ethical decision making review

7/31/2019 Ethical Decision Making Review

1/40

A Review of The Empirical

Ethical Decision-Making Literature:19962003

Michael J. OFallonKenneth D. Butterfield

ABSTRACT. This review summarizes and critiques the

empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996

2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were pub-lished in top business journals during this period. Tables

are included that summarize the findings by dependent

variable awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We

compare this review with past reviews in order to draw

conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-

making literature and to surface directions for future re-

search.

KEY WORDS: Awareness, behavior, decision-making,

descriptive ethics, ethical decision-making, intent, judg-

ment, literature review, rests model

The field of business ethics is commonly divided

into two realms normative ethics, which resides

largely in the realm of moral philosophy and theol-ogy and guides individuals as to how they should

behave, and descriptive (or empirical) ethics, which

resides largely in the realm of management and

business and is concerned with explaining and pre-

dicting individuals actual behavior (e.g., Donaldson

and Dunfee, 1994; Trevino and Weaver, 1994;

Weaver and Trevino, 1994). Although both realms

of inquiry are important, this review focuses on

empirical findings within the descriptive ethical

decision-making literature.

During the mid 1980s and early 1990s, the field of

descriptive ethics was advanced by a number of

theoretical models (e.g., Jones, 1991; Rest, 1986;

Trevino, 1986). These models generally built on

Rests (1986) original framework, which views moral

decision-making as involving four basic components,

or steps identifying the moral nature of an issue,

making a moral judgment, establishing moral

intent, and engaging in moral action. Researchers

have since proposed and tested a wide variety of

constructs that influence this four-step process, gen-

erally supporting the usefulness of Rests framework.

These include individual factors such as gender andcognitive moral development (e.g., Bass et al., 1999;

Cohen et al., 2001), organizational factors such as

codes of ethics and ethical climate/culture (e.g.,

Trevino et al., 1998), and moral intensity factors such

as magnitude of consequences and social consensus

(e.g., Jones, 1991; Singhapakdi et al., 1999).

The field of descriptive ethics has benefited from

these theoretical and empirical contributions and has

made important strides in describing how individuals

actually think and act when faced with ethical

Michael J. OFallon is a graduate student in the Department of

Management and Operations at Washington State Univer-

sity. His primary research interest is individual ethical

decision-making and behavior in organizations. Recently, he

has explored issues in organizational behavior, human

resource management, and consumer behavior toward geneti-

cally modified foods.

Kenneth D. Butterfield is an associate professor of management

at Washington State University. He received his Ph.D. in

Business Administration from The Pennsylvania StateUniversity. His research has been published in a variety of

academic journals, including Academy of Management

Journal, Academy of Management Review, Business

and Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, Human

Relations, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of

Managerial Issues, and Research in Higher Education.

His current research interests involve organizational behavior

issues such as managing ethical decision-making and behavior

in organizations, examining why people fail to recognize

moral issues, understanding academic dishonesty and pro-

moting academic integrity, and examining organizational

punishment from the managers perspective.

Journal of Business Ethics (2005) 59: 375413 Springer 2005

DOI 10.1007/s10551-005-2929-7


2/40

situations. In 1994, Ford and Richardson published a

comprehensive review of empirical literature prior to

that year, and Loe et al. (2000) published a com-prehensive review of empirical research prior to

1996. The present review has two primary objec-

tives. One is to extend these previous reviews by

summarizing and reviewing the empirical ethical

decision-making literature from 1996 to 2003. It is

informational, especially to empiricists, to have a

summary of the ethical decision-making literature

that takes up where the previous reviews left off. Our

second objective is to compare the literature from

1996 to 2003 with conclusions drawn by Ford and

Richardson and Loe et al. in order to surface trendsand shed light on directions for future research. In

addition, this review provides the reader with a sense

of which independent and dependent variables have

received the greatest amount of attention, which

ones have been largely overlooked, and which vari-

ables have provided the most consistent findings in

the ethical decision-making literature.

In order to achieve our objectives, studies were

selected for inclusion if they met the following cri-

teria. First, the studies were published during the

period 1996 to 2003. 1996 was selected as the first

year of inclusion as this was the last year in whichstudies were included in Loe et al.s review (2000).

Second, the studies were published in one of the

journals included in the two previous reviews such as

Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science

Quarterly, Business Ethics Quarterly, Human Relations,

Journal of Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of

Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of

Marketing, or Journal of Personal Selling & Sales

Management. However, given the fact that ethics has

become increasingly appealing across many domains,

ethics researchers are finding other prominent outletsto submit their studies. Therefore, studies were also

included in this review if they were published in one

of the following journals: Accounting, Auditing, &

Accountability Journal, Business & Society, European

Journal of Marketing, International Journal of Manage-

ment, Journal of American Academy of Business, Journal of

Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Management Stud-

ies, Journal of Managerial Issues, Journal of Marketing,

Journal of Organizational Behavior, Managerial Auditing

Journal, orOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision

Processes. The studies were found by searching for the

key word ethical decision-making in the ABI/

Inform and PsycINFO search engines. Furthermore,

an additional examination through the more well-

known ethics journals such as Journal of BusinessEthics and Business Ethics Quarterly was conducted

to determine if any studies were excluded from the

original search process. Third, this review only

included studies where the dependent variable(s)

represented one or more of Rests (1986) four steps

of ethical decision-making. The four steps included:

moral awareness being able to interpret the situa-

tion as being moral; moral judgment deciding

which course of action is morally right; moral intent

prioritizing moral values over other values; and,

moral behavior executing and implementing themoral intention. Finally, studies were only included

in this review if they examined decision making and

behavior within an actual or simulated business

environment. Therefore, studies examining topics

such as academic dishonesty and consumer behavior

were not included.

Empirical research on ethical decision-making

For the readers convenience, a summary of empir-

ical findings by category and dependent variable isprovided in Table I. Tables IIV list the studies by

dependent variable awareness (Table II), judgment

(Table III), intent (Table IV), and behavior

(Table V). Within these tables, the studies are fur-

ther sorted by independent variable (beginning with

individual variables, followed by moral intensity, and

ending with organizational factors), which are cate-

gorized alphabetically. In order to facilitate com-

parison with previous reviews, the following

discussion is organized by independent variable

individual factors, organizational factors, and moral

intensity factors. For purposes of presentation, wediscuss these factors in order from the most com-

prehensively studied to the least studied and focus

mainly on the variables that have received the

greatest amount of research attention.

Individual factors

Gender. As shown in Table I, 49 findings pertained

to gender, with the greatest number of studies

examining judgment as the dependent variable (33

studies), followed by behavior (9 studies), intent

376 Michael J. OFallon and Kenneth D. Butterfield


3/40

(4 studies) and awareness (3 studies). The results

remain somewhat mixed. The majority of the recent

literature reported few or no significant gender dif-

ferences (23 studies) (e.g., Fleischman and Valentine,

2003) or found women to behave more ethically

than men, at least in certain situations (16 studies)

(e.g., Cohen et al., 2001).

Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson

(1994) Seven studies reported no significant

findings, while another seven revealed that females

are likely to act more ethically than males. Loe et al.

(2000) Nine studies reported no significant find-

ings, while 12 reported that females are more ethical

than males under certain circumstances.

TABLE I

Empirical studies examining direct effects by dependent variable

Construct Number of Empirical Studies by DV

Awareness Judgment Intent Behavior Totals

Individual factors

Age 2 11 1 7 21

Awareness 2 3 2 7

Biases 2 2

CMD/Ethical judgment 4 11 8 23

Conflict 1 1 2

Ed., Emp., Job Sat. and Work Exp. 4 24 5 8 41

Gender 3 33 4 9 49

Intent 1 1Locus of control 5 6 11

Machiavellianism 5 4 1 10

Nationality 2 18 3 2 25

Need for cognition 2 2

Organizational commitment 1 2 1 4

Other individual effects 1 5 3 1 10

Philosophy/value orientation 3 22 12 5 42

Professional affiliation 1 1

Religion 1 6 2 1 10

Significant others 2 3 4 9

Moral Intensity

Organizational Factors

6 14 8 4 32

Business competitiveness 1 1 2 4

Codes of ethics 1 5 2 12 20

Ethical climate/culture 1 5 4 6 16

External environment 1 2 3

Industry type 7 1 1 9

Opportunity 1 1 2

Organizational climate/culture 1 1 2

Organizational Size 3 2 2 7

Other organizational effects 1 2 2 5

Rewards and sanctions 2 4 1 7

Significant others 1 1

Subjective norms 3 3

Training 1 1 1 3

Totals* 28 185 86 85

* Totals do not indicate the total number of articles. It represents the total number of findings by each independent

variable on the dependent variables. The total number of studies included is 174.

