The growing uses of algorithm-based decision-making in human resources management have drawn considerable attention from different stakeholders. While prior literature mainly focused on stakeholders directly related to HR decisions (e.g., employees), this paper pertained to a third-party observer perspective and investigated how consumers would respond to companies’ adoption of algorithm-based HR decision-making. Through five experimental studies, we showed that the adoption of algorithm-based (vs. human-based) HR decision-making could induce consumers’ unfavorable ethicality inferences of the company (study 1); because implementing a (...) calculative and data-driven approach (i.e. algorithm-based) to make employee-related decisions violates the deontological principles of respectful employee treatment (study 2). However, this effect was attenuated when consumers had high (vs. low) power distance beliefs (study 3); the algorithm served as assistance (vs. replacement) for human decisions (study 4); or the adoption was framed as employee-oriented (vs. company-oriented) motivated (study 5). Our findings suggested that consumers are aversive to algorithm-based HR decision-making because it is deontologically problematic regardless of its decision quality (i.e. accuracy). This paper contributes to the extant understanding of stakeholders’ responses to algorithm-based HR decision-making and consumers’ attitudes toward algorithm users. (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)

Why do otherwise well-intentioned managers make decisions that have negative social or environmental consequences? To answer this question, the authors combine the literature on construal level theory with the compromise effect to explore the circumstances that lead to seemingly unethical decision-making. The results of two studies suggest that the degree to which managers make high-risk tradeoffs is highly influenced by how they mentally represent the decision context. The authors find that managers are more likely to make seemingly unethical tradeoffs when (...) psychological distance is high (rather than low) and when they are forced to choose between competing alternatives. However, when given the option not to choose, managers better reflect on the consequences of each alternative, and thus become more likely to choose options with less risk of negative consequences. The results suggest that simply offering managers the option not to choose may reduce psychological distance and help organizations avoid seemingly unethical decision-making. (shrink)

In this paper I engage the theonomous ethics of Paul Tillich to argue that morality is a matter of conviction and concern not determination of right or wrong, and moral imperative is not about doing what “right” is, rather it is the self-actualisation of individual through her intersubjective relationships. The motivational force behind self-actualisation stems from the strength of one’s hold on “ultimate concern”, and not the content of “ultimate concern” that maybe referred to by various names including God. The (...) ultimacy and unconditionality of “ultimate concern” gives morality its religious character and imperativeness. The paper suggests that business should provide an environment in which individual’s moral motivational force can be strengthened through removal of the impediments that weaken one’s hold on “ultimate concern”. (shrink)

This study analyzes cognitive responses to explore a dual processing perspective of ethical judgment formation. Specifically, the study investigates how two factors, judgment task difficulty and moral intensity, influence the extent of deontological and teleological processing and their effects on ethical judgments. A single experiment on 110 undergraduate research participants found that judgment task difficulty affected the extent of deontological and teleological processing. Although moral intensity affected ethical judgments, it did not produce effects on either deontological or teleological cognitive responses. (...) Results did not support the hypotheses that deontological and teleological cognitive responses would mediate the relationships between the experimental factors and ethical judgments. Overall, the results support continued research of factors that affect the nature of information processing in ethical decision situations and the use of cognitive response analysis as a tool for conducting this research. (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)

Investigations into ethical judgments generally seem fuzzy as to the relevant research domain. We first attempted to clarify the construct and determine domain parameters. This attempt required addressing difficulties associated with pinpointing relevant literature, most notably the varied nomenclature used to refer to ethical judgments (individual evaluations of actions’ ethicality). Given this variation in construct nomenclature and the difficulties it presented in identifying pertinent focal studies, we elected to focus on research that cited papers featuring prominent and often-used measures of (...) ethical judgments (primarily, but not exclusively, the Multidimensional Ethics Scale). Our review of these studies indicated a preponderance of inferences and conclusions unwarranted by empirical evidence (likely attributable at least partly to inconsistent nomenclature). Moreover, ethical judgments related consistently to few respondent characteristics or any other variables, emergent relationships may not always be especially meaningful, and much research seems inclined to repetition of already verified findings. Although we concluded that knowledge about ethical judgments seems not to have advanced appreciably after decades of investigation, we suggested a possible path forward that focuses on the content of what is actually being judged as reflected in the myriad of vignettes used in the literature to elicit judgments. (shrink)

