This paper synthesises the research related to managing conflict of interests in professional accounting firms. The main purpose is to provide information about the current state of knowledge on this topic and to highlight the areas requiring further research. The extant research has been reviewed by developing a framework through the integration of Risk Management Framework by ISO 31000:2009 and the International Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. Specifically, literature has been classified across the establishment of context, assessment, treatment, control (...) and monitoring of conflict of interests. The literature reveals that there is a lack of understanding about how the conflict of interests operates at the level of an individual accounting professional. Addressing this gap will help to develop behavioural interventions for strengthening the professionals’ independence in fact and, thereby, facilitating the management of conflict of interests. The key message this synthesised research provides for professional accounting firms and the regulators is that, for effective management of conflict of interests, behavioural interventions should be informed by the professionals’ unconscious as well as their conscious cognitive processes. This study is the first one to view the conflict of interests in a professional accounting environment through the lens of behavioural risk management. Moreover, the framework adopted for reviewing the extant literature provides a comprehensive view of the issues surrounding the ineffective management of the conflict of interests. (shrink)

The ethical ideologies of psychologists and physicians were compared using the Ethics Position Questionnaire. The findings reveal that psychologists tend to be less relativistic than physicians. Further, we explored the degree to which physicians and psychologists report being influenced by a variety of factors in their ethical decision making. Psychologists were more influenced by their code of ethics and less influenced by family views, religious background, and peer attitudes than were physicians. We argue that these differences reflect the varied professional (...) cultures in which practitioners are trained and socialized. (shrink)

Emergency care providers regularly deal with ethical dilemmas that must be addressed. In comparison with in-hospital nurses, emergency medical service personnel are faced with more problems such as distance to resources including personnel, medico-technical aids, and information; the unpredictable atmosphere at the scene; arriving at the crime scene and providing emergency care for accident victims and patients at home. As a result of stressfulness, unpredictability, and often the life threatening nature of tasks that ambulance professionals have to deal with every (...) day, ethical decision-making has become an inevitable challenge. The content analysis approach was used to conduct the present qualitative study in Iran. The participants consisted of 14 EMS personnel selected through purposive sampling, which continued until the data became saturated. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analyzed concurrently with their collection through the constant comparison method. The process of data analysis resulted in the emergence of 3 main categories “respecting client’s values”, “performing tasks within the professional manner”, “personal characteristic”, and the emergence of eight sub-categories signifying participants’ experiences with regard to EDM. According to the results, when EMS personnel are faced with ethical dilemmas, they consider the client’s values and professional dignity, and perform the assigned tasks within the framework of the regulation. The findings also suggest that pre-hospital care providers assess legal consequences before making any decision. Further studies should be conducted regarding the experiences of the subordinates and other related parties. (shrink)

Management accounting and control seeks to provide information that substantiates decision-making at all firm levels and thus may also foster ethical decision-making. Against this background, this article presents a systematic literature review of research on management accounting and control and business ethics that has been published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Through this review, we intend to bring to the forefront a research topic that has been widely neglected in broader literature reviews on accounting ethics research and that has (...) been covered by a small number of articles published by traditional leading accounting journals only. Our systematic literature review is guided by a theoretical framework that integrates the decision-facilitating and decision-influencing roles of management accounting and control information and the stages of the ethical decision-making process. Through this theoretical lens, we analyze 64 management accounting and control articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics over more than three decades. Synthesizing and structuring this research, we discuss prior accomplishments and elaborate on avenues for future research. (shrink)

Tournament-like promotion systems are the default in audit firms, which are generally internally owned professional partnerships. While awarding promotions in a contest-like fashion stimulates contestants’ motivation and productivity, it may also upset an organizations’ ethical climate and trigger ethically adverse behaviors. Since nearly all research on promotion tournaments in management has been conducted in public firms, little is known about how these incentive systems operate in professional partnerships. In this study, we analyze how the perception of the two controllable design (...) parameters of promotion tournaments—the relative pay spread between winners and losers and tournament breadth in terms of the number of contestants that compete for a prize—affects audit firm behavior. Survey results provide evidence that the tournament’s perceived breadth prompts adverse behavior, as it does in public firms. Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, the perceived pay spread has no significant effect on adverse behavior, but triggers desirable behaviors instead. Our study suggests that promotion tournaments indeed provide powerful incentives, but also that understanding the unintended consequences of these incentives on organizational ethical climates and behavior requires tournament theory to be contextualized when it is applied in new settings like internally owned professional partnerships. (shrink)

