People sometimes make moral judgments on the basis of brief emotional episodes. I follow the widely established practice of referring to such affective responses as intuitions (Haidt 2001, 2012; Bedke 2012, Copp 2012). Recently, a number of moral psychologists have argued that moral judgments are never more than emotion- or intuition-based pronouncements on what is right or wrong (Haidt 2001, Nichols 2004, Prinz 2007). A wide variety of empirical findings seem to support this claim. For example, some argue that arbitrary (...) emotional responses or intuitions induced under hypnosis elicit moral judgments (Wheatly and Haidt 2005). Furthermore, intuitions function as the point of last resort in attempts to justify moral judgments (Haidt, Björklund, and Murphy 2000). On the basis of such evidence, psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt (2001, 2012) and philosophers such as Shaun Nichols (2004) and Jesse Prinz (2007) defend what I call ‘Subjective Sentimentalism’, which consists of three claims a. (shrink)

This paper argues that consumer demand for unethical behavior such as fraud can impact employee turnover through market and psychological forces. Widespread conditions of unethical demand can improve career prospects for employees of unethical firms through higher income and stability associated with firm financial health. Similarly, unethical employees enjoy increased tenure from the financial and psychological rewards of prosocial behavior toward customers demanding corrupt or unethical behavior. We specifically examine the well-documented unethical demand for fraud in the vehicle emissions testing (...) industry, and its impact on employee tenure. We use data from tests conducted by several thousand licensed inspectors to demonstrate that fraudulent employees and employees of fraudulent firms enjoy longer tenure. These results suggest further work to separate the multiple psychological and economic mechanisms likely driving our findings. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 32, Issue 4, Page 1452-1469, October 2023.

We consider the problem of moral disjunction in professional and business activities from a virtue-ethical perspective. Moral disjunction arises when the behavioral demands of a role conflict with personal morality; it is an important problem because most people in modern societies occupy several complex roles that can cause this clash to occur. We argue that moral disjunction, and the psychological mechanisms that people use to cope with it, are problematic because they make it hard to pursue virtue and to live (...) with integrity. We present role coadunation as a process with epistemic and behavioral aspects that people can use to resolve moral disjunction with integrity. When role coadunation is successful, it enables people to live virtuous lives of appropriate narrative disunity and to honor their identity-conferring commitments. We show how role coadunation can be facilitated by interpretive communities and discuss the emergence and ideal features of those communities. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 2, Page 524-535, April 2022.

In this qualitative meta-analysis, I analyze corporate irresponsibility as an emergent organizational process. Organizations enacting irresponsible practices rely not only on a particular form of a process path, but on how this process path evolves within the organization. To achieve a better understanding of this process path, I conducted a qualitative meta-analysis drawn from 20 published cases of irresponsible organizations. I explore how and under which conditions irresponsible behavior of organizations arises, develops, and changes over time. The process path of (...) corporate irresponsibility relies on the interaction of multiple levels of analysis and its temporal occurrence, resulting in either path dependency or path creation. Based on the empirical findings of the evolving phenomena, this study focuses on three phases of corporate irresponsibility: institutionalization, problematization, and adaptation. The process of corporate irresponsibility can take two distinct paths, the reactive, and the proactive. This study contributes to the corporate irresponsibility literature by offering new insights into, first, a processual and more interactional approach to corporate irresponsibility that accounts for interdependencies on the different levels of each phase, and second, the self-reinforcing mechanisms and explanatory patterns of corporate irresponsibility leading to path dependency or path creation. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine individual and organizational antecedents and consequences of safety-related moral disengagement. Using Conservation of Resources theory, social exchange theory, and psychological contract breach as a theoretical foundation, this study tested the proposition that higher job insecurity is associated with greater levels of subsequent safety-related moral disengagement, which in turn is related to reduced safety performance. Moreover, we examined whether perceived organizational and supervisor support buffered or intensified the impact of job insecurity on moral (...) disengagement. Using a two-wave lagged design, anonymous survey data collected from N = 389 working adults in the U.S. supported the hypothesized moderated mediation model. Specifically, the conditional indirect effects of job insecurity on safety performance via moral disengagement were intensified as levels of perceived organizational and supervisor support increased. These results suggest that the threat of job insecurity may prompt employee moral disengagement; this effect is even stronger among employees who perceived higher levels of organizational and supervisor support. We interpret these counterintuitive findings in light of increasingly insecure contemporary work arrangements and how these may give rise to potentially unethical safety-related decision making and behavior. (shrink)

