We investigated the significance of an economic crisis for organizations’ ethical behavior, employees’ unethical behavior, and association. To capture the effect of the “2008’ World economic crisis,” we compared the behaviors of organizations and employees’ unethical behavior during a crisis with their behavior in more favorable circumstances before and after the crisis. We used structural equation modeling to analyze answers collected from 2024 employees in Slovenian organizations between 2006 and 2016. The results showed significant growth of organizational engagement in ethical behavior, despite the crisis in the middle of the observed period. The employees’ unethical behavior was significantly less acceptable in crisis compared to before the crisis, while after the crisis, its acceptability increased again, despite not significant. The aggregate sample revealed a significantly negative influence of employee’s unethical behavior on organizations’ ethical behavior that was not significantly different across the considered periods. The research suggests the need to manage the organization’s ethical behavior in times of economic downturn, like in the present COVID 19. Additionally, managers need to devote more attention to prevent employees’ unethical behavior and its influence on organizations’ ethical behavior.

我们调查了经济危机对组织的道德行为、员工的不道德行为和协会的重要性。为了捕捉“2008 年世界经济危机”的影响，我们将组织和员工在危机期间的不道德行为与危机前后更有利环境下的行为进行了比较。我们使用结构方程模型分析了 2006 年至 2016 年间从斯洛文尼亚组织的 2024 名员工收集的答案。结果显示，尽管在观察期中期出现了危机，但组织在道德行为方面的参与度显着增长。与危机前相比，员工的不道德行为在危机中的可接受性明显降低，而在危机后，其可接受性再次增加，尽管不显着。总体样本显示，员工的不道德行为对组织的道德行为有显着的负面影响，在所考虑的时期内没有显着差异。该研究表明，需要在经济低迷时期管理组织的道德行为，例如目前的 COVID 19。此外，管理者需要更加关注防止员工的不道德行为及其对组织道德行为的影响。