Knowledge about ethical judgments has not advanced appreciably after decades of research. Such research, however, has rarely addressed the possible importance of the content of such judgments; that is, the material appearing in the brief vignettes or scenarios on which survey respondents base their evaluations. Indeed, this content has seemed an afterthought in most investigations. This paper closely examined the vast array of vignettes that have appeared in relevant research in an effort to reduce this proliferation to a more concise (...) set of overarching vignette themes. Six generic themes emerged from this process, labeled here as Dilemma, Classic, Conspiracy, Sophie’s Choice, Runaway Trolley, and Whistle Blowing. Each of these themes is characterized by a unique combination of four key factors that include the extent of protagonist personal benefit from relevant vignette activities and victim salience in vignette descriptions. Theme identification enabled inherent ambiguities in vignettes that threaten construct validity to come into sharp focus, provided clues regarding appropriate vignette construction, and may help to make sense of patterns of empirical findings that heretofore have seemed difficult to explain. (shrink)

This study adopts moral reasoning strategies to investigate why consumers support companies involved in ethical transgressions. Drawing on several cases of real multinationals publicly involved in tax avoidance practices, it aims to demonstrate that moral rationalization and moral decoupling depend not only on how consumers perceive the magnitude of the transgression, but also on their individual differences, such as political ideology and brand identification. A quantitative study with a sample of 3989 consumers of five different focal brands was employed to (...) test a set of hypotheses. Findings reveal that moral decoupling directly explains purchase intentions. However, rationalization only explains behavioral intentions if it leads to a reduction in the perceived immorality of the action. Furthermore, the study reveals significant differences across personal values. Left-leaning individuals tend to rationalize less and decouple more when they perceive that the magnitude of the transgression as egregious. Interestingly, consumers who are highly identified with the brand are less affected by the transgression and tend to be more supportive toward the brand by engaging in rationalization mechanisms. (shrink)

The relationship between intuition and ethical decision-making has been researched extensively during the past two decades. This study aimed at exploring empirically observable associations between intuition and the moral intensity of ethical decision-making processes. A scenario-based quantitative approach was used to collect data from 157 practising professional spirit mediums. It was found that only collective universal intuition had a significant positive association with the moral intensity of ethical decision-making processes. Personal experience intuition and collective archetype intuition were not significantly associated (...) with moral intensity. This may explain why previous studies were unable to gauge the effects of intuition on ethical decision-making. The results suggest that a pure mind can improve one’s ability to make decisions. Thus, decision-makers would benefit by being more attuned to their sense of morality. (shrink)

By synthesizing the argumentation theory of new rhetoric with research on heuristics and motivated reasoning, we develop a conceptual view of argumentation based on reasoning motivations that sheds new light on the morality of decision-making. Accordingly, we propose that reasoning in eristic argumentation is motivated by psychological (e.g., anxiety reduction) or material (e.g., vested interests) gains that do not depend on resolving the problem in question truthfully. Contrary to heuristic argumentation, in which disputants genuinely argue to reach a practically rational (...) solution, eristic argumentation aims to defeat the counterparty rather than seeking a reasonable solution. Eristic argumentation is susceptible to arbitrariness and power abuses; therefore, it is inappropriate for making moral judgments with the exception of judgments concerning moral taboos, which are closed to argumentation by their nature. Eristic argumentation is also problematic for strategic and entrepreneurial decision-making because it impedes the search for the right heuristic under uncertainty as an ecologically rational choice. However, our theoretical view emphasizes that under extreme uncertainty, where heuristic solutions are as fallible as any guesses, pretense reasoning by eristic argumentation may be instrumental for its adaptive benefits. Expanding the concept of eristic argumentation based on reasoning motivations opens a new path for studying the psychology of reasoning in connection to morality and decision-making under uncertainty. We discuss the implications of our theoretical view to relevant research streams, including ethical, strategic and entrepreneurial decision-making. (shrink)

