at
a significance level of p 0:05. There were six
vignettes in which there were significant differences;
vignettes ‘‘C’’, ‘‘H’’, ‘‘L’’, ‘‘Q’’, ‘‘T’’, and ‘‘U’’. In
all the six cases, the less religious found the scenarios
described more acceptable than the more religious.
Therefore, it can be surmised that the more religious
had stronger ethical attitudes than the less religious,
at least in six of the vignettes. Three of these six
vignettes depicted scenarios involving bribes. It
should be noted that there were only four vignettes
involving bribes from the total list of 25 vignettes. So
it seemed that a significant difference in ethical
attitudes between the two groups was in their attitudes
towards bribery and corruption. The more
religious were less agreeable to the practice of
bribery and corruption.
The data from personal profiles provided another
possible measure of religiousness. Using age as a
Christian as a measure for religiousness the
respondents can be divided into two groups; those
who had been in the faith for more than 5 years
and those younger. The difference in ethical attitudes
is summarized in Table VI. There were seven
vignettes in which there were significant differences
in their attitudes; vignettes ‘‘D’’, ‘‘E’’, ‘‘H’’, ‘‘I’’,
‘‘Q’’, ‘‘T’’, and ‘‘U’’. In all these seven vignettes
the younger Christians were more accepting of the
scenarios than the older Christians. It was also
interesting that four of the seven vignettes with
significant difference in ethical attitudes involved
bribes. Indeed all the four vignettes involving
bribes were included. Again bribery seemed to
dominate the difference between the two groups.
Therefore, it can be said that older Christians have
better ethical attitudes than younger Christians
especially in the area involving bribery and cor-
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 181
ruption. This can be contrasted to chronological
age. Comparing the respondents of up to 40 years
of age to those older yielded only three vignettes,
‘‘H’’, ‘‘J’’ and ‘‘O’’, with significant differences in
ethical attitudes at p 0:05. Of these, two vignettes,
‘‘H’’ and ‘‘O’’ were more acceptable to the
older respondents whilst the other vignette, ‘‘J’’,
was more acceptable to the younger respondents.
So chronological age did not seem to provide any
meaningful difference in ethical attitudes among
Malaysian Christians in business.
From the above discussion, it would appear that
two useful measures of religiousness had surfaced in
this study. The first measure of religiousness can be
based on the level of participation in two religious
activities; Sunday worship service and personal
devotion. The first is a very public congregational
activity whilst the second is a private and personal
activity. The second measure of religiousness can be
determined as a function of the duration of time
participating in the faith, i.e., age as a Christian.
Table VII shows that there is a positive correlation
TABLE V
Comparison between the less religious and the more religious in their attitude towards 25 vignettes using
Mann–Whitney test
Vignette Brief description of vignette Mean rank score Z value Sig.
Less religious
(N = 44)
More religious
(N = 256)
A Pad expense account 150.85 140.09 )0.780
B Exceed legal limit – pollution 158.39 149.14 )0.758
C Recommend bad stock 174.93 145.70 )2.342 *
D Underreport income for tax 170.73 146.42 )1.921
E Bribe to foreign official 170.95 145.18 )1.928
F Hire employee to get secret 169.09 146.20 )1.668
G Collusion to reduce competition 166.19 146.01 )1.501
H Bribe to purchasing agent 178.31 145.72 )2.389 *
I Insider stock purchase 162.44 147.85 )1.084
J Promotion of friend over other 149.45 150.68 )0.089
K Safety design flaw cover up 162.06 147.32 )1.136
L Accounting tricks to conceal 175.10 145.67 )2.155 *
M Hire male employee 143.91 151.05 )0.523
N Deceptive advertising 169.92 147.16 )1.664
O Hire consultant to deceive 143.48 147.62 )0.333
P Free software violation of copyright 170.83 147.01 )1.746
Q Roll back odometer 188.02 143.44 )3.718 ***
R Editor pulls name from expose 166.02 147.24 )1.419
S Donate obsolete computers 164.42 146.92 )1.306
T Announce open to bribe 174.75 146.33 )2.326 *
U Bribe manager to make sale 179.27 144.95 )2.599 **
V Charitable giving from profits 157.72 147.48 )0.764
W Cut cost increase risk of harm 154.43 149.82 )0.394
X Not upgrade smokestack 139.02 151.31 0.931
Y Noisy factory in residential area 148.97 150.18 )0.090
Overall Mean of 25 vignettes 164.34 131.52 )2.368 *
* Significant at p 0:05
** Significant at p 0:01
*** Significant at p 0:001
182 Hong Meng Wong
(Pearson v2 = 0.010) between these two measures of
religiousness. This is only to be expected in that as a
person persisted in the practice of the faith, the level
of religious activity as defined by the attendance at
Sunday worship services and personal devotion
would be more and more frequent.
