Business ethics, technology use, and workplace happiness: Gender-based differences

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship between business ethics and workplace happiness, explicitly examining the role of technology use as a potential mediator and the moderating effect of gender within organizational contexts in an emerging economy. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional, and non-experimental research design, data were collected from a sample of 367 employees working in Mexican organizations across diverse sectors. The proposed theoretical model was tested through covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM), complemented by multi-group analysis to explore gender-based differences in the structural relationships. The findings provide robust evidence that business ethics exerts a significant and positive effect on workplace happiness, with this relationship being notably stronger among women, thereby underscoring the relevance of ethical organizational climates for employee well-being. In contrast, technology use neither demonstrated a significant direct effect on workplace happiness nor functioned as a mediating mechanism between ethics and happiness, suggesting that technological tools alone are insufficient to enhance subjective well-being in the absence of a strong ethical foundation. These results indicate that, in emerging organizational contexts, ethical culture and values outweigh the instrumental role of technology in shaping employees’ happiness at work. From a theoretical perspective, the cross-sectional nature of the study constrains causal inference, highlighting the need for future longitudinal and cross-cultural research to assess temporal dynamics and contextual generalizability. Practically, the findings emphasize that organizations seeking to enhance workplace happiness should prioritize ethical leadership, fairness, and integrity, while adopting gender-sensitive approaches to digital transformation. Socially, fostering ethical organizational cultures may contribute to more inclusive, emotionally sustainable, and human-centered workplaces. Overall, this research offers original value by proposing and empirically validating an integrative model that links business ethics, technology use, and workplace happiness, incorporating gender as a moderating factor within the organizational behaviour literature.