The spread and publicity given to questionable practices in the corporate world during the last two decades has fostered an increasing interest about the importance of ethical work for organizations, practitioners, scholars and, last but not least, the wider public. Relying on the Social Identity Approach, we suggest that the effects of different ethical climates on employee behaviors are driven by affective identification with the organization and, in parallel, by cognitive moral (dis)engagement. We compared the effects of two particular ethical (...) climates derived from the literature: An ethical organizational climate of self-interest, and an ethical organizational climate of friendship. Three hundred seventy-six workers completed measures of Ethical Climate, Organizational Identification, Moral Disengagement, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors, and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. Structural equation modelling confirmed that the two ethical climates considered were independently related to organizational identification and moral disengagement. These, in turn, mediated the effects of ethical climates on Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Counterproductive Work Behaviors. We discuss results in light of the social identity approach, and present some practical implications of our findings. (shrink)

Corruption prevention can be more effective if it does not rely merely on legal enforcement. This theoretical review aimed to propose a hypothetical psychological model capable of explaining the behavior of corruption. Moral disengagement is a variable that is considered ontologically closest in “distance” to the variable of corruption behavior. Counterfeit self, implicit self-theory, ethical mindset and moral emotion are taken into account as the pivotal factors of the corruption behavior and its mechanism of moral disengagement. Counterfeit self along with (...) some moderating variables are regarded to “set” one’s future corrupt behavior based on his/her past/prior ethical or unethical behavior and moral emotions. This review discovered a conjectural-theoretical model of the corruption psychology. It can be used to design a social intervention and training for individuals to manage the mindset and emotion that can buffer counterfeit self effect. In addition, the users of these research findings are recommended to be aware of the surroundings that consist of groups of people with particular ethical mindset, moral emotion proneness and self-theory. (shrink)

Recent experiments in moral psychology have been taken to imply that moral reasoning only serves to reaffirm prior moral intuitions. More specifically, Jonathan Haidt concludes from his moral dumbfounding experiments, in which people condemn other people’s behavior, that moral reasoning is biased and ineffective, as it rarely makes people change their mind. I present complementary evidence pertaining to self-directed reasoning about what to do. More specifically, Albert Bandura’s experiments concerning moral disengagement reveal that moral reasoning often does contribute effectively to (...) the formation of moral judgments. And such reasoning need not be biased. Once this evidence is taken into account, it becomes clear that both cognition and affect can play a destructive as well as a constructive role in the formation of moral judgments. (shrink)

This study was undertaken to investigate whether work variables identified in theory and research as being related to employee experiences/behaviours add to the understanding and explain employees' experiences of workplace harassment. The extent to which social cognitive theory (SCT), specifically moral disengagement, explains the processes by which work characteristics are related to harassment was also examined. The purpose of the study was to identify the presence of relationships among work characteristics, satisfaction, moral disengagement and workplace harassment. According to the results, (...) employees with negative opinions of their work tended to experience negative affect and to believe that it is acceptable to harm others. The results of this study provide evidence of (1) relationships between harassment and several workplace characteristics and (2) the applicability of SCT to the explanation of how work characteristics relate to harassment. (shrink)

This article uses social dominance theory (SDT) to explore the dynamic and systemic nature of the initiation and maintenance of organizational corruption. Rooted in the definition of organizational corruption as misuse of power or position for personal or organizational gain, this work suggests that organizational corruption is driven by the individual and institutional tendency to structure societies as group-based social hierarchies. SDT describes a series of factors and processes across multiple levels of analysis that systemically contribute to the initiation and (...) maintenance of social hierarchies and associated power inequalities, favoritism, and discrimination. I posit that the same factors and processes also contribute to individuals’ lower awareness of the misuse of power and position within the social hierarchies, leading to the initiation and maintenance of organizational corruption. Specifically, individuals high in social dominance orientation, believing that they belong to superior groups, are likely to be less aware of corruption because of their feeling of entitlement to greater power and their desire to maintain dominance even if that requires exploiting others. Members of subordinate groups are also likely to have lower awareness of corruption if they show more favoritism toward dominant group members to enhance their sense of worth and preserve social order. Institutions contribute to lower awareness of corruption by developing and enforcing structures, norms, and practices that promote informational ambiguity and maximize focus on dominance and promotion. Dynamic coordination among individuals and institutions is ensured through the processes of person-environment fit and legitimizing beliefs, ideologies, or rationalizations. (shrink)

Successful psychopaths, defined as individuals in the general population who nevertheless possess some degree of psychopathic traits, are receiving increasing amounts of empirical attention. To date, little is known about such individuals, specifically with regard to how they respond to ethical dilemmas in business contexts. This study investigated this relationship, proposing a mediated model in which the positive relationship between psychopathy and unethical decision-making is explained through the process of moral disengagement, defined as a cognitive orientation that facilitates unethical choice. (...) The results of the study supported this model, and implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

