The influencing factors of civil engineers' ethical behaviour

In engineering construction, civil engineers (CEs) face the ethical dilemma of balancing loyalty to their employers with prioritising public welfare. This dilemma becomes even more complex in the Chinese context due to the frequent imbalance between engineers' decision making authority and ethical responsibilities. Therefore, it is necessary to study the factors influencing the ethical behaviour (EB) of CEs in the Chinese context. In this work, data were collected from Chinese CEs through a questionnaire survey and the theory of planned behaviour was extended by incorporating the external contextual factors of ethical atmosphere (EA) and ethical decision makers (EDMs). Various hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling, mediation effect analysis and hierarchical regression models. The results showed that the β values of attitude towards behaviour, subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioural control and ethical behaviour intention (EBI) were all positive. It was found that EBI has the greatest impact on ethical behaviour (EB), followed by SN. EA and EDMs positively moderate the process of translating the EBIs of CEs into EB.