In this article we report findings from a qualitative study that explored how doctors and nurses in nursing homes describe professional collaboration around dying patients. The study also examined the consequences this can have for the life-prolonging treatment of patients and the care of them and their relatives. Nine doctors and 10 nurses from 10 Norwegian nursing homes were interviewed about their experience of decision-making processes on life-prolonging treatment and care. The findings reveal that the frameworks for the professional (...) collaboration and organization of physicians and nurses prevent patient treatment and care complying with ethical considerations and the law. These conditions have a challenging impact on the care of dying patients and their relatives. (shrink)

Despite the importance of scientific integrity to the well-being of society, recent findings suggest that training and mentoring in the responsible conduct of research are not very reliable or effective inhibitors of research misbehavior. Understanding how and why individual scientists decide to behave in ways that conform to or violate norms and standards of research is essential to the development of more effective training programs and the creation of more supportive environments. Scholars in business management, psychology, and other disciplines have (...) identified many important factors that affect ethical behavior, including individual, contextual, and organizational factors. Surprisingly little research has been conducted to examine the role of these factors in either the development of ethical decision-making skills, or their applicability to ethical issues commonly encountered in research and other scholarly and professional activities. Interdisciplinary approaches combined with research and discipline relevant paradigms should greatly enhance understanding of the individual contextual and organizational factors involved in ethical and unethical research conduct. Such studies will inform and facilitate the development of more effective ethics education programs in the sciences and engineering professions. (shrink)

Research has downplayed the complex discursive processes and practices through which decisions are constructed and blurs the relationship between macro- and micro-levels. The article argues for a critical and ecologically valid approach that articulates how discursive practices are influenced by, and in turn shape, the organizational settings in which they occur. It makes a methodological contribution using decision-making episodes of a senior management team meeting of a multinational company to demonstrate the insights that can be obtained from embedding (...) the Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis within a longitudinal ethnography. The approach illuminates the latent and intricate power dynamics and range of potentials of agents, triangulating micro-level discursive strategies with macro-level historical sources and background knowledge on the social and political fields. The article also makes a theoretical contribution by demonstrating the dependency of decision outcomes on often unpredictable and subtle changes in the power—context relationship. (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)

What factors in the organizational culture of an ethically exemplary corporation are responsible for encouraging ethical decision making? This question was analyzed through an exploratory case study of a top pharmaceutical company that is a global leader in ethics. The participating organization is renowned in public opinion polls of ethics, credibility, and trust. This research explored organizational culture, communication in issues management and public relations, management theory, and deontological or utilitarian moral philosophy as factors that might encourage (...) ethical analysis. Our understanding of organiza tional ethics is enhanced by elucidating factors the case revealed as encouraging ethical analysisan organizational culture that emphasizes the importance of ethics, Theory Y management, a symmetrical worldview valuing innovation and dialogue, a counseling role for issues management or public relations in the dominant coalition, rewarding ethical behavior, ethical analysis using moral philosophy, consistency between individual values and organizational philosophy, and ethics training. These factors, and perhaps others as yet unidentified, worked together to create an environment that encouraged ethical decision making at the exemplar organization. (shrink)

In this paper I examine how the constituent elements of a firm's organizational structure affect the ethical behavior of workers. The formal features of organizations I examine are the compensation practices, performance and evaluation systems, and decision-making assignments. I argue that the formal organizational structure, which is distinguished from corporate culture, is necessary, though not sufficient, in solving ethical problems within firms. At best the formal structure should not undermine the ethical actions of workers. When combined with (...) a strong culture, however, the organizational structure may be sufficient in promoting ethical conduct. While helpful, ethics training and corporate codes are neither necessary nor sufficient in promoting ethical behavior within firms. (shrink)

The importance of institutionalizing ethics within an organization cannot be underestimated.

Illustrates how using ethics in decision making can improve communication, resolve disagreements, and set just standards for worker-management relations. Presents strategies for how organizations can use ethics to uncover values and beliefs, and determine whether they are acting upon just and moral decisions.