We examine the effects of leader–member exchange differentiation on team members’ outcomes by using team moral disengagement as a psychological mechanism mediating this relationship and LMX differentiation bases moderating the relationship. Analysis of multilevel data collected from 289 frontline employees organized into 76 finance-related customer service teams shows that LMX differentiation significantly reduced team moral disengagement only when the performance basis was high, and that the negative relationship between LMX differentiation and team moral disengagement was significant only when the personal (...) liking basis was low. Furthermore, we found that the LMX bases moderated the indirect effect of LMX differentiation on team members’ outcomes through team moral disengagement. The findings advance team moral disengagement as a novel mechanism for cross-level relationship between LMX differentiation and team members’ outcomes at the individual level, and project differentiation bases as a condition under which LMX differentiation unpacks the reasons for team members’ favorable or unfavorable responses. They reveal LMX differentiation as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, whose essence can only be understood if examined from multiple levels. We also contribute to the literature by revealing the cognitive pathway through which LMX differentiation may be associated with team members outcomes. (shrink)

Although CSR scholarship has highlighted how tensions in CSR implementation are negotiated, little is known about its normative and moral dimension at a micro-level. Drawing upon the economies of worth framework, we explore how spirituality influences the negotiation of CSR tensions at an individual level, and what types of justification work they engage in when experiencing tensions. Our analysis of semi-structured interview data from individuals who described themselves as Buddhist and were in charge of CSR implementations for their organizations shows (...) that spirituality influences how they compromise among competing moral values by identifying two forms of justification work: compartmentalizing work and contextualizing work, which help spiritual practitioners minimize moral dissonance. (shrink)

Most studies of corporate social responsibility have focused on the organisational level, while the individual level of analysis has been treated as a ‘black box’ when researching antecedents of CSR engagement or disengagement. This article offers insights into a small and medium-sized enterprise that is recognised as a pioneer in CSR. Although the extant literature suggests that the owner-manager is crucial in the implementation of CSR, this study reveals that employees drive CSR. The employees in the focal firm voluntarily joined (...) forces based on their shared perception of moral responsibility for CSR and they developed strict targets to be achieved by 2030. Despite their strong ethical and moral perspective when enacting CSR, they disengaged from their moral responsibility for CSR in various contexts. This paper contributes to the theory of moral decoupling by uncovering a novel context of disengagement—‘visionary procrastination’. Visionary procrastination is suggested to be a particularly relevant context of disengagement when individuals perceive moral responsibility for CSR. Moreover, by delivering insights into the antecedents of employee-initiated CSR on the organisational level, this study adds to the growing body of literature on the micro-foundations of CSR. (shrink)

Originally conceptualized by Bandura as the process of cognitive restructuring that allows individuals to disassociate with their internal moral standards and behave unethically without feeling distress, moral disengagement has attracted the attention of management researchers in recent years. An increasing body of research has examined the factors which lead people to morally disengage and its related outcomes in the workplace. However, the conceptualization of moral disengagement, how it should be measured, the manner in which it develops, and its influence on (...) work outcomes are areas of continued debate among researchers. In this article, we undertake a systematic review of research on moral disengagement in the workplace and develop a comprehensive research agenda that highlights opportunities for theoretical and empirical advancement of the literature. (shrink)

To address substandard working conditions in global value chains, companies have adopted private regulatory systems governing worker rights. Scholars agree that without onsite factory audits, this private regulation has limited impact at the point of production. Companies, however, audit only a subset of their suppliers, severely restricting their private regulatory attempts. Despite the significance of the placement of suppliers inside or outside firms’ “responsibility boundaries” and despite scholars’ having called for more research into how firms prioritize what suppliers to audit, (...) few, if any, systematic studies have examined the topic. This is problematic, as the placement of firms’ responsibility boundaries determines what suppliers and workers are included in firms’ private regulatory attempts. Based on a study of 12 Swedish firms and the theory of moral disengagement, this paper starts to fill this research gap by exploring how firms’ responsibility boundaries are placed. The paper illustrates how firms’ responsibility boundary placement is best described as a patchwork with firms defining and delimiting their responsibilities differently. The paper also demonstrates that three supplier types are particularly likely to be placed inside firms’ responsibility boundaries, while a fourth type is likely be placed outside. (shrink)