Ethical Decision-Making Literature 377


4/40

TABLE II

Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: awareness

Authors: Journal Year Findings

Individual factors: age

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 1996a Significant predictor of perceived ethical problems in 1 of 4 scenarios.

Karcher:JBE 1996 The relationship between ethical sensitivity and age is significantly

positive.

Individual factors: conflict

Yetmar and Eastman:JBE 2000 Role conflict is negatively associated with ethical sensitivity.

Individual factors: education, employment, job satisfaction and work experience

Karcher:JBE 1996 No significant findings with respect to employment position or level of

education.

Sparks and Hunt:JOM 1998 Practioners are more ethically sensitive than students.Yetmar and Eastman:JBE 2000 Job satisfaction is positively associated with ethical sensitivity.

Cohen et al.:JBE 2001 No major differences between entry-level students and graduating

students, as well as between students & professional accountants.

Individual factors: gender

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 1996a Significant predictor of perceived ethical problems in 1 of 4 scenarios.

Ameen et al.:JBE 1996 Female subjects were more sensitive to and less tolerant of unethical

activities than their male counterparts.

Fleischman and Valentine:JBE 2003 No significant findings.

Individual factors: nationality

Singhapakdi et al:JBE 2001 There were significant differences between Austrailian & American

marketers in 2 of 4 scenarios.

Cherry et al.:JBE 2003 U.S. respondents had greater perception of an ethical issue than

Taiwanese respondents.

Individual factors: other individual effects

Sparks and Hunt:JOM 1998 Perspective taking is correlated significantly with ethical sensitivity,

while emotional contagion produced no significant results.

Individual factors: philosophy/value orientation

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 1996a Individuals with a high standard of professional values tend to recognize

the ethical issues or problems more so than their counterparts.

Sparks and Hunt:JOM 1998 Relativism is negatively related to ethical sensitivity.

Yetmar and Eastman:JBE 2000 Relativism is negatively associated with ethical sensitivity.

Individual factors: professional affiliation

Yetmar and Eastman:JBE 2000 Professional commitment is positively associated with ethical sensitivity.

Individual factors: religion

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 In 3 of 4 scenarios, there was a positive relationship between religion

and perception of an ethical problem.

Moral intensity

Singhapakdi et al.:JBR 1996b Moral intensity is a significant predictor of ethical perceptions.

Singhapakdi et al.:JAMS 1999 Increases in perceived moral intensity increases the perception of an

ethical problem.

Butterfield et al.:HR 2000 Individuals are more likely to recognize the moral nature of the issue

when it has negative consequences and when the individuals perceive

social consensus.



5/40

Conclusion The literature examining gendercontinues to produce fairly consistent findings.

There are often no differences found between males

and females, but when differences are found, females

are more ethical than males.

Philosophy/value orientation. There were a total of 42

findings for philosophy/value orientation. These

studies range from examining the differences

between idealism and relativism (e.g., Singhapakdi

et al., 1999) to deontological versus teleological

perspectives (e.g., Cohen et al., 2001) to other valueorientations, such as achievement and economic

values. The research examining idealism and rela-

tivism has produced consistent results. That is, ide-

alism and deontology are positively related to the

ethical decision-making process, whereas relativism

and teleology are negatively related.


(1994) Reported only one finding regarding value

orientation. Political orientation produced no sig-

nificant findings, while economic orientation was

associated with unethical behavior. Loe et al. (2000)

Rule deontologists rank higher on an ethical

behavior scale than any other philosophy types anddeontology and teleology have significant influences

on the decision making process. There were no

reported findings regarding idealism and relativism.

Conclusion More than two decades of research

reveal fairly consistent findings. Idealism and deon-

tology are generally positively related to ethical

decision-making, while relativism, teleology, and

other factors, such as economic orientation are

generally negatively related to ethical decision-

making.

Education, employment, job satisfaction, and work expe-

rience. Forty-one findings were reported with re-

spect to education (type and number of years of

education), employment, job satisfaction, and work

experience. Of these, six studies examined differ-

ences between student majors on the ethical

decision-making process; five of which found no

significant findings (e.g., Green and Weber, 1997).

However, Sankaran and Bui (2003) found that

non-business majors were more ethical than busi-

ness majors. In another 11 studies, years of edu-

cation, employment or work experience did not

TABLE II

(Continued)

Authors:Journal Year Findings

May and Pauli:B&S 2002 Probable magnitude of harm has a significant influence on moral

recognition, but social consensus did not.

Barnett and Valentine:JBR 2002 Magnitude of consequences was positively associated with ethical

recognition in both scenarios, social consensus was significant in 1

scenario, and there were no significant findings for proximity and

temporal immediacy.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 Marginally supported at p< 0:10.

Organizational factors: business competitiveness

Butterfield et al.:HR 2000 When individuals perceive highly competitive practices, they become

more aware of the moral issues.

Organizational factors: codes of ethics

Weaver and Trevino:BEQ 1999 Value and compliance ethics program orientations were both significant

and positive predictors of ethical awareness.

Organizational factors: ethical climate/culture

VanSandt:B&S 2003 Benevolence and principle ethical criteria were associated with higher

levels of moral awareness, while egoistic ethical criterion was associated

with lower levels of moral awareness.

Organizational factors: training

Sparks and Hunt:JOM 1998 More training is negatively related to ethical sensitivity.



6/40

TABLE III

Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: judgment



Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 There were significant differences in moral reasoning among different

age groups.

Deshpande:JBE 1997 In 5 of 17 situations with p< 0:10, older managers perceived the

situation as being more unethical than younger managers.

Eynon et al.:JBE 1997 Moral reasoning decreases with age.

Larkin:JBE 2000 No significant findings.

Latif:JBE 2000 Older individuals scored significantly lower on moral reasoning than

younger individuals at p 0:10.

Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 Age has a negative effect on ethical attitude.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.Singhapakdi et al.:EJM 2001 No significant findings.

Peterson et al.:JBE 2001 Responses to ethical issues were lower for younger respondents.

Kracher et al.:JBE 2002 Age was negatively associated with moral development.

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 Mixed findings. Younger purchasers tended to perceive 3 of 6 scenarios

as more unethical than older purchasers.

Individual factors: awareness

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 1996a Individuals who perceive the situation as having an ethical problem will

form a more ethical judgment.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 Recognition of the ethical issue was unrelated to ethical judgment.

Individual factors: biases

Sligo and Stirton:JBE 1998 Hindsight bias effects perceptions of ethical decision making.

Chung and Monroe:JBE 2003 SD bias is higher when an action is judged to be more unethical.

Individual factors: cognitive moral development/ethical judgment

Robin et al.:BEQ 1996a No significant findings.

Robin et al.:JBR 1996b Perceive importance of an ethical issue positively relates to ethical

judgment.

Au and Wong:JBE 2000 There is a negative relationship between cognitive moral development

and ethical judgment.

Bateman et al.:JBR 2003 Rule-based reasoning appeared to be a stronger influence on moral

judgment than cost/benefit-based reasoning.

Individual factors: conflict

Ashkanasy et al.:JBE 2000 Perceived conflict between personal values and work demands was

significantly related to ethical tolerance.Individual factors: education, employment, job satisfaction and work experience

Kaynama et al.:JBE 1996 The ethical perception of undergraduate students are stronger than

those of MBA students.

Malinowski and Berger:JBE 1996 No significant findings between majors.

Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 No relationship between career orientation and ethical decision

making.

Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 There were significant differences in moral reasoning among different

levels of education.

Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 There is no difference between a practicing managers and a students

level of moral reasoning.

Cole and Smith:JBE 1996 Students were more accepting of questionable ethical statements (7 of

10 statements) than business people.



7/40

TABLE III

(Continued)


Deshpande:JBE 1997 Significance at p< 0:10 was found in 1 of 17 situations.

Green and Weber:JBE 1997 There was no difference in moral reasoning scores for accounting and

other business major scores before taking an auditing course. However,

after taking the auditing course, accounting majors scored higher than

other business majors.

Smith and Oakley:JBE 1997 Graduate students had higher responses to rule based scenarios than did

undergraduates.

Tse and Au:JBE 1997 Senior students were less ethical than junior students at p< 0:10.

Tse and Au:JBE 1997 No difference between business and non-business students.

Reiss and Mitra:JBE 1998 There were no differences between business and non-business students.

Reiss and Mitra:JBE 1998 Individuals that have work experience considered extra-organizationalbehaviors of an uncertain mature as more acceptable than individuals

with no work experience.

Weeks et al.:JBE 1999 There is a difference in ethical judgment across career stages. In general,

individuals in the latter years of their career display higher ethical

judgment.

Larkin:JBE 2000 Overall, the ability to identify unethical behavior is related to

experience.

Latif:JBE 2000 First year pharmacy students scored higher on moral reasoning than

pharmacists.

Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 No significant findings with respect to work experience.

Cohen et al.:JBE 2001 No difference between entry-level students and graduating students, as

well as between students & professional accountants.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 Job position or education has no influence on judgment.

Kaplan:JBE 2001 Overall, individuals assigned to the role of manager did not form more

unfavorable ethically related judgments than individuals assigned to the

role of shareholder.

Latif:JBE 2001 As pharmacists gain tenure, their moral reasoning scores decline.

Kracher et al.:JBE 2002 Education was positively associated with moral development scores.

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 Education was a significant and positive influence on judgment in 4 of 6

scenarios.

Wu:JBE 2003 In 1 of 5 scenarios, there was a significant difference in ethical

recognition after receiving a Business ethics education.


Okleshen and Hoyt:JBE 1996 Females were less tolerant of unethical situations than males.

Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

McDonald and Pak:JBE 1996 Significant gender differences existed in 3 of 8 cognitive frameworks.

Mason and Mudrack:JBE 1996 Women scored higher on an ethics scale than men.

Rayburn and Rayburn:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

Mcuddy and Peery:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

Schoderbek and Deshpande:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

Malinowski and Berger:JBE 1996 In 7 of 9 scenarios, there was a difference between males and females.

Cole and Smith:JBE 1996 Females scored significantly higher than males in 8 of 10 statements.

Eastman et al.:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

Schminke and Ambrose:JBE 1997 Men and women employ different ethical models to situations.

Dawson:JBE 1997 There was a significant difference between males and females in 8 of 20

scenarios.



8/40

TABLE III

(Continued)


Deshpande:JBE 1997 Significance at p< 0:10 was found in 1 of 17 situations.

Smith and Oakley:JBE 1997 No difference between gender regarding ethics related to legal or

company policy issues, however, females had higher expectations for

ethical behaviors in social & interpersonal concerns than males.

Schminke:JBE 1997 No significant findings.

Keyton and Rhodes:JBE 1997 Females identified more sexual harassment cues than males.

Tse and Au:JBE 1997 Female students were more ethical than males students.

Eynon et al.:JBE 1997 Females have higher moral reasoning scores than males.

Reiss and Mitra:JBE 1998 Males tend to regard extra-organizational behaviors of uncertain ethical

nature as more acceptable than females.

Prasad et al.:JBE 1998 In 10 of 51 statements regarding perceptions of a just society, therewere differences between female and male responses.

Weeks et al.:JBE 1999 There is a difference between males and females in ethical judgment.

Females reported to have higher ethical judgment in 7 of 19 scenarios,

while males reported as having higher ethical judgment in 2 of 19

scenarios.

Larkin:JBE 2000 4 of 6 scenarios produced no significant findings. The other 2 scenarios

indicated that females were more likely to identify the correct behavior

than males.

Deshpande et al.:JBE 2000 Moderate support. Females were more likely to perceive the activity as

unethical in 7 of 17 activities at p< 0:10.

Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 No significant findings.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.

Singhapakdi et al.:EJM 2001 In 5 of 7 dimensions, there were gender differences.

Ergeneli and Arikan:JBE 2002 Female and males perceptions of ethical behavior were different in 4 of

14 scenarios.

Kracher et al.:JBE 2002 Males and Females reported similar levels of moral development.

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 No significant findings.

Baker and Hunt:JMI 2003 Moral orientation differed between all female and all male groups.

Christie et al.:JBE 2003 There were significant gender differences in questionable business

practice scenarios.

Abdolmohammadi et al.:JBE 2003 No significant findings.

Fleischman and Valentine:JBE 2003 Women judged the ethically questionable case more harshly than men.

Individual factors: locus of control

McCuddy and Peery:JBE 1996 Locus of control is negatively associated with ethical standards.

Reiss and Mitra:JBE 1998 Externals tended to regard uncertain ethical behaviors as more

acceptable than internals.

Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 No significant findings.

Cherry and Fraedrich:JPSSM 2000 Internal individuals express more severe ethical judgments of an

unethical behavior than externals.


Individual factors: machiavellianism

Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Machiavellianism was negatively associated with ethical decision

making.

Rayburn and Rayburn:JBE 1996 Machiavellians are less ethically-oriented than non-Machiavellians.

Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 High Machiavellian individuals judged the questionable selling practice

as more acceptable in 1 of 2 scenarios.



9/40

TABLE III

(Continued)


Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 Machiavellianism is negatively related to judgment, but only significant

in 1 of 6 scenarios.

Schepers:JBE 2003 No significant findings.


Okleshen and Hoyt:JBE 1996 US students less tolerant of unethical situations than New Zealand

students.

Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 There were no significant differences in moral reasoning among

Chinese and non-Chinese individuals.

McDonald and Pak:JBE 1996 There were differences in cognitive frameworks across cultures.

Armstrong:JBE 1996 There is a difference in ethical judgments across three cultures; with

Singapore students scoring lowest and Malaysia students scoring highest.

McCuddy and Peery:JBE 1996 Race is associated with differences in ethical standards.

Allmon et al:JBE 1997 There was a significant difference in judgment across cultures in 11 of

16 situations.

Clarke and Aram:JBE 1997 Spanish and U.S. respondents showed consistent differences in some

situations evaluating aspects of entrepreneurial-ethical trade-offs.

Jackson and Artola:JBE 1997 There were no differences between cultures in 3 of 4 situations.

Davis et al.:JBE 1998 Culture effects decisions in ethical decision making.

Goodwin and Goodwin:JBE 1999 In 2 of 3 scenarios, there were differences in ethical judgment between

Malaysia and New Zealand students.

Jackson:HR 2001 Ethical attitudes differ among national groups.

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2001 In 2 of 4 scenarios, Australian and American marketers differed in

perception of ethical problems.Tsui and Windsor:JBE 2001 Moral reasoning between Chinese and Australian participants differed at

p=0.09.

Rittenburg and Valentine:JBE 2002 No significant findings.

Volkema and Fleury:JBE 2002 Brazilian and U.S. respondents did not differ in perception of

questionable negotiation behaviors.

Kracher et al.:JBE 2002 Moral development scores between Indian & U.S. participants were not

significantly different.

Cherry et al.:JBE 2003 U.S. respondents had a more unfavorable ethical judgment of the

unethical behavior than their Taiwanese counterparts.

Christie et al.:JBE 2003 Attitude towards unethical decision-making differs across cultures.

Individual factors: need for cognition

Boyle et al.:JBE 1998 High need for cognition individuals are more prone to contextual biasesthen low need for cognition individuals.

Singer et al.:JBE 1998 High need for cognition individuals utilize more issue-relevant

information in decision making.

Individual factors: organizational commitment



Rayburn and Rayburn:JBE 1996 Individuals of high intelligence are less-ethically oriented than

individuals of low intelligence.