This study attempts to help explain the ethical decision making of individual employees by determining how the perceived organizational environment is related to that decision. A self- administered questionnaire design was used for gathering data in this study with a sample size of 245 full-time employees. Perceived supervisor expectation, formal policies, and informal policies were used to assess the expressed ethical decision of the respondents. The findings indicate that the perceived organizational environment is significantly related (...) to the ethical decision of the respondent. (shrink)

This text provides a unique collection of case studies across a wide range of organizations (higher education, K-12 education, military, state and local government administration, non-profit institutions, and agency management, etc.). These cases examine ethical decision-making and organizational and leadership behavioral concepts that are practiced in these organizations. The cases cover topics facing our workforce today and ask the reader to solve the dilemma. Through a discussion of these cases, students apply decision making and organizational and (...) leadership strategies to analyze each case and therefore gain a better understanding of how to effectively lead and manage within their organizations. This text challenges students to think critically and analytically. Students are encouraged to reflect on options a practitioner could use to solve the problem. All of the cases end with an open scenario and a set of questions, allowing students to offer a wide range of opinions and participate in reflective and robust discussions. (shrink)

Most of the work in agent-based social simulation has assumed highly simplified agent models, with little attention being paid to the details of individual cognition. Here, in an effort to counteract that trend, we substitute a realistic cognitive agent model (CLARION) for the simpler models previously used in an organizational design task. On that basis, an exploration is made of the interaction between the cognitive parameters that govern individual agents, the placement of agents in different organizational structures, and (...) the performance of the organization. It is suggested that the two disciplines, cognitive modeling and social simulation, which have so far been pursued in relative isolation from each other, can be profitably integrated. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of both individual ethics (IE) and organizational ethics (OE) on ethical intention (EI). Ethical intention, or the individual's intention to engage in ethical behavior, is useful as a dependent variable because it relates to behavior which can be an expression of values, but also is influenced by organizational and societal variables. The focus is on EI in international business decision-making, since the international context provides great latitude in making ethical decisions. Results demonstrate (...) that both IE and OE influence EL Ethical congruence is also discussed as a positive influence. Younger managers are more influenced by OE than older managers. The findings call for creating governance mechanisms to enhance ethical congruence, thereby increasing the likelihood of managers making ethical choices in organizational decision-making. (shrink)

Across two studies the hypotheses were tested that stressful situations affect both leadership ethical acting and leaders' recognition of ethical dilemmas. In the studies, decision makers recruited from 3 sites of a Swedish multinational civil engineering company provided personal data on stressful situations, made ethical decisions, and answered to stress-outcome questions. Stressful situations were observed to have a greater impact on ethical acting than on the recognition of ethical dilemmas. This was particularly true for situations involving punishment and lack (...) of rewards. The results are important for the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of an organization, especially with regard to the analysis of the Stressors influencing managerial work and its implications for ethical behavior. (shrink)

This exploratory study of ethical decision making by individuals in organizations found moral intensity, as defined by Jones (1991), to significantly influence ethical decision making intentions of managers. Moral intensity explained 37% and 53% of the variance in ethical decision making in two decision-making scenarios. In part, the results of this research support our theoretical understanding of ethical/unethical decision-making and serve as a foundation for future research.

This study investigates the association of a broad set of variables with the ethical decision making of management accountants in Libya. Adopting a cross-sectional methodology, a questionnaire including four different ethical scenarios was used to gather data from 229 participants. For each scenario, ethical decision making was examined in terms of the recognition, judgment and intention stages of Rest’s model. A significant relationship was found between ethical recognition and ethical judgment and also between ethical judgment and ethical intention, (...) but ethical recognition did not significantly predict ethical intention—thus providing support for Rest’s model. Organizational variables, age and educational level yielded few significant results. The lack of significance for codes of ethics might reflect their relative lack of development in Libya, in which case Libyan companies should pay attention to their content and how they are supported, especially in the light of the under-development of the accounting profession in Libya. Few significant results were also found for gender, but where they were found, males showed more ethical characteristics than females. This unusual result reinforces the dangers of gender stereotyping in business. Personal moral philosophy and moral intensity dimensions were generally found to be significant predictors of the three stages of ethical decision making studied. One implication of this is to give more attention to ethics in accounting education, making the connections between accounting practice and Islam. Overall, this study not only adds to the available empirical evidence on factors affecting ethical decision making, notably examining three stages of Rest’s model, but also offers rare insights into the ethical views of practising management accountants and provides a benchmark for future studies of ethical decision making in Muslim majority countries and other parts of the developing world. (shrink)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ (...) moral identity. We argue that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (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)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ (...) moral identity. We argue that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

