Unethical research practices are prevalent in China, but little research has focused on the causes of these practices. Drawing on the criminology literature on organisational deviance, as well as the concept of cengceng jiama, which illustrates the increase of pressure in the process of policy implementation within a top-down bureaucratic hierarchy, this article develops an institutional analysis of research misconduct in Chinese universities. It examines both universities and the policy environment of Chinese universities as contexts for research misconduct. Specifically, this (...) article focuses on China’s Double First-Class University Initiative and its impact on elite universities that respond to the policy by generating new incentive structures to promote research quality and productivity as well as granting faculties and departments greater flexibility in terms of setting high promotion criteria concerning research productivity. This generates enormous institutional tensions and strains, encouraging and sometimes even compelling individual researchers who wish to survive to decouple their daily research activities from ethical research norms. This article is written based on empirical data collected from three elite universities as well as a review of policy documents, universities’ internal documents, and news articles. (shrink)

Recent theories on cognitive science have stressed the significance of moral intuition as a counter to and complementary part of moral reasoning in decision making. Thus, the aim of this paper is to create an integrated framework that can account for both intuitive and reflective cognitive processes, in order to explore the antecedents of ethical decision making. To do that, we build on Scholasticism, an important medieval school of thought from which descends the main pillars of the modern Catholic social (...) doctrine. Particularly, the focus will be on the scholastic concept of synderesis, which is an innate human faculty that constantly inclines decision makers toward universal moral principles. Managerial implications are discussed, stressing how a rediscovery of decision makers’ intuitive moral judgments could be relevant in the reflective thinking practice of managers’ ethical reasoning, thus saving them from rational insensitivity to ethical dilemmas. (shrink)

Literature on consumers’ ethical decision making is rooted in a rationalist perspective that emphasizes the role of moral reasoning. However, the view of ethical consumption as a thorough rational and conscious process fails to capture important elements of human cognition, such as emotions and intuitions. Based on moral psychology and microsociology, this paper proposes a holistic and integrated framework showing how emotive and intuitive information processing may foster ethical consumption at individual and social levels. The model builds on social intuitionism (...) to show how consumers’ a priori affect-laden intuitive moral judgments impact their post hoc reflective moral reasoning. Symbolic interactionism is used to interpret consumers as interdependent and socially embedded agents that self-construct their social identity through interactions with other consumers. The proposed social intuitionist framework of consumers’ ethical decision making shows that other-oriented moral emotions—such as elevation, gratitude, and empathy—interact with persuasion and social influence in ethical consumption. Consequently, moral emotions and intuition drive interpersonal persuasion among ethical consumers. Theoretical propositions and implications for consumer ethics theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

Although anomic feelings have been found to lead employees to unethical performance, little is known about why this relationship is possible. The aim of this study is to test a compassion-based explanation of why anomic employees harm co-workers by displaying interpersonal deviance. The prediction is made that once sociological anomie enters organizations in the form of employees’ private feelings of anomie—i.e., “anomia”—, this anomia will individually move staff to be uncompassionate in the workplace. Three uncompassionate feelings toward co-workers are then (...) hypothesized to mediate the relationship between anomia and interpersonal deviance: negative judgments about others, over-identification, and isolation. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. The results indicated that anomia was significantly and positively linked to uncompassionate feelings and interpersonal deviance, but only negative judgments about others mediated the anomia effects on interpersonal deviance. Findings suggest to managers that by spreading ethical standards that discourage negative judgments about others in the workplace, they can neutralize the mechanisms leading anomia to interpersonal deviance. (shrink)

Little is known about employee reactions in the form of un/ethical behavior to perceived acts of unfairness toward their peers perpetrated by the supervisor. Based on prior work suggesting that third parties also make fairness judgments and respond to the way employees are treated, this study first suggests that perceptions of interactional justice for peers (IJP) lead employees to two different responses to injustice at work: deviant workplace behaviors (DWBs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). Second, based on prior literature pointing (...) to supervisors as among the most important sources of moral guidance at work, a mediating role is proposed for ethical leadership. The article suggests that supervisors who inflict acts of injustice on staff will be perceived as unethical leaders, and that these perceptions would explain why employees react to IJP in the form of deviance (DWBs) and citizenship (OCBs). Data were collected from 204 hotel employees. Results of structural equation modeling demonstrate that DWBs and OCBs are substantive reactions to IJP, whereas ethical leadership significantly mediates reactions in the form of DWBs and OCBs. Behavioral ethics and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)