There has been a longstanding controversy in research as to whether moral judgment is the result of an analytical or an intuitive process. Today, researchers increasingly recognize that moral judgments can be the result of both intuition and analysis, and that the two paths can lead to different results. This raises the question as to which of the two processes leads to a better moral judgment. The article develops a typology of moral problems depending on their moral uncertainty and moral (...) equivocality and links the derived types with analysis and intuition effectiveness. The typology considers four types of moral problems: compliance problems (low uncertainty, low equivocality), professional ethics problems (high uncertainty, low equivocality), conformity problems (low uncertainty, high equivocality) and ethical dilemmas (high uncertainty, high equivocality). The article argues that compliance and professional ethics problems are best solved analytically, whereas intuition is assumed to be more suitable for conformity problems and ethical dilemmas. Moreover, the article shows that it is not sufficient to contrast intuition with analysis alone. The higher the moral uncertainty, the more important the interplay of intuition and analysis becomes in making moral judgments. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of individual ethical values and organizational factors on the professional ethics of PR practitioners in Korea by considering a person–situation interactionist model. Individual ethical values are used as individual factors, and organizational factors consist of an organization’s reward and punishment for ethical/unethical behavior, the behavior of peers, and the ethical integrity of the chief ethics officer. The professional ethics of PR practitioners (the dependent variable) are classified into the following three dimensions: professional ethics for the (...) public, the client, and the PR industry. The results indicate that agency practitioners were more likely to be committed to their profession than to their organization, whereas in-house practitioners were more likely to be committed to their organization than to their profession. That is, in-house practitioners showed weak professional commitment, indicating that they perceived themselves as employees, not as PR professionals. Organizational factors such as reward, punishment, and peers’ ethical behavior had considerable influence on the professional ethics of in-house practitioners, whereas they had little influence on agency practitioners. Organizational factors as well as individual ethical values were more likely to influence the professional ethics of in-house practitioners than that of agency practitioners. Thus, to foster in-house practitioners’ professional ethics and commitment, professional associations in the PR industry should make efforts to provide in-house practitioners with more information on the PR industry and more opportunities for interacting and maintaining communication with their colleagues in the industry. (shrink)

Accidents involving large trucks result in significant economic and social costs. As technological solutions have improved, behavioral factors contributing to accidents have risen in importance. The purpose of this research is to investigate how norms, consequences, and personal attitudes influence safety-related ethical judgments and behavioral intentions. The Hunt–Vitell’s theory of ethical decision-making is adapted to test how these factors influence truck drivers’ decisions containing ethical content. Professional truck drivers evaluated decisions presented in two scenarios that included the situation, the decision, (...) and the results. The research found that drivers rely heavily on evaluations of safety norms when forming ethical judgments and behavioral intentions. Further, drivers’ attitudes toward compliance and the effectiveness of safety regulations also influenced decision-making to an extent. Overall, evidence of a refutation of the assumption that a tradeoff exists between operational productivity and safety was discovered. Drivers in this study intended to behave in a certain manner irrespective of time or money pressures. The perceived ethical component of the decision outweighed regulatory and economic consequences under a range of parameters. (shrink)

Trade secret theft is a problem that almost all organizations face. The greatest threat is employee mobility and potential unethical post-employment behavior. This study investigates the role of individual personality traits in judgments about trade secret misappropriation. Our hypotheses were tested in three studies addressing three different situational contexts: current employees, employees about to be laid off, and students who had quit their job. Relationships were estimated with robust regression. The results show that some personality traits predict judgment about another (...) person's trade secret misappropriation, and that the situational context in which individuals formulate their ethical judgment moderates the impact of personality traits on ethical judgment. (shrink)

