Journal of Business Ethics 84 (S1):151 - 165 (2009)
Abstract |
Recent corporate scandals across various industries have led to an increased focus on research in business ethics, particularly on understanding ethical decision-making. This increased interest is due largely to managers' desire to reduce the incidence of unwanted behaviors in the workplace. This article examines one major moderator of the ethical decision-making process - moral intensity. In particular, we explore the potential influence of a particular cognitive heuristic - the availability heuristic -on perceptions of moral intensity. It is our contention that moral intensity is a perceptual construct, and that individuals' use of the availability heuristic will influence perceptions of moral intensity which, in turn, will affect how moral issues are viewed and ultimately resolved. In this article, we present propositions concerning possible relationships between the availabilities of various phenomena and the components that moral intensity comprises, and report on two studies examining the effects of availabilities on two of these components: magnitude of consequences and social consensus. Our findings indicated that the availability of consequences associated with an act was positively related to perceptions of the magnitude of consequences of that act. We also found that the availability of others who believe that a particular act is morally acceptable is positively related to perceptions of social consensus that that act is morally acceptable. We posit that our results suggest the possibility that perceptions of moral intensity can be actively influenced to reduce unethical behavior in organizations
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Keywords | moral intensity ethical decision-making issue recognition availability heuristic cognitive bias |
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DOI | 10.1007/s10551-008-9690-7 |
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References found in this work BETA
Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases.Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic & Amos Tversky (eds.) - 1982 - Cambridge University Press.
Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment.Richard E. Nisbett & Lee Ross - 1980 - Englewood Cliffs, NJ, USA: Prentice-Hall.
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference.William R. Shadish - 2001 - Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
A Review of Empirical Studies Assessing Ethical Decision Making in Business. [REVIEW]Terry W. Loe, Linda Ferrell & Phylis Mansfield - 2000 - Journal of Business Ethics 25 (3):185 - 204.
Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability.Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman - 1973 - Cognitive Psychology 5 (2):207-232.
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Citations of this work BETA
A Review of the Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: 2004–2011. [REVIEW]Jana L. Craft - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 117 (2):221-259.
Research Note and Review of the Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: Boundary Conditions and Extensions.Nitish Singh, Yung-Hwal Park & Kevin Lehnert - 2015 - Journal of Business Ethics 129 (1):195-219.
Institutionalizing Ethical Innovation in Organizations: An Integrated Causal Model of Moral Innovation Decision Processes.E. Günter Schumacher & David M. Wasieleski - 2013 - Journal of Business Ethics 113 (1):15-37.
Accounting for Proscriptive and Prescriptive Morality in the Workplace: The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Mood on Managerial Ethical Decision Making.Laura J. Noval & Günter K. Stahl - 2017 - Journal of Business Ethics 142 (3):589-602.
Hardworking as a Heuristic for Moral Character: Why We Attribute Moral Values to Those Who Work Hard and Its Implications.Clinton Amos, Lixuan Zhang & David Read - 2019 - Journal of Business Ethics 158 (4):1047-1062.
View all 11 citations / Add more citations
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