The Emotional Competency Inventory framework of Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis has gained significant impact in business leadership and management development. This paper considers the composition of the various versions of the ECI and its successor the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory to determine the nature of any appeal to ethics or moral competence within these frameworks. A series of concerns regarding the ethical limitations of the frameworks are presented with arguments supported by the relevant literature across the Emotional Intelligence (...) , competency theory and ethics fields. Based on a review of the ECI competencies in terms of their definitional constructs, it appears possible for an unethical manager or leader to demonstrate EI competence. Several cases involving high-profile business leaders, who were once lauded but later found to have acted unethically, are analysed. The authors consider the capacity of unethical leaders and managers to fulfil EI competence an issue of concern. The inclusion of an ethical management cluster and a number of competencies based on virtue ethics is proposed to meet this concern. Such an inclusion would address the critical issue of the purpose to which an EI competence is applied. Argument supporting the value of a virtue ethics approach as opposed to utilitarian or duty-based ethics approaches is also presented. Finally, a proposed exemplar of an ethically informed ECI framework is included for consideration. (shrink)

Researchers have recently indicated that employee perceptions of their firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) may shape their work behaviors. However, why and when CSR perceptions lead to counterproductive work behavior, such as cyberloafing, remains unclear. In this article, we first investigate the mediating role of workplace boredom in explaining the effect of perceived CSR toward employees on cyberloafing behaviors. We further examine the moderating role of moral disengagement in this process. Overall, the results of our cross-sectional, experimental, and three-wave studies (...) provide strong evidence for our hypothesized relationships. Our research suggests that moral disengagement weakens the effect of internal CSR on workplace boredom, such that for employees high in moral disengagement, the level of internal CSR has a weaker effect on workplace boredom. (shrink)

Taking an abductive, mixed-methods approach, we explore the content of people’s moral deliberations. In Study 1, we gather qualitative data from small groups of graduate business students discussing moral dilemmas. We analyze their conversations with a focus on how participants perceive others’ thoughts, opinions, and evaluations about the dilemmas and incorporate them into their reasoning. Ascribing such capacities to think and feel to others—i.e., mind perception—is central to morality. We use the conversations in Study 1 to identify whose minds participants (...) perceive. Study 1 also identifies how particular elements of deliberation—including the exploration of consequences, acknowledging ambivalence, seeking alternative options, the development of deep feelings, and the search for a moral compass—are linked to these perceptions of others’ minds. In Study 2 (an exploratory, online experiment with 378 participants), we find that priming individuals with specific forms of mind perception can influence the elements of moral reasoning they employ, and we find evidence that the presence of elements of reasoning are linked to participants’ final choices in a business-related ethical dilemma. (shrink)

Corruption continues to be a considerable challenge for internationally active companies. In this article, we examine personal and socioenvironmental antecedents of corrupt behavior in organizations. In particular, we aim to illuminate the links between Machiavellianism, on-the-job experience with corrupt behavior at work, neutralization, and the attitude of business professionals toward corruption. The empirical analysis is based on the responses of 169 professionals. At first, a positive relationship between both Machiavellianism and on-the-job experience and the acceptance of corruption appears in the (...) model. However, an in-depth mediation analysis shows that neutralization is the keystone linking both Machiavellianism and on-the-job experience to the likelihood to condone corruption. Based on these results, we offer avenues for further research and implications for practitioners. (shrink)

Moral disengagement was initially conceptualized as a process through which people reconstrue unethical behaviors, with the effect of deactivating self-sanctions and thereby clearing the way for ethical transgressions. Our article challenges how researchers now conceptualize moral disengagement. The current literature is overly liberal, in that it mixes two related but distinct constructs—process moral disengagement and the propensity to morally disengage—creating ambiguity in the findings. It is overly conservative, as it adopts a challengeable classification scheme of “four points in moral self-regulation” (...) and perpetuates defining moral disengagement via a set of eight psychological mechanisms, narrowing our understanding of the phenomenon. To address these problems, we propose to define process moral disengagement intensionally (specifying the necessary and sufficient conditions for correct application of the term) as intrapsychic cognitive reasoning processes through which people selectively reconstrue a moral judgment “behavior B by actor A is morally wrong” and shift it toward becoming “behavior B is not morally wrong” or “actor A is not responsible for behavior B.” This definition achieves disambiguation and increased concept clarity. We leverage the definition to motivate a classification scheme for psychological mechanisms of moral disengagement along two dimensions—reconstruing morality and reconstruing agency—and to initiate an open inventory of psychological mechanisms that specify how process moral disengagement operates. (shrink)

Academic cheating has become a pervasive practice from primary schools to university. This study aims at investigating this phenomenon through a nomological network which integrates different theoretical frameworks and models, such as trait and social-cognitive theories and models regarding the approaches to learning and contextual/normative environment. Results on a sample of more than 200 Italian university students show that the Amoral Manipulation facet of Machiavellianism, Academic Moral Disengagement, Deep Approach to Learning and Normative Academic Cheating are significantly associated with Individual (...) Academic Cheating. Moreover, results show a significant latent interaction effect between Normative Academic Cheating and Amoral Manipulation Machiavellianism: "amoral Machiavellians" students are more prone to resort to Academic Cheating in contexts where Academic Cheating is adopted as a practice by their peers, while this effect is not significant in contexts where Academic Cheating is not normative. Results also show that Academic Moral Disengagement and Deep Approach to learning partially mediate the relationship between Amoral Manipulation and Academic Cheating. Practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

