Recent literature suggests that ethical leadership helps to inhibit followers’ unethical behavior, largely built on the premise that followers view ethical leaders as ethical role models and socially learn from them, thereby engaging in more ethical conduct. This premise, however, has not been adequately tested, leaving insufficient understanding concerning the conditions under which this social learning process occurs. In this study, we revisit this premise, theorizing that not all followers will equally regard the same ethical leader as being a personal (...) ethical role model, thereby bounding the leader’s effects in reducing followers’ unethical behavior. We integrate the role of follower self-concepts into social learning theory, hypothesizing that the extent followers emulate their ethical leaders is contingent on how they identify with ethics as well as the particular leader. We test our hypotheses with three-wave survey data collected from 214 employees, finding that ethical leaders are viewed as being role models only amongst followers higher in moral identity and leader identification, and that followers’ perceptions that the leader is an ethical role model mediated the effect of ethical leadership on followers’ unethical behavior. Interestingly, results for the full-model tests show that ethical leadership evokes unethical behavior amongst followers lower in both moral identity and leader identification. These results suggest that ethical leadership is not a universally useful practice to decrease unethical behavior and that a more nuanced understanding of its contingent effects needs to be better understood. (shrink)

Marketing communication executives are continuously confronted with dilemmas requiring moral deliberation. To better understand morality, media ethicists have applied moral psychology theory to und...

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Although there has been a proliferation of interest in sustainable business practice, recent research has identified concerns with the relative neglect of the social versus environmental aspects of sustainability. It is argued here that due to its reliance on internally held, concrete and intrinsically motivated forms of responsiveness, as well as its ability to be authentically social versus parochial in nature, that the ethical construct of “embodied care” (Hamington, Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Feminist Ethics, 2004 ) has (...) particular relevance as one path through which responsiveness to the human aspects of sustainable business practice might occur. Consideration is given to care as both an individual and organizational level construct. Business case examples are offered and directions for future research described. (shrink)

Abstract:Moral imagination is a reasoning process thought to counter the organizational factors that corrupt ethical judgment. We describe the psychology of moral imagination as composed of the four decision processes identified by Rest (1986), i.e., moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral intention, and moral behavior. We examine each process in depth, distilling extant psychological research and indicating organizational implications. The conclusion offers suggestions for future research.The majority of men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others—terribly objective sometimes—but the real (...) task is in fact to be objective toward one’s self and subjective toward all others. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAdvertising and public relations executives claim the rules for ethical practices are changing. On the basis of 29 in-depth interviews with advertising and public relations executives, and an analysis guided by identity theories and moral justifications, new insights address the most pressing issues faced today, greater opportunities to behave unethically, and the lack of ethics training received. Some of the executives perceive a personal responsibility to be ethical, whereas others adopted a self-interested attitude by suggesting it’s the publishers’ or consumers’ (...) responsibility to make ethical decisions. Emerging marketing practices have increased the need for more ethics training and more sophisticated perspectives on professionalism and virtuous behavior that are also flexible enough to apply to envelope-pushing strategies. (shrink)

This study introduces the concept of moral imagination in a work context to provide an ethical approach to the controversial relationships between dirty work and dirty workers. Moral imagination is assessed as an essential faculty to overcome the stigma associated with dirty work and facilitate the daily work lives of workers.The exercise of moral imagination helps dirty workers to face the moral conflicts inherent in their tasks and to build a personal stance toward their occupation. Finally, we argue that organizations (...) with dirty work groups should actively adopt measures to encourage their employees' exercise of moral imagination. This study investigates how organizations might create conditions that inspire moral imagination, particularly with regard to the importance of organizational culture as a means to enhance workers' moral sensitivity. Furthermore, this investigation analyzes different company practices that may derive from a culture committed to moral imagination. (shrink)

Role models can be highly influential in conveying ethical standards. This study investigates the influence various categories of role models have had on a population of over 1,600 undergraduate students in Texas, Oregon and Michigan. Those identifying clergy, boy scout leaders, friends and college advisors as role models exhibited less willingness to adopt questionable ethical behavior in negotation situations. Journalist and spouse role models tended to cause students to be more accepting of questionable behavior. Individuals with strong end-result and social (...) contract ethical philosophies, as well as males and those who served in the military exhibited strong tendencies toward less than ethical behavior. Individuals with strong rule ethical philosophy, high levels of religiousity, and those with a cooperative attitude in negotiations tended to adopt higher ethical standards in negotiations. (shrink)

