The Impact of Ethical Ideologies, Moral Intensity, and Social Context on Sales-Based Ethical Reasoning

Abstract

ethical ideologies, moral intensity, social context, ethical reasoning,

The Role of Individual Variables, Organizational Variables and Moral Intensity Dimensions in Libyan Management Accountants’ Ethical Decision Making

“…Nevertheless, recent studies (e.g. Fang and Foucart 2013;O'Leary and Stewart 2007;Pierce and Sweeney 2010;Valentine and Bateman 2011) generally indicate a positive relationship between work experience and ethical decision making, consistent with Kohlberg's (1969) theory and Treviño's (1986) argument. Thus, this study hypothesizes:…”

Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?

“…Other studies using accounting vignettes and conducted outside of North America, however, were unable to detect significant associations between idealism and ethical judgments (Marques and Azvedo-Pereira, 2009, Portugal; Table 1, China). Idealism was orthogonal to ethical judgments in a real estate vignette (Boyle, 2000), physician behavioral intentions in health care vignettes (Eastman, Eastman, and Tolson, 2001), and also to behavioral intentions in a bribery vignette (Valentine and Bateman, 2011) and a file sharing vignette (Bateman, Valentine, and Rittenburg, in press), and in four vignettes in a Chinese sample (Vitell and Patwardhan, 2008; see also Singhapakdi, Vitell, and Franke, 1999). Idealists, however, regarded reporting someone else's ethically questionable action (blowing the whistle) as ethically appropriate (Barnett et al, 1996;Chiu and Erdener, 2003).…”

“…However, there is no way for any respondent to ascertain whether an organization would actually experience such outcomes, and thus this measure's construct validity seems doubtful in that it does not assess "magnitude (or even probability) of organizational effect", and certainly not in the way intended by Jones (1991); that is, as objective attributes of situations. Similarly, there seems no way for any individual to provide meaningful estimates concerning the likelihood of formal sanctions or other outcomes (Smith et al, 2007, p. 646), the extent of perceived "moral intensity" (a composite of Jones' situational characteristics as determined by respondents; e.g., Chen, Pan, and Pan, 2009;Valentine and Fleischman, 2003;Valentine, Fleischman, Sprague, and Godkin, 2010;Valentine and Bateman, 2011;Vitell, Bakir, Paolillo, Hidalgo, Al-Khatib, and Rawwas, 2003), or any component characteristic such as "temporal immediacy" (whether anticipated consequences of the questionable action in the vignette would occur immediately or much later) or "proximity" (to what extent are those affected by questionable actions similar to respondents themselves).…”

“…Individual perceptions or recognition of an ethical issue, or its importance (for example, as assessed by Barnett, 2001;Chan et al, 2008;Fleischman and Valentine, 2003;Haines et al, 2008;Rottig et al, 2011;Singhapakdi, 1999;Valentine and Barnett, 2007;Valentine and Bateman, 2011;Valentine and Fleischman, 2003;Valentine and Page, 2006), also seem susceptible to multiple causal interpretations. Although recognition is generally presumed to influence judgments, anyone who Ethical Judgments 25 regarded an ethically questionable activity as inappropriate would, in order to respond consistently, logically be inclined to concur that they personally recognized the existence of an ethical issue or problem.…”

Making Marketers Ethical: Background Variables for Sales Training Effectiveness

“…Training approaches (McClaren, 2000), behavioral patterns (Vitell & Singhapakdi, 1993), and ethical evaluations of sales scenarios (Barnett, Bass, & Brown, 1996) have all been informed by idealism/relativismframeworks. Valentine and Bateman (2011) determined that, along with issue-contingencies and environmental constructs, ethical ideologies influence issue recognition and intentions in sales situations. For example, idealistic individuals were found to be more sensitive to ethical misconduct in sales, and relativistic individuals were found to be less sensitive.…”