Beyond rules and results: virtue, behaviour, and the ethics of Indian generation Z at work

Purpose Generation Z (Gen-Z), poised to become the largest workforce cohort by 2025, brings unique moral values, shaping organisational strategies. While their distinct ethical behaviour at work can significantly contribute to organisational sustainability and performance, they may also encounter ethical conflicts. This paper aims to explore how Indian Gen-Z professionals uniquely make sense of, negotiate and enact workplace ethical behaviour. Design/methodology/approach This study uses semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis to interpret Indian Gen-Z’s lived experiences and subjective meanings, providing insights into their workplace behaviour. Findings This study explores how Indian Gen-Z professionals interpret and enact workplace ethics within the morally complex contexts of the modern workplace. The authors identify four themes: virtue ethics, behavioural ethics, work-life balance ethics and adaptive ways to deal with ethical conflicts at work, highlighting how Gen-Z integrates enduring virtues with pragmatic strategies and navigates value conflicts and ethical ambiguities at work. Originality/value This paper explores Gen-Z’s approach to workplace ethics through a mix of virtue ethics and behavioural ethics lenses. Moving beyond the Global North, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first studies to capture the lived ethical experiences of Indian Gen-Z.