Ethical decision-making descriptive theoretical models often conflict with each other and typically lack comprehensiveness. To address this deficiency, a revised EDM model is proposed that consolidates and attempts to bridge together the varying and sometimes directly conflicting propositions and perspectives that have been advanced. To do so, the paper is organized as follows. First, a review of the various theoretical models of EDM is provided. These models can generally be divided into rationalist-based ; and non-rationalist-based. Second, the proposed model, called (...) ‘Integrated Ethical Decision Making,’ is introduced in order to fill the gaps and bridge the current divide in EDM theory. The individual and situational factors as well as the process of the proposed model are then described. Third, the academic and managerial implications of the proposed model are discussed. Finally, the limitations of the proposed model are presented. (shrink)

In business ethics, there is a large body of literature focusing on the conditions, factors, and influences in the ethical decision-making processes. This work builds upon the past critical reviews by updating and extending the literature review found in Craft’s :221–259, 2013) study, extending her literature review to include a total of 141 articles. Since past reviews have focused on categorizing results based upon various independent variables, we instead synthesize and look at the trends of these based upon the four (...) ethical decision making categories: Awareness, Behavior, Judgment, and Intention. We focus on the moderation and mediation effects found within these studies and provide an in-depth analysis of future trends. Furthermore, we also highlight key statistical and methodological concerns, outline overarching trends, and directions of future research in empirical ethical decision making. (shrink)

Poor ethical decision–making costs industry billions of dollars a year and damages the images of corporations. Thus, by answering the question ‘Why do individuals behave as they do when confronted with ethical issues?’ ethical theory can provide businesses with a means to create a more ethical climate and a more successful operation. This study tested the Ethical Decision–Making Model with accountability (Beu & Buckley 2001), which uses theory that suggests that ethical behavior is influenced by the individual, the issue, social (...) relationships (accountability), and the organization in which the employee is embedded (Brass, Butterfield & Skaggs 1988; Frink & Klimoski 1998). The results showed that individuals’ thought processes (cognitive moral development), personalities (locus of control, hostility and aggression, Machiavellianism), and gender influence how they respond to ethical dilemmas, as well as the salience of the moral issue (moral intensity) and the environmental context (work/school). (shrink)

Whistleblowing is a controversial yet socially significant topic of interest due to its impact on employees, organizations, and society at large. The purpose of this paper is to integrate knowledge of whistleblowing with theoretical advancements in the broader domain of business ethics to propose a novel approach to research and practice engaged in this complex phenomenon. The paper offers a conceptual framework, i.e., the wheel of whistleblowing, that is developed to portray the different features of whistleblowing by applying the whistleblower’s (...) perspective. The framework is based on five “W” questions: Who, What, hoW, Why, and to Whom? The answers to the proposed questions clarify the main aspects of whistleblowing, provide insights into existing studies of the subject, and identify relevant gaps in the literature which, in turn, offer opportunities for future research. (shrink)

Poor ethical decision–making costs industry billions of dollars a year and damages the images of corporations. Thus, by answering the question ‘Why do individuals behave as they do when confronted with ethical issues?’ ethical theory can provide businesses with a means to create a more ethical climate and a more successful operation. This study tested the Ethical Decision–Making Model with accountability (Beu & Buckley 2001), which uses theory that suggests that ethical behavior is influenced by the individual, the issue, social (...) relationships (accountability), and the organization in which the employee is embedded (Brass, Butterfield & Skaggs 1988; Frink & Klimoski 1998). The results showed that individuals’ thought processes (cognitive moral development), personalities (locus of control, hostility and aggression, Machiavellianism), and gender influence how they respond to ethical dilemmas, as well as the salience of the moral issue (moral intensity) and the environmental context (work/school). (shrink)

Our study contributes by providing new insights into the relationship between the individual levels of the antecedents and how the intention of whistleblowing is moderated by perceived organizational support, team norms, and perceived moral intensity. In this paper, we argue that the intention of both internal and external whistleblowing depends on the individual-level antecedents [attitudes toward whistleblowing, perceived behavioral control, independence commitment, personal responsibility for reporting, and personal cost of reporting ] and is moderated by POS, TNs, and PMI. The (...) findings confirm our predictions. Data were collected using an online survey on 256 Indonesian public accountants who worked in the audit firm affiliated with the Big 4 and non-Big 4. The results support the argument that all the antecedents of individual levels can improve the auditors’ intention to blow the whistle. The nature of the relationship is more complex than analysis by adding moderating variables using the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling approach. We found that POS, TNs, and PMI can partially improve the relationship between the individual-level antecedents and whistleblowing intentions. These findings indicate that the POS, TNs, and PMI are a mechanism or that attribute is important in controlling behavior. (shrink)

