The Impact of Ethical Ideologies,Moral Intensity,and Social Context on Sales-Based Ethical Reasoning

Previous research indicates that ethical ideologies, issue-contingencies, and social context can impact ethical reasoning in different business situations. However, the manner in which these constructs work together to shape different steps of the ethical decision-making process is not always clear. The purpose of this study was to address these issues by exploring the influence of idealism and relativism, perceived moral intensity in a decision-making situation, and social context on the recognition of an ethical issue and ethical intention. Utilizing a sales-based scenario and multiple ethics measures included on a self-report questionnaire, data were collected from a regional sample of business students, most of whom had modest work experience. The results indicated that perceived moral intensity was associated with increased ethical issue recognition and ethical intention. Idealism was also associated with increased ethical issue recognition, and relativism was associated with decreased ethical intention. Social consensus was positively related to ethical issue recognition and intention, while competitive context was inversely related to ethical intention. Finally, ethical issue recognition was associated with increased ethical intention. Idealism, moral intensity, social consensus, and work experience worked together as predictors of ethical issue recognition, whereas recognition of an ethical issue, relativism, moral intensity, social consensus, and competitive context worked together to predict ethical intention.     

Ethical Decision Making in a Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Situation: The Role of Moral Absolutes and Social Consensus

Individuals are downloading copyrighted materials at escalating rates (Hill 2007; Siwek 2007). Since most materials shared within these networks are copyrighted works, providing, exchanging, or downloading files is considered to be piracy and a violation of intellectual property rights (Shang et al. 2008). Previous research indicates that personal moral philosophies rooted in moral absolutism together with social context may impact decision making in ethical dilemmas; however, it is yet unclear which motivations and norms contextually impact moral awareness in a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing context (Shang et al. 2008). In sum, factors affecting the decision to share copyrighted material require further clarification and investigation (Shang et al. 2008). The purpose of this study was to use a consumer-based scenario and multiple ethics measures to explore how idealism, formalism, and perceived social consensus impact users’ propensity to recognize that the sharing of copyrighted media through P2P networks was an ethical issue and their subsequent ethical intentions. Results showed that high levels of idealism and formalism were associated with an increased recognition that file sharing was an ethical issue, but neither construct had a direct effect on ethical intention. Strong social consensus among respondents that other people consider file sharing to be unethical was also positively related to the recognition that file sharing was an ethical issue, and ethical recognition was a moderate predictor of intention not to engage in file sharing. Finally, a post hoc mediation analysis indicated that idealism, formalism, and social consensus operated through recognition of an ethical issue to impact ethical intention (indirect-only mediation).     

The role of moral intensity in moral judgments: An empirical investigation

Jones (1991) has proposed an issue-contingent model of ethical decision making by individuals in organizations. The distinguishing feature of the issue was identified as its moral intensity, which determines the moral imperative in the situation. In this study, we adapted three scenarios from the literature in order to examine the issue-contingent model. Findings, based on a student sample, suggest that (1) the perceived and actual dimensions of moral intensity often differed; (2) perceived moral intensity variables, in the aggregate, significantly affected an individual's moral judgments; and (3) some dimensions of moral intensity (namely, perceived social consensus and perceived magnitude of consequences) mattered more than others.Sara A. Morris is Assistant Professor of Management at Old Dominion University. Her current research examines corporate codes of ethics, attitudes about corporate social responsibility, and the relationship between corporate social and financial performance.Robert A. McDonald is a doctoral candidate in organizational studies at the State University of New York at Albany. His research interests include ethical decision making, characteristics of moral dilemmas, and leadership power and influence tactics.     

Judging the morality of business practices: The influence of personal moral philosophies

Individuals' moral judgments of certain business practices and their decisions to engage in those practices are influenced by their personal moral philosophies: (a) situationists advocate striving for the best consequences possible irrespective of moral maxims; (b) subjectivists reject moral guidelines and base judgments on personal values and practical concerns; (c) absolutists assume that actions are moral, provided they yield positive consequences and conform to moral rules; (d) exceptionists prefer to follow moral dictates but allow for exceptions for practical reasons. These variations, which are based on two fundamental dimensions (concern for principles and concern for promoting human welfare) influence a variety of moral processes and have implications for ethical debates over business practices.Donelson R. Forsyth is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. A social psychologist, his three major interests are affective and attributional reactions in interpersonal, education, and clinical settings, individual differences in ethical ideology, and the dynamics of interacting groups. He is the author of numerous journal articles, as well as several books dealing with social psychology, group processes, and health.     