Background: Ascertaining the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision among academic nurse educators at work appears to be a challenge particularly in situations when they are faced with a need to solve an ethical problem and make a moral decision. Purpose: This study aims to investigate the relationship between ethical ideology, moral judgment, and ethical decision as perceived by academic nurse educators. Methods: A descriptive correlational research design was conducted at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. All academic (...) nurse educators were included in the study (N = 220). Ethical Position Questionnaire and Questionnaire of Moral Judgment and Ethical Decisions were proved reliable to measure study variables. Ethical considerations: Approval was obtained from Ethics Committee at Faculty of Nursing, Alexandria University. Privacy and confidentiality of data were maintained and assured by obtaining subjects’ informed consent. Findings: This study reveals a significant positive moderate correlation between idealism construct of ethical ideology and moral judgment in terms of recognition of the behavior as an ethical issue and the magnitude of emotional consequences of the ethical situation (p < 0.001; p = 0.031) respectively. Also, there is a positive significant moderate correlation between relativism construct of ethical ideology and overall moral judgment (p = 0.010). Approximately 3.5% of the explained variance of overall moral judgment is predicted by idealism together with relativism. Discussion: The findings suggest that variations in ethical position and ideology are associated with moral judgment and ethical decision. Conclusion: Organizations of academic nursing education should provide a supportive work environment to help their academic staff to develop their self-awareness and knowledge of their ethical position and promoting their ethical ideologies and, in turn, enhance their moral judgment as well as develop ethical reasoning and decision-making capability of nursing students. More emphasis in nursing curricula is needed on ethical concepts for developing nursing competencies. (shrink)

In this study, we propose and test a model of the effects of organizational ethical culture and organizational architecture on the perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers. This study also examines the relationship between organizational ethical culture and moral acceptability judgment, hypothesizing that moral acceptability judgment is an important stage in the ethical decision-making process. Based on a field study in one of the largest financial institutions in Europe, we found that organizational ethical culture was significantly related to the (...) perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers and to the moral acceptability judgment of this type of unethical behavior. No support was found for the claim that features of organizational architecture are associated with the perceived frequency of unethical behavior towards customers. This is the first study to document the differential effects of organizational architecture and organizational ethical culture on perceived unethical behavior of employees towards customers, in wholesale banking. Implications for managers and future research are discussed. (shrink)

The relationship between ethical ideology and job stress appears to be complex. This study is based on a model presented by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39:175, 1980), showing two dimensions (idealism and relativism) that play an important role in ethical evaluation and behavior. Based on a survey of 561 employees of hotel industry in India, ethical ideologies were found to be negatively associated with job stress. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and multiple regressions. The result (...) showed that relativism is negatively correlated with job stress. Further, it has been established that idealism and relativism interacted in such a way that there is a negative relationship between idealism and job stress when relativism is low and positive relationship when relativism is high. The findings imply that ethical ideology adversely influences the job stress in the organization. (shrink)

Most studies investigating the relationship between cultural constructs and ethical perception have focused on individual- and societal-level values without much attention to other type of cultural constructs such as social beliefs. In addition, we need to better understand how social beliefs are linked to ethical perception and the level of analysis at which social beliefs may best predict ethical perceptions. This research contributes to the cross-cultural ethical perception literature by examining the relationship of individual-level social cynicism belief, one of five (...) universally endorsed social beliefs, together with individual social dominance orientation and the perception of unethical behavior. By means of two studies, we examine these relationships across societies that significantly differ on societal-level social cynicism belief. Using 371 business students from Russia and the U.S. in Study 1 and 268 professionals from Portugal and the U.S. in Study 2, we found that individual-level social cynicism belief was positively associated with social dominance orientation. Social dominance orientation, in turn, mediated the relationship between individual social cynicism belief and the perception of unethical behavior. Although we found significant societal-level differences in social cynicism belief in both studies, the relationships between individual-level social cynicism belief, social dominance orientation, and the perception of unethical behavior were structurally equivalent across societies in both studies, suggesting that societal-level differences did not significantly affect these relationships. Implications for cross-cultural business ethics research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

This article reflects on context effects in the study of behavioral ethics and organizational justice. After a general overview, we review three key challenges confronting research in these two domains. First, we consider social scientific versus normative approaches to inquiry. The former aims for a scientific description, while the latter aims to provide prescriptive advice for moral conduct. We argue that the social scientific view can be enriched by considering normative paradigms. The next challenge we consider, involves the duality of (...) morally upright versus morally inappropriate behavior. We observe that there is a long tradition of categorizing behavior dichotomously rather than continuously. We conclude by observing that more research is needed to compare the dichotomous versus continuous perspectives. Third, we examine the role of “cold” cognitions and “hot” affect in making judgments of ethicality. Historically speaking, research has empathized cognition, though recent work has begun to add greater balance to affective reactions. We argue that both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together. After considering these three challenges, we then turn to our special issue, providing short reviews of each contribution and how they help in better addressing the three challenges we have identified. (shrink)