It can be concluded that there are differences in
ethical attitudes among Christians in business with
different levels of religiousness. The higher the level
of participation in Sunday worship services and
personal devotion, the better the ethical attitude.
They will find questionable ethical scenarios less
acceptable. Similarly the longer a person remains in
the faith the better the ethical attitudes. Those who
have been in the faith longer will find the questionable
ethical scenarios less acceptable. There
seems to be a positive correlation (at p 0:01) between
the level of participation in religious activities
and age as a Christian.
These findings strengthen the findings of Longenecker
et al. (2004) and Conroy and Emerson
(2004), providing a sort of funneling effect: from the
TABLE VI
Comparison between ‘‘Younger Christians’’ and ‘‘Older Christians’’ attitude towards 25 vignettes using
Mann–Whitney test
Vignette Brief description of Vignette Mean rank score
1–5 years as
Christian (N = 37)
Above 5 years as
Christian (N = 251)
Z Value Sig.
A Pad expense account 160.41 134.36 )1.845
B Exceed legal limit – pollution 157.31 142.61 )1.162
C Recommend bad stock 144.84 143.88 )0.075
D Underreport income for tax 183.43 138.16 )3.461 ***
E Bribe to foreign official 182.97 137.22 )3.271 ***
F Hire employee to get secret 163.39 140.54 )1.622
G Collusion to reduce competition 151.57 142.30 )0.664
H Bribe to purchasing agent 170.59 140.65 )2.119 *
I Insider stock purchase 174.09 139.55 )2.484 *
J Promotion of friend over other 129.66 146.69 )1.196
K Safety design flaw cover up 153.19 142.64 )0.784
L Accounting tricks to conceal 151.15 142.94 )0.580
M Hire male employee 137.58 144.95 )0.521
N Deceptive advertising 155.51 142.88 )0.892
O Hire consultant to deceive 145.31 140.37 )0.380
P Free software violation of copyright 166.30 141.29 )1.772
Q Roll back odometer 166.33 140.80 )2.035 *
R Editor pulls name from expose 163.39 141.13 )1.626
S Donate obsolete computers 141.93 143.73 )0.130
T Announce open to bribe 170.09 140.73 )2.334
U Bribe manager to make sale 168.12 140.43 )2.028 *
V Charitable giving from profits 140.63 143.34 )0.193 *
W Cut cost increase risk of harm 143.30 144.68 )0.114
X Not upgrade smokestack 138.12 144.30 )0.454
Y Noisy factory in residential area 129.93 146.08 )1.162
Overall mean value 154.53 129.57 )1.711
* Significant at p 0:05.
** Significant at p 0:01.
*** Significant at p 0:001.
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 183
general to the specific. From 1234 respondents
drawn from a random sample of 10,000 businesspersons
in the United States, Longenecker et al.
(2004) found a strong relationship between religion
and ethical attitudes. Respondents with a self-declared
personal importance of religious values,
regardless of religious affiliation, were less accepting
of ethical questionable decisions. They further found
that, from among this group, evangelical Christians
showed a higher level of ethical awareness. The
second study, Conroy and Emerson (2004), had a
sample of 850 students drawn from two universities,
one public and the other private and religiously
affiliated. The measure for religiosity was related to
the Christian faith. The main finding was that
church attendance can be a ‘‘statistically significant
predictor of responses in a number of ethical scenarios’’
(Conroy and Emerson, 2004, p. 383). Narrowing
the measure of religion further, the present study
focused on the evangelical Christian business segment
within the wider Christian community. Again
there was evidence to suggest that there were differences
in ethical attitudes between the more religious
and the less religious.
Response to the Love of Money Scale
It is perceived that Christians, although practicing
the same faith, may have different attitudes towards
money. These attitudes can be translated into different
money profiles. Christians with different
money profiles may have different attitudes toward
business ethics. The objective of this part of the
analysis was to answer the research question, ‘‘Are
there differences in ethical attitude between Christians in
business with different love of money profiles?’’. This
analysis followed the methodology used by Luna-
Arocas and Tang (2004).