In response to the lack of empirical studies examining the internal disclosure behavior in the Chinese context, this study tested a whistleblowing -decision-making process among employees in the Chinese banking industry. For would-be whistleblowers, positive affect and organizational ethical culture were hypothesized to enhance the expected efficacy of their whistleblowing intention, by providing collective norms concerning legitimate, management-sanctioned behavior. Questionnaire surveys were collected from 364 employees in 10 banks in the Hangzhou City, China. By and large, the findings supported the (...) hypotheses. Issues of whistleblowing in the Chinese context and implications were discussed. (shrink)

Most of the academic research in the field of consumer ethics has focused on the cognitive antecedents and processes of unethical consumer behavior. However, the specific roles of discrete emotions such as fear have not yet been investigated thoroughly. This research examines the role of the need for cognition, the three affective responses—fear, power, and excitement—and perceived issue importance on moral intensity, ethical perceptions, and ethical intentions for four types of unethical consumer behaviors. A sample of consumers from the two (...) cities of Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt participated in the survey. Most research hypotheses were supported. NFC, issue importance, and affect variables were all predictors of moral intensity, ethical perceptions, and ethical intentions in four different consumer ethics scenarios. The specific predictors varied from one consumer ethics scenario to another, however. (shrink)

This paper attempts to define the moral terrain attached to bullying, or work victimisation. Existing research on this problem tends to focus on the phenomenon as a personnel or organisational issue. Bullying is fairly endemic and harmful but not accorded the same priority as other forms of harassment and there is little protection in law. Much research has concentrated on the nature and extent of bullying and impact on its victims. The education sector in the United Kingdom provides fertile ground (...) for bullying given greatly increased work demands. A descriptive case narrative is used to develop a number of ethical themes: the extent to which rights and/or individual moral conscience offer the best source of protection against bullying; the moral position and culpability of stakeholders, including policymakers, and individual witnesses to the case; implications for the development of ethical attitudes in the education sector of a developed economy; and the potentially conflicting ethical demands between government policy and individual needs. The paper concludes that inclusion of the moral dimension is vital to understanding and development of effective anti-discrimination mechanisms, intrinsic to which will be future research into discovering real attitudes towards bullying in the context of greater work pressure. (shrink)

Although prior work on ethical decision-making has examined the direct impact of magnitude of consequences as well as the direct impact of emotions on ethical judgments, the current research examines the interaction of these two constructs. Building on previous research finding disgust to have a varying impact on ethical judgments depending on the specific behavior being evaluated, we investigate how disgust, as well as happiness and sadness, moderates the effect of magnitude of consequences on an individual’s judgments of another person’s (...) unethical behavior. Specifically, we propose and find that because disgust and happiness are both associated with more heuristic-based processing, they both lead to a stronger reliance on the magnitude of consequences when forming ethical judgments. In contrast, because sad and neutral emotional states are associated with more systematic processing, they both result in a weaker reliance on the magnitude of consequences. As such, the effect of magnitude of consequences on judgments of unethical behaviors is stronger when individuals making the judgments are experiencing disgust or happiness versus sadness or a neutral state. This research shows that ethical judgment severity is contingent on individual-level factors, particularly the current emotional state being experienced by the individual, interacting with magnitude of consequences to impact the ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

This paper reports on the results from two studies that were conducted eight years apart with different respondents. The studies examined the role of the Mere Exposure Effect on ethical tolerance or acceptability of particular business decisions. The results from Study 1 show there is a significant difference in ethical judgment for 12 out of 16 vignettes between those who have been exposed to such situations compared to those who have not been exposed to them. In those 12 situations, those (...) who have been exposed to such situations adopted a more tolerant stance toward the ethically questionable behavior. The results from Study 2 show there is a significant difference in ethical judgment for 9 out of 16 vignettes between those who have been exposed to such situations compared to those who have not been exposed to them. Again, in those nine situations, those who have been exposed to such situations adopted a more tolerant stance toward the ethically questionable behavior. Interestingly, the 9 situations in Study 2 were 9 of the 12 situations found to be significant in Study 1, and in the same direction, suggesting that we have found consistency in our findings and support for the Mere Exposure Effect. Implications are provided for both higher education and practitioners. (shrink)

This research explored how (a) information regarding consequences and (b) personal information regarding the potential victim influences perceptions of moral intensity and ethical behavioral intent. An experimental vignette research design was used and 314 professional managers participated. The results of the study indicated that personal information impacted ethical behavioral intent through its influence on perceptions of proximity. In contrast, consequential information''s impact depended on the presence of personal information or prior knowledge. Implications for management and future ethical research are discussed.

