Decades of empirical and theoretical research has produced an extensive literature on the ethical judgments construct. Given its importance to understanding people’s ethical choices, future research should explore the psychological processes that produce ethical judgments. In this paper, the authors discuss two steps needed to advance this effort. First, they note that the business ethics literature lacks a single, generally accepted definition of ethical judgments. After reviewing several extant definitions, the authors offer a definition of the construct and discuss its (...) advantages. Second, future ethical judgment research would benefit from greater integration between theories of ethical decision making and theories of social cognition. Drawing upon the Hunt–Vitell ( Journal of Macromarketing 6 (Spring), 5–15, 1986 ; In: N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing . Irwin, Homewood, IL, pp. 775–784, 1992 ) model and the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 39 (November), 752–766, 1980 ), the authors present a brief research agenda intended to stimulate research on the psychological processes behind ethical judgments. (shrink)

As a result of numerous, highly publicized, ethical breaches, firms and their agents are under ongoing scrutiny. In an attempt to improve both their image and their ethical performance, some firms have adopted ethical codes of conduct. Past research investigating the effects of ethical codes of conduct on behavior and ethical attitudes has yielded mixed results. In this study, we again take up the question of the effect of ethical codes on ethical attitudes and find strong evidence to suggest that (...) business professionals employed at firms with ethical codes of conduct are significantly less accepting of ethically questionable behavior toward most stakeholders. One notable exception relates to ethical actions toward customers. (shrink)

Deception is common in the marketplace where individuals pursue self-interests from their perspectives. Extant research suggests that perspective-taking, a cognitive process of putting oneself in other’s situation, increases consumers’ ethical tolerance for marketers’ deceptive behaviors. By contrast, the current research demonstrates that consumers who take the dishonest marketers’ perspective become less tolerant of deception when consumers’ moral self-awareness is high. This effect is driven by moral self-other differentiation as consumers contemplate deception from the marketers’ perspective: high awareness of the “moral (...) self” motivates consumers to distance themselves from the “immoral other.” The findings shed new light on how self-morality can vicariously shape social consideration in ethical judgments. (shrink)

The evidence from the recent financial crisis in the USA indicates the importance of ethical decision making in the banking and finance industry. This study surveyed 90 banking and finance professionals and students in Vietnam to examine the differences in their ethical decision making. The questionnaire consisted of eight vignettes describing practical ethical dilemmas which banking and finance professionals may face in their daily work. We found significant differences in ethical decision making between these two groups in their overall ethical (...) scores and in four out of eight vignettes. We also conducted a 3-h ethics training programme for these professionals and students and found that teaching ethics was more effective for students than working adults in the banking and finance industry. These findings are important as they show how banking and financial institutions can make workplace environments more conducive to ethical decision-making by enhancing ethics education for both newcomers and existing professionals. (shrink)

We present an instrument developed to explain to students the concept of the personal ethical threshold. The PET represents an individual's susceptibility to situational pressure in his or her organization that makes moral behavior more personally difficult. Further, the PET varies according to the moral intensity of the issue at hand, such that individuals are less vulnerable to situational pressure for issues of high moral intensity, i.e., those with greater consequences for others. A higher PET reflects an individual's greater likelihood (...) of adhering to the morally correct path, even in the face of high situational pressures and low moral intensity. PET questionnaires were completed by 506 students representing eight business schools throughout the United States. Relationships between respondents' PET and their gender, age, and major field of study, as well as the geographical location of their school, are explored. Results indicate that older students have higher PETs and that students attending schools in the northeastern part of the United States have lower PETs. These findings are discussed. It is argued that the PET instrument can be used to help students identify organizational pressures and intrapersonal processes that can impede their moral behavior in organizations. (shrink)