Rayburn and Rayburn:JBE 1996 Individuals of Type B personality are less ethically-oriented than

individuals of Type A personality.



10/40

TABLE III

(Continued)


Weber: HR 1996 As the nature of the harm decreases from physical to psychological, the

stage of moral reasoning declines.

Udas et al.:JBE 1996 Professional organization has no bearing on the perceptions of ethical

issues.

Abratt and Penman:JBE 2002 Questionable sales practices against customers and employers were

judged as less ethical than similar practices against competitors.


Barnett et al.:JBE 1996 Idealism is positively associated and relativism was negatively associated

with judgments that peer reporting is ethical.

Butz and Lewis:JBE 1996 No significant findings with respect to leadership orientation.

Keyton and Rhodes:JBE 1997 Situationists scored the lowest in identifying sexual harassment cues.

Harrington:JBE 1997 Rule orientation significantly influences judgment.

DeConinck and Lewis:JBE 1997 Although both were significant, deontology influenced sales managers

ethical judgments more than teleological.

Bass et al.:JPSSM 1998 Idealism was the key dimension that explained differences in ethical

judgments.

Davis et al.:JBE 1998 Individuals who were idealistic contributed significantly to judgments

of moral concern in 2 of 4 scenarios and judgments of immorality in 2

of 4 scenarios.

Rallapalli et al.:JBR 1998 Ethical judgments are significantly affected by deontological norms and

teleological evaluations.

Rallapalli and Vitell:JBR 1998 Teleological evaluations significantly influenced ethical judgment.

Barnett et al.:JBE 1998 Absolutists judgments were more harsh in the scenarios, wheresubjectivists judged the actions most leniently,

Fisher and Sweeney:JBE 1998 No significant findings with respect to political orientation.

Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 Idealism was negatively associated with judgments.

Boyle:JBE 2000 High relativists judged the ethically-questionable behavior as more

ethical than low relativists and low and high idealists did not differ in

their judgment of the ethically-questionable behavior.

Cruz et al.:JBE 2000 Moral equity significantly influenced ethical judgments.

Ashkanasy et al.:JBE 2000 Personal values, leniency and triviality, are significant predictors of

ethical tolerance.

Kujala:JBE 2001 Teleological thinking in general, and especially utilitarianism, plays an

important role in Finnish managers decision-making.

Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 Instrumental values have a greater impact on ethical judgment than

terminal values.

Douglas et al.:JBE 2001 Ethical orientation did not significantly influence ethical judgments.

Elias:JBE 2002 High idealists judged the earnings management actions as more

unethical and high relativists judged them as more ethical.

Kim:JBE 2003 Individuals with high idealism or less relativism tend to make stricter

ethical judgments.

Schepers:JBE 2003 Moral equity was a significant predictor of ethical judgment.

Sivadas et al.:JPSSM 2003 Relativistic managers reported more positive ethical evaluations of

controversial sales practices. No significant relationship with regard to

idealistic managers.



11/40

TABLE III

(Continued)


Individual Factors: Religion

Wimalasiri et al.:JBE 1996 A significant relationship between higher stages of moral reasoning and

higher degree of religious commitment existed.

Clark and Dawson:JBE 1996 Intrinsically religious individuals judged the scenarios as less unethical

than did non-religious individuals.

Tse and Au:JBE 1997 The influence of religion on judgment was significant.

Wagner and Sanders:JBE 2001 Individuals with high religious beliefs are less likely to evaluate an

unethical act as being fair.

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 Religiosity is positively and significantly correlated with 4 of 6 scenarios

in one dimension (moralistic) but no correlations existed in the

contractualism dimension.Giacalone and Jurkiewicz:JBE 2003 Spirituality negatively influences an individuals perception of a

questionable business practice.

Individual factors: significant others

Tse and Au:JBE 1997 No significant findings with respect to fathers or mothers occupation.

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 No significant findings with respect to peer influence.

Moral Intensity

Singer:JBE 1996 The overall ethicality of a manager can be predicted by social consensus,

magnitude of consequences and likelihood of action.

Weber:HR 1996 As the level of magnitude of consequences decreases, the stage of moral

reasoning declines.

Singer and Singer:JBE 1997 Social consensus and magnitude of consequences were significant

predictors of judgments of overall ethicality in both the beneficial and

harmful consequences conditions.

Harrington:JBE 1997 Social consensus significantly influences judgment.

Davis et al.:JBE 1998 Social consensus but not magnitude of consequences influences

judgments of moral concern.

Singer et al.:JBE 1998 Magnitude of consequence, social consensus & temporal immediacy

were significant predictors of overall ethicality.

Singhapakdi et al.:JAMS 1999 Idealistic individuals have higher perceptions of moral intensity, while

relativistic individuals have lower perceptions of moral intensity.

Barnett:JASP 2001 Issues having higher levels of perceived magnitude of consequences and

lower perceived levels of social consensus were judged less ethical.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 Probability of effect and magnitude of consequences significantly

influenced judgments.Mc Devitt and Hise:JBE 2002 Materiality influences perception of act being ethical/unethical.

Barnett and Valentine:JBR 2002 Magnitude of consequences was positively associated with ethical

judgment in both scenarios, social consensus was significant in 1

scenario, and there were no significant findings for proximity and

temporal immediacy.

Carlson et al.:JMI 2002 Proximity of effect, but not the probability of effect nor the

concentration of effect predicted moral judgment.

Shaw:JBE 2003 Consensus and Magnitude of effect influences moral attitude.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 Strongly supported.


Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Competition didnt affect ethical decision making.



12/40

TABLE III

(Continued)



Udas et al.:JBE 1996 Codes of ethics has no bearing on perception of ethical issues.

Nwachukwu and Vitell:JBE 1997 No significance between the existence of or nonexistence of a code of

ethics on judgment.

Stohs and Brannick:JBE 1999 In regards to issues dealing with the firm, a code of ethics influences a

managers perception of wrongness.

Douglas et al.:JBE 2001 Codes of conduct did not significantly affect ethical judgments.

Adams et al.:JBE 2001 Individuals employed in organizations with a code of ethics rated other

members as more ethical than individuals in organizations that do not

have a code of ethics.

Organizational Factors: Ethical Climate/Culture

Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Ethical climate positively affected ethical decision making.

Upchurch:JBE 1998 Benevolence is the most predominant ethical climate in decision

making.

Singhapakdi et al.:EJM 2001 Ethical climate strongly influences perceived importance of ethics.

Douglas et al.:JBE 2001 Ethical culture did not directly influence ethical judgments.

Weber and Seger:JBE 2002 Instrumental work ethical climate was the predominate climate in the

ethical decision making process.

Organizational Factors: External Environment

Christie et al.:JBE 2003 The external environment had a positive influence on attitudes toward

questionable business practices.

Organizational Factors: Industry TypeEynon et al.:JBE 1997 CPAs in small-firms scored significantly lower in moral reasoning than

CPAs in Big 6 firms.

Teal and Carroll:JBE 1999 Entrepreneurs may exhibit slightly higher moral reasoning skills than

middle-managers.

Latif:JBE 2000 Pharmacists scored lower on moral reasoning than other health

professionals.

Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 Employees in public sector and education reported a higher score on

the most ethical profile than employees in private sector.


Ergeneli and Arikan:JBE 2002 There was a significant difference in the perceptions of salespeople

working in the medical equipment and clothing sectors in 4 of 14

scenarios.

Waller:JBE 2002 In 3 of 5 statements regarding ethics in political advertising, there was a

significant difference in attitudes between advertising executives and

federal politicians.

Organizational factors: organizational climate/culture

Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 Org. culture is positive and significant in 3 of 6 scenarios.

Organizational factors: organizational size




Organizational factors: other organizational effects

Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Internal communication positively affected ethical decision making.



13/40

significantly influence or marginally influenced

ethical decision-making (e.g., Wu, 2003). Other

studies reported positive influences, such as indi-

viduals in the latter years of their career displayed

higher ethical judgment (Weeks et al., 1999),

while others reported negative influences. For

example, CEO tenure was found to be negatively

related to the ethical decision-making process(Chavez et al., 2001).