Within this paper, we adopt a qualitative process approach to explore how ethical judgments are influenced by spatio-cultural meanings applied to social entrepreneurship in the context of Mozambique. We analyse how such ethical judgments emerged using data gathered over a 4 year period in Maputo. Our findings illustrate three modes used to inform ethical judgments: embracing, rejecting and integrating. These describe how ethical judgments transpire as participants evaluate social entrepreneurship drawing upon related global normative meanings and those embedded within the (...) local context. This analysis offers a critical contribution regarding how ethical judgments regarding social entrepreneurship evolve from negotiation and interaction within a context of multiple spatio-cultural meanings. (shrink)

As negative information about companies becomes widely available and spreads rapidly through digital communications, understanding consumer reactions to these events and how human perceptions are shaped becomes increasingly important. In this paper, we investigate how consumers’ identification with brands and their love for them affect their support for the brand during extremely unethical situations. The results indicate that brand identification both decreases and increases consumers’ ethical judgment following extremely unethical events. Moreover, we find that consumers who are in a love (...) type relationship with the brand proactively shield the brand from other consumers by employing two brand supportive behaviors; sin of omission and brand defense. (shrink)

The paper investigates the ethical decisions of Millennials, who are not only part of an expanding cohort of the workforce, but also represent potential future managers with a growing influence on work practices and employment relationships. In the conceptual model, we propose that three ethical frames of reference, represented by perceived organisational ethics, perceived employee ethics and reflective moral attentiveness, antecede ethical judgements, which further influence the ethical intentions of Millennials. Using structural equation modelling, we test the model for three (...) different business ethics scenarios: paying a consulting fee, dumping hazardous waste, and running an offensive advertising campaign. The findings confirm the link between ethical judgements and intentions across the board, while the influence of the ethical frames of reference varies among the scenarios. We propose that the differences in the predictive ability of the ethical frames of reference depend on the nature of the ethical issue, which holds important implications for today's managers in their attempts to encourage ethical behaviour of Millennial employees. (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)

The paper focuses on the consumer side of consumption tax evasion (CTE), a subcategory of the shadow economy. The ethical dimensions of tax evasion have been effectively captured by the existent literature on tax morale, yet it fails to address the role consumers can play in CTE. Further, there is a shortage of tax morale studies that explore ethical decision making as a process composed of multiple steps and determinants. To bridge these gaps, we turned to the consumer ethics literature (...) and Jones’ issue-contingent model of ethical decision making. We developed the conceptual model of consumer ethical decision making for CTE by incorporating four key elements from the issue-contingent model, i.e. moral recognition, moral judgement, moral intention and moral intensity, while personal moral philosophies were introduced as an antecedent to the consumer ethical decision-making process. The study was conducted on a sample of consumers from Slovenia, where CTE is a widespread phenomenon. The findings confirm that consumers’ recognition of CTE as a moral issue is influenced by their moral philosophy and perceptions regarding the magnitude of CTE’s consequences, their visibility, probability, and temporal immediacy. These perceptions also play an important role in determining consumers’ moral judgements and intentions regarding CTE. Moreover, through the process of moral recognition and moral judgement, consumers form intentions to participate in, or avoid CTE. The study holds important implications for public policy makers who are trying to reduce the tax gap in times of economic instability and fiscal crisis. (shrink)

Morality, in the context of luxury counterfeit goods, has been widely discussed in existing literature as having a strong association with decreased purchase intention. However, drawing on moral disengagement theory, we argue that individuals are motivated to justify their immoral behaviors through guilt avoidance, thus increasing counterfeit purchase intention. This research demonstrates that consumers’ desire to purchase counterfeit luxuries hinges on two types of moral reasoning strategies: moral rationalization and moral decoupling. The empirical results show that each strategy increases purchase (...) intention, but respectively through moral judgment and perceived benefit. Implications for researchers and managers are discussed. (shrink)