ABSTRACT This study investigated the influence of different emotions and social consensus on moral decision-making using a mixed 2 × 2 experimental design. The results showed that the main effect of social consensus was significant: the moral decision-making level of participants under the condition of low social consensus was lower than that of participants under the condition of high social consensus, while no main effect of emotion emerged. Second, the results showed that emotion and social consensus have interactive effects on (...) moral decision-making. When social consensus was high, there was no significant difference in moral decision-making between individuals with positive emotions and individuals with negative emotions. When social consensus was low, individuals with negative emotions were more likely to make immoral decisions than individuals with positive emotions. These results reveal that emotion and social consensus work together in affecting moral decision-making. (shrink)

This article presents two separate but closely related studies. We used a first sample to investigate the relationships among individuals’ reports of their income and their subjective well-being, and their approval of unethical behavior in 27 countries and a second sample to investigate the relationship between corruption in 55 countries and their populace’s aggregated feelings of subjective well-being (happiness). Analysis of data from 27,762 working professionals showed that, although reported feelings of subjective well-being were negatively related to their approval of (...) unethical behaviors, income was positively related to their approval of unethical behaviors. In addition, the effects for feelings of subjective well-being were particularly strong for high-income people. Analyses also showed that, after controlling for economic development and other country-level factors, corruption was negatively related to a country’s feelings of happiness. These findings suggest that feelings of subjective well-being may lead to more ethical, less corrupt behavior and that the tolerance of unethical, corrupt behavior may lead to less collective happiness and subjective well-being. (shrink)

Unethical employee behavior (UEB), an important organizational phenomenon, is dynamic and multi-faceted. Recent renewed interest in the role of emotion in ethical decision-making (EDM) suggests that unethical behaviors are neither always rationally derived nor deliberately undertaken. This study explores how to integrate the conscious and nonconscious dimensions of unethical decision-making. By broadening the scope of inquiry, we explore how integral affect—the emotion tied to anticipated decision outcomes for the employee engaging in misconduct—can shed light on UEB. We review related literature (...) on affect and EDM and propose a model in which we assert that at a decision point, an employee experiences multiple integral affects that are either persuasive or dissuasive toward UEB. We further posit that among these integral affects, a dominant integral affect (DIA) emerges, determining the nature and direction of unethical behavior. In addition, our model considers the role of affective residue and the influence of other factors, such as incidental affect, disposition, context, and retrospection, to derive propositions. Our DIA model can help managers gain a comprehensive understanding of how affect, characterized by its locus (self or other orientation) and valence (enhancing or harming), determines the characteristics of UEB. (shrink)

Business ethics educators strive to produce graduates who not only grasp the principles of ethical decision-making, but who can apply that business ethics education when faced with real-world challenges. However, this has proven especially difficult, as good intentions do not always translate into ethical awareness and action. Complementing a behavioral ethics approach with insights from social psychology, we developed an interventional class module with both online and in-class elements aimed at increasing students’ awareness of their own susceptibility to unconscious biases (...) and, consequently, unethical behaviors. We deployed this intervention within a problem-based learning course, in which students completed real-world projects for actual business clients. Our results suggest that although students appeared universally aware of the importance of ethical issues in business and generally espoused intentions to act ethically, those who received the intervention were significantly more likely to recognize their own susceptibility to perpetuating unethical business behavior and to identify ethical issues specific to their real-world projects. These results have important implications for behavioral ethics pedagogy and provide a de-biasing interventional approach for bridging classroom knowledge with real-world skills. (shrink)

Higher order cognitive processes, including ethical decision making (EDM), are influenced by the experiencing of discrete emotions. Recent research highlights the negative influence one such emotion, anger, has on EDM and its underlying processes. The mechanism, however, by which anger disrupts the EDM has not been investigated. The current study sought to discover whether cognitive appraisals of an emotion-evoking event are the driving mechanisms behind the influence of anger on EDM. One primary (goal obstacle) and one secondary (certainty) appraisal of (...) anger were examined. Study results suggest that appraisals of certainty are the driving mechanism behind the negative relationship between anger and EDM. Certainty appraisals led to less application of EDM-promoting strategies and more unethical social motives. Findings further highlight the value of investigating appraisals of emotional events, given their cognitive nature, for their potential effects on cognitive operations, such as EDM. Future directions and implications are discussed. (shrink)

Organizational leaders face environmental challenges and pressures that put them under ethical risk. Navigating this ethical risk is demanding given the dynamics of contemporary organizations. Traditional models of ethical decision-making (EDM) are an inadequate framework for understanding how leaders respond to ethical dilemmas under conditions of uncertainty and equivocality. Sensemaking models more accurately illustrate leader EDM and account for individual, social, and environmental constraints. Using the sensemaking approach as a foundation, previous EDM models are revised and extended to comprise a (...) conceptual model of leader EDM. Moreover, the underlying factors in the model are highlighted—constraints and strategies. Four trainable, compensatory strategies (emotion regulation, self-reflection, forecasting, and information integration) are proposed and described that aid leaders in navigating ethical dilemmas in organizations. Empirical examinations demonstrate that tactical application of the strategies may aid leaders in making sense of complex and ambiguous ethical dilemmas and promote ethical behavior. Compensatory tactics such as these should be central to organizational ethics initiatives at the leader level. (shrink)