(1994) Of the 23 studies included in their review,

eight examined type of education. Five of these

studies reported little or no significant findings,

while the remaining three studies produced mixed

results. Of the remaining 15 studies with respect to

years of education or employment, eight discovered

no significant findings. Four of the remaining studies

produced results that favor more education, experi-

ence or employment. Loe et al. (2000) Aftereliminating the studies that were used in Ford and

Richardsons review (total of 16), there were only

two new studies that examined this variable. One

study was in support of the notion that employment

does influence ethical decision making, while the

other found no relationship.

Conclusion The research generally indicates that

more education, employment or work experience

is positively related to ethical decision-making (12

of 18 studies). However, type of education has

little or no effect on the ethical decision-making

process (10 of 14 studies). In addition, it is inter-

esting to note that seven studies compared practi-

tioners to students; three of which found students

to be less ethical than practitioners. This has

important implications for research, as many

researchers study ethical decision making using

student samples.

Nationality. In the 25 findings examining nationality,five studies found few or no differences across cul-

tures. However, most studies and results are not

directly comparable as, for the most part, each study

examined different nations. Among the studies

comparing the U.S. to other nations, the results have

been mixed. Some suggest that U.S. respondents

make better ethical decisions (e.g., Cherry et al.,

2003), whereas other studies suggest that U.S.

respondents may not make better ethical decisions

(e.g., Volkema and Fleury, 2002).

Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson(1994) In their review consisting of five studies,

the results were mixed. Two of the five showed no

significant findings. Of the three remaining studies,

two indicated that U.S. respondents were more

ethical than non-U.S. respondents. Loe et al. (2000)

After eliminating the five studies that overlapped

with Ford and Richardsons review, six new studies

were included in their review, all of which found

significant differences. However, only one study

compared the U.S. to another nation and found that

U.S. managers consider ethical issues to be more

important than U.K. managers.

TABLE III

(Continued)


Organizational factors: rewards and sanctions

Tenbrunsel and Messick:ASQ 1999 Weak sanctioning systems resulted in a focus on the business aspects in

contrast to a focus on the ethical aspects when no sanctions were

present.

Cherry and Fraedrich:JBR 2002 Individuals who perceive higher levels of risk responded with more

severe negative ethical judgments.

Organizational factors: significant others

Schoderbek and Deshpande:JBE 1996 Impression management positively influenced perceived unethical

conduct.

Organizational factors: trainingEynon et al.:JBE 1997 Those who completed an ethics course reported significantly higher P-

scores.



14/40

TABLE IV

Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: intent





Singhapakdi et al.:JAMS 1999 Perceived ethical problem has a negative influence on intentions to act

unethically.

Singhapakdi:JBR 1999 The perception of an ethical problem positively influences ethical

intentions.

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 Managers who perceived an ethical problem indicated that they were

less likely to agree with the unethical intentions.

Individual factors: cognitive moral development/ethical judgmentsBarnett et al.:JBE 1996 Ethical judgments were associated positively with behavioral intentions

to report a peers unethical behavior.

Robin et al.:JBR 1996b Perceive importance of an ethical issue positively relates to behavioral

intentions.

DeConinck and Lewis:JBE 1997 Ethical judgment was the biggest predictor of rewarding or punishing

ethical/unethical behavior.

Rallapalli et al.:JBR 1998 Ethical judgment significantly affected intentions.

Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 Individuals were more likely to state intentions to perform an action if

they judged it as ethical.

Barnett:JASP 2001 Ethical judgments predicted behavioral intentions.

Wagner and Sanders:JBE 2001 Those individuals who judge an unethical action as unethical indicated

an intention not to behave unethically.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 There was a positive relationship between judgments and intentions.

Uddin and Gillett:JBE 2002 Low moral reasoners did not express higher intentions of fraudulent

reporting.

Shapeero et al.:MAJ 2003 No significant findings.

Sivadas et al.:JPSSM 2003 The more just and fair an act was judged, the more likely the individual

was hired.


Jones and Kavanagh:JBE 1996 Quality of work experiences positively influences behavioral intentions.

Cohen et al.:JBE 2001 Accountants are more ethical than students.

Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 Job position or education has no influence on intentions.

Paolillo and Vitell:JBE 2002 No significant findings with respect to job satisfaction.

Shapeero et al.:MAJ 2003 Senior and staff-level accountants are less likely to intend to engage in

unethical behavior than supervisors and managers.


Jones and Kavanagh:JBE 1996 No significant findings.

Singhapakdi:JBR 1999 Women are more likely to disagree with the unethical actions.

Cohen et al.:JBE 2001 Women are less willing to act unethically.


Individual factors: locus of control

Jones and Kavanagh:JBE 1996 In 1 of 2 experiments, externals were more likely to report unethical

intentions.


Cherry and Fraedrich:JPSSM 2000 Internal individuals indicate less intention to behave unethically than

externals.



15/40

TABLE IV

(Continued)


Key:JMI 2002 Internals demonstrated greater perceived discretion, while externals

demonstrated less perceived discretion.

Shapeero et al.:MAJ 2003 Internals are less likely to intend to engage in unethical behavior.

Granitz:JBE 2003 Internals are no more likely to participate/switch than Externals.


Jones and Kavanagh:JBE 1996 Individuals scoring high in Mach report higher unethical intentions.

Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 High Machiavellian individuals reported greater intentions to perform

the questionable actions.

Schepers:JBE 2003 No significant findings.

Granitz:JBE 2003 High Mach were more likely to participate/switch than low Machs.


Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2001 In 2 of 4 scenarios, Australian and American marketers differed in intent

to engage in unethical behavior.

Volkema and Fleury:JBE 2002 In 3 of 5 situations, U.S. respondents were more likely to indicate a

higher likelihood of engaging in questionable negotiating behaviors

than Brazilian respondents.

Cherry et al.:JBE 2003 U.S. respondents demonstrated less intention to perform the unethical

behavior than Taiwanese respondents.


Paolillo and Vitell:JBE 2002 No significant findings.

Granitz:JBE 2003 Organizational commitment demonstrated no relationship to sharing.

Individual factors: other individual effectsFlannery and May:AMJ 2000 Intentions to engage in unethical behavior is positively influenced by

their attitude to engage in that behavior.

Flannery and May:AMJ 2000 No significant findings with respect to self-efficacy or moral obligation.

Beams et al.:JBE 2003 Individuals who were more cynical about others unethical behavior

were more likely to engage in the unethical behavior.


Morris et al.:JBE 1996 Personal values are inversely related to behavioral intentions.

DeConinck and Lewis:JBE 1997 Deontology and Teleological were significant predictors of intention.

Bass et al.:JPSSM 1998 No significant findings.

Rallapalli et al.:JBR 1998 Intentions are affected by teleological evaluations.


Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 Idealism is a significant and positive predictor of Thai managers ethicalintentions in 3 of 4 scenarios, while relativism negatively and

significantly influences intentions.

Cruz et al.:JBE 2000 Intentions to behave ethically are based primarily on moral equity and

contractualism.

Eastman et al.:JBE 2001 No significant findings.

Uddin and Gillett:JBE 2002 High self monitors did not express higher intentions of fraudulent

reporting.

Beams et al.:JBE 2003 Individuals who believed they would feel guilty were less likely to

engage in the unethical behavior

Shapeero et al.:MAJ 2003 Deontological individuals are less likely to intend to engage in unethical

behavior than teleological individuals.



16/40

TABLE IV

(Continued)


Sivadas et al.:JPSSM 2003 Relativistic managers were more likely to hire a salesperson who has

performed an ethically questionable act. No significant relationship

with respect to idealistic managers.


Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 In 2 of 4 scenarios, religious Thai managers were likely to report more

ethical intentions than their counterparts.

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 In 3 of 4 scenarios where p


17/40

Conclusion Nationality appears to influence

ethical decision-making. However, to what extent is

still unclear. This is in part due to the fact that

researchers have studied many different nations andit is difficult to make comparisons across studies.

