Moral Development in Business Ethics: An Examination and Critique

Abstract

The field of behavioral ethics has seen considerable growth over the last few decades. One of the most significant concerns facing this interdisciplinary field of research is the moral judgment-action gap. The moral judgment-action gap is the inconsistency people display when they know what is right but do what they know is wrong. Much of the research in the field of behavioral ethics is based on (or in response to) early work in moral psychology and American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's foundational cognitive model of moral development. However, Kohlberg's model of moral development lacks a compelling explanation for the judgment-action gap. Yet, it continues to influence theory, research, teaching, and practice in business ethics today. As such, this paper presents a critical review and analysis of the pertinent literature. This paper also reviews modern theories of ethical decision making in business ethics. Gaps in our current understanding and directions for future research in behavioral business ethics are presented. By providing this important theoretical background information, targeted critical analysis, and directions for future research, this paper assists management scholars as they begin to seek a more unified approach, develop newer models of ethical decision making, and conduct business ethics research that examines the moral judgment-action gap.

Cognitive Moral Development, Organizational Situation and Ethical Decision Making in Business and Accounting

“…Kohlberg (1971Kohlberg ( , 1977 proposed that cognitive development is a personal value gained through a process of thought and expression. Every important moment experienced involves thought, and expression processes will encourage an individual to improve his/her moral behaviour (DeTienne et al, 2019). An opinion of a person will explain his/her thought process when facing a conflict in an interaction with others possessing higher moral level (Cherington, 1994).…”

Business Ethics Decision-Making: Examining Partial Reflective Awareness

“…While offering important insights into relevant elements of the ethical decision-making process, the theories of cognitive development and cognitive-affective models focus on the awareness, assessment, and judgment part of the process, frequently ignoring the issue of actual behavior. This creates the so called "judgment-action gap" [1].…”

“…In addition, the organizational level in business ethics deals with another aggravating factor, that is, aggregation of individual behavior [4][5][6][7][8][9]. The theories within the business ethics framework have been developing in such a direction to become focused on individual behavior and [1] systematize the theoretical development into three areas: Moral Automaticity, Moral Schemas, and Moral Heuristics Research.…”

“…For a long time, the dominant theoretical concepts in business ethics have been the moral judgment and moral action approaches. Since evidence shows that moral action and moral judgment do not always lead to the same results, a moral judgment-action gap [1] has been identified. This evokes the question of bridging this gap and identifying appropriate concepts for its description.…”

Ethics in University: Cognitive Moral Development and Gender

“…Kohlberg's model contains six stages of moral reasoning within three levels of moral development that centered on cognitive reasoning (or rationality) (Kohlberg, 1971). Movement from one level to the next level in CMD entails the re-organization of a form of thought into a new form (DeTienne et al, 2019). Not all individuals can achieve the six stages because it is rare to find people who reach stage five or six, emphasizing that Kohlberg's idea of the stages of moral development was not synonymous with maturation (Kohlberg, 1971).…”