Bad behavior in the workplace is on the decline, although the incidence of unethical practices, and the practices themselves, remains a troubling aspect of U.S. corporate culture.

That's the conclusion from an extensive survey on corporate ethics by the Ethics Resource Center, which digested input from 6,579 responses (mostly in the for-profit sector) to questions about corruption on the job.

The best news from the 2013 National Business Ethics Survey is that observed corruption at work is trending down over time. The 41 percent of employees (bosses and worker bees) who said they observed corruption happening at work is, in the context of the ERC's survey, an all-time low. Pressure to bend the rules, as reported by respondents, fell from 13 percent in 2011 to 9 percent.

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Dan Cook

Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.