Age. Twenty-one findings were reported regarding

the effect of age on the decision-making process. Of

these, eight found few or no significant age differ-

ences (e.g., Ross and Robertson, 2003), whereas five

studies reported a negative relationship to ethical

decision-making (e.g., Sankaran and Bui, 2003), and

six reported a positive relationship (e.g., Kim and

Chun, 2003).


(1994) Of the eight studies reviewed, only three

reported significant findings. Two of these studies

revealed that older participants were more ethical

than younger participants. Loe et al. (2000) Of the

eight studies not included in Ford and Richardsonsreview, one study reported no significant findings.

Five of the remaining studies indicated that older

respondents tend to be more ethical in decision

making than younger respondents.

Conclusion Although previous reviews suggested

that age appears to be positively correlated with

ethical decision-making, this review calls this con-

clusion into question. The research on age has

produced mixed and inconsistent results. Of the 37

findings included in this and past reviews, 14 pro-

duced no significant age differences, 10 studies found

a positive relationship, while six studies found a

TABLE IV

(Continued)


Organizational Factors: Opportunity

Powpaka:JBE 2002 A managers intention to give a bribe is negatively influenced by his/her

perceived choice.



Paolillo and Vitell:JBE 2002 No significant findings.

Organizational Factors: other organizational effects

Singhapakdi et al.:JBE 2000 In 3 of 4 scenarios, Thai managers in organizations with higher levels of

ethical values tend to have more ethical intentions than managers in

organizations with lower levels of ethical values.Schepers:JBE 2003 No significant findings with regards to a focus on profit.

Organizational factors: rewards and Sanctions

Glass and Wood:JBE 1996 An individuals intention to engage in an unethical act is positively

related to perceived favorable social outcomes.

Cherry and Fraedrich:JBR 2002 Individuals who perceive higher levels of risk express less intent to

engage in the unethical behavior.

Beams et al.:JBE 2003 No significant findings with respect to likelihood of getting caught or

the severity of the punishment. Individuals who expected higher gains

were more likely to engage in unethical behavior.

Shapeero et al.:MAJ 2003 Greater likelihood of reward results in intention to engage in unethical

behavior.

Organizational Factors: Subjective NormsGibson and Frakes:JBE 1997 Attitude toward the behavior and subjective norms explained a

significant portion of unethical intentions.

Flannery and May:AMJ 2000 Intentions to engage in unethical behavior is positively influenced by

the subjective norms.

Powpaka:JBE 2002 Intention to engage in unethical behavior is positively influenced by

subjective norms.



18/40

negative relationship. These mixed results may

suggest a more complex relationship between age

and ethical decision making than is captured by thesestudies.

Cognitive moral development (CMD)/ethical judgment.

In the 23 findings included in this review, all but

four reported significant findings. Fifteen studies

found a positive relationship between CMD and

ethical judgment (e.g., Green and Weber, 1997), or

ethical judgment positively influenced the decision

making process (e.g., Bass et al., 1999). In contrast,

Au and Wong (2000) found a negative relationship

between cognitive moral development and ethicaljudgment. The remaining three studies produced

mixed results, or determined the strength of influ-

ence that ethical judgment or CMD plays in the

decision making process (e.g., DeConinck and

Lewis, 1997).


(1994) No studies reported. Loe et al. (2000) Six

studies examined this variable. One concluded that

CMD influences ethical decision making, while

other studies reported variables that either positively

or negatively influenced CMD. They concluded

that CMD is a difficult variable to study and report.This is partly due to the limited amount of research

examining this variable.

Conclusion Although there have been a few

notable exceptions, the research generally suggests a

positive relationship between CMD or ethical

judgment and ethical decision-making.

Locus of control. Seven of the 11 findings included in

this review suggest that internal locus of control tends

to be positively associated with the ethical decision-

making process, while external locus of control ap-pears to be negatively associated (e.g., Shapeero et al.,

2003). The other four remaining findings reported no

significant differences.


(1994) In two of three studies, there were no

significant findings. In the third study, external

managers perceived organizational politics as ethical.

Loe et al. (2000) In two additional studies, the

findings were mixed, where one reported no sig-

nificant results and the other reporting locus of

control influences ethical decision-making directly

and indirectly through outcome expectancies.

Conclusion The findings are somewhat mixed.

Several studies report no significant differences.

Those that have found differences consistently reportthat internal locus of control is positively related to

decision-making and external locus of control is

negatively related.

Machiavellianism. The personality trait, Machiavel-

lianism, produced fairly consistent results. In seven of

10 findings, Machiavellianism was negatively related

to the ethical decision-making process (e.g., Bass

et al., 1999). The other three findings reported no

significant results.

Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson(1994) In both reported studies, Machiavellian-

ism was negatively associated with the ethical

decision-making process. Loe et al. (2000) In

two supplementary studies, both findings indicated

that Machiavellianism affects ethical-decision mak-

ing.

Conclusion The results consistently suggest that

Machiavellianism is negatively related to the ethical

decision-making process. In other words, high

machs tend to be less ethical in their decision making

than low machs.

Religion. In eight of the 10 recent findings, religion, in

some form or another, had a positive relationship to

ethical decision-making (e.g., Singhapakdi et al.,

2000). On the other hand, Giacalone and Jurkiewicz

(2003) found that spirituality negatively influences an

individuals perception of a questionable business

practice.


(1994) In three of four studies, there were no

significant findings. Only strength of religious belief

was strongly related to ethical standards. Loe et al.(2000) Did not include any new studies other

than those already reported in Ford and Richard-

son.

Conclusion Out of the 14 total findings, ninereported a positive relationship with ethical deci-

sion-making. The results generally suggest that

religion has a positive relationship with ethical

decision-making.

Miscellaneous categories. The remaining areas of study

(e.g., awareness, biases, conflict, intent, need for

cognition, organizational commitment, other per-



19/40

TABLE V

Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: behavior



Hunt and Jennings:JBE 1997 Younger age teams tended to make the most unethical decisions.

Glover et al.:JBE 1997 Age was not a predictor of ethical decision-making.

Lund:JBE 2000 Older individuals acted more ethically in 3 of 4 scenarios.

Honeycutt et al.:JBE 2001 Significant in 1 of 5 scenarios.

Ross and Robertson:JBE 2003 No significant findings.

Kim and Chun:IJM 2003 Younger generation individuals gave less ethical responses.

Sankaran and Bui:JAAB 2003 The older an individual becomes, the less ethical he/she becomes.


Fleischman and Valentine:JBE 2003 The recognition of an ethical issue in an equitable relief case wasnegatively related to the decision to grant equitable relief.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 No significant findings.

Individual factors: cognitive moral development/ethical judgment

Green and Weber:JBE 1997 Higher levels of moral reasoning lead to more ethical behavior.

Marnburg:JBE 2001 Individuals high in moral reasoning produced significantly more

instability and inconsistency between policy-decisions and action-

decisions.

Ryan:JBE 2001 Moral reasoning was positively related to the helping and sportsmanship

OCB behaviors, but not the civic virtue OCB behavior.

Honeycutt et al.:JBE 2001 Ethical judgment was positively related to ethical behavior.

Greenberg:OBHDP 2002 Individuals classified as conventional rather than preconventional stole

significantly less money.Abdolmohammadi and

Sultan:JBE

2002 Individuals with a lower P-score were more likely to engage in

unethical behavior.

Fleischman and Valentine:JBE 2003 No significant findings with regards to ethical judgments.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 Ethical judgment was significantly positively related to the decision to

grant relief.


Malinowski and Berger:JBE 1996 No significant findings between majors.

Glover et al.:JBE 1997 Mixed results.

Lund:JBE 2000 Level of education did not significantly influence respondents ethical/

unethical behavior in 3 of 4 scenarios.

Chavez et al.:JBE 2001 CEO tenure is negatively related to ethical decision making.

Honeycutt et al.:JBE 2001 Salespeople whose compensation is commission based are more likelyto engage in unethical behavior than those salespeople whose

compensation is salary based. No significant findings with respect to

education.

Kim and Chun:IJM 2003 Mixed findings.

Sankaran and Bui:JAAB 2003 Non-business majors tend to be more ethical.