Following an extensive review of the moral intensity literature, this article reports the findings of two studies (one between-subjects, the other within-subject) that examined the effect of manipulated and perceived moral intensity on ethical judgment. In the between-subjects study participants judged actions taken in manipulated high moral intensity scenarios to be more unethical than the same actions taken in manipulated low moral intensity scenarios. Findings were mixed for the effect of perceived moral intensity. Both probable magnitude of consequences (a factor (...) consisting of magnitude of consequences, probability of effect, and temporal immediacy) and social consensus had a significant effect; proximity did not. In the within-subject study manipulated moral intensity had a significant effect on ethical judgment, but perceived moral intensity did not. Regression of ethical judgment on age, gender, major, and the three perceived moral intensity factors was significant between-subjects, but not within-subject. Ethical judgment was found to be a more robust predictor of intention than perceived moral intensity using a within-subject design. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship of various trait emotions to the ethical choices of 189 college students who completed a managerial decision-making task as part of an in-basket exercise in a laboratory setting. Prior research regarding emotion influences on ethical decision-making and linkages between emotions and cognition informed hypotheses about how different types of emotions impact ethical choices. Findings supported our expectations that positive and negative emotions classified as active would be more strongly related to interpersonally-directed ethical choices than to (...) organizationally-directed ones, and that passive emotions would be less related to ethical choices than active emotions. Implications for ethical decision-making research and organizational practices are discussed. (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 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)

The purpose of this study is to expand our understanding of the factors that influence ethical behavioral intentions of public accountants. Recent scandals have dominated the news and have caused legislators, regulators and the public to question the role of the accounting profession. Legislative changes have brought about major structural changes in the profession and continued scrutiny will surely lead to further changes. Thus, developing an understanding of the personal and contextual factors that influence ethical decisions is critical. An extension (...) of the theory of planned behavior [Ajzen, I.: 1985, Action Control-From Cognition to Behavior ], the model used in this study examined the influence of personal, social and organizational factors on ethical intentions. Specifically, the individual level model tested direct eects of attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, moral sensitivity and ethical climate. Professionals from five accounting firms completed a survey that measured responses to ethical dilemmas related to the public accounting domain. To minimize the potential impact of common method bias, the survey instrument was administered in two phases. Hypotheses were evaluated using a structural modeling technique, partial least squares. Results show strong support for a direct relationship between attitudes and ethical intentions. The proposed direct eect of subjective norms was not supported. However, a significant relationship between subjective norms and attitudes was found. Professionals' attitudes towards ethical issues clearly influence intentions. Moreover, this study illustrates the potential influence of social factors in attitude formation. Future research should explore the factors in the public accounting domain that most strongly influence attitude formation. This study suggests that the theory of reasoned action oers a useful framework for exploring these issues. (shrink)

In response to the lack of empirical studies examining the internal disclosure behavior in the Chinese context, this study tested a whistleblowing -decision-making process among employees in the Chinese banking industry. For would-be whistleblowers, positive affect and organizational ethical culture were hypothesized to enhance the expected efficacy of their whistleblowing intention, by providing collective norms concerning legitimate, management-sanctioned behavior. Questionnaire surveys were collected from 364 employees in 10 banks in the Hangzhou City, China. By and large, the findings supported the (...) hypotheses. Issues of whistleblowing in the Chinese context and implications were discussed. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of ethics instruction, religiosity, and intelligence on cheating behavior. A sample of 230 upper level, undergraduate business students had the opportunity to increase their chances of winning money in an experimental situation by falsely reporting their task performance. In general, the results indicate that students who attended worship services more frequently were less likely to cheat than those who attended worship services less frequently, but that students who had taken a course in business ethics were (...) no less likely to cheat than students who had not taken such a course. However, the results do indicate that the extent to which taking a business ethics course influenced cheating behavior was moderated by the religiosity and intelligence of the individual student. In particular, while students who were highly religious were unlikely to cheat whether or not they had taken a business ethics course, students who were not highly religious demonstrated less cheating if they had taken a business ethics course. In addition, the extent of cheating among highly intelligent students was significantly reduced if such students had taken a course in business ethics. Likewise, individuals who were highly intelligent displayed significantly less cheating if they were also highly religious. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of a survey with public accountants in Barbados on their intention to report a superior’s unethical behaviour. Specifically, it investigates to what extent perceived organisational support in audit organisations would moderate Barbadian public accountants’ intentions to blow the whistle internally and externally. Results indicate that internal whistle-blowing intentions are significantly influenced by all five individual antecedents, and the influence of the antecedents is intensified when the level of POS is high. However, further results indicate that (...) external whistle-blowing intentions are significantly influenced by only three individual-level antecedents viz. attitudes, perceived behavioural control and personal cost of reporting, and their influence is intensified when the level of POS is low. The results suggest that POS is an important mechanism for controlling behaviour. (shrink)