Necro-advertising refers to the use of deceased celebrities in advertising. This practice offers unique advantages to brands that seek to benefit from positive associations with timeless celebrities at a more affordable cost than celebrity endorsement. Nevertheless, how consumers actually respond to the use of deceased celebrities in advertising remains under-theorized. This research is the first to empirically examine consumers’ ethical judgments about necro-advertising practices. In particular, drawing from the signaling theory, it demonstrates the impact of consumer inferences about the existence (...) of a legal agreement for using deceased celebrities’ images on brand ethicality. The results of two experimental studies show that a low-equity brand is more likely to be perceived as unethical when using necro-advertising since consumers have limited knowledge about these brands. Conversely, our findings confirm how a high level of equity prevents from the aforementioned adverse effects since these brands’ assets send a credible signal about their capability to get approval from a deceased celebrity’s estate for the use of its image. While deepening current knowledge on the perceived ethicality of necro-advertising practices, this research uncovers the moderating effect of equity on consumer inferences about brand ethicality. The results also suggest managerial caveats and guidelines for low-equity brands. In particular, while necro-advertising may have a negative impact on the perceived ethicality of low-equity brands, disclosing a statement about a contractual engagement with the deceased celebrity’s estate can mitigate this negative effect by providing an unequivocal signal that the brand is acting ethically. (shrink)

This article examines how employees form their perceptions of managerial responsibility in a concrete organizational setting. Drawing on negotiated order theory, it shows that these perceptions are the result of complex processes of social construction and negotiation, rather than the application of predetermined ethics models or norms. Employees’ perceptions appear to be unstable; they are subject to constant alterations, fluctuating with the organizational circumstances, and are likely to create considerable organizational perturbations, especially when managers make complex and ambiguous decisions. This (...) process is illustrated through an ethnographic study that analyzed the evolution of employee perceptions during a three-year crisis—one that led managers to repeatedly postpone salary payments to save jobs. The process approach adopted by the study highlights important dynamics that traditional business ethics approaches overlook, such as the fragility of the construct of managerial responsibility, which cannot be coherent unless it is constantly renegotiated among an organization’s various employee groups. (shrink)

This paper investigates whether accounting professionals’ ethical judgment is influenced by the disciplinary system established by the accounting profession in France and the United States. Our study first attempts to determine whether there is a link between the EJ of accounting professionals and the disciplinary context, in each country. It then performs a comparative analysis of the two nations. Our findings indicate that the judgment of American accounting professionals is correlated with the disciplinary decisions of the accountancy board. By contrast, (...) the judgment of French accounting professionals is independent of the disciplinary context. Whereas cross-national studies have thus far attributed differences among nations mainly to cultural distance, current research shows that non-cultural national factors should also be considered. In line with this perspective, our study suggests that institutional factors, in particular the disciplinary system, may also account for the differences between French and American accounting professionals’ ethical perceptions. We support these results by highlighting some characteristics of the countries’ respective legal systems, which may explain the divergences observed. We conclude by identifying implications for the independence of accounting professionals’ EJ and the risks associated with dissuasive disciplinary systems. (shrink)

Contractualist work in business ethics as well as in economic organization theory views opportunistic behaviors as problematic since they create economic harm and are often considered to violate ethical norms. Yet, much of the empirical literature on opportunism has adopted a rather simplistic definition of opportunistic behaviors as behaviors that violate formal and/or relational contracts and assumed that instances of opportunism can be unequivocally defined by simply referring to the content of contracts. The consequence of this assumption has been a (...) disregard for factors other than the content of contracts that may influence whether exchange partners judge an unexpected behavior they face during exchange relationships as opportunistic or not. The present investigation explores the factors that shape exchange partners’ subjective opportunism judgments through two vignette-based laboratory experiments. Results from the first experiment, where subjects were asked to take the perspective of a harmed party, show that opportunism judgments are influenced by the type of the behavior, type of the causal account provided for the behavior, perceived type of the exchange, and personality traits of the actor making the judgment. The second experiment, in which subjects were asked to take the perspective of the transgressor, demonstrates the influence of perspective. In particular, victims are more likely to assess a given unexpected behavior as opportunistic than transgressors, and their judgments do not relate to the underlying factors in the same way as the victims’ judgments. I discuss implications in terms of the governance of interfirm exchange relationships. (shrink)

