This research describes and empirically evaluates the application of a business ethics pedagogy informed by neuroscience and evolutionary biology that suggest ethical decisions are made unconsciously and emotionally. Moral Foundation Theory (MFT) provides a framework that considers a range of values individuals rely on for decision-making. This relates to Virtue ethics (VE) that develops intellectual and character virtues, requires emotional development and is thus suitable for guiding business ethics pedagogy. This study focuses on a business ethics course integrating intellectual virtue (...) and character virtue pedagogies, including contemplative and emotional intelligence skills practices. The aim of the course is to develop character, providing future managers the means to enact ethical decision-making through self-awareness of emotions, intrinsic values and translate these into ethical behavior. Pre-Post Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Moral Foundation Questionnaires (MFQ) are used to evaluate the development of students’ character virtues, i.e., increased emotional awareness, emotional regulation and intrinsic values. This paper mainly seeks to understand how to develop ethical behavior, beyond learning didactic definitions of what is ethically right and what is wrong, i.e. focusing on the learning process that can lead to personal ethical judgment and conduct. The related pedagogy integrates transdisciplinary theories and practices, and as such suggests a holistic approach to ethical behavior transformation. The results indicate limited, significant changes in all measures except emotional awareness. This developing field requires more research to identify the contributions of MFT and related pedagogy to students’ ethical development. (shrink)

Programming artificial intelligence to make fairness assessments of texts through top-down rules, bottom-up training, or hybrid approaches, has presented the challenge of defining cross-cultural fairness. In this paper a simple method is presented which uses vectors to discover if a verb is unfair or fair. It uses already existing relational social ontologies inherent in Word Embeddings and thus requires no training. The plausibility of the approach rests on two premises. That individuals consider fair acts those that they would be willing (...) to accept if done to themselves. Secondly, that such a construal is ontologically reflected in Word Embeddings, by virtue of their ability to reflect the dimensions of such a perception. These dimensions being: responsibility vs. irresponsibility, gain vs. loss, reward vs. sanction, joy vs. pain, all as a single vector. The paper finds it possible to quantify and qualify a verb as fair or unfair by calculating the cosine similarity of the said verb’s embedding vector against FairVec—which represents the above dimensions. We apply this to Glove and Word2Vec embeddings. Testing on a list of verbs produces an F1 score of 95.7, which is improved to 97.0. Lastly, a demonstration of the method’s applicability to sentence measurement is carried out. (shrink)

Programming artificial intelligence to make fairness assessments of texts through top-down rules, bottom-up training, or hybrid approaches, has presented the challenge of defining cross-cultural fairness. In this paper a simple method is presented which uses vectors to discover if a verb is unfair or fair. It uses already existing relational social ontologies inherent in Word Embeddings and thus requires no training. The plausibility of the approach rests on two premises. That individuals consider fair acts those that they would be willing (...) to accept if done to themselves. Secondly, that such a construal is ontologically reflected in Word Embeddings, by virtue of their ability to reflect the dimensions of such a perception. These dimensions being: responsibility vs. irresponsibility, gain vs. loss, reward vs. sanction, joy vs. pain, all as a single vector. The paper finds it possible to quantify and qualify a verb as fair or unfair by calculating the cosine similarity of the said verb’s embedding vector against FairVec—which represents the above dimensions. We apply this to Glove and Word2Vec embeddings. Testing on a list of verbs produces an F1 score of 95.7, which is improved to 97.0. Lastly, a demonstration of the method’s applicability to sentence measurement is carried out. (shrink)

Despite a growing body of research by management scholars to understand and explain failures in ethical decision making (EDM), misconduct prevails. Scholars have identified character, founded in virtue ethics, as an important perspective that can help to address the gap in organizational misconduct. While character has been offered as a valid perspective in EDM, current theorizing on how it applies to EDM has not been well developed. We thus integrate character, founded in virtue ethics, into Rest’s (1986) EDM model to (...) reveal how shifting attention to the nature of the moral agent provides critical insights into decision making more broadly and EDM specifically. Virtue ethics provides a perspective on EDM that acknowledges and anticipates uncertainties, considers its contextual constraints, and contemplates the development of the moral agent. We thus answer the call by many scholars to integrate character in EDM in order to advance the understanding of the field and suggest propositions for how to move forward. We conclude with implications of a character-infused approach to EDM for future research. (shrink)

