Abstract

The study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between cognitive development, ethical reasoning skills and the ethical behavior of health care executives. Cognitive development was evidenced in one instance by the combination of age, education, work experience, and, in another, by gender. The correlation between ethical reasoning skills and years in management and years with the same employer was also studied. Lastly, the relationship between ethical reasoning skills and the decision making of the health care executive was studied. ;This investigation did not find a clear relationship between cognitive development and ethical reasoning skills when analyzed in light of the selected variables. However, a significant relationship was found between the ethical reasoning skills of the subject population and the decisions they made. Support was found for the hypothesis that health care executives tend to act consistently with the output of their ethical reasoning process. ;This work indicates that further research is needed to define the language of the study of the ethical decision making process. Particularly, deeper and more multi-dimensional research is needed of the factors that influence how the executive determines the behavior in which to engage in the professional setting, and to find the ways to improve the ethical decisional capabilities of health care executives