The respondents were grouped into clusters with
defining characteristics. From the defining characteristics
each cluster could be identified with an
appropriate label. The responses from each of the
clusters to the 25 ethical vignettes were then compared
to those of the other clusters to determine if
there were indeed differences in ethical attitudes.
The response to this part of the questionnaire is
summarized in Table VIII. The objective of the
cluster analysis is to group the homogenous
respondents into distinctive clusters with small
within-cluster variations but large between-clusters
variations. This study followed that of Luna-Arocas
and Tang (2004) and tested the data with four
clusters using the QUICK CLUSTER program in
SPSS. However, the resultant four clusters did not
exhibit the defining characteristics similar to that of
Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004). Clear distinguishing
factors were also not evident from the four clusters.
Separate runs using the QUICK CLUSTER program
were made for three and five clusters. It was
found that the three cluster analysis provided clear
and well-defined distinguishing factors. The defining
factors are summarized in Table IX. Taking the
definitions from Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004),
factor Success indicated that money is accepted as a
sign of success and money is how success is measured.
Factor Budget provided an indication whether
one manages money carefully. Factor Motivator
indicated that people are motivated to work hard to
make money. Factor Equity dealt with two types of
equity; internal equity where higher-level jobs
should be paid more and individual equity where
TABLE VII
Religiousness and Age as Christian
Religiousness Age as Christian
1–5 years >5 years Total
Less religious 25.6 (10) 74.4 (29) 13.5 (39)
More religious 10.8 (27) 89.2 (222) 86.5 (249)
Total 12.8 (37) 87.2 (251) 100.0 (288)
v2 ¼ 6:59. Significant at p < 0.01. The numbers in parenthesis refer to frequencies. 184 Hong Meng Wong better performance in the same job should be paid more. Factor Evil measured the notion that the love of money is the root of all evil and this can lead to unethical behavior. There were 147 (51.04%) participants in Cluster 1, 87 (30.21%) in Cluster 2, and 54 (18.75%) in Cluster 3. Cluster 1 had highest means in factor Success, Motivator as well as Evil. This group was labeled as Successful Money Achiever. The second cluster had the highest means in factors Budget and Equity but lowest in factors Success and Evil and was labeled as Careful Money Manager. The last cluster had the lowest means in factors Budget, Motivator, and Equity. It would appear that this group was rather apathetic to issues relating to money or rather unconcerned about money matters. This last group TABLE VIII Responses to statements regarding money attitudes Money atttiudes n Rating Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 Budget 1. I pay my bills immediately to avoid interest or penalties 299 0.7 (2) 6.7 (20) 14.4 (43) 45.5 (136) 32.8 (98) 4.03 0.90 2. I do financial planning for the future 298 0.3 (1) 4.7 (14) 21.5 (64) 60.4 (180) 13.1 (39) 3.81 0.73 3. I use my money very carefully 299 0.7 (2) 5.4 (16) 23.1 (69) 56.5 (169) 14.4 (43) 3.79 0.78 4. I budget my money very well 300 2.0 (6) 9.0 (27) 28.0 (84) 48.3 (145) 12.7 (38) 3.61 0.89 Overall attitude on budget 3.81 0.58 Evil 1. The love of money is the root of evil 299 2.7 (8) 8.0 (24) 6.7 (20) 25.8 (77) 56.9 (170) 4.28 1.06 2. People perform unethical acts to maximize their monetary gains 298 3.4 (10) 5.4 (16) 16.8 (50) 54.4 (162) 20.1 (60) 3.83 0.93 3. Money undermines one’s ethical norms and standard of conduct 294 5.4 (16) 23.8 (70) 18.4 (54) 41.8 (123) 10.5 (31) 3.28 1.10 4. Money is evil 300 33.7 (101) 38.7 (116) 16.7 (50) 4.3 (13) 6.7 (20) 2.12 1.13 Overall attitude on evil 3.37 0.64 Equity 1. People on same job should be paid based on merit 299 1.0 (3) 5.4 (16) 7.0 (21) 53.2 (159) 33.4 (100) 4.13 0.83 2. Lower-level job with little responsibility should be paid less 300 0.3 (1) 15.3 (46) 18.3 (55) 58.0 (174) 8.0 (24) 3.26 1.07 3. People on the same job should be paid equally 300 7.0 (21) 47.0 (141) 16.3 (49) 24.0 (72) 5.7 (17) 2.74 1.07 Overall attitude on equity 3.66 0.61 Success 1. Money is a symbol of success 300 8.0 (24) 26.3 (79) 21.3 (64) 39.0 (117) 5.3 (16) 3.04 1.09 2. Money represents one’s achievement 298 6.0 (18) 30.5 (91) 20.8 (62) 39.3 (117) 3.4 (10) 