Case-based instruction is a stable feature of ethics education, however, little is known about the attributes of the cases that make them effective. Emotions are an inherent part of ethical decision-making and one source of information actively stored in case-based knowledge, making them an attribute of cases that likely facilitates case-based learning. Emotions also make cases more realistic, an essential component for effective case-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional case content, and complementary (...) socio-relational case content, on case-based knowledge acquisition and transfer on future ethical decision-making tasks. Study findings suggest that emotional case content stimulates retention of cases and facilitates transfer of ethical decision-making principles demonstrated in cases. (shrink)

This study investigates how Islamic religiosity affects ethical decision making. The study was conducted in the Malaysian workforce across the public and private sectors with a sample of N = 160. Five factors are tested to determine if they mediate the relationship between Islamic religiosity and ethical intention. These factors are: perceived importance of the ethical issue, moral judgment, ego strength, spiritual intention, and conscience. A parallel mediation design was chosen to test six hypotheses derived from the theoretical literature. The (...) findings indicate that only the variable conscience mediates the relationship between religiosity and ethical intention. This study gives insights into the role of Islam in ethical decision-making, especially for Muslims in Malaysia, an area which has limited exploration. More generally, it contributes to the ongoing discussion in the literature on the relationship between religiosity and ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Governments and societies often have condemned music as being ?indecent? and encouraging people to act unethically. Despite these accusations, research did not previously address the link between music and unethical acts. Here we argue that music may signal what is appropriate or inappropriate, hence moral behavior. We focus on the distinction between tonal and atonal music to examine the relation of music with unethical behavior. Results from an experimental study showed that harmonic or tonal music encouraged unethical behavior in adolescents (...) and this was mediated by negative affect. Our findings suggest that music plays an integral role in driving (im)moral behavior. (shrink)

In this paper, we theorize that the anticipation of guilt plays an important role in ethically questionable consumer situations. We propose an ethical decision-making framework incorporating anticipated guilt as partial mediator between consumers' ethical beliefs (anteceded by ethical ideology) and intentions. In the first study, we compared several models using structural equation modeling and found empirical support for our research model. A second experiment was set up to illustrate how these new insights may be applied to prevent consumers from taking (...) advantage of the seller. Results showed that enhancing the anticipation of guilt (by making the interpersonal consequences of the unethical act more salient) increased consumers' ethical intentions, controlling for ethical beliefs. Together these two studies might have important theoretical and managerial contributions. (shrink)

Crowdsourcing has attracted increasing attention as a means to enlist online participants in organisational activities. In this paper, we examine crowdsourcing from the perspective of its ethical use in the support of open innovation taking a broader system view of its use. Crowdsourcing has the potential to improve access to knowledge, skills, and creativity in a cost-effective manner but raises a number of ethical dilemmas. The paper discusses the ethical issues related to knowledge exchange, economics, and relational aspects of crowdsourcing. (...) A guiding framework drawn from the ethics literature is proposed to guide the ethical use of crowdsourcing. A major problem is that crowdsourcing is viewed in a piecemeal fashion and separate from other organisational processes. The trend for organisations to be more digitally collaborative is explored in relation to the need for greater awareness of crowdsourcing implications. (shrink)

Although various factors have been studied for their influence on consumers’ ethical judgments, the role of incidental emotions has received relatively less attention. Recent research in consumer behavior has focused on studying the effect of specific incidental emotions on various aspects of consumer decision making. This paper investigates the effect of two negative, incidental emotional states of anger and fear on ethical judgment in a consumer context using a passive unethical behavior scenario. The paper presents two experimental studies. Study 1 (...) focuses on the interaction of moral intensity and incidental emotion state in predicting the ethical judgment while study 2 investigates the underlying causal mechanism behind the process, using a mediation analysis. The results reveal a significant interaction between moral intensity and incidental emotion. Specifically, individuals in the state of incidental fear exhibit higher levels of ethical judgment as the moral intensity increases as compared to individuals in the state of incidental anger. Further, perceived control is found to mediate the relationship between emotional state and ethical judgment under higher moral intensity condition. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making descriptive theoretical models often conflict with each other and typically lack comprehensiveness. To address this deficiency, a revised EDM model is proposed that consolidates and attempts to bridge together the varying and sometimes directly conflicting propositions and perspectives that have been advanced. To do so, the paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the various theoretical models of EDM is provided. These models can generally be divided into rationalist-based ; and non-rationalist-based. Second, the proposed model, called (...) ‘Integrated Ethical Decision Making,’ is introduced in order to fill the gaps and bridge the current divide in EDM theory. The individual and situational factors as well as the process of the proposed model are then described. Third, the academic and managerial implications of the proposed model are discussed. Finally, the limitations of the proposed model are presented. (shrink)