This experimental study evaluated the influence of stated organizational concern for ethical conduct upon managerial behavior. Using an in-basket to house the manipulation, a sample of 113 MBA students with some managerial experience reacted to scenarios suggesting illegal conduct and others suggesting only unethical behavior. Stated organizational concern for ethical conduct was varied from none (control group) to several other situations which included a high treatment consisting of a Code of Ethics, an endorsement letter by the CEO and (...) specific sanctions for managerial misconduct. Only in the case of suggested illegal behavior tempered by high organizational concern were managers influenced by organizational policy to modify the morality of their actions. However, the responses to the illegal scenarios were significantly more ethical than the reactions given to the unethical (but not illegal) situations. The implications of these findings are then discussed. (shrink)

This study considers the ethical decision making of individual employees and the influence their perception of organizational expectations has on employee feelings about the decision making process. A self-administered questionnaire design was used for gathering data in this study, with a sample size of 245 full-time employees. The match between the ethical alternative chosen by the respondent and that alternative perceived to be encouraged by his/her organization was found to be significantly related to both feelings of discomfort (...) and feelings of intrapersonal role conflict. Implications for these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and (...) empirical aspects of decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines. (shrink)

BackgroundCommentators believe that the ethical decision-making climate is instrumental in enhancing interprofessional collaboration in intensive care units. Our aim was twofold: to determine the perception of the ethical climate, levels of moral distress, and intention to leave one's job among nurses and physicians, and between the different ICU types and determine the association between the ethical climate, moral distress, and intention to leave.MethodsWe performed a cross-sectional questionnaire study between May 2021 and August 2021 involving 206 nurses and physicians in (...) a large urban academic hospital. We used the validated Ethical Decision-Making Climate Questionnaire and the Measure of Moral Distress for Healthcare Professionals tools and asked respondents their intention to leave their jobs. We also made comparisons between the different ICU types. We used Pearson's correlation coefficient to identify statistically significant associations between the Ethical Climate, Moral Distress, and Intention to Leave.ResultsNurses perceived the ethical climate for decision-making as less favorable than physicians. They also had significantly greater levels of moral distress and higher intention to leave their job rates than physicians. Regarding the ICU types, the Neonatal/pediatric unit had a significantly higher overall ethical climate score than the Medical and Surgical units and also demonstrated lower moral distress scores and lower “intention to leave” scores compared with both the Medical and Surgical units. The ethical climate and moral distress scores were negatively correlated ; moral distress and "intention to leave" was positively correlated ; and ethical climate and “intention to leave” were negatively correlated.ConclusionsSignificant differences exist in the perception of the ethical climate, levels of moral distress, and intention to leave between nurses and physicians and between the different ICU types. Inspecting the individual factors of the ethical climate and moral distress tools can help hospital leadership target organizational factors that improve interprofessional collaboration, lessening moral distress, decreasing turnover, and improved patient care. (shrink)

Emerging research suggests that an organization’s ability to sustain a competitive advantage is increasingly linked to its successful pursuit of a business strategy that generates mutual benefit where the business is both profitable and functional for the common good. The question remains, however: What are the attributes of decision makers that enable them to realize mutually beneficial outcomes? This dissertation argues that one critical key to solving this question is a better understanding of moral imagination in organizational (...) class='Hi'>decision making. To test this hypothesis, a new vignette-based cognitive measure for moral imagination in organizational decision making was created to explore empirically the relationship between moral imagination and mutually beneficial decision making. Overall, findings from 180 respondents supported the hypothesis that individuals, who exercise moral imagination, including the ability for discerning moral issues and developing a range of possible outcomes during the decision-making process, are indeed more likely to generate a mutually beneficial outcome for a situation compared to those who do not exercise moral imagination. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