Prior research has demonstrated that accountants differ from the general population on many personality traits. Understanding accountants’ personality traits is important when these characteristics may impact professional behavior or ability to work with members of the business community. Our study investigates the relationship between Machiavellianism, ethical orientation, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias in Canadian accountants. We find that Canadian accountants score much higher on the Machiavellianism scale than U.S. accountants. Additionally, our results show a significant relationship between Machiavellianism and (...) relativism, idealism, anti-intellectualism, and social desirability response bias. Our results indicate that professional Canadian accountants may not share the same personality characteristics as U.S. accountants. We extend previous research investigating Canadian accountants, by explicitly recognizing the impact of social desirability response bias, and by including anti-intellectualism. (shrink)

The purpose of this work is to elaborate an empirically grounded mathematical model of the magnitude of consequences component of "moral intensity", 366, 1991) that can be used to evaluate different ethical situations. The model is built using the analytical hierarchy process and empirical data from the legal profession. One contribution of our work is that it illustrates how AHP can be applied in the field of ethics. Following a review of the literature, we discuss the development of the model. (...) We then illustrate how the model can be used to rank-order three well-known ethical reasoning cases in terms of the magnitude of consequences. The work concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research. Specifically we discuss how this work extends the previous work by Collins regarding the nature harm variable. We also discuss the contribution this work makes in the development of ethical scenarios used to test hypotheses in the field of business ethics. Finally, we discuss how the model can be used for after-action review, contribute to organizational learning, train employees in ethical reasoning, and aid in the design and development of decision support systems that support ethical reasoning. (shrink)

The purpose of the present study is to examine the attitudes of Portuguese chartered accountants with respect to questions of ethical nature that can arise in their professional activity. Respondents were asked to respond to the Ethics Position Questionnaire developed by Forsyth (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39(1), 175–184, 1980), in order to determine their idealism and relativism levels. Subsequently, they answered questions about five scenarios related to accounting practices, with the objective of measuring their ethical judgments. Based on (...) the idealism and relativism levels of our respondents, they were classified into one of four groups, representing different ethical ideologies (absolutism, exceptionism, subjectivism, and situationism). The results indicated that age was the major determinant of relativism. Contrary to previous research, older respondents revealed themselves significantly more relativistic than younger ones. Gender seems to be the most important determinant of ethical judgments; against expectations, men evidenced significantly stricter judgments than women in two of the five scenarios. Findings also indicated that respondents’ ethical judgments did not differ significantly based on their ethical ideology, supporting the idea that ethical ideology is not an important determinant of ethical judgments. (shrink)

A heterogeneous survey sample of for-profit, non-profit and government employees revealed that organizational factors but not personal characteristics were significant antecedents of misconduct and job satisfaction. Formal organizational compliance practices and ethical climate were independent predictors of misconduct, and compliance practices also moderated the relationship between ethical climate and misconduct, as well as between pressure to compromise ethical standards and misconduct. Misconduct was not predicted by level of moral reasoning, age, sex, ethnicity, job status, or size and type of organization. (...) Demographic variables predicted job satisfaction and organizational variables added significant incremental variance. Results suggest the importance of promoting a moral organization through the words and actions of senior managers and supervisors, independent of formal mechanisms such as codes of conduct. (shrink)

Our research’s aim is to assess the effect of cultural factors on business ethical decision-making process in a Western cultural context and in a non-Western cultural context. Specifically, this study investigates ethical perceptions, religiosity, personal moral philosophies, corporate ethical values, gender, and ethical intentions of U.S. and Moroccan business managers. The findings demonstrate that significant differences do exist between the two countries in idealism and relativism. Moroccan managers tend to be more idealistic than the U.S. managers. There is a strong (...) positive relationship between religiosity and idealism. There were mixed findings in examining the correlates of religiosity and various components of ethical intentions. Moroccan managers were more homogenous in their corporate ethical values than were the U.S. managers. The results demonstrate that (in general) idealism is a good predictor of ethical intentions and behaviors. Additionally, managers from the two countries differed in the degree of relationship between perceptions and intentions in three of the four scenarios. This study’s results confirm other research findings that, in general, female business managers have higher ethical sensitivity in terms of their ethical judgment than their male counterparts. Managerial implications are also discussed. (shrink)

