Moral Emotions and Ethics in Organisations: Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

The aim of our special issue is to deepen our understanding of the role moral emotions play in organisations as part of a wider discourse on organisational ethics and morality. Unethical workplace behaviours can have far-reaching consequences-job losses, risks to life and health, psychological damage to individuals and groups, social injustice and exploitation and even environmental devastation. Consequently, determining how and why ethical transgressions occur with surprising regularity, despite the inhibiting influence of moral emotions, has considerable theoretical and practical significance to management scholars and managers alike. In this introduction, we present some of the core arguments in the field; notably, the effect of organisational life and bureaucracy on emotions, in general, and moral emotions, in particular; the moral standing of leaders, managers and followers; moral challenges raised by obedience and resistance to organisational power and ethical blindspots induced by what may appear as deeply moral emotions. These issues are explored by a collection of geographically diverse articles in various work contexts, which are thematically organised in terms of (i) moral emotions, ethical behaviour and social pressure, (ii) moral emotions and their consequences within/across levels of analysis, (iii) psychoanalytic perspectives on the management of moral emotions, (iv) virtue and moral emotions and (v) moral emotions and action tendencies. We end by suggesting certain avenues for future research in the hope that the endeavour initiated here will inspire improved practice at work.

Knowledge sharing and unethical pro-organizational behavior in a Mexican organization

“…Continued research could distinguish different knowledge types-such as general versus specialized (Lane and Lubatkin, 1998) or explicit versus implicit (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995) Third, we theorized, but did not directly measure, that the positive relationship between knowledge sharing and UPB could be explained by employees' perceptions of their ability to engage in such behavior, and that the invigorating effects of dispositional resistance to change and perceived organizational politics are predicated on the perceived desirability of applying relevant knowledge to UPB. Additional studies could measure these mechanisms directly, as well as alternative mechanisms, such as the social pressures that employees might experience as a result of extensive knowledge sharing or politically oriented climates (Lindebaum et al, 2017).…”

Ethics-Related Issues in the Tender Evaluation of Malaysia Public Projects

“…It is the job of the evaluators to examine whether those records are genuine, correct, and updated. This leads to working more than those stated in the job scope, without the conscience that the management or the leader imposes extra work and could cause demotivation (Lindebaum et al, 2017). Somehow, according to N. A. Shamsudin (personal communication, October 7, 2016), in practice, the evaluators do not have a direct authorisation to examine the authenticity of the records in the documents especially when it comes to financial statement and experience of work with private institutions.…”

“…According to Maykut and Morehouse (1994), the data is adequate because there is no new information or new major concepts emerged in the last few interviews. The point is called saturation point (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) or redundancy (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). Patton (1990) agreed with the assertion that validity and richness of qualitative information should be according to the richness of information of the selection and analytical capabilities instead of the number of the participants.…”

“…The view of other countries however regards professional ethics as a sensitive subject. Even though the codes of ethics are established to ensure quality and avoid conflicts of interests, unethical behaviours can still be detected from the decisions made at the top management level just for the sake to close the deal and out of greed (Lindebaum, Geddes, & Gabriel, 2017;Nordin, Takim, & Nawawi, 2013;Raja, 2014;Scalza, 2008). In view of overcoming this issue, suspension of practising licence is foreseen as a punishment.…”

Positive Shock: A Consumer Ethical Judgement Perspective

“…As consumers are the ultimate judges of what might constitute ethical marketing (Shabbir et al 2018;Skipper and Hyman 1993), this is an area deserving additional research attention. Existing literature tends to examine ethical judgement in organisational contexts (Trevino 1992;Jones 1991Jones , 2009Lindebaum et al 2017), or the link between ethical judgement and consumers' own ethical or unethical behaviours (Hunt and Vitell 1986;Muncy 1992, 2005;Vitell et al 2016). To progress understanding of ethics in the marketplace, it is important to further application of descriptive ethics (Nill and Schibrowsky 2007).…”