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To date, our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of moral judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done involving cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the problem of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human morality by applying a recently developed construct - moral approbation - to illuminate the link between moral judgment and moral action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the effect that organizations have on ethical behavior in terms of the moral approbation construct.

Mary Parker Follett has been categorized as both an individualist and a collectivist, based on statements in her varied writings over two decades. This paper argues that, instead, Follett approached the issue of the true nature of man using a Hegelian dialectical technique, emerging with a distinct position that merges the best of both extremes into a unique synthesis. While the traditional individualist/collectivist dichotomy still holds sway in much of the management literature, several recent theories that take a perspective similar to Follett’s are discussed. The analysis makes clear that, once again, Follett’s ideas were ahead of their time.