This paper discusses the relevancy of a contingent factors model posited by Jones for conducting accounting ethics research. Using a sample of 37 experienced Australian auditing managers and partners of all of the ‘Big Four’ multinational accounting firms, we find that the contextual model developed by Jones can help guide accounting ethics research by isolating the contingent factors that affect ethical decision making. Moreover, we examine how the factors differ across different accounting settings. Implications for accounting ethics research and accounting (...) practice are then discussed. (shrink)

This study uses accounting professionals from an international setting to test the individualism and power distance cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede [Culture's Consequences 1980]. Six countries, which appropriately represented high and low values on the Hofstede dimensions, were chosen for the survey of ethical beliefs. Respondents from the six countries were requested to supply their agreement/disagreement with eight questionable behaviors associated with the work environment. Each of these behaviors contained an individualism and/or power distance cultural component for the responding accountants (...) to consider. The results of the cultural analysis indicated significance on five of the eight survey items. Results lend support for the presence of the individualism cultural element in the ethical responses of the accountants surveyed. (shrink)

This review summarizes and critiques the empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996–2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were published in top business journals during this period. Tables are included that summarize the findings by dependent variable – awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We compare this review with past reviews in order to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-making literature and to surface directions for future research.

This study investigated how decision-makers differ in processing their organizational environment, depending on the levels of their idealism and relativism. Focusing on socially responsible buying/sourcing issues, responses from buying/sourcing professionals from U.S. apparel and shoe companies were analyzed, using a series of regression analyses. The results generally supported the proposition that the degrees of idealism and relativism determine involvement levels that, in turn, result in varying levels of reactions to the organizational environment and corresponding amounts of information processing. Highly idealistic (...) individuals were influenced by only idealistic signals of organizational environment. Further analysis showed highly idealistic and relativistic individuals were more likely to evaluate the organizational environment in terms of its business merit. The results suggest that organizations need to carefully plan how to communicate underlying meanings of organizational initiatives with their employees, knowing that individuals who have strong ethical opinions will only react to what they believe and elaborate its value for business. Further theoretical and practical implications and suggestions are discussed. (shrink)

This paper re-frames business ethical codes as narrative processes by reflecting critically on key ontological assumptions underpinning the existing research, and introducing new and relevant concepts based on alternative assumptions. The first section draws on recent decision-making research to develop a theoretical account of BCEs as complex, socially embedded sensemaking processes. The second section addresses the content of codes, and differentiates between narrative and logico-scientific modes of reasoning. The third section focuses on the quality of code communication and identifies several (...) distinct types of narrative process. We provide research directions for how this new understanding of BCEs may be further developed, as well as implications for practitioners. In response to the call for new conceptual models, the paper provides organizational researchers with a more nuanced understanding of how BCEs enable or constrain ethical behavior in organizations. (shrink)

Moral responsibility for outcomes in corporate settings can be ascribed either to the individual members, the corporation, or both. In the latter case, the relationship between individual and corporate responsibility has been approached as inversely proportional, such that an increase in individual responsibility leads to a corresponding decrease in corporate responsibility and vice versa. In this article, we develop a non-proportionate approach, where, under specific conditions, individual and corporate moral responsibilities interact dynamically, leading to a mutual enhancement of responsibility: the (...) more the corporation is responsible, the more the individuals become responsible and vice versa. We develop this mutually enhancing approach in terms of normative ascriptions of responsibility, while leaving aside empirical implications in terms of mutual awareness of responsibility between individuals and corporations. We explore conceptually the conditions and mechanisms that generate this mutual enhancement and also discuss the implications for research and practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first objective is to examine the impact of an individual’s ethical ideology and level of professional commitment on the earnings management decision. The second objective is to observe whether the presence of a personal benefit affects an individual’s ethical orientation or professional commitment within the context of an opportunity to manage earnings. Using a sample of 375 undergraduate business majors, our results suggest a significant relationship between an individual’s ethical orientation and decision-making. (...) Further, participants with higher levels of professional commitment seem to be less likely to engage in earnings management behavior and less likely to behave opportunistically. These results have the potential to add to our understanding of certain behaviors in entry-level personnel and should be of interest to managers, practitioners, academicians, and researchers. (shrink)