No research thus far has attempted to examine ethical decision- making in corporate entrepreneurial organizations. Results of such study would provide management executives with insights on what action, if any, is essential for achieving business ethics and corporate entrepreneurship simultaneously. This paper argues, theoretically, that the work characteristics, organizational characteristics, and some individual characteristics in a corporate entrepreneurial organization are conducive to ethical decisions. These characteristics help mitigate the adverse impact of the turbulent environments on ethical decision- (...) making behavior. Based on these arguments, a tentative model of ethical decison-making in corporate entrepreneurial organization is constructed. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of both individual ethics (IE) and organizational ethics (OE) on ethical intention (EI). Ethical intention, or the individual’s intention to engage in ethical behavior, is useful as a dependent variable because it relates to behavior which can be an expression of values, but also is influenced by organizational and societal variables. The focus is on EI in international business decision-making, since the international context provides great latitude in making ethical decisions. Results demonstrate (...) that both IE and OE influence EI. Ethical congruence is also discussed as a positive influence. Younger managers are more influenced by OE than older managers. The findings call for creating governance mechanisms to enhance ethical congruence, thereby increasing the likelihood of managers making ethical choices in organizational decision-making. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of the factors that influence ethical behavioral intentions of public accountants. Recent scandals have dominated the news and have caused legislators, regulators and the public to question the role of the accounting profession. Legislative changes have brought about major structural changes in the profession and continued scrutiny will surely lead to further changes. Thus, developing an understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence ethical decisions is critical. An extension (...) of the theory of planned behavior [Ajzen, I.: 1985, Action Control-From Cognition to Behavior ], the model used in this study examined the influence of personal, social and organizational factors on ethical intentions. Specifically, the individual level model tested direct eects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, moral sensitivity and ethical climate. Professionals from five accounting firms completed a survey that measured responses to ethical dilemmas related to the public accounting domain. To minimize the potential impact of common method bias, the survey instrument was administered in two phases. Hypotheses were evaluated using a structural modeling technique, partial least squares. Results show strong support for a direct relationship between attitudes and ethical intentions. The proposed direct eect of subjective norms was not supported. However, a significant relationship between subjective norms and attitudes was found. Professionals' attitudes towards ethical issues clearly influence intentions. Moreover, this study illustrates the potential influence of social factors in attitude formation. Future research should explore the factors in the public accounting domain that most strongly influence attitude formation. This study suggests that the theory of reasoned action oers a useful framework for exploring these issues. (shrink)

There has been a strong tendency in recent years, in countries such as Australia and the United States, for governmental and corporate spokespersons to present advice and information that comes from independent scientific sources as if it were no better grounded than that from any other source. Such a leveling out of all advice and information into mere “opinion” has been a key strategy in the assertion of corporate and governmental control over public debate and policy. In this paper, we (...) aim to explore some of the factors that diminish the credibility and reliability of information within organizational structures, effectively undermining the value of that information; we argue for the importance of processes like those of peer review in maintaining the credibility and reliability of information that is so important to effective action and decision; and we also provide an analysis of the rationale that underpins such processes. One of our conclusions will be that processes like those of peer review succeed largely because of the way in which they depend upon, but also support, the dispersal of information and authority within an organizational structure so as to ensure both that information is accessible within the structure and also remains open to challenge and scrutiny. (shrink)

A study of 513 executives researched decisions involving ethics, relationships and results. Analyzing personal values, organization role and level, career stage, gender and sex role with decisions in ten scenarios produced conclusions about both the role of gender, subjective values, and the other study variables and about situational relativity, gender stereotypes, career stages, and future research opportunities.

This paper examines the relationship of ethical decision-making by individuals to corporate business ethics and organizational performance of three groups: SMEs, Outstanding SMEs and Large Enterprises, in order to provide a reference for Taiwanese entrepreneurs to practice better business ethics. The survey method involved random sampling of 132 enterprises within three groups. Some 524 out of 1320 questionnaires were valid. The survey results demonstrated that ethical decision-making by individuals, corporate business ethics and organizational performance are highly (...) related. In summary, then, high levels of organizational performance were directly attributable to high levels of applied corporate and individual ethics. Furthermore, there is a demonstrable tendency for Outstanding SMEs to reject ethically unsound practices such as padded expense accounts, tax evasion and misleading advertising. The measurement criteria used to assess organizational performance, however, did not include an objective evaluation of financial performance. (shrink)

