Ethical champions, emotions, framing, and team ethical decision making.

Abstract

Research has offered a pessimistic (although limited) view regarding the effectiveness of ethical champions in teams and the social consequences they are likely to experience. To challenge this view, we conducted two multimethod (quantitative/qualitative) experimental studies in the context of entrepreneurial team decision-making to examine whether and how an ethical champion can shape team decision ethicality and whether ethical champions experience interpersonal costs. In Study 1, we found that confederate ethical champions influenced team decisions to be more ethical by increasing team ethical awareness. Focusing on the emotional expressions of ethical champions, we found that sympathetic and angry ethical champions both increased team decision ethicality but that angry ethical champions were more disliked. Analysis of team interaction videos further revealed moral disengagement in team discussions and the emergence of nonconfederate ethical champions who used business frames to argue for the ethical decision. Those emergent phenomena shifted our focus, in Study 2, to how ethical champions framed the issues and the mediating processes involved. We found that ethical champions using ethical frames not only increased team ethical awareness but also consequently reduced team moral disengagement, resulting in more ethical team decisions. Ethical champions using business frames also improved team decision ethicality, but by increasing the perceived business utility of the ethical decision.

No Need to Worry? Anxiety and Coping in the Entrepreneurship Process

“…Entrepreneurship is widely perceived to be an "emotional rollercoaster" (Schindehutte et al, 2006) involving a range of positive and negative emotions (Fodor and Pintea, 2017). Although being an entrepreneur is experienced as satisfying (Benz and Frey, 2008;Morris et al, 2012;Stephan, 2018), entrepreneurs routinely face uncertainties, setbacks and challenges (van Gelderen, 2012). The negative emotions generated by the entrepreneurial process raise the question why and how surviving entrepreneurs are able to persist and even thrive under such conditions.…”

“…However, recent studies have shown that anxiety may also facilitate the creative thinking and effort of entrepreneurs (Foo et al, 2009;Cacciotti et al, 2016). Moreover, although anxiety is ubiquitous and negatively experienced, entrepreneurs express satisfaction with their work (Benz and Frey, 2008;Stephan and Roesler, 2010;Morris et al, 2012;Barba-Sánchez and Atienza-Sahuquillo, 2017). This suggests that persisting entrepreneurs are often able to harness anxiety and thrive in these circumstances.…”

The benefits and perils of job candidates’ signaling their morality in selection decisions

“…Research has demonstrated that framing of issues in either moral or economic terms impacts both the processes that individuals use to make ethical decisions and the outcomes that they pursue (Bazerman & Tenbrunsel, 2011; Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1999; Tenbrunsel & Northcraft, 2009). Recently, both Chen, Treviño, and Humphrey (2020) and Mayer, Ong, Sonenshein, and Ashford (2019) demonstrated that framing issues in moral terms can greatly influence issues’ acceptance, often times above and beyond the same issues sold in economic terms (Sonenshein, 2006), particularly if the moral frame is consistent with the organization's values and mission (Mayer et al., 2019).…”

The Emergence of Value-Based Leadership Behavior at the Frontline of Management: A Role Theory Perspective and Future Research Agenda

“…For example, frontline managers who perceive a stronger status in the organization may be more willing to speak up without the fear of retaliation ( Paterson and Huang, 2019 ). We need to examine this boundary condition and its influence on role expectancy behaviors because emerging research is starting to reshape how we approach the framing process of VBL behaviors (see Derfler-Rozin et al, 2016 ; Desai and Kouchaki, 2017 ; Yam et al, 2019 ; Chen et al, 2020 ). Thus, frontline managers’ willingness to voice and give voice is important to maintain their status and influence ( Bienefeld and Grote, 2014 ), because the existence of VBL behaviors is meant to foster an increase in similar patterned behaviors ( Kakkar et al, 2016 ).…”