Behavioral Ethics Research Research Articles

The Cumulative Effect of Minor Transgressions on Major Ones: A Self-Regulatory Approach

Many recent corporate scandals have been described as resulting from a slippery slope in which a series of small infractions gradually increased over time (e.g., McLean & Elkind, 2003). However, behavioral ethics research has rarely considered how unethical behavior evolves over time and to date has not empirically examined whether individuals engage in a slippery slope of increasing unethical behavior. In this paper, we seek to extend Bandura’s (1991, 1999) social cognitive theory by demonstrating how the mechanisms of depleted self-regulation and increased moral disengagement can lead to greater unethicality over a series of gradually increasing indiscretions. Across three multi-round studies using different measures of unethical behavior, we find evidence of a slippery slope effect in which gradual, rather than abrupt, changes facilitate unethicality. Additionally, in Studies 2 and 3, this effect is sequentially mediated by depleted self-regulation and increased moral disengagement.

Moral Diversity and its Impact on Individuals’ Ethical Decision Making in Organizations

In this paper, we introduce the concept of moral diversity into the behavioral ethics and organizational diversity literature. We propose a theoretical model specifying how and under what conditions moral diversity (i.e., organizational members espousing different ethical systems) influences one’s own eventual (un)ethical decisions. We argue that moral diversity becomes visible when organizational members engage in ethical conversations and it is during such conversations that the impact of moral diversity occurs. We theorize about the role of moral identity centrality, identity-protection and restructuring responses, individual locus of control, and self-directed and other-directed moral emotions on moral diversity’s impact on changing/influencing an individual’s (un)ethical decisions. Finally, the implications of research on moral diversity for behavioral ethics research and practice, as well as future research avenues are discussed.

The Legacy Motive: A Catalyst for Sustainable Decision Making in Organizations

ABSTRACT:In this article, we review and build on intergenerational and behavioral ethics research to consider how the motive to build a lasting legacy can impact ethical behavior in intergenerational decision making. We discuss how people can utilize their relationships to organizations to craft their legacies. Further, we elucidate how the legacy motive can enhance business ethics, incorporating theory and empirical findings from research on intergenerational decision making, generativity, and terror management theory to develop the legacy construct and to outline the psychological underpinnings of motivations to leave a positive legacy. We discuss the ways in which legacies can provide a link between life-meaning and pro-social motivation, and we consider the ways in which individuals’ social environments can moderate the intensity of the legacy motive and can impact legacy-building behavior by determining the types of legacies that are valued. Finally, we highlight the implications of these ideas for ethical behavior and sustainable decision making in business contexts.

Organizational Justice and Behavioral Ethics: Promises and Prospects

ABSTRACT:Scholars studying organizational justice have been slow to incorporate insights from behavioral ethics research, despite the fields’ conceptual affinities. We maintain that this stems from differences in the paradigmatic approaches taken by scholars in each area. First, justice research historically has assumed that individuals are motivated by a desire for instrumental control of worthwhile outcomes or by a concern with social status, while behavioral ethics has paid more attention to the role of internalized moral convictions and duties. Second, organizational justice researchers have investigated one set of individual differences, behavioral researchers have examined another. Third, justice scholars focus on social identities while behavioral ethics scholars also investigate moral identities. As an impetus to future inquiry, our review attends to contemporary organizational justice research that takes into account concepts derived from behavioral ethics. In so doing we hope to highlight an avenue for integrative scholarship that will further our understanding of organizational justice.