(Dis-)honesty: Measuring overcharging in a real-world market

Conrads, Julian; Ebeling, Felix; Lotz, Sebastian

doi:10.1016/j.socec.2015.05.003

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Furthermore, other studies suggest that the prevalence of certain kinds of dishonest behavior is comparable across different countries (Pascual-Ezama et al, 2015). Although a recent German study (Conrads et al, 2015) found evidence of a lower scope of dishonesty among retail employees, the difference in results can be ascribed to the difference in used methodology: in our study cashiers had an opportunity to gain money from unsuspecting tourists for themselves, while in the study of Conrads et al (2015) customers could spot larger over-charging more easily and cashiers could not keep the over-charged amount for themselves.…”

Section: Study Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Other studies demonstrated how car mechanics use price discrimination based on how knowledgeable their customers are about car repairs and charge more or perform unnecessary repairs to less informed customers (Busse, Israeli, & Zettelmeyer, 2013;Schneider, 2012). Recently, two other field studies showed how frequently sellers cheat on weight in Indian fish markets (Dugar & Bhattacharya, 2016) and how such behavior is relatively uncommon at German candy-selling mini-markets (Conrads, Ebeling, & Lotz, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Cheating customers in grocery stores: A field study on dishonesty

Vranka

Frollová

Pour

et al. 2019

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

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The study measures how often customers are cheated in real-world transactions. In a preregistered field study in Prague, Czech Republic, hired confederates posed as foreigners unfamiliar with local currency. While buying snacks in grocery stores (N = 259) either in the morning or in the evening, they provided cashiers with an opportunity to steal money from them by keeping more change than they were supposed to. The customers were cheated in 21% of stores, the median overcharge was 54% of the value of an average purchase, and overcharging occurred more often in the stores with on-line reviews mentioning dishonesty of employees. Although males cheated and were cheated slightly more often than females, gender differences were not significant. In contrast with predictions of the Morning Morality Effect, dishonest behavior occurs slightly more often in the morning than in the evening. The results show that cheating of customers in grocery stores is relatively widespread and it is especially prevalent in the central city district where the odds of being cheated are more than three times higher in comparison with the rest of the city.

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Section: Study Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 94%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cheating customers in grocery stores: A field study on dishonesty

Vranka

Frollová

Pour

et al. 2019

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…They found that taxi drivers more frequently overcharged passengers unfamiliar with the city, taking them on an average detour that more than doubled the length of the journey of familiar passengers. Conrads et al (2015), as well as Dugar and Bhattacharya (2017), developed field experiments in order to study dishonesty in real-life pay-per-weight pricing markets. In these two studies, the purchased goods were weighted by the researchers after the transaction and the actual weight compared to the weight reported by the sellers.…”

Section: Fraudulent/dishonest Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In these two studies, the purchased goods were weighted by the researchers after the transaction and the actual weight compared to the weight reported by the sellers. Conrads et al (2015) employed this methodology to study overcharging occurring in candy stores. In this experiment, the authors found that overcharging occurred in 38% of purchases, though the apparent status of the buyer (high vs. low) and the quantity of candy bought (high vs. low) did not impact sellers' dishonesty.…”

Section: Fraudulent/dishonest Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Field experiments on dishonesty and stealing: what have we learned in the last 40 years?

et al. 2021

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Objectives Field experiments combine the benefits of the experimental method and the study of human behavior in real-life settings, providing high internal and external validity. This article aims to review the field experimental evidence on the causes of offending. Methods We carried out a systematic search for field experiments studying stealing or monetary dishonesty reported since 1979. ResultsThe search process resulted in 60 field experiments conducted within multiple fields of study, mainly in economics and management, which were grouped into four categories: Fraudulent/ dishonest behavior, Stealing, Keeping money, and Shoplifting. Conclusions The reviewed studies provide a wide variety of methods and techniques that allow the real-world study of influences on offending and dishonest behavior. We hope that this summary will inspire criminologists to design and carry out realistic field experiments to test theories of offending, so that criminology can become an experimental science.

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“…Retailing has received attention in literature about dishonesty before, but in these studies dishonest behaviour was limited to stealing (see, e.g. Terris and Jones, 1982; Hollinger and Clark, 1982; Cherrington and Cherrington, 1983; Jones et al , 1990; Beck and Willis, 1993; Chen and Sandino, 2012; Conrads et al , 2015; Moorthy et al , 2015). Our second contribution is that we widened the spectrum of dishonest behaviour.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of negative work outcomes and values on the perceived likelihood of employee dishonest behaviour

Jaakson

Vadi

Baumane-Vītoliņa

2018

BJM

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Purpose Employee dishonesty is problematic for businesses in general, particularly for retailers. The purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse selected factors associated with the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour among retail employees. Specifically, the role of three negative work outcomes – insufficient pay, boredom, and perceived injustice – is investigated, as well as the effect of individual values and espoused organisational values. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 784 retail employees from six retail organisations located in Estonia and Latvia. A survey questionnaire that used manipulated scenarios of work outcomes and organisational values was administered. Findings The study concludes that perceived injustice produces more dishonesty than other negative work outcomes (insufficient pay and boredom), whereas boredom was a surprisingly strong trigger for the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour. Individual ethical values determined the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour as hypothesised while sensation-seeking values did not. Espoused organisational values had no significant effect on the perceived likelihood of dishonest behaviour. Practical implications The results imply that the breach of distributional and procedural justice simultaneously associates most with employee dishonesty, and retail employee selection is the key to curbing dishonest behaviour in the workplace. Originality/value The paper makes a contribution to behavioural ethics literature by studying dishonest employee behaviour in the post-communist context while addressing various forms of dishonest behaviour, in addition to stealing. Also, the effect of espoused organisational values has been scarcely studied before.

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(Dis-)honesty: Measuring overcharging in a real-world market

Cited by 10 publications

References 14 publications

Cheating customers in grocery stores: A field study on dishonesty

Cheating customers in grocery stores: A field study on dishonesty

Field experiments on dishonesty and stealing: what have we learned in the last 40 years?

The effect of negative work outcomes and values on the perceived likelihood of employee dishonest behaviour

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