3.03 1.04 Overall attitude on success 3.05 0.91 Motivator 1. Money is a motivator 300 1.7 (5) 7.0 (21) 13.3 (40) 67.7 (203) 10.3 (31) 3.78 0.79 2. I am motivated to work hard for money 300 2.7 (8) 18.3 (55) 29.7 (89) 45.3 (136) 4.0 (12) 3.30 0.90 Overall attitude on motivator 3.54 0.69 Overall mean 3.49 0.34 Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 185 was labeled as Money Apathetic Individual. The defining factors can be more clearly shown as in Table X. From Table X, it was determined that it would be reasonable to examine possible variation in ethical attitudes across the three clusters. Table XI indicates that there were significant differences between the three clusters in the overall mean on the 25 vignettes (p 0:001). The mean rank scores appeared to follow the three profiles with Successful Money Achievers ranked the highest followed by Careful Money Managers and finally by Money Apathetic Individual. This meant that the degree of acceptability of the 25 ethical scenarios generally also followed this pattern. Of the 25 vignettes, significant differences can be seen in 15 of the vignettes among the three clusters. This could be taken as a validation of the clusters in the analysis. In all of the 15 vignettes, Successful Money Achievers were more accepting of the scenarios depicted as against the other two groups. This implied that those with higher scores in factors Motivator and Success would not be as adverse to unethical practices. In nine of the 15 vignettes, Careful Money Manager had lower mean rank scores than Money Apathetic Individual but in the remaining six vignettes; ‘‘F’’, ’’H’’, ’’L’’, ’’M’’, ‘‘N’’, and ‘‘X’’, the reverse was true. Therefore, it appears that Careful Money Manager was less accepting of the relevant ethical scenarios than Money Apathetic Individual. Successful Money Achievers had the strongest positive attitude towards money. They would be motivated to work hard for their money and see their money as a measure of their success. Their money attitudes may cause them to be less critical of unethical practices. Yet they saw that the love of money could be the root of evil. Careful Money TABLE IX Means of the Love of Money Scale for three clusters Variables Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster paired comparison* Whole sample N = 288 Successful Money Achiever n = 147 Careful Money Manager n = 87 Money Apathetic Individual n = 54 Percentage (%) 51.04 30.21 18.75 Success 3.78 2.22 2.43 1 > 3; 1 >2
Budget 3.81 3.96 3.57 1>3; 2>3
Motivator 3.88 3.25 3.05 1>3; 1>2
Equity 3.68 4.06 2.90 1>3; 2>3; 2>1
Evil 3.47 3.14 3.45 3 > 2; 1 >2
* p <0.01; Scheffe’s test. The highest and lowest means are in bold face. The lowest means are also in italics. TABLE X Defining factors of the three clusters Successful Money Achiever Careful Money Manager Money Apathetic Individual Success Highest Lowest Budget Highest Lowest Motivator Highest Lowest Equity Highest Lowest Evil Highest Lowest 186 Hong Meng Wong Mangers would budget their money carefully and would be most concerned about the fairness of compensation and income for the job they do. Although they may be motivated to work hard for their money they appeared to be less concerned about money being a reflector of their success. However, they were less prone to think that the love of money is the root of evil. Money Apathetic Individuals appeared to the least concerned about money. They would not be motivated to work hard for money. They would be least concerned about the fairness of pay for their jobs and they did not care too much about budgeting their money. Although not ranked as the highest, their score indicated that they did think that the love of money is the root of evil. These results indicate that Malaysian Christians in business, despite their apparent homogeneity in religious affiliation, can be classified into different money profiles according to their attitudes to money. Those in different money profiles did exhibit different attitudes towards the ethical vignettes presented. It would therefore be reasonable to conclude that Christians in business with different TABLE XI Comparison of the three Love of Money profiles in their attitude towards the 25 vignettes using Kruskal–Wallis test Vignette Brief description of vignette Mean rank score v2 Successful Money Achiever Careful Money Manager Money Apathetic Individual A Pad expense account 150.55 119.59 125,52 10.04** B Exceed legal limit – pollution 160.73 120.99 130.19 17.23*** C Recommend bad stock 158.93 119.41 143.24 15.74*** D Underreport income for tax 160.47 116.91 142.32 18.62*** E Bribe to foreign official 161.21 121.92 126.38 16.43*** F Hire employee to get secret 158.81 131.93 123.40 10.51** G Collusion to reduce competition 144.91 147.37 133.25 1.14 H Bribe to purchasing agent 160.94 132.89 118.46 13.69*** I Insider stock purchase 159.01 127.61 129.81 10.73** J Promotion of friend over other 148.76 147.41 128.21 2.72 K Safety design flaw cover up 147.48 139.38 141.88 0.66 L Accounting tricks to conceal 162.94 127.96 120.95 15.97*** M Hire male employee 152.35 147.91 117.64 7.55* N Deceptive advertising 157.93 133.91 124.99 8.77* O Hire consultant to deceive 144.23 136.66 144.47 0.64 P Free software violation of copyright 155.41 133.48 132.56 5.56 Q Roll back odometer 151.15 130.22 146.79 4.90 R Editor pulls name from expose 148.52 136.51 146.43 1.33 S Donate obsolete computers 149.43 149.00 123.82 4.53 T Announce open to bribe 158.98 122.08 141.21 15.55*** U Bribe manager to make sale 158.71 123.48 139.69 11.43** V Charitable giving from profits 144.80 152.52 125.60 3.94 W Cut cost increase risk of harm 153.85 126.36 148.26 8.92* X Not upgrade smokestack 151.79 146.72 117.93 7.51* Y Noisy factory in residential area 152.68 132.04 139.55 3.94 Overall Mean of 25 vignettes 149.09 114.43 105.98 16.68*** * Significant at p 0:05. ** Significant at p 0:01. *** Significant at p 0:001. Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 187 love of money profiles have different ethical attitudes. If religion affects the attitude towards the love of money, it can be expected that there would be a correlation between the love of money profiles and the level of religiousness. Table XII shows the crosstabulation of the three love of money profiles against the two levels of religiousness based on participation in Sunday worship services and personal devotion. The Pearson v2 value of 7.051 with 2 degrees of freedom was significant at p < 0.05. Therefore, there was a positive correlation between the three clusters and the level of religiousness. Of the less religious, 65.9% had the profile of Successful Money Achiever as compared to 48.4% among the more religious. Among the more religious, 33.2% were Careful Money managers against only 13.6% from the less religious group. The difference in the profile of Money Apathetic Individual did not appear to be very significantly different. It was shown earlier in Table VII that there was a positive correlation between the level of religiousness and the age as a Christian. When a cross-tabulation between the three love of money profiles and age as a Christian, the second measure of religiousness used in this study in Table XIII was analyzed, there was a positive correlation in the relationship. The Pearson v2 value of 7.07 with 2 degrees of freedom was significant at p < 0.05. A higher proportion of those younger in the faith (55.6%) came under the profile of Successful Money Achiever as against the 49.8% from those older in the faith. Only 13.9% of those younger in the faith were in the group of Careful Money Manager as compared to the 33.2% for those older in the faith. The trend was reversed in the profile of Money Apathetic Individual. Those younger in the faith had 30.6% in this group whereas those older had only 17.0%. The above two cross-tabulations indicated that the three love of money profiles are related to the two measures for religiousness. Conclusion Luna-Arocas and Tang (2004) asserted that the recent spate of corporate scandals and corruption was motivated by greed and it was all related to money and the love of money. Christians in business can TABLE XII Love of Money profile and religiousness Religiousness Successful Money Achiever Careful Money Manager Money Apathetic Individual Total Less religious 65.9% (29) 13.6% (6) 20.5% (9) 15.3% (44) More religious 48.4% (118) 33.2% (81) 18.4% (45) 84.7% (244) Total 51.0% (147) 30.2% (87) 18.8% (54) 100% (288) v2 = 7.051. Significant at p < 0.05. The numbers in parenthesis are the frequencies. TABLE XIII Love of Money profile and Age as Christian Age as Christian Successful Money Achiever Careful Money Manager Money Apathetic Individual Total 1–5 years 55.6% (20) 13.9% (5) 30.6% (11) 13.0% (36) > 5 years 49.8% (120) 33.2% (80) 17.0% (41) 87.0% (241)
Total 50.5% (140) 30.7% (85) 18.8% (52) 100% 277
Note. v2 = 7.07. Significant at p < 0.05.