Tang and Chiu:JBE 2003 High income, pay dissatisfaction, and the number of job changes were

not related to unethical behavior.


Malinowski and Berger:JBE 1996 In 7 of 9 scenarios, there was a difference between males and females.

Ameen et al.:JBE 1996 At p


20/40

TABLE V

(Continued)


Libby and Agnello:JBE 2000 In 5 of 6 scenarios, there was a significant difference in responses

between males and females.

Radtke:JBE 2000 In 5 of 16 scenarios, there were significant differences in responses

between males and females.

Lund:JBE 2000 In 3 of 4 scenarios, men and women were not significantly different in

their ethical/unethical behavior.

Ross and Robertson:JBE 2003 Females are more likely to behave ethically.

Chung and Trivedi:JBE 2003 Women have higher tax ethics than men.

Sankaran and Bui:JAAB 2003 Women are more ethical than men.

Individual factors: intent

Wagner and Sanders:JBE 2001 Individuals who intend to not engage in an unethical act were unlikely

to indicate having behaved unethically.


Ross and Robertson:JBE 2003 No significant findings.


Kennedy and Lawton:JBE 1996 Ukraine individuals were far more willing to engage in unethical

business practices than American individuals.

Whitcomb et al.:JBE 1998 Significant findings between Chinese and U.S. subjects in 3 of 5

dilemmas.


Tang and Chiu:JBE 2003 Organizational commitment is not related to unethical behavior.


Sankaran and Bui:JAAB 2003 Individuals who are highly competitive tend to have lower levels of

ethics, while there were no significant findings regarding personality

type (A or B).


Glover et al.:JBE 1997 A strong achievement orientation did not result in lower levels of

ethical decision making, while a concern for honesty and fairness were

not associated with higher levels of ethical decision making.

Hoffman et al.:JBE 1998 The drop in mean scores suggest that when a persons economic well

being is an issue, the tendency to act ethically diminishes.

Nonis and Swift:JEB 2001 In 3 of 4 scenarios, differences in personal values did not enhance the

propensity to make unethical business decisions.Tang and Chiu:JBE 2003 An individuals love of money was significantly related to unethical

behavior.

Fryxell and Lo:JBE 2003 Environmental values positively influenced behavior.


Kennedy and Lawton:JBE 1996 Those who are more religious are somewhat less willing to engage in

unethical behavior.

Individual factors: significant others

Glover et al.:JBE 1997 A high concern for others was not associated with ethical decision

making.

Sims and Keon:JBE 1999 The employees perception of supervisor expectations was significantly

related to ethical decision making.



21/40

TABLE V

(Continued)


Jackson:JMS 2000 Top managements attitude influences a lower level managers behavior

in ethical decision making.

Robertson and Rymon:BEQ 2001 No significant findings with respect to commitment to relationship.

Moral intensity

Marshall and Dewe:JBE 1997 Moral intensity was not seen as an influencing factor in elicited

responses of individuals.

Greenberg:OBHDP 2002 Individuals stole more money when it was said to come from the

organization, rather than an individual.

Fleischman and Valentine:JBE 2003 Moral intensity in an equitable relief case was negatively related to the

decision to grant equitable relief.

Valentine and Fleischman:JBE 2003 Moral intensity was negatively associated with the decision to deny

relief.


Hunt and Jennings:JBE 1997 High performing teams do not tend to make the most ethical decisions.

Robertson and Rymon:BEQ 2001 Buyers who face a high pressure to perform are more likely to behave

deceptively.


McCabe et al.:BEQ 1996 The existence of a code of ethics was significantly associated with lower

levels of unethical behavior.

Cleek and Leonard:JBE 1998 Codes of ethics does not influence ethical decision making behavior.

Sims and Keon:JBE 1999 Mixed results. Informal/unwritten policies were significant in 1 of 5

scenarios as influencing ethical decision making while formal/writtenpolicies were significant in 3 of 5 scenarios.

Hume et al.:JBE 1999 CPAs were not more likely to follow professional codes than

unlicensed accountants.

Weaver and Trevino:BEQ 1999 The perception that the companys ethics program is value and

compliance based resulted in lower observed unethical conduct.

Adams et al.:JBE 2001 Individuals in companies that have a code of ethics felt less pressure to

behave unethically than those in an organization with no codes of

ethics.

Somers:JBE 2001 Unethical behavior is less prevalent in organizations that has a code of

ethics versus. organizations that do not.

Trevino and Weaver:BEQ 2001 Observed unethical conduct was higher when employees perceived less

ethics program follow-through.

Schwartz:JBE 2001 Codes have the potential to influence behavior.

Greenberg:OBHDP 2002 Individuals who worked at an office with a corporate ethics program

stole significantly less than individuals who do not work at an office

with an ethics program.

Peterson:JBE 2002 Codes of ethics were associated with less observed unethical behavior.

McKendall et al.:JBE 2002 Did not lessen legal violations.

Organizational factors: ethical climate/culture

Bartels et al.:JBE 1998 Strong ethical climates are associated with less serious ethical problems.

Trevino et al.:BEQ 1998 In code organizations, ethical culture was strongly associated with

observed unethical behavior, where as in non-code organizations,

ethical climate was strongly associated.



22/40

sonality factors, professional affiliation, significant

others) have received only a scant amount of re-

search attention. As a result, these may represent

areas for future research.

Summary. Individual factors have been widely

examined in the ethical decision-making literature.

The studies included in this review reported 270

findings with respect to individual level factors,

compared to the roughly 120 findings reported in the

Loe et al article (2000). The most consistent findings

appear in the studies that test for the direct effects of

gender, ethical philosophies (i.e., idealism and rela-

tivism), cognitive moral development, locus of

control, Machiavellianism, and religion. On the

other hand, mixed findings were commonly found

with regard to education level, work experience,

nationality, and age.

TABLE V

(Continued)


Fritzsche:JBE 2000 Laws and codes was the dominant climate in high tech firms and lead to

ethical behavior.

Vardi:JBE 2001 Laws and rules was the most important climate type influencing OMB.

Peterson:JBE 2002 Egoism climate correlated positively, while the benevolent and

principled climates correlated negatively to unethical behavior.

Weber et al.:B and S 2003 Organizations with a morally preferred ethical climate did not have

known employee theft.

Organizational factors: external environment

Hunt and Jennings:JBE 1997 When facing a favorable environmental change, teams will not tend to

make the most ethical decisions.

Fryxell and Lo:JBE 2003 Mixed results. Environmental knowledge predicted behavior in two of

three conditions.

Organizational factors: industry type

Oz:JBE 2001 IS professionals are more likely to engage in unethical behavior than

other professionals in 2 of 4 statements.

Organizational factors: opportunity

Shafer:JBE 2002 Financial executives will be more likely to commit fraud when the

financial risk is low and the dollar amounts are quantitatively

immaterial.

Organizational factors: organizational culture/climate

Vardi:JBE 2001 The more positively the organizational climate is viewed, the less the

reported misbehavior.


Bartels et al.:JBE 1998 Larger organizations tend to have more serious ethical problems.

Chavez et al.:JBE 2001 Firm size is positively related to ethical decision making.

Organizational factors: other organizational effects

Trevino and Weaver:BEQ 2001 Observed unethical conduct was higher when employees perceived less

general fairness.

McKendall et al.:JBE 2002 Communication did not lessen legal violations.

Organizational factors: rewards and sanctions

Tenbrunsel:AMJ 1998 Individuals in a high incentive condition were more likely to engage in

unethical behavior.

Organizational factors: training

McKendall et al.:JBE 2002 Did not lessen legal violations.



23/40

Organizational factors

The five predominant organizational variablesexamined in the ethical decision-making literature

are codes of ethics, ethical climate/culture, industry

type, organizational size, and rewards and sanc-

tions.

Codes of ethics. Of the 20 findings in this category,

only two revealed no significant findings. Of the

remaining 18 findings, six reported mixed results or

suggested that the existence of a code of ethics did

not influence ethical decision-making (e.g., Sims

and Keon, 1999), whereas 11 of the other 12 find-ings reported a positive effect on ethical decision-

making (e.g., Mc Devitt and Hise, 2002).