Ethics instructors often use cases to help students understand ethics within a corporate context, but we need to know more about the impact a case-based pedagogy has on students’ ability to make ethical decisions. We used a pre- and post-test methodology to assess the effect of using cases to teach ethics in a finance course. We also wanted to determine whether recent corporate ethics scandals might have impacted students’ perceptions of the importance and prevalence of ethics in business, so we (...) used in-depth case studies of several of the major scandals (e.g., Enron, Tyco, Adelphia). Our results are somewhat surprising since studying ethics scandals positively impacts students’ ethical decision making and their perceptions of the ethics of businesspeople. (shrink)

Existing whistle-blowing models rely on “cold” economic calculations and cost-benefit analyses to explain the judgments and actions of potential whistle-blowers. I argue that “hot” cognitions – value conflict and emotions – should be added to these models. I propose a model of the whistle-blowing decision process that highlights the reciprocal influence of “hot” and “cold” cognitions and advocate research that explores how value conflict and emotions inform reporting decisions. I draw on the cognitive appraisal approach to emotions and on the (...) social-functional value pluralism model to generate propositions. (shrink)

This study explores the impact of mood on individuals’ ethical decision-making processes through the Graham [Graham, J. W.: 1986, Research in Organizational Behavior 8, 1–52] model of Principled Organizational Dissent. In particular, the research addresses how an individual’s mood influences his or her willingness to report the unethical actions of a colleague. Participants’ experienced an affectively charged, unrelated event and were then asked to make a decision regarding whistle-blowing intentions in a public accounting context. As expected, negative mood was associated (...) with lower intentions to report the unethical actions of others to a superior within the organization. The Graham model, which proposes that reporting intentions are impacted by the three determinants of seriousness, personal responsibility and cost, was employed to more clearly understand the nature of the affect–reporting intention relationship. The role of affect was explained by demonstrating that two determinants mediate the relationship between mood and whistle-blowing intentions. Specifically, as seriousness and responsibility have a positive impact on reporting intentions, the reduction of these perceptions by negative mood reduces the intent to report. The negative impact of personal cost on reporting intentions was significant, although not as a mediator of mood. (shrink)

This study examined experimentally the effect of retaliation strength and accounting students’ level of moral reasoning, on their propensity to blow the whistle (PBW) when faced with a serious wrongdoing. Fifty-one senior accounting students enrolled in an auditing course offered by a large New Zealand university participated in the study. Participants responded to three hypothetical whistle-blowing scenarios and completed an instrument that measured moral reasoning (Welton et al., 1994, Accounting Education . International Journal (Toronto, Ont.) 3 (1), 35–50) on one (...) of two conditions – i.e., strong or weak retaliation for whistle-blowing. Consistent with the results of Arnold and Ponemon (1991, Auditing: A Journal of Practice and Theory 10 , 1–15) this study found that the strength of retaliation and participants’ moral reasoning level positively affected their PBW. Unlike results reported in Arnold and Ponemon (1991, Auditing; A Journal of Practice and Theory 10 , 1–15) a significant interaction effect of moral reasoning level and retaliation on participants’ PBW was not found. However, results showed that a participant’s gender has a significant effect on the relationship between his or her moral reasoning level and PBW. These results support the need to improve ethical awareness through accounting education and to increase protection for whistle-blowing (Miceli 2004, Journal of Management Inquiry 13 , 364–366). Furthermore, many participants found it difficult to take a stand when serious wrongdoing is discovered. Therefore, policymakers must exercise caution when placing heavy reliance on whistle-blowing, especially when whistle-blower protection processes are complex and not easily accessible, and processes to facilitate whistle-blowing may vary substantially between public and private sector organizations (Scholtens, 2003, Review of the operation of the Protected Disclosures Act 2000: Report to the Minister of State Services ). (shrink)

The study extends and tests the issue contingent four-component model of ethical decision-making to include moral obligation. A web-based questionnaire was used to gauge the influence of perceived importance of an ethical issue on moral judgment and moral intent. Perceived importance of an ethical issue was found to be a predictor of moral judgment but not of moral intent as predicted. Moral obligation is suggested to be a process that occurs after a moral judgment is made and explained a significant (...) portion of the variance in moral intent. (shrink)