The Effect of Organizational Culture and Ethical Orientation on Accountants' Ethical Judgments

This paper examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture in two large international CPA firms, auditors' personal values and the ethical orientation that those values dictate, and judgments in ethical dilemmas typical of those that accountants face. Using an experimental task consisting of multiple judgments designed to vary in "moral intensity" (Jones, 1991), and unique as well as tried-and-true approaches to variable measurements, this study examined the judgments of more than three hundred participants in our study. ANCOVA and path analysis results indicate that: (1) Ethical judgments in situations of high moral intensity are affected by personal values and by environmental variables, such as the professional code of conduct (direct and indirect effects) and previous ethics instruction (direct effect only). (2) Corporate ethical culture, and a relatively strong firm rules-orientation, affect auditors' idealism but not relativism, and therefore indirectly affect ethical judgments. Jones' (1991) moral intensity argument is supported: differences in the characteristics of specific judgment tasks apparently result in different decision processes.     

The role of moral intensity and moral philosophy in ethical decision making: a cross‐cultural comparison of China and the European Union

The present study uses cross‐cultural samples of marketing practitioners from two European Union (EU) nations (the United Kingdom and Spain) and China to examine the relationships between moral intensity, personal moral philosophies and ethical decision making. Additionally, cross‐cultural comparisons were made regarding intentions, personal moral philosophies and moral intensity. Results indicate that both samples tend to use the perceived harm construct (e.g. magnitude of consequences, probability of effect, temporal immediacy and concentration of effect) to determine intentions in situations involving ethical issues. However, social consensus tends to be situation‐specific for both groups and proximity seems not to be used at all when making decisions in situations involving ethics. As for personal moral philosophies, idealism is only used by the EU sample; however, for both samples, the use of relativism depends upon the specific situation.     

A Multidimensional Analysis of Tax Practitioners' Ethical Judgments

This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions of the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances.     

Ethical human resource management mitigates the positive association between illegitimate tasks and employee unethical behaviour

Drawing on social cognitive theory and social information processing theory, we developed a moderated mediation model in which moral disengagement was theorised as a unique mechanism to explain why employees engage in unethical behaviours after performing illegitimate tasks. Ethical human resource management (HRM) was proposed as a boundary condition that influences this mechanism. We tested the model using time-lagged supervisor–subordinate matched data. The results showed that moral disengagement mediated the relationship between illegitimate tasks and unethical behaviours, and that this relationship was weaker when ethical HRM was perceived to be high level rather than low level. Thus, our hypotheses were supported. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Contingent Work and Its Contradictions: Towards a Moral Economy Framework

This article proposes the lens of moral economy as a useful ethical framework through which to assess HRM practice, with a particular focus on the strategic use of contingent work (??non-standard?? employment practices including temporary, agency and outsourced work). While contingent work practices have a variety of impetuses we focus here on their strategic use in the pursuit of economic and flexibility goals. A review of the contingent work literature conveys mixed messages about its outcomes for individuals, and more opaquely, for organisations: on the one hand transferring risks yet on the other, creating opportunities. A moral economy lens views employment as a relationship rooted in a web of social dependencies, and considers that ??thick?? relations produce valuable ethical surpluses that represent mutuality and human flourishing. Applying such an approach to the analysis of contingent work enables a fresh interpretation of contradictory individual and collective outcomes observed in the research literature. We suggest that evaluations informed by moral economy offer a more holistic appraisal of HRM practices such as contingent work, where both economic and social opportunities and costs can be more fully seen. In this way we not only highlight the ethical inadequacies of neglecting the human in HRM but also the conceptual pitfalls of analytically separating the economic from the social.     

伦理问题、道德强度与供应商伦理管理

供应商的伦理问题涉及人权、环境、多样化、慈善与安全等方面,不同伦理问题的道德强度不同,企业决策者对供应商不同伦理问题的重视程度也不同。运用层次分析法,给出道德强度的结果严重度、社会共识、结果发生可能性、时间急迫性、接近性、结果集中度等六个维度的相对权重,根据道德强度各维度的相对重要性,对供应商不同的伦理权重进行排序。     

Does consumer‐firm affiliation matter? The impact of social distance on consumers’ moral judgments

When the leader of a firm commits a professional transgression, how would customers’ judgments of the transgressor's professional performance and immorality differ from those of noncustomers’? This research answers this question by investigating factors that explain the discrepancy in moral judgments between noncustomers and customers affiliated with the firm of a transgressing leader. Drawing on construal level theory, our two experimental studies consistently demonstrate that relative to high social distance (i.e., noncustomers), low social distance (i.e., customers) leads to more positive judgments of the transgressor's professional performance, but differences in the social distance do not directly lead to disparities in judgments of immorality. Social distance, however, affects both performance and immorality judgments when mediating mechanisms (conscious and nonconscious moral reasoning) are accounted for, such that low social distance indirectly influences customers to be more lenient in not only their performance judgments but also their immorality judgments. This research contributes to the topic of morality that permeates the current discourse on ethical business transgressions and, in particular, to an understanding of specific mechanisms that guide consumers’ moral judgments.     