Job candidates who possess characteristics likely to result in organizationally desired outcomes are valuable, yet not always easily identified. Offering validation support for selection tools that organizations can use to identify such candidates is therefore important. The present study examines the construct of psychological entitlement to determine if it can be used to identify individuals who are more likely to make sound ethical judgments in organizations. Specifically, we examine the relationship between psychological entitlement and ethical decision making, positing that (...) individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to make less ethical decisions and to use less ethical upward influence tactics than those with opposing characteristics. We administered a survey to 174 participants using the Multidimensional Ethics Scale, the Subordinate Influence Ethics Scale, and the Psychological Entitlement Scale. To test our hypotheses, we used hierarchical multiple regression. Results suggest that individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to consider unethical actions as ethical, given several scenarios. In addition, individuals with high levels of psychological entitlement are more likely to consider self‐serving and maliciously‐intended upward influence tactics as acceptable when used to advance in an organization. They are also less likely to consider pro‐organizational upward influence tactics to be acceptable when used to advance in organizations. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational ethical context and the individual ethical decision-making process. In addition, a new statistical approach combining cluster and discriminant analyses was developed to overcome violations of regression assumptions, which are commonly not identified and/or ignored in behavioral and psychological research. Using regressions and this new alternative method, the findings indicated that ethical context does indeed influence the various components of ethical reasoning. However, social desirability was the strongest (...) predictor of ethical decision making, which raises new concerns about how this bias can confound business ethics research. Finally, the findings showed that the alternative method provided more useful and interpretive results, indicating that it has the capacity to influence future empirical work in the field of business ethics, particularly when dealing with data that do not satisfy regression assumptions. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed, and several noteworthy suggestions for future research are provided. (shrink)

The business landscape today is characterized by looming global challenges like natural disasters, war, and industrial accidents throughout the world. However, there is limited research on describing how businesses operate and cope in extreme environments and whether principles of ethical decision-making can be used as guidelines in such situations. To address this gap we describe and analyze organizational and business responses to three different extreme environments, namely the fall 2012 Gaza conflict, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the (...) so-called triple disasters in Japan on March 11, 2011. We discuss moral issues surrounding helping one another with specific reference to criteria called the Kew Garden Principles and strategic corporate social responsibility. We conclude the paper with managerial and leadership implications for ethical decision-making in extreme situations. (shrink)

This article examines selected behavioral aspects of ethical decision making within a business context. Three categories of antecedents to ethical decision behaviors (individual differences, interpersonal variables, and organizational variables) are examined and propositions are offered. Moral development theory and expectancy theory are then explored as possible bases for a theory of ethical decision making. Finally, means of improving ethical decision making in firms are explored.

This article addresses one of the more disturbing questions raised by the major financial failures of the recent past; namely, how it could be that professionals, highly trained both in ethics and technical disciplines, should apparently collude with management in corporate misbehaviour. The article builds on evidence suggesting that professionals in employment contexts find ways of adapting in order to minimise perceived or actual conflict between their professional and organizational obligations and that this, in turn, may affect the way (...) in which they exercise professional judgment. It uses identity theory to propose that professionals may adopt modified identities when employed and that these identities may be expressed, in part, in the way in which they resolve ethical dilemmas. The article reports on the results of a qualitative study in which corporate counsel showed evidence of adopting these identities. The findings suggest that this line of research offers insight into a far more complex world of employed professionals than that traditionally hypothesised and that the popular approach of regulators and others to monitoring corporate governance by appointing professionals as gate-keepers within the organization is perhaps problematic. (shrink)

Recent allegations of unethical decision-making by leaders in prominent business organizations have jeopardized the world's confidence in American business. The purpose of this research was to develop a measure of managerial moral judgment that can be used in future research and managerial assessment. The measure was patterned after the Defining Issues Test, a widely used general measure of moral judgment. With content validity as the goal, we aimed to sample the domain of managerial ethical situations by establishing links to (...) dimensions of managerial performance, as well as to the types of organizational justice issues managers encounter. Proposed scenarios were evaluated for realism by ethics officers and human resource managers. Results indicated that the new measure is reliable and correlates with a number of relevant variables in the hypothesized manner, demonstrating evidence of construct validity. Implications for future research and for human resources management are discussed. (shrink)