Although much of the growing literature on organizational identity implicitly recognizes the normative nature of identity, the ethical implications of organizational identity work and talk have not yet been explored in depth. Working from a meta-ethical perspective, we claim that the dynamic, processual, and temporal activities recently associated with organizational identity always have an ethical dimension, whether "good" or "bad." In order to describe the ethical dimensions of organizational identity, we introduce the balance theory of practical wisdom as a theoretical (...) framework, and connect this theory to existing organizational identity concepts. We present an empirical case focused on an international paint company to illustrate the relevance of this theory for empirical organizational identity research. Our intention is to expand existing theory by bringing an aspect of organizational identity that has been tangentially acknowledged to the forefront, and by identifying it as a fruitful avenue for future theory development as well as empirical research. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to help educators and managers learn about a variety of win—win solutions to problems with ethical dimensions. The hope is that the larger the variety of win-win solutions we can consider, the higher the probability that we can find at least one that satisfies both ethical and material concerns. This article is motivated by the experiences of managers who have found that they need win-win solutions because it is very difficult to effectively advocate ethical (...) solutions to problems that lose money or do not make money for their organizations. The purpose of the article is not to build theory or a theoretical taxonomy of winwin solutions, but to gather from eclectic theoretical and applied sources a variety of win-win solutions that can help solve problems with ethical dimensions. Examples of the types of win—win solutions are illustrated. Ethical problems with win—win solutions are also considered. (shrink)

ABSTRACTSenior public relations executives prefer rational approaches such as research, case studies, and legitimacy appeals when raising ethical concerns to more senior leaders. However, women were more likely than men to seek allies and form coalitions as means for influence. Through in-depth interviews with 34 members of the Public Relations Society of America College of Fellows, this study provides new insights regarding successful and unsuccessful attempts at providing ethics counsel. The role of ethical conscience in public relations was explored through (...) the lens of organizational power and social influence theories. Implications for practice are discussed. (shrink)

The 2017 Commission on Public Relations Education report found new professionals are not meeting employers’ expectations regarding ethics knowledge, skills and abilities. This mixed-method s...

Current frameworks on ethical decision-making process have some limitations. This paper argues that the consideration of moral competencies, understood as moral virtues in the workplace, can enhance our understanding of why moral character contributes to ethical decision-making. After discussing the universal nature of four moral competencies (prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance), we analyse their influence on the various stages of the ethical decision-making process. We conclude by considering the managerial implications of our findings and proposing further research.

Mentoring is a natural setting for senior employees to render ethics advice and consultation to junior employees. Two studies examined the question of whether those who mentor are more practically wise than those who do not. Although four different measures of practical wisdom were used, no differences were detected. However, mentors were shown to be more politically skilled than non-mentors.

ABSTRACT:Practical wisdom has received scant attention in business ethics. Defined as a disposition toward cleverness in crafting morally excellent responses to, or in anticipation of, challenging particularities, practical wisdom has four psychological components: knowledge, emotion, thinking, and motivation. People's experience, reflection, and inspiration are theorized to determine their capacity for practical wisdom-related performance. Enhanced by their abilities to engage in moral imagination, systems thinking, and ethical reframing, this capacity is realized in the form of wisdom-related performance. This can be manifested (...) either in wise business decisions or through their performance as mentors, advice givers, or dispute handlers. (shrink)

Focusing on the virtue-ethics tradition, this article analyzes the practice of networking within the business context. First, it distinguishes three types of networking: utilitarian, emotional, and virtuous. Virtuous networking does not exclude utilitarian and emotional networking, but these latter forms should be practiced with reciprocity. It is argued that virtuous networking requires (1) acting with good faith, sharing honest goals, and participating in licit activities; (2) sharing information, knowledge, and resources with reciprocity and even with gratuity; (3) serving with justice (...) in asymmetrical power relationships; and (4) exercising a positive ethical influence within the network. Specific forms of unethical behavior in the practice of networking include (1) bad faith or abuse of trust, (2) opportunism, (3) abuse and misuse of power, (4) network cronyism, (5) networking as disguised bribery, and (6) cooperating in the wrongdoing of other actors of the network. The article concludes with some remarks about the role of ethics in social networks. (shrink)

Quality is commonly applied to products and processes, but we can also define human quality in dealing with people. This requires first establishing what treatment is appropriate to the human condition. Through an inquiry into the characteristics that define the human being and what ethical requirements constitute a good treatment, we define “Human Quality Treatment” as dealing with persons in a way appropriate to the human condition, which entails acting with respect for their human dignity and rights, caring for their (...) problems and legitimate interests, and fostering their personal development. With this in mind, we can distinguish between five different levels or degrees of HQT in organizations which can be characterized by the following terms: maltreatment, indifference, justice, care, and development. (shrink)

This paper formulates a vision for leadership based on integrity in business, banking, government and politics. It proposes a tripartite response to the current grave difficulties affecting international finance and markets: a renewal of values and virtues, acceptance of the centrality of the human person, and appropriate recourse to key principles of Catholic social teaching, as articulated in Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. By considering Ireland’s “Celtic Tiger” period, particularly the actions of the Anglo Irish Bank, we show (...) how failures in leadership and integrity at all levels of Irish society, including business, politics, government, public sector and church, have eroded trust and damaged the reputation of key institutions. The paper presents plain suggestions for civic leaders on how putting people first can help restore trust, reputation, integrity and professionalism at local and global levels. (shrink)