Scholars have advocated for the inclusion of metacognition in our understanding of the ethical decision making process and in support of moral learning. An instrument to measure metacognition as a domain-specific capacity related to ethical decision making is not found in the current literature. This research describes the development and validation of the 20-item Moral Metacognition Scale. Psychometric properties of the scale were assessed by exploration and confirmation of the factor structure, and the demonstration of convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity. (...) Moral metacognition, as measured by the MMS, was significantly correlated with ethical awareness and ethical judgment. Limitations of our research, suggestions for future exploration, and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

While much research has focused on the effects of ethical and unethical leadership, little is known about how followers come to perceive their leaders as ethical or unethical. In this article, we investigate the co-creation of ethical and unethical leadership perceptions. Specifically, we draw from emerging research on moral congruence in organizational behaviour and empirically investigate the role of congruence in leaders’ and followers’ moral foundations in followers’ perceptions of ethical and unethical leadership. By analysing objective congruence scores from 67 (...) leader–follower dyads by means of polynomial regression with surface response analysis, we find partial support for our theoretically derived predictions. Significant effects were revealed for the fairness, loyalty, and authority moral foundations but not for the care and sanctity moral foundations. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

This article draws from Charles Taylor’s work of retrieval to advance moral foundations theory (MFT). Taylor’s contribution to MFT lies in his insistence that we retrieve the moral sources that have helped constitute, substantiate, and give meaning to individuals’ moral sensibilities. Applying Taylor’s insights to MFT, this article seeks to advance a view of moral foundations that connects them more explicitly to their underlying moral sources. Using this retrieved account of moral foundations, this article then addresses current issues within moral (...) foundations research and theory. Finally, this article suggests ways in which Taylor’s philosophy can contribute to three areas within business ethics: ethical leadership, behavioral ethics, and ethics pedagogy. (shrink)

Organizations have become essential institutions that facilitate the vital coordination and cooperation necessary to create value across societies. Recent research within moral psychology and behavioral ethics indicates that emotions play a pivotal role in promoting ethical decision making. The theory developed here maintains that most organizations retain norms that disfavor the experience and expression of many strong emotions while at work. This dynamic inhibits individual’s ability to generate moral intuitions and reason about ethical issues they encounter. This occurs as individuals (...) utilize specific emotion regulation mechanisms that stifle the experience and expression of emotion in organizational decision making. Over time, individuals fail to register emotion within organizational decision processes, which increases the prevalence of amoral decision making. Organizational emotion norms also influence the chronic accessibility of specific moral foundations that effect the contents of both moral intuitions that do occur, as well as deliberate reasoning that generates moral judgments. (shrink)

Virtue ethics, the authors believe, is distinct and superior to other options because it considers, in the first place, which preferences are worth pursuing, rather than just blindly maximizing preferences, and it takes into account intuitions, emotions and experience, instead of acting solely on abstract universal principles. Moreover, virtue ethics is seen as firmly rooted in human biology and psychology, particularly in our freedom, rationality, and sociability. Work, business, and management are presented as vital areas for the development of virtues, (...) not the least with a view to human flourishing. We conclude by introducing the articles included in this special issue. (shrink)

This paper applies moral foundations theory in the context of consumer ethics. The purpose of the study is to examine whether moral foundations theory can be utilised as a theoretical framework to explain consumers’ beliefs regarding both ethical and unethical consumption. The relationships among various moral foundations and different dimensions of consumer ethics are examined with a sample of 450 US consumers. The results demonstrate that, among the various moral foundations, only the sanctity/degradation foundation is negatively related to beliefs regarding (...) all forms of unethical consumer actions as well as ‘no harm, no foul’ actions. On the contrary, the care/harm, fairness/cheating and authority/subversion foundations are related to positive beliefs regarding ‘doing good’ actions. This indicates that moral motivations for supporting pro-social actions as a consumer are not necessarily the same as moral motivations for condemning unethical actions. The findings also demonstrate that the loyalty/betrayal foundation is positively related to beliefs regarding unethical consumer actions and negatively related to perceptions of pro-social consumer actions. This demonstrates that in-group loyalty leads to supporting unethical actions. Furthermore, the results show that various moral foundations mediate the relationships of idealism with consumers’ ethical beliefs. Hence, various moral foundations can explain the effects of personal variables on consumer ethics. (shrink)

Although personal attributes have gained recognition as an important area of effective corporate governance, scholarship has largely overlooked the value and implications of individual virtue in governance practice. We explore how authenticity—a personal and morally significant virtue—affects the primary monitoring and strategy functions of the board of directors as well as core processes concerning director selection, cultivation, and enactment by the board. While the predominant focus in corporate governance research has been on structural factors that influence firm financial outcomes, this (...) paper shifts attention to the role of authenticity and its relationship to individual board member qualities and collective board activities. We explore how authenticity has the potential to influence board dynamics and decision making and to enhance transparency and accountability. (shrink)

