#10177. Honesty of online workers: A field experiment shows no evidence of self-selection of cheaters to a cheating-enabling work environment

September 2026publication date
Proposal available till 29-05-2025
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Journal’s subject area:
Social Sciences (all);
Economics and Econometrics;
Applied Psychology;
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Abstract:
Does the choice of an environment where cheating is possible lead to its escalation? We analyzed behavior of employees (N = 284) hired to perform a task online. In the manual reporting (MR), employees could overreport the number of hours worked. In the automatic reporting (AR), the hours were counted automatically, making cheating impossible. Two-thirds of the participants were given a chance to choose the reporting scheme, the rest were assigned to the MR directly. As the actual time spent on the task was tracked in all conditions, we were able to assess the degree of overreporting by employees in MR.
Keywords:
Dishonesty; Field experiment; Self-selection

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