+ Ethical Decision-making Overview

■ Ethical Awareness and Ethical

Judgment
■ Individual Differences, Ethical
Judgment, and Ethical Behavior
■ Facilitators to and Barriers to Good
Ethical Judgment
■ Toward Ethical Action
■ Gioia’s Personal Reflections on the
Pinto Fires Case
+ Eight Steps to Sound Ethical Decision
Making
1. Gather the facts
2. Define the ethical issues
3. Identify the affected parties
4. Identify the consequences
5. Identify the obligations
6. Consider your character and
integrity
7. Think creatively about potential
actions
8. Check your gut
+ Practical Preventive Medicine
(When Asked to Make a Snap Decision)
■
Pay attention to your gut
■
Ask for time
■
Find out about the organizational policy
■
Ask the manager or peers for advice
■
Use New York Times test (disclosure rule)
■
“Never do anything you wouldn’t want to see
reported on the front page of the The
Gleaner/Observer/Star.
■
You shouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t want
to see fairly reported on the front page.
+ The Relationship between Ethical
Awareness, Judgment, and Action

Ethical Ethical Ethical

Awareness Judgment Action
+
Influences on ethical awareness

■
If peers agree
■
If ethical language is used
■
If potential for serious harm
+ Variation in Employee Conduct
■
10% Follow their own values and beliefs;
believe that their values are superior to
those of others in the company
■
40% Always try to follow company
policies
■
40% Go along with the work group
■
10% Take advantage of situations if
the penalty is less than the benefit and
the risk of being caught is low
(Trevino & Nelson 5th Ed.)
+
Individual Differences Influence How
We Make Ethical Decisions
Individual Differences
Ethical Decision-Making Style
Cognitive Moral Development
Locus of Control
Machiavellianism
Moral Disengagement

Ethical Ethical Ethical

Awareness Judgment Actions
+
Cognitive Moral Development
(Lawrence Kohlberg)
■ Level I (Preconventional)
■ Stage 1 – Obedience and Punishment Orientation
■ Stage 2 – Instrumental Purpose and Exchange

■ Level II (Conventional)
■ Stage 3 - Interpersonal Accord - Conformity – Mutual Expectations
■ Stage 4 – System Maintenance - Upholding duties, laws

■ Level III (Postconventional or Principled)

■ Stage 5 – Social contract and rights
■ Stage 6 - Theoretical stage only
 Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral
Development

1.
1. Punishment
Punishment oror obedience
obedience (rules
(rules and
and
authority
authority orientation)
orientation)
2.
2. Individual
Individual instrumental
instrumental purpose
purpose and
and
exchange
exchange (serving
(serving one’s
one’s own
own needs)
needs)
3.
3. Mutual
Mutual interpersonal
interpersonal expectations,
expectations,
relationships,
relationships, and
and conformity
conformity (emphasis
(emphasis
on
on others
others rather
rather than
than self)
self)
self)
Copyright © Houghton Mifflin
6-9
Company
+
Why is Cognitive Moral Development
Important?
■ Because most people reason at the conventional
level and are looking outside themselves for
guidance
■ That makes “leading” on ethics essential
+
Locus of Control

An individual’s perception of how much control

he or she exerts over events in life.

External Internal
+
Connection to Ethical Behaivor?

■ Internals are more likely to see the connection

between their own behavior and outcomes and
therefore take responsibility for their behavior.
■ Therefore, internals are more likely to do what
they think is right
+
Machiavellianism

■ Self interested
■ Opportunistic
■ Deceptive Using clever but
■ Manipulative often dishonest me
thods that deceive 
people so that you
can win power or 
control
+ Moral Disengagement
■ The tendency for some individuals to deactivate their internal
control system in order to feel okay about doing unethical
things
■ Eight mechanisms used for doing this
■ Euphemistic language

■ Moral justification

■ Displacement of responsibility

■ Advantageous comparison

■ Diffusion of responsibility

■ Distorting consequences

■ Dehumanization

■ Attribution of blame
+
Moral Disengagement

STOP
AND
THINK

“It’s not my responsibility - my boss told me to do it.”

“It’s not my responsibility – my team decided this.”
“It’s no big deal!”
“It’s not as bad as (what someone else) is doing.”
“They deserve whatever they get.”
“They brought this on themselves.”
+ Cognitive Barriers to Good Ethical Judgment
■ Barriers to Fact Gathering
■ Overconfidence

■ “Confirmation Trap”

■ Barriers to Consideration of Consequences

■ Reduced number

■ Self vs. others

■ Ignore consequences that affect few

■ Risk underestimated: illusion of optimism,

illusion of control
■ Consequences over time – escalation of

commitment
+
More Cognitive Barriers

■ Thoughts about integrity

■ Illusion of superiority or illusion of morality

■ Paying attention to gut

■ Careful! Gut may be wrong
+
Unconscious Biases

■ The race bias

■ The role of emotions
+
Toward Ethical Action

■ Script Processing
■ Cognitive frameworks that guide our thoughts and

actions
■ Cost-Benefit Analysis
■ Too simplistic a way of analyzing

■ No moral dimension
+
Case
Mary, the director of nursing at a regional blood bank, is concerned about the
declining number of blood donors. It’s May, and Mary knows that the
approaching summer will mean increased demands for blood and decreased
supplies, especially of rare blood types. She is excited, therefore, when a large
corporation offers to host a series of blood drives at all of its locations,
beginning at corporate headquarters. Soon after Mary and her staff arrive at the
corporate site, Mary hears a disturbance. Apparently, a nurse named Peggy was
drawing blood from a male donor with a very rare blood type when the donor
fondled her breast. Peggy jumped back and began to cry. Joe, a male colleague,
sprang to Peggy’s defense and told the donor to leave the premises. To Mary’s
horror, the male donor was a senior manager with the corporation.

- What is the ethical dilemma in this case?

- What values are in conflict?
- How should Mary deal with Peggy, Joe, the donor, and representatives of the
corporation?
+
The End

■ Questions????