Beyond the Particular and Universal: Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence of Context, Justice, and Ethics

Abstract

This article reflects on context effects in the study of behavioral ethics and organizational justice. After a general overview, we review three key challenges confronting research in these two domains. First, we consider social scientific versus normative approaches to inquiry. The former aims for a scientific description, while the latter aims to provide prescriptive advice for moral conduct. We argue that the social scientific view can be enriched by considering normative paradigms. The next challenge we consider, involves the duality of morally upright versus morally inappropriate behavior. We observe that there is a long tradition of categorizing behavior dichotomously (e.g., good vs. bad) rather than continuously. We conclude by observing that more research is needed to compare the dichotomous versus continuous perspectives. Third, we examine the role of ''cold'' cognitions and ''hot'' affect in making judgments of ethicality. Historically speaking, research has empathized cognition, though recent work has begun to add greater balance to affective reactions. We argue that both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together. After considering these three challenges, we then turn to our special issue, providing short reviews of each contribution and how they help in better addressing the three challenges we have identified.

Identity, Importance, and Their Roles in How Corporate Social Responsibility Affects Workplace Attitudes and Behavior

“…This said, our final call is for more research at the intersection of CSR and organizational justice. While great strides are being made to integrate the organizational justice and behavioral ethics literatures (e.g., Crawshaw et al, 2013;Fortin, Nadisic, Bell, Crawshaw, & Cropanzano, 2016), we see similar opportunities here. Rupp's (2011) work articulating the potential alternative employee and executive motives for CSR importance provide a potentially useful startpoint and framework.…”

Motivated cognition and fairness: Insights, integration, and creating a path forward.

“…A motivated cognition perspective can also be used as a foundation to facilitate meaningful integration between the fairness literature and other domains, including moral judgments, behavioral economics, ethical decision making, and behavioral ethics. Consider behavioral ethics as an example—numerous scholars have advocated for integration between behavioral ethics and fairness (e.g., Crawshaw, Cropanzano, Bell, & Nadisic, 2013; Cropanzano & Stein, 2009; Folger et al, 2005; Fortin, Nadisic, Bell, Crawshaw, & Cropanzano, 2016; Schminke, Ambrose, & Noel, 1997). An interesting find was that the reasons for proposed integration are often (implicitly) related to motivated cognitions (e.g., the presence of similar motives, the importance of identity; e.g., Skitka, 2003).…”

Relationships between Parental Socialization Styles, Empathy and Connectedness with Nature: Their Implications in Environmentalism

“…Studies on empathy have generally followed a two-dimensional perspective: The cognitive perspective—mental perspective taking—[88,97,98], and the emotional perspective—the vicarious sharing of emotion—[87,99,100]. Recent studies have found that “both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together” [101]. Some authors also consider it to be a trait—dispositional empathy—or state—situational empathy—in both interpersonal relationships and relationships with nature [22].…”