This paper studies the relationship between organizational ethical climate and the forms of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), including in-role and extra-role behaviors, and examines the mediating effect of employee loyalty. A sample of employees from a traditional Hong Kong-based company was used as a study group. The purpose of this study was to examine the causes and implications of how various ethical work climates affect employee performance. Based on a model proposed by Victor and Cullen, ethical climate is arranged from (...) lower levels to higher levels. The results suggest that lower levels of ethical climate (instrumentality and independence), characterizing a weak relational contract between employee and employer, are associated with negative extra-role behavior. In contrast, higher levels of ethical climate (caring and law-and-code), symbolic of a strong relational contract at work, are associated with positive extra-role behavior. Moreover, normative commitment mediated a positive relationship between caring and identification with the company, whereas attitudinal loyalty mediated the negative relationship between independence and altruism. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

When investigating the impact of organizational ethical context on individual ethical decision-making, past work has reported mixed results, with some studies indicating that a strong ethical work environment is associated with increased ethical reasoning, and other studies indicating that such an environment has little to no influence on the way ethical issues are addressed. Given these contradictory findings, we utilize multiple theoretical perspectives to assess the degree to which employees’ perceptions of ethical values, ethical culture, and corporate social responsibility moderate (...) the relationship between their ethical issue recognition and ethical judgments. Data obtained from employees of a financial services firm located primarily in the Midwestern United States supported the research hypothesis, with organizational ethical context weakening the recognition–judgment linkage. Results are compared to prior studies, and the managerial and research implications of the findings are discussed, along with the study’s limitations and suggestions for future inquiry. (shrink)

This study provides an additional partial test of the Hunt-Vitell theory [1986, Journal of Macro-marketing, 8, 5-16; 1993, 'The General Theory of Marketing Ethics: A Retrospective and Revision', in N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing (Irwin Inc., Homewood), pp. 775-784], within the consumer ethics context. Using structural equation modeling, the relationships among an individual's personal values (conceptualized by the typology of Schwartz [1992, 'Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests (...) in 20 Countries', in M. P. Zanna (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 25, Academic Press, Orlando), pp. 1--65] ethical ideology and ethical beliefs are investigated. The validity of the model is assessed in a two-step procedure. First, a measurement model of constructs is tested for key validity dimensions. Next, the hypothesized causal relationships are examined in several path models, comparing no mediation, partial and complete mediation of ethical ideology. The empirical results indicate that individual differences in value priorities (resultant conservation and resultant self-enhancement) directly and indirectly (through idealism) influence the judgment of ethically questionable consumer practices. These findings may significantly contribute to the theoretical understanding of ethical decision-making. (shrink)

A public accounting firm’s ethical environment has an important role in encouraging ethical behavior, but prior research has shown that firm leaders perceive the ethical environment of their firms to be stronger than do non-leaders : 637–654, 2010). This study draws on several research streams in management to investigate the reasons behind this discrepancy. Our online questionnaire was completed by 139 accounting professionals. We find that when non-leader accounting professionals believe that they have a meaningful role in shaping and maintaining (...) the ethical environment and/or have strong organizational fit with the accounting firm, they are more likely to perceive the ethical environment as strong and to perceive it similarly to firm leaders. That is, differences in leaders’ and non-leaders’ perceptions of the ethical environment are mediated by non-leaders’ perceptions of their role in participating in shaping and maintaining the ethical environment of their firms. Further, we find that among firm leaders, a stronger public interest orientation and a higher frequency of receiving mentoring are both associated with stronger perceptions of the ethical environment. Overall, our study is one of the first to directly test potential explanations for why firm leaders and non-leaders can have disparate views of a firm’s ethical environment. In addition, these findings provide practical feedback to practitioners on actions they can take to improve perceptions of their firms’ ethical environment. (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 study of moral decision-making presents to us two approaches for understanding such choices. The cognitive and the neurocognitive approaches postulate that reason and reasoning determines moral judgments. On the other hand, the intuitionist approaches postulate that automated intuitions mostly dominate moral judgments. There is a growing concern that neither of these approaches by itself captures all the key aspects of moral judgments. This paper draws on models from neurocognitive research and social-intuitionist research areas to propose an integrative cognitive–intuitive model (...) of moral decision-making. The model suggests that moral decision-making includes five interdependent, yet functionally distinct steps, issue framing, pre-processing, moral judgment, moral reflection, and moral intent. The model proposes a cognitive–intuitive view of moral judgment and it describes how emotion regulation, perceived moral intensity, and perceived ethical climate constructs impact the formation of moral intent. The paper discusses the theories that link emotions to moral judgment and implications of the model for future research and its implication for managers. (shrink)