Although apparently irrational, people with seemingly high moral standards routinely make immoral decisions or engage in morally questionable behavior. It appears as if under certain circumstances, people become in some enigmatic way blind to the immoral aspects of what they are doing or consequences of their immoral actions. This article focuses and reports on a psychoanalytic inquiry into the role of emotions and the unconscious management of unwanted emotions in promoting moral blindness. Emotions are essential to the conscience, self-sanctioning, and (...) advancement of moral behavior. Notwithstanding moral ideations, a sufficiently strong counterwill may create incongruence between moral intentions and actual desires or behavior. The unwelcome experience of acute moral emotions such as guilt and anxiety is likely to activate a range of psychological defense mechanisms and unconscious processes to manage these emotions. It is argued that the management of these emotions through undue avoidance, inappropriate regulation, or lack of regulation, can bypass self-sanctioning. As result, the condition of moral blindness can develop or be sustained. The psychoanalytic explanations offered contribute to the understanding as to how emotions in combination with the unconscious mind can cause moral blindness in any person, notwithstanding high moral standards and good intentions. Improved understanding of moral blindness represents an important scientific step in improved understanding of our moral and immoral selves, with all its complexities, conflicts, and contradictions. (shrink)

Several scholars have highlighted the importance of examining moral disengagement in understanding aggression and deviant conduct across different contexts. The present study investigates the role of MD as a specific social-cognitive construct that, in the organizational context, may intervene in the process leading from stressors to counterproductive work behavior. Assuming the theoretical framework of the stressor-emotion model of CWB, we hypothesized that MD mediates, at least partially, the relation between negative emotions in reaction to perceived stressors and CWB by promoting (...) or justifying aggressive responses to frustrating situations or events. In a sample of 1,147 Italian workers, we tested a structural equations model. The results support our hypothesis: the more workers experienced negative emotions in response to stressors, the more they morally disengaged and, in turn, enacted CWB. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs sometimes make unethical decisions that have devastating effects on their companies, stakeholders, and themselves. We suggest that insights into the origins of such actions can be acquired through attention to personal motives and their impact on moral disengagement—a cognitive process that deactivates moral self-regulation, thus enabling individuals to behave in ways inconsistent with their own values. We hypothesize that entrepreneurs’ motivation for financial gains is positively related to moral disengagement, while their motivation for self-realization is negatively related to this (...) process. Results obtained with a sample of founding entrepreneurs offered support for the first prediction, as well as support for the prediction that moral disengagement is positively related to the tendency to make unethical decisions. (shrink)

Much has been written about the self, yet its evolution and functioning are matters of controversy in evolutionary psychology. The article argues that it is an evolved capacity, essential for co-evolutionary processes, including cultural development, to occur. A model of self-regulation is offered to explain its adaptive functioning, elaborating William James’ I-me distinction, and drawing upon contemporary analyses in social psychology and neuroscience. The model is used to illustrate how adaptive behavior is facilitated by the exercise of self-control, to defer (...) and re-order goals, revise perceptions of the world, modify conceptions of the self, and alter repertoires of learned action sequences, heuristics, and habits. It also identifies potential areas of dysfunction, mediated by self-deception and misperception. Through this lens one can see how leadership is a historically co-evolving function of social systems, changing to meet altered circumstances. The recursive relationship involves interaction between changing leader–follower relationships, within which leaders’ self-regulation is a central process. Individual differences in leaders as agents are thus also critical. The article concludes by considering the need for insight in order to steer these co-evolving functions in directions that help us as a species to master the global challenges and threats we face in our times. (shrink)

This article uses the concept of partial organization to examine how organizing principles can facilitate the effective operation of networked forms of corruption. We analyze the case study of a corruption network in the South Korean maritime industry in terms of how it operated by selectively appropriating practices normally associated with formal bureaucratic organizations. Our findings show that organizational elements built into the corruption network enabled coordination of corruption activities and served to distort and override practices within member organizations. The (...) network was primarily organized through the hierarchical organization of a bounded and controlled set of members and, to a lesser extent, through processes of monitoring and sanctions. Given its clandestine nature, the network avoided the use of explicit rules to govern behavior, instead relying on habituated routines to ensure consistent and predictable action from members. We find that organizational elements were rescinded when the corruption network was exposed after the sinking of a passenger ferry, the Sewol. By rolling back its hierarchical organization and reverting to core relationships, the corruption network sought to preserve its center. The article illustrates the explanatory value of studying how the activities of corruption networks are enabled and adapt to existential challenges through partial organization. (shrink)

