The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model

Abstract

Proponents of a popular view of how individuals respond to ethical issues at work claim that individuals use deliberate and extensive moral reasoning under conditions that ignore equivocality and uncertainty. I discuss the limitations of these "rationalist approaches" and reconsider their empirical support using an alternative explanation from social psychological and sensemaking perspectives. I then introduce a new theoretical model composed of issue construction, intuitive judgment, and post hoc explanation and justification. I discuss the implications for management theory, methods, and practice.

Strategies for Teaching Professional Ethics to IT Engineering Degree Students and Evaluating the Result

“…As our students are freshmen, we have considered an introductory level and have focused on reasoning skills and the use of deontological codes as an appropriate option (Sonenshein 2007). Moreover, it is consistent with two of our course's learning outcomes: "make professional decisions adjusted to deontological codes" and "have the ability to gather and interpret relevant data to inform judgments that include reflection on relevant social, legal and ethical issues.…”

“…The assessment of ethical development is a challenge for teachers and researchers (Finelli et al 2012;Goldin et al 2015;Sonenshein 2007). In view of the academic context, various authors (Colby and Sullivan 2008;de la Herrán Gascón 2014;Rudnicka et al 2013;Shuman et al 2005) suggest that students should be assessed on their knowledge and skills in solving ethical dilemmas in engineering contexts, but not on valúes, beliefs, character or actual behavior.…”

“…This paper is structured as follows: in "Knowledge, Methodologies and Evaluation of the Teaching of Engineering Ethics" section, the literature about teaching engineering ethics is reviewed, focusing on essential knowledge and skills, learning methodologies and assessment methods that have been proved to be most effective. "Context of the Experience" section explains the context of the teaching to be trained (Haidt 2001;Salvador and Folger 2009;Sonenshein 2007;Thiel et al 2012).…”

“…Our students have developed some skills for ethical decision-making by the analysis of cases framed as ethical dilemmas. As we have time constraints for these topics and because of the introductory level of our teaching context, we have concentrated on reasoning skills and the use of deontological codes as an appropriate option (Sonenshein 2007). The students' progress has been assessed by following a model that synthesizes some of the above proposals, with a simplified schema Identify-Analyze-Decide.…”

Reconciling Different Views on Responsible Leadership: A Rationality-Based Approach

“…Because business leaders' discretionary choices within regulatory boundaries are so important, we next draw on literature about ethical decision making-on which we later build our analyses of the viability of responsible leadership from a business leader's perspective. Sonenshein (2007) classifies several influential studies as 'rationalist approaches', because the underlying theories assume that decision makers cautiously evaluate evidence and apply moral principles in response to ethical issues (e.g., Hunt and Vitell, 1986;Jones, 1991;Treviño, 1986). Although Sonenshein finds these rationalist approaches popular and influentialpartly because of the absence of alternative explanations and theories-he points out their limitations.…”