Company–customer conflicts and ethical decision-making of life insurance agents: the role of ethics institutionalization
ISSN: 0307-4358
Article publication date: 24 April 2020
Issue publication date: 3 November 2020
Abstract
Purpose
For the financial service industry, company–customer conflict is a topic that deserves special attention. This study explores the impacts of ethics institutionalization on the life insurance agents' ethical decision-making under the company–customer conflicts.
Design/methodology/approach
Two types of company–customer conflicts are studied. In one situation, selling the life insurance product is profitable to the life insurance company, but the product is unsuitable for the customer. In another situation, selling the life insurance product is unprofitable to the life insurance company, while the product will fully satisfy the customer's interests. The study selects Taiwan's full-time life insurance agents as a sample.
Findings
The main results show that implicit ethics institutionalization has a stronger influence on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations. This study then finds that different types of company–customer conflicts would change the influences of teleological evaluations on ethical intentions and cause different influences of implicit ethics institutionalization on teleological evaluations and deontological evaluations.
Originality/value
Ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts are important issues in the literature. This is the first study to discuss the roles that ethics institutionalization and company–customer conflicts play in the ethical decision-making of life insurance agents.
Keywords
Citation
Tseng, L.-M. (2020), "Company–customer conflicts and ethical decision-making of life insurance agents: the role of ethics institutionalization", Managerial Finance, Vol. 46 No. 9, pp. 1145-1163. https://doi.org/10.1108/MF-11-2019-0546
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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