The popular media has repeatedly pointed to pride as one of the key factors motivating leaders to behave unethically. However, given the devastating consequences that leader unethical behavior may have, a more scientific account of the role of pride is warranted. The present study differentiates between authentic and hubristic pride and assesses its impact on leader ethical behavior, while taking into consideration the extent to which leaders find it important to their self-concept to be a moral person. In two experiments (...) we found that with higher levels of moral identity, authentically proud leaders are more likely to engage in ethical behavior than hubristically proud leaders, and that this effect is mediated by leaders’ motivation to act selflessly. A field survey among organizational leaders corroborated that moral identity may bring the positive effect of authentic pride and the negative effect of hubristic pride on leader ethical behavior to the forefront. (shrink)

Engineers are normally seen as the archetype of people who make decisions in a rational and quantitative way. However, technological design is not value neutral. The way a technology is designed determines its possibilities, which can, for better or for worse, have consequences for human wellbeing. This leads various scholars to the claim that engineers should explicitly take into account ethical considerations. They are at the cradle of new technological developments and can thereby influence the possible risks and benefits more (...) directly than anybody else. I have argued elsewhere that emotions are an indispensable source of ethical insight into ethical aspects of risk. In this paper I will argue that this means that engineers should also include emotional reflection into their work. This requires a new understanding of the competencies of engineers: they should not be unemotional calculators; quite the opposite, they should work to cultivate their moral emotions and sensitivity, in order to be engaged in morally responsible engineering. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Researchers have increasingly acknowledged that affect plays a role in ethical decision making. However, the impact that specific affective states may have on the expression of decision biases in the context of ethical dilemmas has received limited empirical attention. To address this, the present effort examined the impact of happy and sad affective states on biases in ethical decision making. In an online experiment, undergraduate students read short stories that either induced happy, sad, or relaxed affective states, followed by (...) a covert measure of three types of biases held to inhibit ethical decision making. Results demonstrated that happy affective states increased the expression of regulation biases, and sad affective states increased the expression of simplification biases, compared to relaxed affective states. Implications are discussed for advancing research on ethical decision making and reducing unethical behavior in organizations. (shrink)

Although ethical decision‐making theory has evolved over the years, within the field of management, research still revolves around James Rest’s (1986) four‐step framework, dominated by a positivist epistemology and a quantitative methodology. Given that currently there is a call for a theoretical, epistemological, and methodological renovation for the enlargement and enrichment of knowledge about how decisions are morally made in organizations, this paper has a double aim. First, by showing the models’ main flaws and limitations, it critically assesses the prominent (...) theoretical models of Rest, Trevino, and Jones. Then, for decision making in organizations, the paper aims to posit a fresh moral theory that addresses the phenomenon from a comprehensive epistemological perspective. To do so, it steps back from those prominent models in order to review John Dewey’s “theory of moral life.” At the core of the proposed comprehensive theoretical framework are Dewey’s concepts of a “moral standard” and “valuation.” Finally, the paper shows how the Dewey‐based framework can both overcome the flaws and limitations that are identified in those prominent models and can enrich empirical research, therefore contributing to developing as a whole the ethical decision‐making field. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal (...) comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors. (shrink)

Using a simulated two-party negotiation, we examined how trustworthiness and power balance affected deception. In order to trigger deception, we used an issue that had no value for one of the two parties. We found that high cognitive trust increased deception whereas high affective trust decreased deception. Negotiators who expressed anxiety also used more deception whereas those who expressed optimism also used less deception. The nature of the negotiating relationship (mutuality and level of dependence) interacted with trust and negotiators’ affect (...) to influence levels of deception. Deception was most likely to occur when negotiators reported low trust or expressed negative emotions in the context of nonmutual or low dependence relationships. In these relationships, emotions that signaled certainty were associated with misrepresentation whereas emotions that signaled uncertainty were associated with concealment of information. Negotiators who expressed positive emotions in the context of a nonmutual or high dependence relationship also used less deception. Our results are consistent with a fair trade model in which negotiator increases deception when contextual and interpersonal cues heighten concerns about exploitation and decrease deception when these cues attenuate concerns about exploitation. (shrink)

The relationship between unethical peer behavior and observers’ unethical behavior traditionally has been examined from a social learning perspective. We employ two additional theoretical lenses, social identity theory and social comparison theory, each of which offers additional insight into this relationship. Data from 600 undergraduate business students in two universities provide support for all the three perspectives, suggesting that unethical behavior is influenced by social learning, social identity, and social comparison processes. Implications for managers and future research are discussed.