The relationship between mental models and ethical decision making, along with the mechanisms through which mental models affect EDM, are not well understood. Using the sensemaking approach to EDM, we empirically tested the relationship of mental models to EDM. Participants were asked to depict their mental models in response to an ethics case to reveal their understanding of the ethical dilemma, and then provide a response, along with a rationale, to a different ethical problem. Findings indicated that complexity of respondents’ (...) mental models was related to EDM, and that this relationship was mediated by sensemaking processes. The implications of these findings for improving integrity training in organizations, as well as ultimately understanding the role of mental models in EDM, are discussed. (shrink)

Although various factors have been studied for their influence on consumers’ ethical judgments, the role of incidental emotions has received relatively less attention. Recent research in consumer behavior has focused on studying the effect of specific incidental emotions on various aspects of consumer decision making. This paper investigates the effect of two negative, incidental emotional states of anger and fear on ethical judgment in a consumer context using a passive unethical behavior scenario. The paper presents two experimental studies. Study 1 (...) focuses on the interaction of moral intensity and incidental emotion state in predicting the ethical judgment while study 2 investigates the underlying causal mechanism behind the process, using a mediation analysis. The results reveal a significant interaction between moral intensity and incidental emotion. Specifically, individuals in the state of incidental fear exhibit higher levels of ethical judgment as the moral intensity increases as compared to individuals in the state of incidental anger. Further, perceived control is found to mediate the relationship between emotional state and ethical judgment under higher moral intensity condition. (shrink)

This study assessed the relationship between ethical reasoning and the decision to grant equitable relief using an innocent spouse vignette where a wife had partial knowledge of her husband''s tax fraud. A path model derived from various ethics theories was tested using a sample of 357 accounting, legal, and human resource professionals, and after careful examination of the measurement and structural relationships in the path model, the results provided partial support for the study''s hypotheses. Moral intensity was marginally associated with (...) an increased recognition of an ethical issue and positively related ethical judgments made in an innocent spouse situation, and moral intensity was also negatively related to the decision to grant relief. The ethical judgment variable was positively related to the decision to grant relief, while ethical issue awareness was marginally associated with the decision to deny relief. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Discussions of whistleblowing whether in academic literature or in more popular media have tended to very one-sided assessments of the moral worth of the act. Indeed, much of the current literature concentrates on psychological or managerial aspects of whistleblowing while taking for granted this or that moral position or eschewing any normative commitment on the question. The purpose of this article is firstly to reemphasise the importance and complexity of the normative foundations of whistleblowing acts; and secondly, through a moral (...) philosophical analysis of the component decisions that make up any act of whistleblowing, to contribute to a more balanced and less polarised treatment of the topic. It is argued that the polarisation of views on the topic is in part due to a failure to decompose the act of whistleblowing into a number of inevitable component moral decisions leading up to the act. It is furthermore argued on the basis of the analysis that it is impossible to state a priori as a matter of general principle that whistleblowing is always morally right or morally wrong . The article will close with a reflection on the degree to which the weighing up of good and bad in the act of whistleblowing differs sharply among cultures; and with a conjecture as to a possible relation to a people's history which may serve as a pointer to interesting future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

This review summarizes the research on ethical decision-making from 2004 to 2011. Eighty-four articles were published during this period, resulting in 357 findings. Individual findings are categorized by their application to individual variables, organizational variables, or the concept of moral intensity as developed by Jones :366–395, 1991). Rest’s four-step model for ethical decision-making is used to summarize findings by dependent variable—awareness, intent, judgment, and behavior. A discussion of findings in each category is provided in order to uncover trends in the (...) ethical decision-making literature. A summary of areas of suggested future research is provided. (shrink)

This study used structural equation modeling to verify the performance of the ethical decision-making models developed by Jones and by Kelley and Elm. A comparison showed that the Kelley and Elm decision model yielded the optimal degree of fit. The investigations conducted in this study indicated that moral intensities are not an objective, existing concept but rather the product of subjective perception influenced by organizational factors. In addition to directly influencing ethical decisions, organizational factors indirectly influence ethical decisions through moral (...) intensities. (shrink)

Is there a relationship between the psychological construct of hierarchic managerial role motivation and the moral construct of role-related ethical orientation? In this study we examine this question using responses from a sample of 147 business students in Hong Kong. Managerial role motivation or motivation to manage is defined as an internal force that leads select individuals to pursue, enjoy, and succeed in management positions in relatively large hierarchical organizations. As hypothesized, respondents with higher levels of managerial role motivation demonstrated (...) greater managerial role-related ethical orientation as compared with their less managerially motivated counterparts. Similarly, respondents with higher levels of respect for authority figures, competitive games, competitive situations, assertive role, imposing wishes, and a liking for routine administrative functions possessed greater ethical orientations. The research significance, limitations and future field applications are discussed. (shrink)

