Update: The latest survey on the state of ethics on Wall Street (a 7th Reason for teaching financial ethics)

Andrew Ross Sorkin directs our attention to the Labaton Sucharow Survey[i] in his DealBook article, “On Wall Street, a Culture of Greed Won’t Let Go.” Labaton Sucharow commissioned a survey of 250 respondents who work in the financial services industry.

Among the results of the survey:

28%      think the financial services industry does not really put the best interests

of clients first

23%      observed or had firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing in the workplace

29%      believe financial services professionals may need to engage in unethical or

illegal behavior to succeed

24%      feel employees at their own company probably engaged in misconduct to

get ahead

36%      female respondents who believe their companies will retaliate against

them if the respondents report wrongdoing in the workplace.

17%       male respondents who believe their companies will retaliate against them

if the respondents report wrongdoing in the workplace.

Most notable is the change (for the worse) in attitudes towards ethics in the workplace. Compared to the results of last year survey there is a worsening of ethical indicators as shown in the table below.

Also troubling is the higher percentage of younger people who score worse on some of the ethical indicators.

One possible inference from these results is as the economy and markets recover, some in the financial industry feel they can go back to business as usual and take a relaxed attitude to moral integrity. Perhaps there is a feeling that discarding ethics is fine, now that revenues are up, business is picking up, and Main Street seems to be less exercised about the ethical failures associated with the financial crisis. Will this trend towards ethical laxity continue as we see sustained recovery in financial markets?