This article provides a conceptual framework for studying the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. We draw on mood-congruency theory and the affect infusion model to propose that mood influences managerial ethical decision making through deliberate and conscious assessments of the moral intensity of an ethical issue. By accounting for proscriptive and prescriptive morality—i.e., harmful and prosocial behavior, respectively—we demonstrate that positive and negative mood may have asymmetrical and paradoxical effects on ethical decision making. Specifically, our analysis suggests (...) that individuals in a positive mood will be more likely to engage in prosocial behavior but less likely to refrain from activities that have harmful consequences for others, whereas individuals in a negative mood will be more likely to avoid activities that put others at risk or harm but at the same time less prone to engaging in activities that have positive consequences for others. Importantly, we account for the context within which managers make their decisions by examining how situational strength may moderate the influence of mood on managerial ethical decision making. Finally, we discuss how organizations can leverage the double-edged sword effect of mood on ethical decision making and prevent, control and manage the risk of unethical decision making on the part of managers. (shrink)

In this article, we review the shame and ethical behavior literature in order to more fully develop theory and testable propositions for organizational scholars focusing on the behavioral implications of this ‘moral’ emotion. We propose a dual pathway multilevel model that incorporates complex relationships between felt and anticipatory shame processes and ethical behavior, both within and between persons and at the collective level. We propose a holistic treatment of shame that includes dispositional and organizational influences on the cognitive and emotional (...) forces that shape ethical behavior in organizations. The implications of our review of shame for ethical behavior, organizations, and concrete research action are discussed. (shrink)

Although emotion has become one of the most popular research areas within organizational scholarship, few studies have considered its connection with unethical behavior. Using dual-process theory, we expand on the rationalist perspective within the field of behavioral ethics by considering the process through which two discrete emotions, anger and guilt, influence unethical behavior. Across two studies using different methodologies, we found that anger increases unethical behavior whereas guilt reduces unethical behavior. These effects were mediated by impulsive and deliberative processing. Overall, (...) our results shed light on distinct mechanisms through which emotions can influence unethical behavior. Both theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

We investigated associations between moral reasoning and epistemological beliefs in an accounting context using the sample of 140 senior accounting students from a public university in Midwestern U. S. We found no significant correlations between accounting students' principled reasoning about Thome's ethical dilemmas and their beliefs about knowledge measured by administering Schommer epistemological questionnaire. We conducted post-hoc power analysis and present the evidence that the lack of associations should not be attributed to the lack of power. Overall, our results suggest (...) that reflective thinking and moral reasoning represent separate dimensions of cognitive process which develop at a different pace. Thus, a stand-alone course of ethics in accounting education is warranted since higher moral reasoning does not automatically follow from extended technical education and improved critical thinking skills. (shrink)

The goals of this research were to (1) explore the direct effects of and interactions between magnitude of consequences and various types of proximity - social, psychological, and physical - on the ethical decision-making process and (2) investigate the influence of empathy on the ethical decision-making process. A carpal tunnel syndrome vignette and questionnaire were administered to a sample of human resource management professionals to test the hypothesized relationships. Significant relationships were found for the main effects between magnitude of consequences (...) and principle-based evaluation, cognitive empathy and principle-based evaluation, and empathy and moral intention. Physical proximity moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and utilitarian evaluation as well as magnitude of consequences and moral intention. Cognitive empathy moderated the relationships between magnitude of consequences and principle-based evaluation and physical proximity and utilitarian evaluation. Affective empathy marginally moderated the relationship between physical proximity and principle-based evaluation. Future research directions, management implications, and strengths and weaknesses of the research are discussed. (shrink)

Research misconduct is of growing concern within the scientific community. As a result, organizations must identify effective approaches to training for ethics in research. Previous research has suggested that biases and compensatory strategies may represent important influences on the ethical decision-making process. The present effort investigated a training intervention targeting these variables. The results of the intervention are presented, as well as a description of accompanying exercises tapping self-reflection, sensemaking, and forecasting and their differential effectiveness on transfer to an ethical (...) decision-making task. (shrink)

Organizations have become essential institutions that facilitate the vital coordination and cooperation necessary to create value across societies. Recent research within moral psychology and behavioral ethics indicates that emotions play a pivotal role in promoting ethical decision making. The theory developed here maintains that most organizations retain norms that disfavor the experience and expression of many strong emotions while at work. This dynamic inhibits individual’s ability to generate moral intuitions and reason about ethical issues they encounter. This occurs as individuals (...) utilize specific emotion regulation mechanisms that stifle the experience and expression of emotion in organizational decision making. Over time, individuals fail to register emotion within organizational decision processes, which increases the prevalence of amoral decision making. Organizational emotion norms also influence the chronic accessibility of specific moral foundations that effect the contents of both moral intuitions that do occur, as well as deliberate reasoning that generates moral judgments. (shrink)