The aim of the present research is studying the relationship between the salespersons’ ethical philosophy and their ethical decision-making process and seeks to answer two fundamental questions: first, what is the ethical philosophy of salespersons? And second, how does the salespersons’ ethical philosophy affect their ethical decision-making process? Statistical population of this research is salespersons who have passed the sales training course at the Department of Commerce Research Centre. One hundred thirty-seven questionnaires of total 300 accessible populations were analyzed through (...) path analysis method. The findings indicate that most salespersons are idealists. Although this idealism affects the ethical judgment directly, but the effect of relativism on ethical intention is more considerable. (shrink)

This article explains how and why the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP), a 450-year-old approach to education, can serve as a framework for a modern principles-based ethics course in accounting. The IPP takes a holistic view of the world, combining five elements: context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. We describe the components of the IPP and discuss how they align with suggestions from prior research for providing principles-based ethics instruction in accounting. We conclude by describing how we used the IPP as (...) a framework to create a graduate-level accounting ethics course. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment and thus lead to higher organizational citizenship behaviors. This study uses hierarchical regression to understand which types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and the three components of organizational commitment influence different dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 nurses, and 352 usable questionnaires (...) were returned. The findings of the article suggest that hospitals can increase organizational citizenship behaviors by influencing an organization’s ethical climate, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations, the climate types of caring, law and code and rules climate, satisfaction with coworkers, and affective commitment and normative commitment that increase organizational citizenship behavior, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate and continuance commitment that decreases it. (shrink)

The aims of this study were to investigate what kinds of personal work goals managers have and whether ethical organisational culture is related to these goals. The sample consisted of 811 Finnish managers from different organisations, in middle and upper management levels, aged 25–68 years. Eight work-related goal content categories were found based on the managers self-reported goals: (1) organisational goals (35.4 %), (2) competence goals (26.1 %), (3) well-being goals (12.1 %), (4) career-ending goals (7.3 %), (5) progression goals (...) (6.8 %), (6) prestige/influence goals (4.2 %), (7) job change goals (4.2 %) and (8) employment contract goals (3.9 %). Ethical organisational culture operated as a context for personal goal setting: Those managers who evaluated their organisational culture as more ethical were more likely to report organisational goals (e.g. goals toward the success or performance of the organisation). However, if managers gave lower ratings regarding ethical culture, then they named job change and career-ending goals in more cases. Therefore, investing into ethical virtues of the organisational culture can promote managers’ personal work goals, which also benefit the organisation. (shrink)

Ethical instruction is critical for trainee accountants. Various teaching methods, both active and passive, are normally utilised when teaching accounting ethics. However, students’ learning styles are rarely assessed. This study evaluates the learning styles of accounting students and assesses the interaction of teaching methods and learning styles in an ethics instruction environment. The ethical attitudes and preferred learning styles of a cohort (137) of final year accounting students were evaluated pre-instruction. They were then subject to three different teaching methods while (...) studying ethics during an auditing course. When ethical attitudes and preferred learning styles were re-assessed post-instruction, the teaching methods were found to have influenced active learners more than passive ones. Furthermore, when learning styles matched teaching methods used, usefulness was assessed as high but when learning styles and teaching methods differed, usefulness deteriorated significantly. Students displayed a preference for passive learning styles, despite being so advanced in their education. The implications are that instructors should consider learning styles before deciding on appropriate teaching methods, in accounting ethics environments. (shrink)

Two elements of corporate governance—the strength of ethical executive leadership and the internal audit function (IAF hereafter)—provide guidance to accounting managers making decisions involving uncertainty. We examine the joint effect of these two factors, manipulated at two levels (strong, weak), in an experiment in which accounting professionals decide whether to book a questionable journal entry (i.e., a journal entry for which a reasonable business case can be made but there is no supporting documentation). We find that ethical leadership and the (...) IAF interact to determine the likelihood that accountants book the entry. Specifically, accountants are less likely to book a questionable journal entry when there is a weak ethical leader and a strong IAF compared to all other conditions. In addition, we find that accountants question the appropriateness and ethicalness of the request to book an undocumented journal entry more in the weak ethical leader and strong IAF condition than in the other conditions. These results suggest that the IAF has a different impact on financial reporting decisions depending on the ethicalness of executive leadership and that a strong IAF may cause accountants to question the appropriateness and ethicalness of an undocumented journal entry when combined with weak ethical leadership. We also find that the interactive effect of ethical leadership and the IAF on an accountant’s decision is fully mediated by his/her perception of the moral intensity of the issue. Thus, accountants, who perceive greater moral intensity associated with booking the entry, are less willing to do so. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that moral intensity and the perceived importance of an ethical issue can influence individual ethical decision making. However, prior research has not explored how the various dimensions of moral intensity might differentially affect PIE, or how moral intensity might function together with (or in the presence of) PIE to influence ethical decision making. In addition, prior work has also not adequately investigated how the operational context of an organization, which may embody conditions or practices that create barriers (...) to ethical decision making, may differ from other functional areas of an organization. Consequently, this study investigated the relationships among moral intensity, perceived ethical issue importance, and three stages of the ethical reasoning process: recognition of an ethical issue, ethical judgment, and ethical intention. Using an internet-based, self-report survey containing two operations management scenarios and various ethics measures, information was collected from business professionals working for a Midwestern financial services organization. The hierarchical regression results indicated that some dimensions of moral intensity were positively related to PIE, ethical issue recognition, and ethical judgment, and that PIE was associated with increased ethical issue recognition and ethical judgment. The steps of ethical reasoning were also positively interrelated. (shrink)

