Advocating an Ethical Viewpoint: Speaking Up About Social and Ethical Issues in Organizations

Abstract

In this symposium, we address critical questions around why and how individuals advocate for an ethical point of view in organizations to address social or ethical issues. In contrast to dominant decision making perspectives in the literature, the papers in this symposium emphasize the psychological, social and institutional processes that enable some organizational members to raise a social and ethical issue. The papers also address some of the tactics organizational members use to advocate for (or obstruct) an ethical point of view. Collectively, the four presentations in the symposium depart from the literature’s dominant theoretical perspective around the factors that allow individuals to succumb to ethical transgression. This focus on antisocial or deviant behavior calls attention to important misdeeds at work but obscures the work some organizational members engage in to advance an ethical point of view, something that represents a potentially more productive, proactive, and constructive response to ethical issues. As a result, we hope our symposium stimulates further research that examines how individuals use a variety of tactics (e.g., expressing voice, using language, identity work, and institutional change) to advocate for a moral viewpoint. This symposium also fits nicely with the “Capitalism in Question” theme of the conference given the focus on economic, social, and environmental issues explored in the four papers and the implications for how capitalism can (and should) include an ethical lens. Show Me the Money or Show Me the Morals? Presenter: David Mayer; U. of Michigan Presenter: Scott Sonenshein; Rice U. Presenter: Madeline Ong; U. of Michigan Presenter: Susan J. Ashford; U. of Michigan Institutional Defenses Against Controversial Issues Presenter: Maureen A. Scully; U. of Massachusetts Boston The Renaissance Chemist or the Schizophrenic Scientist? Presenter: Jennifer Howard-Grenville; U. of Oregon Presenter: Andrew Nelson; U. of Oregon Presenter: Andrew Earle; U. of Oregon Presenter: Julie Haack; U. of Oregon Presenter: Douglas Young; Lane Community College Social Salience and Voice Presenter: Andrew Brodsky; Harvard Business School Presenter: Joshua D Margolis; Harvard U. Presenter: Joel Brockner; Columbia U.