The Impact of Personal Gains on Cognitive Dissonance for Business Ethics Judgments

When managers make business ethics judgments, the decisioninevitably has impact on them. Sometimes managers reluctantly putorganizational profit as their first priority and make decisions against personal values. Howmanagers are affected by their business ethics judgments has rarely been examined. The purposeof this paper is to explore such an issue.Cognitive dissonance experienced by managers after makingbusiness ethics judgments is studied in this paper. It is hypothesized that thedegree of cognitive dissonance experienced by managers after making business ethicsjudgment is contingent upon (1) the nature of the judgment (ethical or unethical); (2)the magnitude of personal gains involved in the situation; and (3) managers' moraldevelopment.Two hundred and thirty-eight managers who attendednon-degree graduate management classes offered by a university participated in thisstudy. A business ethics situation of unfair competition with different amount of personalgains was used in this study. First, participants were asked to make a business ethicsjudgment about one of the situations. After making the judgment, cognitive dissonance andmoral development were measured for the participants. The analysis revealed thatan interaction effect was found for the three hypothesized independent variables. Generally speaking, however, the degree of cognitive dissonance experienced by managers wassignificantly affected mainly by their moral development.     

Human Resource Management in a Compartmentalized World: Whither Moral Agency?

This article examines the potential for moral agency in human resource management practice. It draws on an ethnographic study of human resource managers in a global organization to provide a theorized account of situated moral agency. This account suggests that within contemporary organizations, institutional structures??particularly the structures of Anglo-American market capitalism??threaten and constrain the capacity of HR managers to exercise moral agency and hence engage in ethical behaviour. The contextualized explanation of HR management action directly addresses the question of whether HRM is inherently unethical. The discussion draws on MacIntyre??s (Philosophy 74:311?C329, 1999, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, Duckworth, 2000) conceptualization of moral agency within contemporary social structures. In practice, HR managers embody roles that may not be wholly compartmentalized. Alternative institutional structures can provide HR managers with a vocabulary of motives for people-centred HRM and widen the scope for the exercising of moral agency, when enacted within reflective relational spaces that provide milieus for critical questioning of logics and values. This article aims to contribute to and extend debate on whether HRM can ever be ethical, and provide a means of reconnecting business ethics with longstanding concerns in critical management studies.     

Multinational corporate social responsibility,ethics, interactions and Third World governments: An agenda for the 1990s

A critical literature on mulitnational corporate social responsibility has developed in recent years. Many authors addressed the issue in the Third World countries. This paper reviews the literature, focusing on the relationship between the multinational corporations (MNCs) and Third World governments in fulfilling the social responsibility, based on the underlying ethical imperative.There is a growing consensus that both corporations and governments should accept moral responsibility for social welfare and individual interests in their economic transactions. A collaborative relationship is proposed where the MNCs share information based on global experiences and offer input into host government developmental policies, and aid their implementation. The government, in turn, provides a reasonable regulatory environment. This calls for ongoing interactions among officials at all levels of the two institutions, with the local corporate subsidiary playing a pivotal role. The desired conduct of the parties is reinforced by international organizations and other constituents, representing common human concerns across cultures. These relationships are examined and an agenda for policy and action by the MNCs and the Third World governments is developed.The accelerated growth in the number of multinational corporations (MNCs) and their worldwide scope, with concentration of economic and political power draws attention to corporate social responsibility. Furthermore, a meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1987, with delegates from 141 developed and developing countries concluded with a major agreement.Sita C. Amba-Rao professional interests involve Human Resource Management (HRM) and Organizational Development. She taught Business and Society, and her research on business social responsibility includes a publication on the Union Carbide accident in India. Amba-Rao had worked in Indian Industry. She will be conducting a field study in India on comparative HRM and managerial values.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association for the Advancement of Policy Research and Development in the Third World (APRDT) at Mexico City in November, 1990.     