BackgroundIn order to achieve the goals of the healthcare system, nursing managers are required to comply with ethical principles in decision-making. In complex and challenging healthcare settings, it is shown that the managers’ mere awareness of ethics does not suffice and managers need to be sensitive toward making ethical decisions.AimTo explore nursing managers and their sensitivity toward ethical decision-making by analyzing their related experiences.MethodThe current study has been conducted in Iran in 2017 through a qualitative content analysis approach. (...) Nineteen nurse managers were selected purposefully from different hospitals in Tehran. Data were collected using semi-structured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews, and after transcription, they were analyzed according to the Graneheim and Lundman method.Ethical considerationsThe research was approved by the ethics committee of Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Participants were informed about the purpose of the study and submitted written informed consents regarding their participation. The principle of autonomy, confidentiality, and anonymity was taken into account in data collection.ResultsFifteen subcategories, three categories (assertiveness, commitment, and insight), and one theme of excellent decision-making were the results of data analysis.DiscussionFindings showed that nursing managers’ sensitivity to ethical decision-making allows them to make the best decision by insight, commitment, and assertiveness. Making a morally excellent decision ensures that ethical principles are followed in the healthcare system.ConclusionConsidering that most managers are committed to making ethical decisions, it is required to develop the scope of their insights even further using a professional management and ethical principles training program. Also, by addressing some of the ethical barriers at personal and organizational levels, the assertiveness in managers can be improved, which in turn can facilitate their ethical decision-making. (shrink)

The current study uses a sensemaking model and thinking strategies identified in earlier research to examine ethical decision making. Using a sample of 163 undergraduates, a low-fidelity simulation approach is used to study the effects personal involvement (in causing the problem and personal involvement in experiencing the outcomes of the problem) could have on the use of cognitive reasoning strategies that have been shown to promote ethical decision making. A mediated model is presented which suggests that environmental factors (...) influence reasoning strategies, reasoning strategies influence sensemaking, and sensemaking in turn influences ethical decision making. Findings were mixed but generally supported the hypothesized model. It is interesting to note that framing the outcomes of ethically charged situations in terms of more global organizational outcomes rather than personal outcomes was found to promote the use of pro-ethical cognitive reasoning strategies. (shrink)

Decision-making is an integral part of business meetings in an organization. Research has suggested that a participant’s engagement in the decision-making process has direct relevance to his or her role in the team or organization. This study extends the investigation of communicative behavior in decision-making to a special meeting setting where all participants assume similar organizational roles and where there is no designated chair. In particular, it draws on conversation analytic methods and a recently developed framework (...) of participant roles to examine discursive strategies and discourse roles on a moment-by-moment basis in the process of consensus negotiation. Findings show that participants’ choices of discursive strategies and the display of discourse roles vary as the discussion proceeds. A limited range of discursive strategies and discourse roles are identified when the discussion fails to lead to consensus. Our analysis also suggests that certain discourse roles appear to have a greater impact on reaching consensus decisions. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of the factors that influence ethical behavioral intentions of public accountants. Recent scandals have dominated the news and have caused legislators, regulators and the public to question the role of the accounting profession. Legislative changes have brought about major structural changes in the profession and continued scrutiny will surely lead to further changes. Thus, developing an understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence ethical decisions is critical. An extension (...) of the theory of planned behavior [Ajzen, I.: 1985, Action Control-From Cognition to Behavior (Springer, Heidelberg)], the model used in this study examined the influence of personal, social and organizational factors on ethical intentions. Specifically, the individual level model tested direct effects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, moral sensitivity and ethical climate. Professionals from five accounting firms completed a survey that measured responses to ethical dilemmas related to the public accounting domain. To minimize the potential impact of common method bias, the survey instrument was administered in two phases. Hypotheses were evaluated using a structural modeling technique, partial least squares. Results show strong support for a direct relationship between attitudes and ethical intentions. The proposed direct effect of subjective norms was not supported. However, a significant relationship between subjective norms and attitudes was found. Professionals’ attitudes towards ethical issues clearly influence intentions. Moreover, this study illustrates the potential influence of social factors in attitude formation. Future research should explore the factors in the public accounting domain that most strongly influence attitude formation. This study suggests that the theory of reasoned action offers a useful framework for exploring these issues. (shrink)

