A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AMONGST MANAGERS IN LARGE PRIVATE-SECTOR U.K. COMPANIES

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of ethical decision making by managers employed in two major companies in the U.K. Forty managers from these large commercial organizations were interviewed about how ethical issues arise and are dealt with at work. This interview data was transcribed and a thematic content analysis was conducted in order to explore the various influences upon managerial ethical decision making. The analysis framework includes analysis at both an individual level, in terms of the role of individual characteristics such as personal value systems, and at an organizational level, in terms of the influence of organizational characteristics such as organizational culture. The paper then goes on to examine the extent to which this empirically-based account of ethical decision making is congruent with, or runs contrary to, some of the main theoretical propositions contained in the ethical decision-making literature. This provided only limited empirical support for the theoretical propositions described in the literature. In particular, the findings of the empirical work reported here suggest that while personal values may play a part in organizational ethics, the ethical decision-making process itself is subject to a much greater influence from the everyday demands and commercial pressures which managers perceived as being placed upon them in the types of organizations examined in this study. Thus, while supportive of the notion that values may be important in some respects, the study suggests that they are not necessarily that closely involved with the actual decision-making process. Rather the evidence gathered in this study indicates that they can exert an affectively-mediated retrospective effect. This possibility would suggest a reformulation of the role of values in the ethical decision-making process, while also calling for a greater emphasis upon the role of emotions. These are, however, only tentative findings and must therefore be subject to further empirical work before the precise way in which ethical issues arise, unfold and are dealt with in the workplace can be understood.

Citation

Bartlett, D. (2003), "A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ETHICAL DECISION MAKING AMONGST MANAGERS IN LARGE PRIVATE-SECTOR U.K. COMPANIES", Pava, M.L. and Primeaux, P. (Ed.) Spiritual Intelligence at Work: Meaning, Metaphor, and Morals (Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 213-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-2096(03)05011-9