Using Social Identity Theory to Predict Managers’ Emphases on Ethical and Legal Values in Judging Business Issues

The need to fill three gaps in ethics research in a business context sparked the current study. First, the distinction between the concepts of “ethical” and “legal” needs to be incorporated into theory building and empiricism. Second, a unifying theory is needed that can explain the variables that influence managers to emphasize ethics and legality in their judgments. Third, empirical evidence is needed to confirm the predictive power of the unifying theory, the discernable influence of personal and organizational variables, and the importance of the issue to the managers in determining their emphasis on the ethical and legal values of their judgments. Focused on these needs, the current research combines social identity theory with empirical findings from business ethics research. This theory building initiative framed hypothesis-driven research to investigate the influences on managers’ emphasis on ethical and legal values in making business judgments. An empirical research study was conducted involving 252 practicing managers who judged 12 newsworthy business events. Data was collected on the managers’ individual factors, on the groups that influence their judgments, and on the importance that the managers place on ethics and legality in judging the 12 scenarios. The research findings contribute to theory development (1) By successfully utilizing a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories to understand managers’ judgments, and (2) By providing evidence on the relationships between the perceived importance of an issue and the emphases managers place on ethical and legal values in their judgments. The analysis of the data was extended to provide insights on the needs of employers to tailor management training on legal and ethical decision-making. The participating managers were clustered according to their emphases on Ethical Importance and Legal Importance in judging business situations. Analysis of Variance was then combined with Scheffé Multiple Comparison Tests to assess whether the factors derived from a blended extension of social identity and issue-contingent theories were significantly different across the clusters. The product of this analysis is unique sets of attributes that describe each cluster of managers, and provide an empirical basis for determining training priorities. Finally, the carefully constructed and thoroughly tested 12 research scenarios that form the core of the survey instrument enable their redeployment in subsequent research and their use by practicing executives who wish to compare data provided by their managers to results from the study participants.     

Ethical ideology and ethical judgment regarding ethical issues in business

Differences in ethical ideology are thought to influence individuals' reasoning about moral issues (Forsyth and Nye, 1990; Forsyth, 1992). To date, relatively little research has addressed this proposition in terms of business-related ethical issues. In the present study, four groups, representing four distinct ethical ideologies, were created based on the two dimensions of the Ethical Position Questionnaire (idealism and relativism), as posited by Forsyth (1980). The ethical judgments of individuals regarding several business-related issues varied, depending upon their ethical ideology.Tim Barnett is Assistant Professor of Management at Louisiana Tech University. He has published in such journals asPersonnel Psychology, theJournal of Business Research, andHuman Relations. His research interests include ethical decision making and ethical issues in HRM.Ken Bass is Assistant Professor of Management at East Carolina State University. He has articles published in several journals, including theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. His research interests include ethical decision making, ethical strategy, and methodology.Gene Brown is Associate Professor Marketing at Louisiana Tech University. He is published in such journals as theJournal of Retailing, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, theJournal of Business Research, Psychology and Marketing, and Industrial Marketing Management. His main interests include personal selling, retailing, ethics, and methodology.     

Ethical Evaluations of Business Activities and Personal Religiousness

The study examines the relationship betweenmoral judgments of a business situation with ethicalcontent and personal religiousness. The findingssuggest that ethical interest and behaviour arerelated to religiousness. However, only the ethicalphilosophy of contractualism was found to be relatedto religiousness, while moral equity and relativismwere not.     

Determinants of Earnings Management Ethics Among Accountants

Earnings management behavior is a concern of standard-setters, regulators and the accounting profession. This study examines the ethics of this practice using a national sample of 763 accounting practitioners, faculty and students. Possible determinants of the ethics of this practice such as perceived role of ethics and social responsibility, and personal moral philosophies (i.e. idealism and relativism) are explored. Results indicate a positive relationship between social responsibility, focus on long-term gains, idealism, and the ethical perception of earnings management and negative relationship between focus on short-term gains, relativism and the ethical perception of this practice. Implications for the accounting profession as it deals with the issue of earnings management are discussed.     

Excessive risk exposure: A question of ethical decision-making

This commentary essay reflects on the article titled “When an irresistible force meets an immovable object: The interplay of agency and structure in the UK financial crisis” (Ashby et al., this issue). Specifically, managers took on excessive risk that ultimately contributed to financial crisis. This essay discusses whether the decision to accept excessive risk falls under ethical decision-making, including the degree of moral intensity as possibly perceived by risk and financial managers. The components for determining moral intensity include (1) magnitude of consequences, (2) social consensus, (3) probability of effect, (4) temporal immediacy, (5) proximity, and (6) concentration of effect.     

The role of moral intensity and fairness perception in judgments of ethicality: A comparison of managerial professionals and the general public

Using a scenario approach involving hypothetical moral decisions, the study aims to (1) compare managerial professionals' ethicality judgments with those made by the general public, and (2) ascertain the roles of perceived intensity (Jones, 1991) as well as perceived fairness of the moral issue in judgments of ethicality. While the two respondent groups made similar ratings on variables of moral intensity, fairness, and ethicality; the evaluation processes underlying their ethicality judgments were different. Empirically, the study has also established a link between judgments of fairness and judgments of ethicality.M. Singer is senior lecturer in Psychology at Canterbury University, New Zealand. She holds a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology and has published widely in academic journals. Her areas of interest include decision making, work motivation, social justice and selection issues.