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Hunger, thirst and fatigue, and their links to unethical behaviour

Model employees must be well-rested, their basic body needs well taken care of, so they can concentrate fully on the actions that really matter

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An exhausted onion trader catches forty winks on top of piles of his merchandise. Photo: Reuters

Remember The Times when you were so hungry and poor you could not think of anything else affordable than a bowl of noodles?

That single-mindedness to satiate your hunger pangs may promote certain unethical behaviour but inhibit other types of unethical actions.

Before joining the National University of Singapore Business School, I conducted a series of five studies with colleagues at the Universities of Washington and Toronto on whether being deprived of physical needs, such as food, influences unethical conduct.

After all, we know too well of colleagues or from our own personal experience of working through without lunch and ignoring the need for food in the name of organisational productivity.

This is a phenomenon common in both developing and advanced economies. It is not uncommon to read about underpaid factory workers and labourers working long hours with little concern for their physical well-being.

At the other end of the scale, day traders have to be engaged when the market is open and cannot afford to break for lunch.

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