The growing body of whistleblowing literature includes many studies that have attempted to identify the individual level antecedents of whistleblowing behavior. However, cross-cultural differences in perceptions of the ethicality of whistleblowing affect the judgment of whistleblowing intention. This study ascertains how Chinese managers/professionals decide to blow the whistle in terms of their locus of control and subjective judgment regarding the intention of whistleblowing. Hypotheses that are derived from these speculations are tested with data on Chinese managers and professionals. Statistical analysis (...) largely supports the hypotheses, which suggests that an individual''s locus of control does moderate the relationship between ethical judgment and whistleblowing. (shrink)

Within the theoretical framework of the moral intensity model of ethical decision making (Jones, 1991), two studies ascertained the contention that ethicality judgements are contingent upon the perceived intensity of the moral issue. In addition, Study 1 extended the validity of the moral intensity notion to whistle-blowing behaviour; Study 2 addressed the effect of the individual difference variable, need-for-cognition, on differential utilization of intensity dimensions in the ethical decision process. A scenario approach was used in both studies. Results have provided (...) convergent support for the issue-contingency nature of ethical decisions. Study 1 also showed that felt empathy for potential victims predicted the likelihood of whistle-blowing behaviour, and that the perceived overall ethicality of a wrongdoing predicted felt empathy when potential victims are psychologically and physically close. Results of Study 2 further suggested a greater utilization of issue-relevant information by high need-for-cognition individuals in ethical decision making. (shrink)

This article reports the findings of a cross-cultural study that explored the relationship between nationality, cultural orientation, and attitudes toward different ways in which an employee might blow the whistle. The study investigated two questions – are there any significant differences in the attitudes of university students from South Korea, Turkey and the U.K. toward various ways by which an employee blows the whistle in an organization?, and what effect, if any, does cultural orientation have on these attitudes? In order (...) to answer these questions, the study identified six dimensions of whistleblowing and four types of cultural orientation. The survey was conducted among 759 university students, who voluntarily participated; 284 South Korean, 230 Turkish, and 245 U.K. Although all three samples showed a preference for formal, anonymous and internal modes of whistleblowing, there were significant variations related to nationality and cultural orientation. The findings have some key implications for organizational practice and offer directions for future research. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the impact of moral issues on the moral decision-making process within the field of accounting. In particular, the study examined differences in the perceptions of the underlying characteristics of moral issues on the specific steps of the moral decision-making process of four different accounting situations.The research results suggested that student's perception of the components of moral intensity as well as the various stages of the moral decision-making process was (...) influenced by the type and intensity of the moral issue. In general, accounting student's perceptions of the importance of these variables varied between less unethical and more unethical accounting issues. The differences in perceptions of four moral intensity components: magnitude of consequences, concentration of effect, probability of effect and proximity stood out more in the accounting issues analyzed. (shrink)

There is an increasing recognition of the need to provide ways for people to raise concerns about suspected wrongdoing by promoting internal policies and procedures which offer proper safeguards to actual and potential whistleblowers. Many organisations in both the public and private sectors now have such measures and these display a wide variety of operating modalities: in-house or outsourced, anonymous/confidential/identified, multi or single tiered, specified or open subject matter, etc. As a result of this development, a number of guidelines and (...) policy documents have been produced by authoritative bodies. This article reviews the following five documents from a management perspective, the first two deal with the principles upon which legislation might be based and the others describing good management practice: the Council of Europe Resolution 1729 (COER); Transparency International ‘Recommended Principles for Whistleblowing Legislation’ (TI); European Union Article 29 Data Protection Working Party Opinion (EUWP); International Chamber of Commerce ‘Guidelines on Whistleblowing’ (ICC); and the British Standards Institute ‘Whistleblowing arrangements Code of Practice 2008 (BSI). (shrink)

This paper draws on cognitive psychological theory to explain the role of emotion in the decision-making process of four reluctant, vulnerable witnesses to wrongdoing, who were persuaded to blow the whistle on matters of substantial public interest. It proposes a theoretical explanation for the role of emotion on whistle-blower or witness decision-making, based on the Iterative Reprocessing Model and drawing on appraisal-based theories of cognitive psychology. It concludes that the decision to speak is preceded by an intense emotional episode, probably (...) due to changes in the witnesses’ coping and legitimacy appraisal structures. These changes are most likely a result of interaction with journalists and others during the decision-making process. (shrink)