Download Our Journey - Australian Graduate School of Management

Why we do what we do…
Understanding individual ethical
behaviour
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Our Journey
• Framing…The elusive nature of an
important behaviour.
• Theory of the self
• Ethical behaviour as a part of a decision
making process
• Individual vs. situational variables
• Putting it all together
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Moral behaviour a mind map
Context / situation
•Weak vs. Strong
Perspectives
•Business as a jungle
•Script
•Stanford prison experiments
Individual variables
•Business as a game
•Business as war
•Moral identity
Moral
behaviour
•Locus of control
•Competitiveness
Decision making
process
Awareness / Judgement
/Intent / Behaviour
Values & beliefs
Self-regulatory
processes
•Nationality
Moral
reasoning
•Organisational
•Duties
•Department
•Consequences
Culture
•Emotions
•Rationalization
•Justice
•Virtue
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What influences people’s
behaviour?
Personal
variables
)Moral)
Behaviour
Situational
variables
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Decision Making process
Recognize
moral issue
(awareness)
Make
moral
judgement
Establish
moral
intent
Engage in
moral
behaviour
An issue-contingent model of ethical decision making in organizations / Adapted from Jones 1991
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Self-regulation and rationalization
Rationalization
(Moral)
Behavior
Mood
Positive/Negative
Later
behaviour
Bandura 1999
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Rationalizations
(Bandura 1999)
• Moral justification (It would have hurt her more if I told
the truth)
• Euphemistic labelling (I am “flexible” with the truth)
• Advantageous comparison (This little lie is better than
people who steal from their boss)
• Displacement of responsibility (He pushed me into a
corner – I had to lie)
• Diffusion of responsibility (We all decided together that
this was the right thing to do)
• Disregard or distortion of consequences (A little lie
never hurt anybody)
• Dehumanization (He’s a ‘worm’ he doesn’t deserve the
truth)
• Attribution of blame (He left me no choice, I had to lie)
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Putting it all together – an example
Moral
Disengagement
Moral Identity
Competitiveness
Moral
Behavior
Affect
Positive/Negative
Support for
negative
behaviour
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Ethics:
“It is the domain of obedience to the
unenforceable. That obedience is the obedience
of a man to that which he cannot be forced to obey.
He is the forcer of the law upon himself”
Lord Moulton 1924 (in Kidder 2003)
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Questions, anyone?
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