The Antecedents of Moral Imagination in the Workplace: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective

Abstract

As corporate scandals proliferate, organizational researchers and practitioners have made calls for research providing guidance for those wishing to influence positive moral decision-making and behavior in the workplace. This study incorporates social cognitive theory and a vignette-based cognitive measure for moral imagination to examine (a) moral attentiveness and employee creativity as important antecedents of moral imagination and (b) creativity as a moderator of the positive relationship between moral attentiveness and moral imagination. Based on the results from supervisor-subordinate dyadic

What Sparks Ethical Decision Making? The Interplay Between Moral Intuition and Moral Reasoning: Lessons from the Scholastic Doctrine

“…In particular, the emotional processing is a significant mediator function played by affects and emotions channeling decision makers' intuiting toward affectively charged intuitions (Greene et al 2001;Haidt 2001). This emotional processing encapsulates the experiential state of the decision maker during the actual circumstances, therefore playing a significant role in determining intuitive moral judgments (Greene et al 2001;Marquardt and Hoeger 2009;Whitaker and Godwin 2013). For the purpose of a blended model of ethical decision making, it is important to acknowledge the existence of different types of emotions impacting on the ethical decision-making process, as will be presented clearly in the framework later, specifying that emotions affecting the intuitive and instinctual decision-making process, or moral intuition, belong to the 'hot' system.…”

“…Since synderesis seems to trigger practical reason (Das Neves and Melé 2013), at an unconscious level it enriches the decision maker's intuitive system. The concrete situation in which a moral issue takes place impacts on the experiential system of the decision maker (Dane and Sonenshein 2014;Marquardt and Hoeger 2009;Whitaker and Godwin 2013) and, regarding the intuiting process, we may argue that innate synderesis facilitates a continuous, increasing reception of external stimuli present in a moral issue. Although an unconditional process, intuiting imprints the experiential system of the decision maker who will feel an easiness/uneasiness in performing such an act.…”

“…Depending on the emotional state of the decision maker, opposite feelings such as happiness and anger, or any other emotion belonging to the 'hot' system (Metcalfe and Mischel 1999), may alter the reception of signals and limit the spectrum of information available in that particular moment (Haidt 2001(Haidt , 2003b. As argued by Whitaker and Godwin (2013), ''fearful individuals favor deliberation and safety, whereas anger leads to less analysis and more risk-taking'' (p. 63). Thus, decision makers' feelings notably affect the evaluative process (Marquardt and Hoeger 2009).…”

Organisational Virtue, Moral Attentiveness, and the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business: The Case of UK HR Practitioners

“…Reynolds (2008) in validating the concept of MA found significant associations between MA and measures of normlessness, nurturance, moral identity and agreeableness. MA has also been shown to have significant associations with moral imagination (Whitaker and Goodwin 2013), staff willingness to respond to customer complaints about ethics infringements on online blogs (van Laer 2012) and the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility in creating organisational effectiveness (PRESOR) (Wurthmann 2013).…”

Exploring the Diversity of Virtues Through the Lens of Moral Imagination: A Qualitative Inquiry into Organizational Virtues in the Turkish Context

“…The first stream is grounded within the business ethics literature; and views moral imagination from a cognitive perspective based on decision-making. Whitaker and Godwin (2013) have defined moral imagination as a unique cognitive process that an individual applies when making a decision. Werhane (1998Werhane ( , 1999Werhane ( , 2008 has defined moral imagination as the ability to discover and evaluate possibilities not merely determined by that circumstance, limited by its operative mental models, or merely framed by a set of rules.…”