A recent study found the following:

The U.S. business community has been behaving more ethically in recent years, a university analysis concluded.

A study published by Baylor University researchers in the April issue of the Journal of Small Business Management finds that over the past 17 years the ethics of business leaders and professionals is improving, a Baylor spokesman said Friday.

The study was based on responses from more than 5,000 managers of small and large firms in all 50 states. The authors mailed surveys to respondents in 1985, 1993, and 2001 asking them to judge the degree to which they found 16 scenarios compatible to their own ethical views.

The business situations ranged from illegal to debatable. With the exception of the 1993 survey, in which small business respondents showed a propensity to be less ethical, there was no difference between large and small firms. Both showed increasingly positive selections.

The study was written by Carlos W. Moore, J. William Petty, Leslie E. Palich and Joseph A. McKinney are professors at Baylor University`s Hankamer School of Business.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

Has this been your experience also. Personally I have found that people have become less ethical.

Suze

It's important to run your business as ethical as possible to avoid issues with the IRS. A lot of small businesses get in trouble because they don't report their actual revenue. This can lead to an audit by the IRS and a loss of the business. My small business has an accountant that handles payroll and makes sure we don't get into any legal trouble. I operate my company in a ethical manor, but I can't guarantee that all businesses conduct themselves in an ethical manor.