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

The government purchasing market constitutes the largest business sector in the world. While marketers would benefit from a deep understanding of both sectors, how the two sectors differ in terms of ethics and strategy largely remains unknown. The purpose of this research, therefore, is to explore differences between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors on two critical aspects of business-to-business procurement: ethics and strategy. Using survey data from a sample of 328 procurement professionals in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, key differences (...) are explored. Findings suggest that buyers in the for-profit sector are more likely to behave opportunistically. Conversely, the buyers’ leaders in the not-for-profit sector behave more opportunistically and are more willing to turn a blind eye to their subordinate buyers’ opportunistic behaviors. In addition, key differences in procurement strategy are unveiled suggesting that not-for-profit procurement practices have some room for improvement. Based on the findings, theoretical and managerial implications are drawn, and a future research agenda is proposed. (shrink)

The moral ideology of banking and insurance employees in Spain was examined along with supervisor role modeling and ethics-related policies and procedures for their association with ethical behavioral intent. In addition to main effects, we found evidence supporting that the person–situation interactionist perspective in supervisor role modeling had a stronger positive relationship with ethical intention among employees with relativist moral ideology. Also as hypothesized, formal ethical polices and procedures were positively related to ethical intention among those with universal beliefs, but (...) the relationship was much weaker among relativists. Thus, firms wishing to optimally promote ethical attitudes and behavior must tailor their organization-based initiatives to the individual characteristics of their employees. (shrink)

According to the origin of the word "humanism" and the concept of humanitas where the former comes from, management could be called humanistic when its outlook emphasizes common human needs and is oriented to the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent. A first approach to humanistic management, although quite incomplete, was developed mainly in the middle of the 20th century. It was centered on human motivations. A second approach to humanistic management sprang up in (...) the 80's and centered on organizational culture. This implied a wider approach to the human condition while taking into account the influence of culture on behaviors and decisionmaking, but it is incomplete, too. There is a third approach to humanistic management, which is still emerging, that considers a business enterprise as a real community of persons. That means promoting unity and favoring the acquisition of human virtues. This humanistic management approach is a real challenge in order to achieve a higher moral quality in management, human virtues among people and more efficient organizations. (shrink)

Ethics is increasingly viewed to be an important component of business education. However, assessment of the ethics component of business education has not received the same degree of examination as has assessment of the functional areas. Instead, ethics education is often simply assumed to be effective. Is it? The objective of this study is to begin to explore this question by examining the effects of the integration of ethics into a functional area of business education, specifically a management principles course. (...) The results raise questions about the effectiveness of integrating ethics across the business curriculum. (shrink)

Role conflict occurs when a job possesses inconsistent expectations incongruent with individual beliefs, a situation that precipitates considerable frustration and other negative work outcomes. Increasing interest in processes that reduce role conflict is, therefore, witnessed. With the help of information collected from a large sample of individuals employed at an education-based healthcare institution, this study identified several factors that might decrease role conflict, namely mindfulness and organizational ethics. In particular, the results indicated that mindfulness was associated with decreased role conflict, (...) and that perceived ethical values and a shared ethics code were associated with decreased role conflict and increased mindfulness. Despite the study's limitations, these findings imply that companies might better manage role conflict through the development of mindfulness and organizational ethics. (shrink)