This research investigates the importance of trade-off salience in understanding how variations in consumers’ construal levels can influence moral judgments. Across five experiments, trade-offs are implied and explicitly made salient, and construal levels are manipulated by altering temporal distance and perceptual fluency, and by using a well-established cognitive method. Consistent with prior research, we demonstrate that higher construal levels can reduce anticipated unethical behavior, when trade-offs are not salient, by making higher-level moral values more prominent. When trade-offs are salient, however, (...) we reveal that unethical behavior is increased when construal levels are elevated by making desirability-related thoughts relatively more prominent, compared to feasibility-related thoughts. Tests of mediation provide support for the role of desirability- and feasibility-related thoughts. Together, our results provide insight into the opposing predictions made by construal level theory for ethical decision making by revealing how trade-off salience, often inherent in ethical dilemmas, systematically influences the effects of construal level on ethical decision making. (shrink)

This research investigates the importance of trade-off salience in understanding how variations in consumers’ construal levels can influence moral judgments. Across five experiments, trade-offs are implied and explicitly made salient, and construal levels are manipulated by altering temporal distance and perceptual fluency, and by using a well-established cognitive method. Consistent with prior research, we demonstrate that higher construal levels can reduce anticipated unethical behavior, when trade-offs are not salient, by making higher-level moral values more prominent. When trade-offs are salient, however, (...) we reveal that unethical behavior is increased when construal levels are elevated by making desirability-related thoughts relatively more prominent, compared to feasibility-related thoughts. Tests of mediation provide support for the role of desirability- and feasibility-related thoughts. Together, our results provide insight into the opposing predictions made by construal level theory for ethical decision making by revealing how trade-off salience, often inherent in ethical dilemmas, systematically influences the effects of construal level on ethical decision making. (shrink)

Despite the obvious link between spirituality, religiosity and ethical judgment, a definition for the nature of this relationship remains elusive due to conceptual and methodological limitations. To address these, we propose an integrative Spiritual-based model derived from categories presumed to be universal across religions and cultural contexts, to guide future business ethics research on religiosity. This article aims to empirically test in the context of Islam. It examines how different Muslims' views of God influence their ethical judgments in organizations, and (...) how this process is mediated by their religious practice and knowledge. Comprising focus group and vignette designs, the study was carried out with a random sample of 427 executives and management professionals from Saudi. After data collection, the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The findings confirmed that a view of God based on hope might be more closely associated with unethical judgments than a view based on fear or one balancing hope and fear. Furthermore, religious practice and knowledge were found to mediate the relationship between Muslims' different views of God and their ethical judgments. These results provide unique theoretical insights into religiosity's influence on ethical judgment, with important implications for management. (shrink)

This research extends previous findings related to the positive influence of company credibility on a social Cause–Brand Alliance’s (CBA) persuasion mechanism. This study analyzes the mediating role of two dimensions of company credibility (trustworthiness and expertise) with regard to the influence of altruistic attributions and two types of brand–cause fit (functional and image fit) on corporate social responsibility image. A structural equation model tests the proposed framework with a sample of 299 consumers, and the results suggest that (1) image fit (...) and altruistic attribution are cues that consumers use to evaluate company trustworthiness when linking to a social cause; (2) functional fit significantly influences perceived company expertise but not trustworthiness; and (3) trustworthiness has more weight than expertise in judgments about corporate social responsibility. (shrink)