The Role of Law in Models of Ethical Behavior

Abstract

business ethics, business law, cognitive moral development, ethical decision models, experientialism, social learning,

Knights of the Road: Safety, Ethics, and the Professional Truck Driver

“…Regulatory effectiveness also interacted with ethical judgments to strengthen the relationship between drivers' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions (Scenario 1). This finding complements the previous finding in that drivers who believe the driver-focused safety regulations are effective in keeping the roads safe may be more likely to take cues from those regulations when faced with ethical decisions (Christensen 2008). They then may be likely to rely more on deontological evaluations in establishing ethical judgments, and ethical judgments in determining intentions, which is likely to lead to more ethical decisions and behaviors.…”

“…This finding coincides with previous studies that showed a positive view of the regulations generally resulted in support for those regulations (Cordano et al 2004). In the current study, perhaps this finding indicates that drivers who view the safety regulations in a less positive manner will rely less on evaluations of the norms provided by those regulations when faced with ethical decisions (Christensen 2008).…”

“…Laws represent societal norms and people look to those norms when confronted with an ethical decision (Christensen 2008). In research linking perceptions of regulations and behavior, attitudes toward environmental regulations have been associated with behavioral intentions to support environmental laws and protection (Cordano et al 2004).…”

A Framework for Understanding Ethical and Efficiency Issues in Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Litigation

“…Other business ethics researchers have used multiple theories to compare approaches and possibly develop a synthesis among varying theories as applied to the role of law in models of ethical behavior (Christensen 2008) and marketing (Ferrell et al 1989). This synthetic approach is supported by the work of Werhane (1998) who defines moral imagination as the ''ability to understand particular contexts or sets of activities from a number of different perspectives, the actualizing of new possibilities that are not context dependent, and the instigation of a process of evaluating those possibilities from a moral point of view'' (Werhane 1999).…”

When events interact with business ethics

“…As Barley and Tolbert (1997: 102) suggested, 'Understanding the degree to which people choose to enact and to ignore scripts that encode institutions is a critical issue for research on how action and institutions are linked'. A degree of conflict will always attach to ethical decisions as their interpretation is shaped by divergent but coexistent representations of values in philosophy, socioeconomics (see the ambiguities of utilitarian ethics, Audi, 2007) and politics and law (for examples see Christensen, 2008;Clegg et al, 2006;Fuller, 1969;Fuller, 2003: 106;Hayek, 1996: 108-110;Nesteruk, 1996Nesteruk, , 1999.…”