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Toward the Development of a Polyphonic Ethics Scale:
Assessing the Plurality of Ethical Perspectives in Organizations
Yoséline Leunens
Abstract
Through this thesis, we aim to help managers and members of organizations identify and make
explicit the diversity of ethical conceptions that guide them in their decisions. The objective of
this thesis is to develop a scale which incorporates a variety of ethical perspectives, reflecting not
only ideas of classical Western moral philosophies, but also contemporary business ethics
theories, as well as feminine and non-Western ethical traditions. Such a scale is needed, since
current ethics scale used in business ethics research are almost exclusively based on classical
moral philosophy, which implies a strong masculine and Western bias. Since they ignore
feminine and non Western ethical perspectives, we suggest these scales are silencing the voices
of people guided by other ethical traditions.
Our conceptual framework builds upon the theoretical constructs from two prominent paradigms,
represented among others, by Edgar Schein’s work relating to organizational basic assumptions,
and Stephen Toulmin’s work on the justification structure of any logical argument, including
ethical arguments. To construct a polyphonic ethics scale, we applied the Toulmin method to
generate statements reflecting 30 ethical theories. In this manner, we offer a pool of 90 items,
describing one basic assumption about reality (data), one ethical prescription (claim) and one
ethical ideal (warrant) that is distinct and representative of each ethical theory. We guided our
selection of the 30 ethical theories based on the most cited ethical theories in the business ethics
literature, and the objective of including 40% ethical theories developed or promoted by women,
or by non-Western thinkers. We measured the level of agreement or disagreement with these
statements through a questionnaire that was completed by 441 respondents working in various
organizations, and living in Quebec, Canada. We performed exploratory factor analysis and
multidimensional scaling analysis and retained a five factors solution, which reflect the following
ethical perspectives : Ecosocial harmony, cooperative egalitarianism, neoliberal conservatism,
rational objectivity and Machiavellian cynicism.
A major contribution of the Polyphonic Ethics Scale, compared to other scales such as the
Multidimensional Ethics Scale or the Defining Issue Test, is its capacity to identify ethical
perspectives from non Western traditions, such as the African “Ubuntu” tradition, as well as
business related traditions, for instance the beliefs of the cooperative movement or the neoliberal
tradition, as well as feminine traditions, including the ideas of Simone de Beauvoir, among
others. At the practical level, the Polyphonic Ethics Scale is an additional tool for apersonnel
selection process, enabling to evaluate the fit between the dominant ethical perspectives of a
candidate and the those that employer wishes to encourage within the organisation. Moreover, it
can be used at the individual level as a tool to facilitate ethical introspection by managers, or even
collectively to promote collaborative action on common ethical issues though effective dialogue
between stakeholders.
Keywords: ethical decision-making, ethical evaluation, ethical perspectives, ethical pluralism,
ethical polyphony, scale development, factor analysis, Multidimensional Ethics Scale,
Polyphonic Ethics Scale.