The Impact of Normative Influence and Locus of Control on Ethical Judgments and Intentions: a Cross-Cultural Comparison

Abstract

The study extends the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in a cross-cultural setting, incorporating ethical judgments and locus of control in a comparison of Taiwanese and US businesspersons. A self-administered survey of 698 businesspersons from the US and Taiwan examined several hypothesized differences. Results indicate that while Taiwanese respondents have a more favorable attitude toward a requested bribe than US counterparts, and are less likely to view it as an ethical issue, their higher locus externality causes ethical judgments and behavioral intentions to conform to normative influences of in groups and superiors. In the Taiwanese sample, locus externality effectively functions as a countervailing pressure against the unethical behavior in the scenario. No such effect is found in the US sample. A path model fitted to the data shows that locus internals exhibit more consistency among attitudes, judgments, and behavioral intentions than locus externals. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed, and suggestions and precautions for development of efficacy-enhancement programs are offered. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006cross-cultural, ethical judgments, ethical intentions, normative influence, locus of control, marketing, perceived efficacy,

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

“…Nomenclature issues also return to the forefront here, as "magnitude of organizational effect" was called "attitude" by Cherry (2006), "consequential evaluations" by Cherry and Fraedrich (2002) and "teleological evaluations" by and Chan, Wong, and Leung (2008). The "teological evaluations" of Rallapalli, Vitell, and Barnes (1998, p. 161) asked respondents to evaluate provided alternatives simply in terms of how "good" or "bad" they were, and thus seems more closely to resemble ethical judgments.…”

The Impact of Business Ethics Course on Ethical Perceptions and Intentions of University Students

“…If a company aspires to positively change consumers' ethical towards the firm, any questionable behavior that may result in ethical problem perception must be prevented. Several studies exhibits that decreased ethical problem perception results in a positive change in ethical intentions (Barnett et al, 1996;Singhapakdi et al, 2000a;Singhapakdi et al, 2000a;Singhapakdi, 2004;Cherry, 2006). Ethical problem perception and ethical intentions are closely associated with personal moral development.…”

Dilemmas, Conspiracies, and Sophie’s Choice: Vignette Themes and Ethical Judgments

“…Without explanation or even acknowledgement, many vignette details differed across studies. Some examples are: 1) the presence or absence of severe time constraints, highly salient in Cherry (2006) but not mentioned in Barnett et al (1998); 2) the specific amount of the bribe, not provided in Cherry and Fraedrich (2002) but appearing in Barnett et al (1998; that is, half a million dollars); 3) the expected benefit to Rollfast from bribery, whether not mentioned (Cherry, 2006), five million dollars (Barnett et al, 1998), or five dollars (Barnett et al, 1994, p. 478, Vignette 8; likely a typographical error); and 4) precisely whose money was being spent, that is, the company's money or the employee's own money (Cherry, Lee, and Chien, 2003, p. 373).…”

“…On the surface, the case seems to describe a conspiracy. However, the identity of the vignette protagonist, whether company president (Barnett et al, 1994(Barnett et al, , 1998 or an employee with an unspecified job title but who seems not to be a member of senior management (Cherry, 2006;Cherry and Fraedrich, 2002;Cherry et al, 2003), may matter greatly to the ethical judgments that emerge because this detail blurs the line between Conspiracy and Dilemma themes. A protagonist who was "merely" an employee may feel compelled to pay the bribe money simply given the existence of a superior who likely would react favorably to increased profits and Vignette Themes (Revised) 19 who might dismiss an employee who passed up an opportunity for these.…”