We extend the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) for ethics in the workplace. Using a path modeling methodology, we find evidence that, for ethics, moral disengagement is an antecedent to the TPB predictors of attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (PBC). We show that the TPB predictors mediate the influence moral disengagement has on ethical behavioral intentions. Thus, to improve ethical behavior, reducing moral disengagement is critical. We find support for including both types of PBC (self-efficacy and locus of (...) control) when modeling ethical behavior. We use four ethics scenarios and international data to test this model. We also evaluate potential positive influences on ethics in the workplace and find that recency of ethics training interacts with religiosity and activates it to reduce moral disengagement. We also find that principles-based ethics training enhances professionals’ self-efficacy to behave ethically. Experience, including time as a member in a professional accounting organization, increases both locus of control and self-efficacy to behave ethically. These variables—recency of ethical training, religiosity, principles-based professional ethics training, and experience—influence parts of the core TPB model, which in turn lead to improved ethical behavioral intentions. (shrink)

The decline of empirical research on ethical decision-making based on ethical theories might imply a tacit consensus has been reached. However, the exclusion of virtue ethics, one of the three main normative ethical theories, from this stream of literature calls this potential consensus into question. This article investigates the role of all three normative ethical theories—deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics—in ethical decision-making of corporate executives. It uses virtue ethics as a dependent variable thus studying the interconnectivity of all three normative (...) ethical theories in specific circumstances. We find that managers use different ethical theories in different circumstances (business vs. private life, formal vs informal ethical leadership, etc.). A predictive model of ethical decision-making, however, cannot be established. We also find that only a limited number of variables influence the choice of ethical theory, which leans business ethics towards postmodern management paradigm. We suggest that moral pragmatism could provide the answer to ethical decision-making. (shrink)

Based on a framework that integrates job demands-resources theory, social cognitive theory Handbook of personality, Guilford Press, New York, pp 154–196, 1999) and regulatory focus theory, the purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and subsequent moral disengagement and unethical behavior. We conducted a laboratory study and also collected data in two separate surveys 6 weeks apart from 206 individuals working full time to investigate the relationships presented in our model. In both studies, (...) we examined the direct relationship of politics perceptions on unethical behavior in organizations as well as the indirect relationship through the influence of moral disengagement. We investigated the moderating effect of regulatory focus on the relationship between moral disengagement and unethical behavior using the survey data. Results indicated that perceptions of politics were significantly related to our mediator, moral disengagement, which was significantly related to our dependent variable, unethical behavior. However, only prevention-focus moderated the relationships examined. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed. (shrink)

We examine the responses of South African multinational enterprises to corruption in African markets in the context of institutional voids. Corruption is a source of uncertainty and additional transactional costs for MNEs and it necessitates a strategic response. The research employs a qualitative study of a sample of MNEs with experience in internationalising into Africa. The results indicate that corruption in African markets is pervasive and closely associated with the institutional voids in these countries. MNEs see themselves as ‘institution takers’ (...) responding to countries’ institutional makeup at the organisational and individual level but fail to fully appreciate their impact on institutions both positively and negatively. Rather MNEs focus on strategic responses at the organisational level to address corruption operationally in the host country. We add to the existing literature by providing a dynamic framework of the complex webs of association between institutions, MNEs and corruption in conditions of economic underdevelopment. The research suggests that MNEs do not need to get caught in a vicious cycle whereby they perpetuate corruption in conditions of underdevelopment and institutional voids but instead can contribute towards a virtuous cycle through which they institutionalise ethical foundations. (shrink)

Previous literature has demonstrated that ethical leadership could predict employees’ voice behavior. However, it’s not clear how to heighten these positive effects of ethical leadership on employees’ voice behavior. Building on the AET and moral disengagement studies, we developed an integrated model. A three-wave field study investigated the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior by focusing on the mediating role of employees’ affective commitment and the moderating role of employees’ moral disengagement. Our matched data analysis results indicated that: employees’ (...) affective commitment partly mediated the relationship between ethical leadership and employees’ voice behavior. In addition, employees’ moral disengagement moderated the effect of ethical leadership on employees’ affective commitment and the effect of employees’ affective commitment on voice behavior, similarly, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on employees’ voice behavior via employees’ affective commitment. Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

