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Research Note and Review of the Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: Boundary Conditions and Extensions

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Abstract

In business ethics, there is a large body of literature focusing on the conditions, factors, and influences in the ethical decision-making processes. This work builds upon the past critical reviews by updating and extending the literature review found in Craft’s (J Bus Ethics 117(2):221–259, 2013) study, extending her literature review to include a total of 141 articles. Since past reviews have focused on categorizing results based upon various independent variables, we instead synthesize and look at the trends of these based upon the four ethical decision making categories: Awareness, Behavior, Judgment, and Intention. We focus on the moderation (30 studies) and mediation (23 studies) effects found within these studies and provide an in-depth analysis of future trends. Furthermore, we also highlight key statistical and methodological concerns, outline overarching trends, and directions of future research in empirical ethical decision making.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marketing, Seidman College of Business, Grand Valley State University, L. William Seidman Center 3116, 50 Front Ave. SW, Grand Rapids, MI, 49504, USA

    Kevin Lehnert

  2. Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Truman State University, 100 E. Normal St. VH 2324, Kirksville, MO, 63501, USA

    Yung-hwal Park

  3. John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University, 3674 Lindell Blvd., Davis-Shaughnessy Hall, 334D, Saint Louis, MO, 63108, USA

    Nitish Singh

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Lehnert, K., Park, Yh. & Singh, N. Research Note and Review of the Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: Boundary Conditions and Extensions. J Bus Ethics 129, 195–219 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2147-2

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