This research on the ethics of meaningful work examined how types of job-related harm and their magnitude of consequences influenced components of ethical decision-making. The research also investigated the moderating effects of individual differences on the relation between the MOC and the ethical decision-making elements for each type of harm. Using a sample of 185 Chinese professionals, a between-subjects, fully crossed experimental scenario design revealed that physical and economic job-related harm were recognized as moral issues to a greater extent than (...) cognitive or emotional harm. Second, physical job-related harm stimulated a higher level of moral evaluations than economic and cognitive harm. Third, individuals intended to act ethically when MOC was high versus low. Finally, experience with layoffs and IMO helped explain the relations between MOC and moral evaluations for economic and cognitive job-related harm, respectively. Implications for research and management are discussed. (shrink)

Although various models of ethical decision making have implicitly called upon constructs governed by working memory capacity , a study examining this relationship specifically has not been conducted. Using a sense making framework of EDM, we examined the relationship between WMC and various sensemaking processes contributing to EDM. Participants completed an online assessment comprised of a demographic survey, intelligence test, various EDM measures, and the Automated Operation Span task to determine WMC. Results indicated that WMC accounted for unique variance above (...) and beyond ethics education, exposure to ethical issues, and intelligence in several sensemaking processes. Additionally, a marginally significant effect of WMC was also found with reference to EDM. Individual differences in WMC appear likely to play an important role in the ethical decision-making process, and future researchers may wish to consider their potential influences. (shrink)

Today, organizations are facing a high rate of attrition which is a serious issue for human resource managers. Gaining the commitment of employees towards their organization, though challenging, is rewarding as organizational commitment (OC) is a precursor to employee engagement. Another challenge is about maintaining an ethical climate. Ethical misconduct by organizations not only brings them a heavy monetary price but also incurs non-monetary price in terms of customer and employee attrition and diminished business reputation. In the new workplace with (...) greater emphasis on flexibility, teams and a strong customer orientation, we feel that development of emotional intelligence (EI) of the workforce can be the key to meet these challenges. This paper explores these three critical constructs viz., EI, workplace ethics and OC together, and tests whether workplace ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship using structural equation modelling. We conducted an empirical study in Guwahati, a fast-growing tier II city in India and a business hub for north-east India, on a sample of 400 managers working in the service sector. Our study found that emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of ethical perception and organization commitment. Also, ethical perception significantly affects organizational commitment. Although we reject the hypothesis that ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship, the importance of workplace ethics cannot be undermined as it can build intangible organizational assets such as goodwill and public image. Since individual ethical standards create ethical climate, organizations need to teach their people how to recognize morally questionable situations and the consequence of unethical conduct. (shrink)

The popular press and academic research has focused primarily on the characteristics of corporate leaders. Subordinates have been studied much less frequently than leaders and yet they play a pivotal role in destructive leadership processes. An area holding significant potential to bring clarity to subordinates’ ability to withstand (or succumb) to pressures from superiors is dispositional affect. In our exploratory study, we examine how specific affective states influence subordinates’ unethical behavior. We performed an experiment with 63 mid-level managers having significant (...) work experience. Participants were given ethical scenarios and asked to assess their intentions to comply with their superiors’ requests to engage in unethical conduct. The participants also completed the positive affect negative affect schedule (PANAS) which provides measures of affective states. Our results provide support for theory-based predictions. The findings of our study make important contributions and have implications to both practice and theory. First, we identify certain affective states that encourage subordinates to adopt the behavior of a conformer or colluder and thus be susceptible to their superiors’ unethical directives. Second, our results suggest the need for training programs to assist employees in managing affect in the work place and consideration of organizational changes that provide a culture of empowerment of its employees. Third, unlike a large majority of prior research, we measured naturally occurring affective states rather than providing a contrived (and potentially exaggerated) triggering event to elicit affective states. Fourth, we examined specific affective states rather than examining only general positive and negative valence categories. (shrink)

This paper explores the character of emotion and its value in understanding ethical dilemmas in work organisations. Specifically, we examine the emotional labour of human resource professionals. Through in-depth interviews and diary study, we uncover the emotional and ethical struggles of HRPs as they search for the ‘right thing to do’ in situated interaction. Through the lens of emotion, we chart the process of how the very framing of what is deemed ‘right’ can move from the social to the moral (...) order and vice versa. Based on our findings, we contribute to understanding the linkages between emotional and ethical dilemmas, and how expectations of multiple ‘others’ at the individual, interpersonal and organisational level shape and constrain ethical choices. (shrink)