A review of extent business ethics research uncovered well over 200 published articles that investigated the role of job functions within a business organization as an explanatory factor of ethical or unethical behavior. While an important body of work, ethical breaches are often found to cut across job functions and involve multiple disciplines embedded in a business organization. This research seeks to explore a crossfunctional explanation for ethical reasoning by using an instrument new to business ethics research, the Wason selection (...) task, but well-grounded and validated in cognitive research and evolutionary psychology, to assess an individual's ability to detect rule-based social contract violations. A sample of 276 full-time business practitioners, enrolled in part-time M.B.A. programs, from the accounting, finance, information technology, marketing, supply chain, and human resource management job functions were compared on their ability to detect rule violators across a series of production scenarios in the Wason selection task. Rates of cheater detection were calculated to determine if substantive differences existed across job functions. This was followed by a series of pairwise comparisons of percentages of cheater detection across the job functions using z-tests for assessing statistical significance. The data analysis showed differences in cheater detection, with most of the variance due to the marketing job function group. Insights from this study for scholars, educators, and practitioners in the business ethics field are discussed. (shrink)

Recent corporate scandals across various industries have led to an increased focus on research in business ethics, particularly on understanding ethical decision-making. This increased interest is due largely to managers' desire to reduce the incidence of unwanted behaviors in the workplace. This article examines one major moderator of the ethical decision-making process - moral intensity. In particular, we explore the potential influence of a particular cognitive heuristic - the availability heuristic -on perceptions of moral intensity. It is our contention that (...) moral intensity is a perceptual construct, and that individuals' use of the availability heuristic will influence perceptions of moral intensity which, in turn, will affect how moral issues are viewed and ultimately resolved. In this article, we present propositions concerning possible relationships between the availabilities of various phenomena and the components that moral intensity comprises, and report on two studies examining the effects of availabilities on two of these components: magnitude of consequences and social consensus. Our findings indicated that the availability of consequences associated with an act was positively related to perceptions of the magnitude of consequences of that act. We also found that the availability of others who believe that a particular act is morally acceptable is positively related to perceptions of social consensus that that act is morally acceptable. We posit that our results suggest the possibility that perceptions of moral intensity can be actively influenced to reduce unethical behavior in organizations. (shrink)

An organizational culture can be defined as "Organizational Humanizing Culture" if it presents the following features: (1) recognition of the person in his or her dignity, rights, uniqueness, sociability and capacity for personal growth, (2) respect for persons and their human rights, (3) care and service for persons around one, and (4) management towards the common good versus particular interests. Current findings and generalized experience suggest that an organizational culture with these features tends to bring about trust and associability, which (...) are basic elements for social capital (a sort of asset embedded in the relationships of individuals, communities, networks or societies). (shrink)

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue 1, Page 69-96, Spring 2022.

Although regulators have identified ethical lapses as a key factor contributing to auditors’ failure to detect their clients’ fraudulent financial reporting, research using ethical theory to examine auditors’ fraud detection remains limited. We provide evidence on the joint effect of ethical idealism and trait skepticism on auditors’ fraud judgments. Ethical idealism reflects an individual’s concern for the welfare of others while trait skepticism reflects an individual’s disposition to validating a proposition. Forsyth theorizes that there is an association between ethical idealism (...) and tolerance for deception. Drawing on that insight, we posit that ethical idealism and trait skepticism have a complementary effect on auditors’ fraud planning performance. This is because the former determines an auditor’s tolerance for allowing a client to get away with an ethically questionable act while the latter is important in determining how evidence is generally sought and evaluated. We used the Forsyth ethical position questionnaire to measure ethical idealism and the Hurtt :149–171, 2010) scale to measure trait skepticism. Our results indicate that there is a significant positive association between trait skepticism and the number of effective audit procedures but only for auditors who have high ethical idealism. The results highlight the importance of measuring and controlling for the effects of these traits when evaluating fraud detection performance. The paper also contributes by showing that an ethics theory can generate additional understanding of and insights into an important accounting phenomenon. (shrink)

Ethics position theory (EPT) maintains that individuals’ personal moral philosophies influence their judgments, actions, and emotions in ethically intense situations. The theory, when describing these moral viewpoints, stresses two dimensions: idealism (concern for benign outcomes) and relativism (skepticism with regards to inviolate moral principles). Variations in idealism and relativism across countries were examined via a meta-analysis of studies that assessed these two aspects of moral thought using the ethics position questionnaire (EPQ; Forsyth, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology39, 175–184, 1980). (...) This review identified 139 samples drawn from 29 different countries, for a total sample of 30,230 respondents, and concluded that (a) levels of idealism and relativism vary across regions of the world in predictable ways; (b) an exceptionist ethic is more common in Western countries, subjectivism and situationism in Eastern countries, and absolutism and situationism in Middle Eastern countries; and (c) a nation’s ethics position predicted that country’s location on previously documented cultural dimensions, such as individualism and avoidance of uncertainty (Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values, 1980). Limitations in these methods and concerns about the validity of these cross-cultural conclusions are noted, as are suggestions for further research using the EPQ. (shrink)