(1994) Their review concluded that codes of ethics

(conduct) are consistently and significantly related to

ethical decision-making, with six of nine studies

supporting this notion. Loe et al. (2000) Of the ten

studies that examined the influence of codes of

ethics, seven studies supported the notion that codes

of ethics are positively associated with ethical deci-

sion-making.

Conclusion Although there have been fewnotable exceptions, the majority of studies support

the idea that the existence of a code of ethics is

positively related to ethical decision-making.

Ethical climate/culture. Sixteen findings reported the

influence of ethical climate or ethical culture in the

ethical decision-making process. Twelve of these

reported that at least one or more dimensions of

ethical culture or climate positively influenced ethical

decision-making (e.g., Trevino et al., 1998). The

remaining four studies found no influence in thedecision making process (e.g., DeConinck and Le-

wis, 1997) or reported the most dominant climate

dimension in an organization (e.g., Upchurch, 1998).


(1994) No reported studies. Loe et al. (2000)

Only reported four studies that directly examined

ethical climate. Of these studies, one identified dif-

ferent types of climate that exist in an organization,

another stated that ethical climate is unrelated to

moral reasoning, the third study concluded that eth-

ical climate is negatively related to perceived ethical

conflict, and one study was included in this review.

Conclusion There is increasing support for the

notion that ethical climates and cultures exist within

organizations. The research generally supports thenotion that ethical climates and cultures have a po-

sitive influence on ethical decision making.

Industry type. There were nine reported findings in

this category. Only one study produced no signifi-

cant findings (Shafer et al., 2001). The other eight

findings are not directly comparable as different

industries were chosen for each study.


(1994) Three studies were reported, two of which

resulted in no significant findings. The remainingstudy found significant differences among retailers

toward actions taken in certain situations. Loe et al.

(2000) No additional studies reported.

Conclusion Due to the fact that different indus-

tries were examined in various studies, no overall

conclusions regarding the effect of industry can be

drawn. However, of the 12 findings included in

these reviews, eight produced significant differences

between industries.

Organizational size. Of the seven findings with regard

to organizational size, five revealed no significantfindings (e.g., Paolillo and Vitell, 2002). The other

two suggested mixed results Bartels and colleagues

(1998) found that larger organizations tend to have

more serious ethical problems, whereas Chavez et al.

(2001) found that firm size is positively related to the

ethical decision making process.


(1994) In the three studies reported, all indicated

that size had a negative influence on ethical deci-

sion-making. One study found that larger firm

respondents were more likely to accept gifts andfavors from ex-suppliers, while the other two indi-

cated that there was a difference between organiza-

tional size and moral reasoning nd judgment. Loe

et al. (2000) No reported findings.

Conclusion The research in this area generally

suggests that organizational size has a detrimental

effect on ethical decision making. However, given

the mixed results, future research appears warranted.

Rewards and sanctions. The seven findings in this

category were consistent, with only one study

finding no significant results (Beams et al., 2003). In



24/40

general, unethical behavior is more prevalent in

organizations that reward unethical behavior and less

prevalent in organizations that punish unethicalbehavior.


(1994) The reported findings are consistent with

current research. Rewards for unethical behavior

induce such behavior, while sanctions prohibit

unethical behavior. Loe et al. (2000) For the most

part, their review concurs with the literature pre-

sented in this review as well as Ford and Richardsons

review. However, most of the studies reported in the

review did not show a direct influence on behavior.

Conclusion The impact of rewards and sanctionsis clear rewarding unethical behavior tends to

increase the frequency of such behavior, while

effective sanctioning systems tend to decrease such

behavior.

Miscellaneous. The remaining organizational variables

were found in only a small number of studies. These

include business competitiveness, external environ-

ment, opportunity, organizational climate/culture,

other organizational effects, significant others, sub-

jective norms, and training. Some of these variables

are relatively new to the ethics literature (i.e.,subjective norms and changes occurring in the

external environment) and provide opportunities for

future research.

Summary. Researchers in the past seven years have

given less attention to organizational factors than

to individual factors. Since 1996, there are a

reported 82 findings with respect to organizational

factors, compared to the 64 findings in Loe et al.s

review (2000). The most consistent findings were

found in the studies testing for the effects ofethical climate/culture, codes of ethics, and

rewards and sanctions. Mixed results were more

common in studies examining industry type and

organizational size.

Moral intensity

In Loe et al.s (2000) review, moral intensity was

examined in only two studies. Since then, moral

intensity has received quite a bit of research

attention. In total, 32 findings were included in this

review and have reported fairly consistent results.

With the exception of Marshall and Dewe (1997),

each study that examined moral intensity, or somecomponent of moral intensity, found a relationship

with at least one facet of ethical decision-making

(e.g., May and Pauli, 2002). Two of Jones (1991)

six issue-related factors produced the most consis-

tent results. Social consensus and magnitude of

consequences positively influenced ethical decision-

making in 12 and 14 studies, respectively. Con-

centration of effect, temporal immediacy and

proximity were examined in four studies, whereas

probability of effect was examined in five studies.

With the exception of concentration of effect(which had a positive influence in each of the three

studies), the findings for these other factors have

been mixed.


(1994) No reported studies. Loe et al. (2000)

Two studies, both of which support the notion that

moral intensity influences the ethical decision-

making process.

Conclusion Although moral intensity is a rela-

tively new construct in the business ethics literature,

there seems to be strong support for its influence on

the ethical decision-making process. Magnitude ofconsequences and social consensus represent the

most consistent findings. As discussed below, addi-

tional research regarding the remaining four factors

appears warranted.

Trends and future directions

In this section, we compare the past seven years of

empirical research with previous reviews in order

to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethicaldecision-making literature and to surface directions

for future research. Overall, we observe that the

field of descriptive ethics, particularly in the area of

ethical decision-making, is a rapidly growing area

of inquiry. Since 1996, a total of 174 empirical

articles have been published in prominent business

ethics journals. This can be compared to the

roughly 110 articles over 30 years in the Loe et al.

(2000) review. We consider this to be an indication

that descriptive ethics is becoming an increasingly

important topic in organizational and behavioral

science.



25/40

The body of empirical research published over the

past seven years has improved our understanding of

the ethical decision-making process. However, uponcritical examination of the literature, there are

numerous areas that require further exploration or

modification. The following discussion is not

intended to be exhaustive. Rather, our intent is to

surface trends and offer recommendations regarding

issues that are common to empirical research articles

(i.e., theoretical/conceptual and methodological

issues) in order to guide future empirical ethical

decision-making research.

Theoretical and conceptual issues

In Randall and Gibsons (1990) critique of meth-

odology in business ethics research, they identified

only 32 studies (roughly 35% of all studies included)

that offered any type of theory development, and 71

studies (75%) lacked hypotheses. Although it is dif-

ficult to offer an exact count, we concur with

Randall and Gibson that many studies over the past

seven-year period lacked strong theoretical

grounding and formal hypotheses. In place of the-

ory, many researchers have opted to discuss con-struct development (i.e. culture, codes of ethics,

locus of control, gender issues, etc.). Those studies

that are grounded in theory often draw from social

psychology, including Kohlbergs theory of cogni-

tive moral development (1981) (e.g., Wimalasiri

et al., 1996), Ajzens theory of planned behavior

(1985, 1989) (e.g., Flannery and May, 2000), equity

theory (e.g., Glass & Wood, 1996), and script theory

(Boyle, 2000). Other commonly used theories in-

clude Hunt and Vitells (1986) general theory of

marketing ethics (e.g., Rallapalli et al., 1998), the-ories of corporate illegality (e.g., McKendall et al.,

2002), and theories of ethical climate/culture (e.g.,

Victor & Cullen, 1988; Trevino et al, 1998).

If the field of descriptive ethics is to move forward

to strengthen our understanding of the ethical

decision-making process, it is imperative that future

studies focus more attention on theory development.

This includes developing and/or moving beyond

Rests framework, conceiving and testing additional

individual, situational, and issue-related influences,

and considering potenti

ethical decision making review

Documents