Business firms have been explained as internal markets or as communities. To be sustainable, however, they need to reconcile these two constituting elements that have mainly been touted as opposite and part of a dualistic relationship. We suggest that organizations may, in alternative, view market and community as part of a duality, interdependent and mutually constituting processes that may not only contradict each other but also enable one another. The implications of a duality view for business ethics, which articulates market (...) and community elements in a fruitful, mutually enabling relationship, are considered, and duality is presented as a way of transcending what is commonly viewed as opposition, moving organizations both in the direction of humane and competitive finalities. (shrink)

The paper aim draws together two ideas that have figured in different strands of discussion in business ethics: the ideas of intuition and of reflection. They are considered in company with the third, complementary, idea of analysis. It is argued that the interplay amongst these is very important in business ethics. The relationship amongst the three ideas can be understood by reference to parts of modern cognitive psychology, including dual-process theory and the Social Intuitionist Model. Intuition can be misleading when (...) based on fast and frugal heuristics, and reasoning needs social exchange if it is to support moral judgment effectively, but in the complex institutional environment of business, reflection and analysis can underpin social communication and feedback to develop sound intuition. Reflection and analysis are both more deliberate, systematic judgment processes than intuition, but are distinguished by the fact that reflection embraces hypothetical thinking and imagination, while analysis is careful, step-by-step reasoning. Examples of business ethics problems illustrate the need for both of these processes, and also suggest how they themselves can be enhanced in the same social exchange process that underpins the development of good intuition. (shrink)

Background In Scandinavia 13–28% of gynecology patients have experienced abuse in health care in their life time, which contradicts the ethical obligations not to harm the patient and to protect the patient's dignity. Concerning learning to act ethically, scholars have emphasized the importance of combining theoretical and practical dimensions. This article explores Forum Play as a way of learning to act ethically in abusive situations in health care. Method Ten health-care workers participating in a Forum Play course took part in (...) this study. To explore participants' experiences of Forum Play, semi-structured interviews were conducted and processed by using the grounded theory analysis techniques of coding and constant comparison. Results The analysis resulted in the core category “developing response–ability.” It encompasses the processes bringing about the ability to respond adequately to situations where abuse occurs and the conditions for these processes, as well as the participants' achieved understanding of the third person's potential to act in a situation with a power imbalance. Forum Play allows participants to reflect on both verbal and body language, and gives them time to enact and think through issues of moral agency. Conclusion The simulated reality of Forum Play offers a platform where learning to act ethically in abusive situations in health care is facilitated by providing a safe space, suspending constricting structural conditions such as hierarchies and lack of time, fostering moral imagination, allowing creativity in developing and trying out a variety of acting alternatives, and reflecting upon the observed and experienced situation. (shrink)

Care has increasingly been promoted as an element of successful management practice. However, an ethic of care is a normative theory that was initially developed in reference to intimate relationships, and it is unclear if it is an appropriate normative standard in business. The purpose of this review is to bridge the social scientific study of care with philosophical understandings of care and to provide a theoretical justification for care as a managerial value. We review the three different forms of (...) care advanced by the ethics literature: caring relations, organizational care, and care as a virtue. We compare these forms of care to the management litertature. In doing so, we integrate what has previously been a scattered, yet growing, body of research on care. Our review of the literature reveals that care has increasingly been studied in management in relation to an ethic of care. Yet, many of the properties of care have also played a role in other established research domains (e.g., leadership). We discuss and critique the management and ethics literatures on care, paying attention to areas of agreement or disagreeement between the two. We go on to provide a normative justification of care as a value in business. Finally, we close by suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

Traditional approaches describe ethical decision-making of leaders as driven by conscious deliberation and analysis. Accordingly, existing approaches of ethically-oriented leader development usually focus on the promotion of deliberative ethical decision-making, based on normative knowledge and moral reasoning. Yet, a continually growing body of research indicates that a considerable part of moral functions involved in ethical decision-making is automatic and intuitive. In this article, we discuss the implications of this moral intuition approach for the domain of ethically-oriented leader development. Specifically, we (...) introduce a conceptual model and develop a set of theoretical propositions, suggesting that the moral intuition perspective significantly contributes to effective ethically-oriented leader development. The discussion examines theoretical implications and practical applications of the presented propositions and outlines directions for future research. (shrink)