Virtue ethics is generally recognized as one of the three major schools of ethics, but is often waylaid by utilitarianism and deontology in business and management literature. EBSCO and ABI databases were used to look for articles in the Journal of Citation Reports publications between 1980 and 2011 containing the keywords ‘virtue ethics’, ‘virtue theory’, or ‘virtuousness’ in the abstract and ‘business’ or ‘management’ in the text. The search was refined to draw lists of the most prolific authors, the most (...) cited authors, the most cited articles, and the journals with the most virtue ethics publications. This information allows one to chart how virtue ethics articles have evolved through the decades and to establish ‘schools’ or clusters of authors as well as clusters of themes. The results of this quantitative analysis of authors, ‘schools’, themes, and publications provide a foundation for the future study of virtue ethics in business and management, identifying its achievements and potentials. (shrink)

At the end of their article in the September 2014 issue of the Journal of Business Ethics, Douglas R. May, Matthew T. Luth, and Catherine E. Schwoerer state that they are “hopeful in outlook” about the “evidence that business ethics instructors are….able to encourage students…to develop the courage to come forward even when pressures in organizations dictate otherwise”. We agree with May et al. that it is essential to augment students’ moral courage. However, it seems overly optimistic to believe that (...) this improvement will result from any course in business ethics. Indeed, we question the appropriateness of their measure of moral courage and assert that business ethics educators must purposely design their courses to develop students’ moral courage. In particular, we advocate introducing business ethics students to works of literature featuring protagonists who exercise moral courage in organizations. Fiction provides rich accessible narratives that show students worlds beyond their experience, awaken their imaginations, and evoke their emotions. Further, we highlight morally courageous exemplars because they inspire the cultivation of character. Joining those who underscore the role of virtue in business ethics education, we argue that exposure to moral exemplars in fiction will help students to build the moral courage they need to carry out ethical decisions in the workplace. Results from 46 students at the end of an MBA ethics course featuring moral courage provide preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of our approach. (shrink)

Thus far, we know much more about the significant outcomes of perceived ethical leadership than we do about its antecedents. In this study, we focus on multiple types of ethical role models as antecedents of perceived ethical leadership. According to social learning theory, role models facilitate the acquisition of moral and other types of behavior. Yet, we do not know whether having had ethical role models influences follower perceptions of one’s ethical leadership and, if so, what kinds of role models (...) are important. We conducted a field study, surveying supervisors and their subordinates to examine the relationship between three types of ethical role models and ethical leadership: the leader’s childhood role models, career mentors, and top managers. We found that having had an ethical role model during the leader’s career was positively related to subordinate-rated ethical leadership. As expected, this effect was moderated by leader age, such that the relationship between career mentoring and ethical leadership was stronger for older leaders. Leader age also moderated the relationship between childhood models and ethical leadership ratings, such that having had childhood ethical role models was more strongly and positively related to ethical leadership for younger leaders. We found no effect for top management ethical role models. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

When a series of corporate scandals erupted soon after the collapse of the 1990s bull market in equities, policy makers and reformers chiefly responded by augmenting and refining the checks and balances surrounding publicly traded corporations. Through measures such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, securities regulations were intensified and corporate governance was tightened. In essence, reformers followed the tradition of modern political philosophy, developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, in its insistence that pro-social outcomes are best produced through (...) institutional mechanisms that harness self-interest. The empirical evidence, however, suggests the institutional approach will do little to prevent future ethical breakdowns. To corroborate this finding, we survey the literature on board composition, auditor consulting practices, shareholder activism, and executive compensation. Consequently, we look to another stream of political philosophy, the ancient tradition comprising Plato and Aristotle, which argues that social groupings, such as corporations, work best when led by individuals of good character. Applying the ancient view to modern commercial realities, the paper concludes that Benjamin Franklin's attempt to connect virtuous character with enlightened self-interest offers a compelling ethic for corporate leaders. (shrink)

Over the last 80 years, a major goal of medical educators has been to improve the quality of applicants to medical school and, hence, the resulting doctors. To do this, academic standards have been progressively strengthened. The Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) in the United States and the undergraduate science grade point average (GPA) have long been correlated with success in medical school, and graduation rates have been close to 100 percent for many years. Recent studies have noted that some (...) doctors having difficulties in practice were found to have had similar problems while in school. In this essay, we present a brief historical account of attitudes and approaches to admissions requirements, then discuss basic broad areas of accomplishment in clinical practice: academic mastery, clinical acumen, and professionalism. We then review data that suggest that lack of competency can often be detected very early in a student’s career and may or may not be immune to remediation efforts. We end with a recommendation for a course of action that upholds and fulfills the profession’s social responsibility. This will be a moral argument, defending an aggressive but equitable approach to maintaining both public accountability and trust. (shrink)