Ever pilfer a pencil? Help yourself to a highlighter? Or filch a file folder?

If so, you're not alone.

In a survey released this week, nearly 20 percent of people said that in the past year, they had taken office supplies for personal use -- with workers earning more than $75,000 being the most likely to raid the supply closet.

"It's amazing how many people admit to this," said Brent Short, managing director of Spherion, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based staffing company that conducted the survey of more than 2,000 people. "A lot of them really don't think of it as theft."

Indeed, according to the survey, only 21 percent of those who stole office supplies felt guilty about it or regretted the act.

Attitudes toward the theft of a relatively minor item, such as a No. 2 pencil or a pack of Post-It notes, are a textbook case of the difference between looking at ethics from the standpoint of consequences or principles, said James Weber, director of the Beard Center for Leadership and Ethics at Duquesne University.

From the perspective of consequences, taking a pencil home, perhaps to give to your child for school the next day, will probably cost your company mere pennies -- making it easy to justify. But from the standpoint of ethical principles, it's still theft -- and it's wrong.

The worst offenders are also the wealthiest ones. According to the survey, nearly one quarter of those surveyed making over $75,000 annually were not just bringing home the bacon, but also the copy paper, stamps and envelopes.

"Let's just say that a majority of those folks are in some type of leadership role, and there's almost a sense of entitlement," said Mr. Short.

Meanwhile, 11 percent of workers earning between $15,000 and $35,000 admit to taking home office supplies.

Examples of the sticky-fingered upper crust are easy to find, said Dr. Weber, noting that Dennis Kozlowski, chief executive officer of Tyco, threw his wife a $2.1 million birthday party with company funds.

But even if workers are only taking a ballpoint pen, he said, the thought process used to justify it might make them more willing to steal when there's something more expensive up for grabs.

Call it the broken windows theory of workplace wrongdoing.

"The real problem is the justification argument," said Dr. Weber. "The company doesn't pay me enough money, therefore they owe this to me. Then if it's OK to steal pens, maybe they then steal disks, or take a laptop home for the kids."

About 1 percent of those surveyed by Spherion did indeed admit helping themselves to a cell phone, computer or personal digital assistant. Mr. Short said he's heard of employees taking a bag of coffee home rather than stopping by the grocery store, or even stealing company toilet paper.

Even at his own office, he said, "I laugh at Christmas time and around the holidays. Tape and scissors are always hard to come by."

In his dealings with different companies as an expert on business ethics, Dr. Weber said he's "heard incredible stories about what employees decide to steal -- things that require a pickup truck."

Then again, he said, what might be most damaging to a company is the theft of time. When employees spend hours surfing the Internet or talking to their co-workers about the U.S. Open, the company suffers far more than it does when a pen finds its way into somebody's purse.

"I don't think companies are concerned about the little things, but they are concerned about a pattern of behavior," he said. "You kind of have to figure out where you draw the line."