The assessment of individual moral goodness

Abstract

In a field dominated by research on moral prescription (business ethics) and moral prediction (behavioral ethics), there is poor understanding of the place of moral perceptions in organizations alongside philosophical ethics and causal models of ethical outcomes. As leadership failures continue to plague organizational health and firms recognize the wide-ranging impact of subjective bias, scholars and practitioners need a renewed frame of reference from which to reconceptualize their current understanding of ethics as perceived in individuals. Based on an assessment and selection perspective from the field of human resource management, an alternative to conventional deductive-prescriptive approaches is proposed based on a pluralistic concept referred to as moral goodness. An inductive-descriptive theory-building framework is constructed based on three interrelated streams of inquiry to yield insight concerning both formal and informal instances of assessment. Recommendations are proposed for the application of the framework to future research and practice.

Why bad feelings predict good behaviours: The role of positive and negative anticipated emotions on consumer ethical decision making

“…The data come from the Portuguese context. The question of how culture shapes ethical evaluations and behaviours is still an open one, and Chiu and Hackett () suggest that individuals' perceptions of the ethicality of situations and behaviours are partly determined by their cultural context. Therefore, further analyses should be done in other regions or countries, aiming at comparing different cultures, values, attitudes, or religions.…”

A complementary perspective on business ethics in South Korea: Civil religion, common misconceptions, and overlooked social structures

“…Particularly since South Korea and the European Union (EU) concluded a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 2011, the business relationship between these parties has constantly been deepening. Thus, a mutual understanding of the underlying ideals for moral prescriptions and behavioral ethics (Chiu & Hackett, ) is important to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. This is especially important against the background of a currently rather underdeveloped dialogue on business ethics between Asia and Europe (Hong, ; Zsolnai, ) and a general heterogeneity within the region: “Asia has been a rich ground of contests between competing economic and ethical views of how economic norms and institutions are organized” (Rowley & Oh, , p. 354).…”

Beyond silence or compliance: The complexities of reporting a friend for misconduct

“…This research makes significant contributions to both theory and practice. In keeping with calls to deepen our understanding of ethical decision making in organisations (Procópio, 2019), particularly from an inductive perspective (Chiu & Hackett, 2017), we advance a new framework for understanding responses to a friend-reporting dilemma that provides a more nuanced picture of the range of alternative responses employees may choose between the either/ or extremes of silence and compliance. Our findings challenge the prior literature's focus on self-protection (e.g., Detert & Edmondson, 2011), loyalty (e.g., Milliken et al, 2003) and the emotion of fear (e.g., Kish-Gephart, Detert, Treviño, & Edmondson, 2009), as the primary motivations for not reporting.…”