Any professional or scientific discipline has a responsibility to do what it can to ensure ethical behavior on the part of its members. In this context, this paper outlines and explores the criticism that to date the emphasis in ethics training in professional psychology, as with other disciplines, has been on the rational elements of ethical decision making, with insufficient attention to the role of emotions and other nonrational elements. After a brief outline of some of the historical background to (...) the development and understanding of ethical decision making, relevant theoretical and empirical literature on the influence of emotional and other nonrational factors on our ethical decisions is reviewed. The implications of this literature for ethics education and training are outlined, particularly with respect to the use of case studies. An integrative approach is proposed, and conclusions and recommendations are offered with respect to such an approach. (shrink)

Academic research suggests that variances in contextual dynamics, and more specifically religion, may lead to disparate perceptions and practices of corporate social responsibility. Driven by the increased geopolitical and economic importance of the Middle East and identified gaps in knowledge, the study aims to examine if indeed there is a divergent form of CSR exercised in the region. The study identifies unique CSR dimensions and constructs presented through an empirical framework in order to outline the practice and perception of CSR (...) in a context with strong Islamic beliefs. The framework goes beyond the platform of mere Islamic philanthropy and is based on CSR-stakeholder management practices. Following an exploratory research design and collecting interview data from representatives of 63 organisations from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, the study offers a snapshot of the CSR reality from the perspective of those living the phenomenon. The results suggest that the practice and perception of CSR in the examined context are largely grounded in the areas of social and altruistic actions but they cannot be examined in isolation from the religious context of CSR operation. This focus is mainly attributed to the dominant role of Islam in the examined sample, which leads to forms of non-structured or semi-structured approaches to CSR. Apart from the theoretical advancements offered to the CSR literature, the study also provides contributions for practitioners and policy makers. (shrink)

This research was focused on investigating why some consumers might support cause-related marketing campaigns for reasons other than personal benefit by examining the influence of moral emotions and cultural orientation. The authors investigated the extent to which moral emotions operate differently across a cultural variable (US versus Korea) and an individual difference variable (self-construal). A survey method was utilised. Data were collected from a convenience sample of US ( n = 180) and Korean ( n = 191) undergraduates. Moral emotions (...) significantly influenced purchase intention for a social-cause product. The influence of an ego-focused moral emotion (i.e., pride) on purchase intention was greater for US than Korean participants. The influence of another-focused moral emotion (i.e., guilt) on purchase intention was greater for high-interdependent participants than for low-interdependent participants. The findings of this research provide important and relevant implications to marketers and policy makers in developing persuasive messages and customer relationship programmes. (shrink)

Ethical decision-making theories in behavioural ethics management have been developed through the social sciences, psychology, social psychology, and cognitive neurosciences. These theories are either cognitive, non-cognitive or an integration of both. Other scholars have recommended redefining what ethical means through moral philosophy and theology. Buddhism is a religion, a philosophy, a psychology, an ethical system and an art of living. The divine states in Buddhism are virtues that could be developed by anyone regardless of their religion or non-religion through Buddhist (...) meditation. They are so called because they enable individuals to develop ‘God-like qualities’. The theoretical insights of the divine states indicate how to eliminate negative emotions, such as anger, fear, delusion and envy, by cultivating love and compassion towards both the self and others. Accordingly, this paper contributes to EDM by redefining what ethical means through the meanings managers who practise Buddhist meditation assign to divine states in their lived experience of EDM in organisations in Sri Lanka. The sample consisted of 17 Buddhists, 1 Hindu, 1 Muslim and 1 no-religion. Data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews and was analysed with IPA. The findings indicated that how the managers made meaning of an ethical decision was influenced by their loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. The findings also indicated that the managers justified the reasons for their decisions subsequently through the benefits to themselves as well as their employees. Accordingly, this study supports the view that EDM is an integrated approach. (shrink)

Performance appraisals are widely used as an HR instrument. This study among 332 police officers examines the effects of performance appraisals from a behavioral ethics perspective. A mediation model relating justice perceptions of police officers’ last performance appraisal to their work affect, perceived supervisor and organizational support and, in turn, their ethical (pro-organizational proactive) and unethical (counterproductive) work behavior was tested empirically. The relationship between justice perceptions and both, ethical and unethical behavior was mediated by perceived support and work affect. (...) Hence, a singular yearly performance appraisal was linked to both ethical and unethical behaviors at work. The finding that ethical and unethical aspects of employee behavior share several of the same organizational antecedents, namely organizational justice perceptions, has strong practical implications which are discussed as well. (shrink)