The meaning of money: The money ethic endorsement and work‐related attitudes in Taiwan, the USA and the UK

This study compared people’s endorsement of the money ethic across three countries: Taiwan, the USA and the UK. Exploratory factor analysis results for the whole sample suggested that the six‐item money ethic scale had three independent factors, low cross‐loading, and low inter‐factor correlations. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed for the whole sample and for each group. There was a good fit between the six‐item MES model and the data for the US sample and a poor fit for the Chinese sample, the UK sample, and the whole sample. For the whole sample, regression results showed that those who scored high on factor budget tended to have high self‐esteem, display organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)‐altruism, have low strain, and are female. Factor evil was positively related to OCB‐compliance and negatively related to OCB‐altruism. American men considered money as their success, British men considered money as evil. British women claimed that they budget their money carefully. Results are discussed in light of cultural differences and the rapidly expanding literature on the psychology of money beliefs and behaviors.