This research shows how business students’ disciplinary specializations can affect their sense of personal responsibility by providing rationalizations for moral disengagement. It thereby conceptualizes business students’ disciplinary specializations as a key dimension of the business school responsibility learning environment. Students use four main rationalizations to displace responsibility variously away from their own disciplinary specializations, to claim responsibility as the prerogative of their specialization, and to shiftirresponsibility onto disciplinary out-groups. Yet despite their disciplinary identifications, students largely rationalized that their sense of (...) responsibility was an individual matter that was unlikely to be affected by contextual influences, and they attributedirresponsible behavior to incorrigible ‘bad apples.’ A theoretical model is offered which illustrates these dynamics by combining Bandura’s social cognitive theory with social identity theory. The research is based on secondary data, specifically focus-group interviews conducted with undergraduate students at a major Scandinavian business school in connection with the implementation of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative. The implications for management education include the need to strengthen students’ ‘disciplinary reflexivity,’ and to explicitly address the tension between students’ disciplinary solidarities and their faith in their own individual moral infallibility. (shrink)

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, fear has run rampant across the globe. To curb the spread of the virus, several governments have taken measures to drastically transition businesses, work, and schooling to virtual settings. While such transitions are warranted and well-intended, these measures may come with unforeseen consequences. Namely, one’s fear of COVID-19 may more readily manifest as aggressive behaviors in an otherwise incognito virtual social ecology. In the current research, a moderated mediation model examined the mechanisms underlying the relation between (...) fear of COVID-19 and overt and relational aggressive online behavior among Chinese college students. Utilizing a large sample of Chinese college students, results indicated that moral disengagement mediated the effect of fear of COVID-19 on college students’ overt and relational online aggressive behavior. A positive family cohesion buffered the effect of moral disengagement on relational aggressive behavior, but only for females. The findings, theoretical contributions, and practical implications of the present paper are also discussed. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the interactive effects of positive affect and perspective-taking on workplace incivility and family incivility, through moral disengagement. We draw from broaden-and-build and moral disengagement theories to suggest a potential negative consequence of positive affect. Specifically, we argue that positive affect increases incivility toward coworkers and spouses through moral disengagement among employees with low, but not high perspective-taking. Data from two time-lagged field studies and one online experiment provide support for our hypotheses. These findings suggest that (...) the beneficial effects of positive feelings are not universal, and the fostering of positive feelings at work might have unintended negative consequences, namely moral disengagement, and increased incivility at work and at home. Implications for theory and research are discussed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Organizations adopt formal sanctioning systems to deter ethical violations, but the formal systems’ effectiveness may be undermined by informal sanctioning systems which promote violations. I conducted an ethnographic study of six trading crowds on two financial exchanges to understand how informal and formal sanctioning systems, which are grounded in different interpretations of equity, interact to affect trader deviance from rules established by the financial exchange (exchange deviance). To deter informal trader norms that conflict with exchange rules, the exchanges formally prohibit (...) traders’ informal sanctions. The exchanges, however, underestimate traders’ informal sanctions related to ostracism and social rejection, which are not only difficult for the exchanges to detect, but also interpersonally hurtful and harmful to trader performance. Consequently, the traders’ informal social sanctions lead to secondary sanctions from trading firms. Ultimately, the informal sanctioning system evades the formal sanctioning system by exploiting what the exchanges deem to be minor rule violations. (shrink)

Time theft is a costly burden on organizations. However, there is limited knowledge about why time theft occurs. To advance this line of research, this conceptual paper looks at the association between organizational injustice and time theft from identity, moral, and equity perspectives. This paper proposes that organizational injustice triggers time theft through decreased organizational identification. It also proposes that moral disengagement and equity sensitivity moderate this process such that organizational identification is less likely to mediate among employees with high (...) moral disengagement and more likely to mediate among employees who are equity sensitives and entitleds. (shrink)

