The field of behavioral ethics has seen considerable growth over the last few decades. One of the most significant concerns facing this interdisciplinary field of research is the moral judgment-action gap. The moral judgment-action gap is the inconsistency people display when they know what is right but do what they know is wrong. Much of the research in the field of behavioral ethics is based on early work in moral psychology and American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s foundational cognitive model of moral (...) development. However, Kohlberg’s model of moral development lacks a compelling explanation for the judgment-action gap. Yet, it continues to influence theory, research, teaching, and practice in business ethics today. As such, this paper presents a critical review and analysis of the pertinent literature. This paper also reviews modern theories of ethical decision making in business ethics. Gaps in our current understanding and directions for future research in behavioral business ethics are presented. By providing this important theoretical background information, targeted critical analysis, and directions for future research, this paper assists management scholars as they begin to seek a more unified approach, develop newer models of ethical decision making, and conduct business ethics research that examines the moral judgment-action gap. (shrink)

Numerous studies have documented the demand for information regarding corporations’ relationships to society. Much recent research has demonstrated why stakeholders need this information, and how it benefits both companies and the public. These studies suggest numerous methods by which companies can effectively disclose corporate social responsibility (CSR) information to the public, but in practice, reporting this type of information is fraught with legal and ethical uncertainty often unexplored in most literature. This article represents a fresh analysis of the numerous pragmatic (...) consequences and legal and ethical complications inherent in CSR reporting, using Nike Corporation as a case example. The article discusses the theoretical viewpoints surrounding the ethics of CSR disclosure, and presents the case of Nike and the complications it encountered while advertising CSR information. The article ends with an analysis of CSR auditing as a possible solution to companies seeking to improve the method and transparency of social responsibility reporting. (shrink)

This article explores the prevailing assumption of instrumentalism in negotiation and argues that contrary to the popular conception in negotiation scholarship, negotiators need not be assumed to be ontologically individualistic or purely self-interested in their motivation and action. We show the contribution that can be made to the field by an approach to negotiation that does not presume a strong and inevitable self-interest as the fundamental starting point of any account of negotiation behavior and we offer ideas for an alternative (...) starting point, which we call the agentic-relational model. (shrink)

Moral stress is an increasingly significant concept in business ethics and the workplace environment. This study compares the impact of moral stress with other job stressors on three important employee variables—fatigue, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions—by utilizing survey data from 305 customer-contact employees of a financial institution’s call center. Statistical analysis on the interaction of moral stress and the three employee variables was performed while controlling for other types of job stress as well as demographic variables. The results reveal that (...) even after including the control variables in the statistical models, moral stress remains a statistically significant predictor of increased employee fatigue, decreased job satisfaction, and increased turnover intentions. Implications for future research and for organizations are discussed. (shrink)