The numbers in parenthesis refer to frequencies.
188 Hong Meng Wong
similarly be motivated by greed and the love of
money as were alleged in the Enron and WorldCom
cases. When that happens, the repercussions are felt
within the community of faith and the credibility of
Christianity itself may be brought into question. The
relationship between religion and business ethics is a
topic of current and increasing interest. However,
the findings thus far had been rather inconclusive.
This study sought to add to the understanding of this
relationship.
The interest in this study was not to compare
Christians and non-Christians, but to look within
the Christian community to see whether the level of
religiousness among themselves could make a difference
in ethical attitudes. It is recognized that there
are various measures of religiousness. In this study
religiousness was taken from the self-declared participation
in Sunday worship services and personal
devotion. It should be noted that Sunday worship
services are public events, observable by others and
may be motivated by a variety of reasons. Personal
devotion or ‘‘quiet time’’ would be done in private
and probably not generally known to others. The
motivation would be very personal. It was found
that those who were more intense in these two
religious activities displayed better ethical attitudes.
Second, the study also showed that those who had
been longer in the faith also displayed better ethical
attitudes. Perhaps those younger in the faith had not
absorbed enough of Christian ethical teachings.
Third, age as a Christian could be positively correlated
to the level of religiousness. Therefore, the
continued practice of the faith in Sunday service
attendance and personal devotion over a longer
period of time may be related to improved ethical
attitudes. This added confirmation to the general
claim that religion does form our values and our
ethics.
The other significant finding was that, even
within a somewhat homogenous group, there were
different love of money profiles arising from their
different money attitudes. They read from the same
Bible, heard the same sermons but they looked at
money differently. Those who looked at money
with more interest and were success motivated were
more accepting of the unethical scenarios. Those
who managed their money carefully were less
accepting of such scenarios. And those who viewed
money with less interest had better ethical attitudes.
This suggests that if money attitudes could be
moderated, ethical attitudes could improve. The
three love of money profiles were positively correlated
to religiousness and age as a Christian. The
question is how Christianity can help its constituents
acquire money attitudes more consistent with the
religion. This can be a double-edged sword. Christianity
is keen to show that Christians can be successful
within the faith. The desire to succeed must
not be dampened. At the same time Christianity
does not want to face the embarrassment of having
its business heroes put on public display as villains.
The difficulty is how to make money righteously, in
a Christian way. When it comes to the tension between
God and money, the power of money cannot
be underrated. That is why the Bible has this
admonition, ‘‘You cannot serve both God and
money’’ (NIV Bible Luke 16:13). At the moments
of truth, decisions have to be made to serve one or
the other. This study indicates that the probability of
a decision on the side of God can be enhanced
through higher levels of religiousness and more
appropriate money attitudes.
Limitation of the study
It should be noted that the sample for this study was
drawn from a targeted population, i.e., Christians in
business from three large evangelical churches with a
small representation from the smaller churches
within the Kuala Lumpur area. This was not a random
sample of Malaysian Christians in business, but
a sample of convenience. The results should not be
generalized to be representative of other groups of
Christians in business. Even within the three large
churches and those attending the financial seminar
from the smaller churches, the problem of response
bias could be a real problem. It was apparent from
the response that those who participated in the
survey were generally the more fervent and committed
members of the congregation. Ninety-seven
percent of the respondents attend Sunday worship
services often or very often. It would appear that the
less fervent were underrepresented. However, this is
within the design of the study. The respondents of
interest to the study were those who attended
church regularly and held positions of manager or
higher in a business enterprise. The other limitation
Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 189
was that the study tapped into the respondents’
ethical attitudes and not behavior. Although attitudes
can usually be relied upon to predict behavior,
in a study on business ethics it would be hazardous to
assume that attitudes can be a good predictor of
behavior. Especially in a Christian environment the
response bias arising from the conscious and unconscious
need to appear consistent with the
requirement of the faith may distort the expression
of true attitudes. Unfortunately, in a questionnaire
survey it would not be possible to capture behavior.
Nonetheless the study has provided additional input
to the relationships between ethical attitudes and
religiousness and between ethical attitudes and the
love of money with particular reference to the
Christian community in Malaysia.
Note
1 The term ‘‘mammon’’ as used in the Christian Bible
is taken to mean money or riches.
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Religiousness, Love of Money, and Ethical Attitudes 191