Este escrito plantea la complejidad sistémica del concepto crisis moral aplicada en la sociedad contemporánea, especialmente en el caso latinoamericano, lo que exige un estudio interdisciplinario para abordar el asunto. Ahora bien, se alude a una complejidad sistémica de la crisis moral por cuatro aspectos. En primer lugar, porque la moral, al ser un sistema normativo basado en el deseo de una sociedad mejor, nunca se sentirá satisfecha de la sociedad en la que se enmarca, lo que provoca un permanente (...) malestar. En segundo lugar, porque una crisis moral indica que no hay un acoplamiento entre la realidad de lo que se tiene con lo que se quiere, por lo que el acoplamiento deseado supone interrelacionar diversas variables sistémicas para que pueda suceder realmente un desarrollo moral (para lo cual se seguirá, con algunas correcciones, el modelo de desarrollo moral de Kohlberg), variables que son más complejas de lo que el sistema político cree o quiere hacer creer. En tercer lugar, porque afirmar la existencia de una crisis moral y, por tanto, la necesidad de acciones tendientes a resolverla, no implica que haya consenso sobre cuál es la moral que debe aceptarse ni sobre el camino a seguir para lograr dicho fin, para empezar porque es relativamente común que los agentes acusados de ser los causantes de la actual “crisis moral de la sociedad y del derecho” en las sociedades contemporáneas suelen ser los agentes que denuncian, como free riders, la misma crisis. Y, en cuarto lugar, porque un cambio sistémico que posibilite un salto en el desarrollo moral debe ser significativamente fuerte, y las medidas que suelen enunciarse para afrontarlo, además de no ser claras, suelen ser insuficientes o ingenuas (tales como pedir la creación o el fortalecimiento de una asignatura de ética en los planes de estudio de los futuros ciudadanos en general y abogados en especial). Finalmente, se propondrá partir de este diagnóstico sistémico e interdisciplinario para potencializar las respuestas que puedan darse para enfrentar la crisis; de lo contrario, lo rechazado permanecerá. (shrink)

Archival research reports that managers often use the FIN 48 uncertain tax liability accrual to manage earnings. To assess solutions to this problem, we deconstruct the ethical and psychological reasoning that leads to FIN 48 opportunistic behavior. Hence, we employ a survey of seasoned accounting managers to assess the influences of cynicism, two measures of moral disengagement, and pressure from a CFO on the propensity to engage in FIN 48 earnings management. Specifically, we manipulate the influence of the study scenario (...) supervisory CFO as either a latent bully or a transformational leader. While the CFO bully main effect condition enhances FIN 48 earnings management, the CFO transformational leader condition interacts with less cynical accounting managers to reduce FIN 48 earnings management. We also find that both dispositional trait and situational state moral disengagement factors independently mediate the relationship between the cynicism model antecedent and FIN 48 earnings management. Collectively, study findings provide implications for both theory and practice. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The deontic model of justice and ethical behavior proposes that people care about justice simply for the sake of justice. This is an important consideration for business ethics because it implies that justice and ethical behavior are naturally occurring phenomenaindependent of system controls or individual self-interest. To date, research on the deontic model and third-party reactions to injustice has focused primarily on individuals’ tendency to punish transgressors. This research has revealed that witnesses to injustice will consider sacrificing their own resources (...) if it is the only way to sanction an observed transgressor. In this paper we seek to extend this model by arguing that punishment may not be the only “deontic” reaction, and that in fact, third-party observers of injustice may engage in moral self-regulation that would lead them to conclude that the most ethical response is to do nothing. We provide preliminary evidence for our propositions using voiced cognitions data collected during a resource allocation task. Results indicate that deonance may be more complex than originally thought, and previous tests of the model conservative in nature. (shrink)

Despite regulatory reforms aimed at inhibiting aggressive financial reporting, earnings management persists and continues to concern practitioners, regulators, and standard setters. To provide insight into this practice and how to mitigate it, we conduct an experiment to examine the impact of two independent variables on CFOs’ discretionary expense accruals. One independent variable, incentive conflict, is manipulated at two levels —i.e., the presence or absence of a personal financial incentive that conflicts with a corporate financial incentive. The other independent variable is (...) CFOs’ earnings management ethics, measured as their assessment of the ethicalness of key earnings management motivations. We find that incentive conflict and EM-Ethics interact to determine CFOs’ discretionary accruals such that in the presence of incentive conflict, CFOs with low EM-Ethics tend to give into the personal incentive by booking higher expense accruals; and in the absence of an incentive conflict, CFOs with low EM-Ethics tend to give into the corporate incentive by booking lower expense accruals. We also find support for a mediated-moderation model in which CFOs’ level of EM-Ethics influences their moral disengagement tendencies which, in turn, differentially affect their discretionary accruals, depending on the presence or absence of incentive conflict. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

The popular press is often fraught with high-profile illustrations of leader unethical conduct within corporations. Leader unethical conduct is undesirable for many reasons, but in terms of managing subordinates, it is particularly problematic because leaders directly influence the ethics of their followers. Yet, we know relatively little about why leaders fail to apply ethical leadership practices. We argue that some leaders cognitively remove the personal sanctions associated with misconduct, which provides them with the “freedom” to ignore ethical shortcomings. Drawing on (...) moral disengagement theory, we examine the relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee perceptions of ethical leadership. We then examine the moderating role of employee moral disengagement, such that the negative relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee perceptions of ethical leadership is stronger when employee moral disengagement is low versus high. Finally, we examine ethical leadership as a conditional mediator that explains that relationship between supervisor moral disengagement and employee job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. Results from a multi-source field survey provide general support for our theoretical model. (shrink)