Expert systems have been concerned with applications dealing with medical diagnosis, mineral exploration, and computer configuration, with some efforts relatively successful in achieving results at least as good as human experts. Today, much is being written about these systems and managerial decision-making activities in organizations and the positive impact that they can have in these situations. However, it appears that expert systems could become somewhat of a panacea for some organizational ailments as research, development, and marketing of them (...) continues at a fast pace. What may be forgotten in this technological thrust is the individual decision maker and his/her unique style of decision making which could affect acceptance and use of these systems. Another important consideration is the attitude people have toward computers and computer systems, which along with decision-making styles could certainly affect expert system effectiveness and ultimate success in organizations. This paper provides a discussion of potential problems that could occur regarding individual decision making and attitudes and their relationships to these systems. (shrink)

Background: Moral decision-making consists of a complex process requiring individuals to evaluate potential consequences of personal and social decisions, including applied organizational contexts.Methods: This research aims to investigate the behavioral (offer responses and reaction times, RTs) and electrophysiological (EEG) correlates underlying moral decision-making during three different choice conditions (professional fit, company fit, and social fit) and offers (fair, unfair, and neutral).Results: An increase of delta and theta frontal activity (related to emotional behavior and processes) and beta frontal (...) and central activity (linked to cognitive and attentional processes) was found. A left beta, delta, and theta frontal activity was observed for fair offers in professional fit conditions, while increased right frontal delta and theta activity was found in response to unfair offers in company fit conditions. Also, an increase of left delta and theta parietal activity for unfair offers in social fit condition was detected. Finally, higher accepted responses were found for fair and neutral offers in professional and social fit conditions, with increased RTs for unfair offers suggesting decisions’ cognitive load and complexity.Conclusions: By revealing a greater involvement of left and right frontal areas in decision-making processes based on choices and offers, personal interest evaluations and emotional values, and of parietal areas in more prosocial and altruistic moral behavior, current findings provide information about the neural and behavioral correlates underlying company moral behavior. (shrink)

Introduction Ethical climate in medical contexts is referred to the organizational environment consisting of medical staff interpersonal relationships regarding patient care. This element affects staff behavior in an organization. The investigation and comparison of the effects of the interventions promoting ethical climate are among important nursing challenges that should be considered by researchers. The present study was conducted to compare the effect of nurses’ ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication training on their ethical climate. Materials and methods This (...) experimental study was performed on 90 nurses working in the general teaching hospitals of Mashhad, Iran. The sampling process was conducted in two stages. Nurses were divided into three groups: intervention 1, intervention 2 and control group. The intervention was separate 12-h workshops for each of the intervention groups. The ethical climate questionnaire by Victor and Cullen was used to assess the score of ethical climate in the three groups both at the beginning and 4 weeks after the workshop. The data were analyzed in Statistical Package for Social Sciences software using descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Kruskal–Wallis, paired sample t-test, Wilcoxon test, and post hoc Tukey’s test. Ethical considerations were as follows: The study design was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Informed consent was obtained from all subjects, and they were ensured about the confidentiality terms. Results The mean scores of the ethical climate test at the first stage were obtained as 66.0 ± 5.5, 67.8 ± 6.9, and 67.7 ± 7.2 in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups, respectively. Accordingly, the three groups were not significantly different in terms of this variable. However, after the intervention, a significant difference was observed among the three groups regarding the mean scores of the ethical climate test In this regard, the calculated mean scores in the ethical decision-making, interpersonal communication, and control groups were 99.3 ± 6.3, 90.4 ± 7.7, and 67.4 ± 7.9, respectively. Conclusion Training workshops about ethical decision-making skills and interpersonal communication on the ethical professional climate of nurses was effective. Nonetheless, the effect of ethical decision-making skill training was found to be higher than interpersonal communication skill training. Therefore, it is recommended that nursing managers hold training workshops to improve the ethical climate for nurses. (shrink)

A model is presented which describes the process decision-makers follow when faced with problems containing ethical dimensions. The model, based upon the empirical literature, is designed to provide guidance to researchers studying ethical behavior in business. The model portrays the decision-maker with a set of personal values which are mediated by elements of the organization's culture. The combination of personal values and organizational influences yields decisions which may be significantly different from those made based upon personal values (...) alone. Inclusion of the personal values of the decision-maker as the dominant individual input and an explicit discussion of the ethical decision process make this model more comprehensive than other recent ethics models. (shrink)