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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
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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
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(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.
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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.
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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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
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TABLE III
Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: judgment
Authors:Journal Year Findings
Individual factors: age
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.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: gender
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.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 No significant findings.
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.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: nationality
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
Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 No significant findings.
Individual factors: other individual effects
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.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: philosophy/value orientation
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.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Organizational factors: business competitiveness
Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Competition didnt affect ethical decision making.
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TABLE III
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
Organizational factors: codes of ethics
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.
Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.
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
Roozen et al.:JBE 2001 No significant findings.
Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.
Razzaque and Hwee:JBE 2002 No significant findings.
Organizational factors: other organizational effects
Verbeke et al.:JBE 1996 Internal communication positively affected ethical decision making.
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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).
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
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TABLE IV
Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: intent
Authors:Journal Year Findings
Individual factors: age
Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.
Individual factors: awareness
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.
Individual factors: education, employment, job satisfaction and work experience
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.
Individual factors: gender
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.
Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.
Individual factors: locus of control
Jones and Kavanagh:JBE 1996 In 1 of 2 experiments, externals were more likely to report unethical
intentions.
Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 No significant findings.
Cherry and Fraedrich:JPSSM 2000 Internal individuals indicate less intention to behave unethically than
externals.
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TABLE IV
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: machiavellianism
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.
Individual factors: nationality
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.
Individual factors: organizational commitment
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.
Individual factors: philosophy/value orientation
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.
Bass et al.:BEQ 1999 No significant findings.
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.
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TABLE IV
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: religion
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
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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).
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
Organizational Factors: Opportunity
Powpaka:JBE 2002 A managers intention to give a bribe is negatively influenced by his/her
perceived choice.
Organizational factors: organizational size
Shafer et al.:AAAJ 2001 No significant findings.
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.
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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).
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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-
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TABLE V
Empirical research examining direct effects on the dependent variable: behavior
Authors:Journal Year Findings
Individual factors: age
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.
Individual factors: awareness
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.
Individual factors: education, employment, job satisfaction and work experience
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.
Individual factors: gender
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
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TABLE V
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Individual factors: machiavellianism
Ross and Robertson:JBE 2003 No significant findings.
Individual factors: nationality
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.
Individual factors: organizational commitment
Tang and Chiu:JBE 2003 Organizational commitment is not related to unethical behavior.
Individual factors: other individual effects
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).
Individual factors: philosophy/value orientation
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.
Individual factors: religion
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.
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TABLE V
(Continued)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Organizational factors: business competitiveness
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.
Organizational factors: codes of ethics
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.
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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)
Authors:Journal Year Findings
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.
Organizational factors: organizational size
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.
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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).
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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).
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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
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general, unethical behavior is more prevalent in
organizations that reward unethical behavior and less
prevalent in organizations that punish unethicalbehavior.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
Comparison to past reviews Ford and Richardson
(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.
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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