Quick decisions tend to reinforce self‐interest choices among MBA students: The direct and moderating effects of temporal constraint and situational factors in ethical decision making

Abstract

Employees face increasingly time-pressured operational environments. Using theory from Reynolds ' (2006) neurocognitive model of ethical decision making, we explore how temporal constraint, consequence framing, and organizational norms affect self-interested decision making in business. Conducting three experimental manipulations with a sample of MBA students, we found the following: First, consistent with previous studies, high time pressure promotes self-interested intentions. Second, unethical framing encourages self-interested intentions, though this relationship is unaffected by the presence of time pressure. Third, unethical organizational norms encourage groupinterested intentions. Lastly, however, when these same norms are experienced under high time pressure, individuals display self-interested intentions. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Keywords: decision making, ethics, time pressure, selfinterest, norms, framing Résumé Les employés exercent dans des environnements opérationnels de plus en plus soumis à des contraintes de délai. En nous appuyant sur le modèle neurocognitif de prise de décision éthique de Reynolds (2006), nous examinons l'impact que la contrainte temporelle, le cadrage des conséquences et les normes organisationnelles ont sur les décisions favorables à l'individu dans les entreprises. Les trois manipulations expérimentales faites sur un échantillon d'étudiants de MBA ont permis de montrer: (a) que comme le montrent les études antérieures, les délais trop courts favorisent les intentions égoïstes; (b) que le cadre non éthique favorise les intentions égoïstes, même si cette relation n'est pas influencée par la contrainte temporelle; (c) que les normes organisationnelles non éthiques favorisent les intentions favorables au groupe; (d) que lorsque ces mêmes normes interviennent dans un contexte assujetti aux contraintes temporelles, les individus manifestent plutôt des intentions égoïstes.

Higher, Faster, Further: Occupational Ethical Decision-Making under Time Pressure in Type A versus Type B Personalities

“…Accordingly, the results do not confirm our hypotheses. The negative association between time pressure and moral behavior stands in line with a great number of studies, showing that time pressure indeed elicits unethical behavior (Andiappan & Dufour, 2016;Belle & Cantarelli, 2017;Koh et al, 2011Koh et al, , 2018. Nevertheless, it is of high importance to not assume that time pressure axiomatically impairs ethical decision-making.…”

“…The absence of differences in moral behavior between Type As and Type Bs might again be explained by self-serving choices. As the study of Andiappan and Dufour (2016) revealed, individuals take more self-serving choices when put under time constraints. The investigation of further revealed that Type As stick to their strong belief in own competences, even when the situation is unclear.…”

“…A meta-Analysis of Belle and Cantarelli (2017) found time pressure to be strongly related to unethical behavior in several studies. In an organizational context, Andiappan and Dufour (2016) observed that individuals take more self-serving choices when put under time constraints. Moreover, it is important to note that unethical behavior is based on a complex ethical decision-making process, as shown above.…”