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This exploratory research examined how emphasizing a brand’s unethical behaviour through high moral intensity news framing influences consumer boycott intention.

The hypotheses were tested and validated using two experimental studies that expose customers of real retail and personal care product brands to news articles that have high and low moral intensity news frames.

The results showed high moral intensity news framing’s positive effect on consumer boycott intention. The frame’s influence is moderated by moral awareness and partially mediated by perceived moral intensity and moral judgement. The findings suggest that consumers’ perception of the frame and their attitude towards the brand will have a substantial role in boycott intention.

These research outcomes aid in the understanding of news framing effects on boycott intention, providing both insights for consumer activists and managerial implications for stewards of brands.

While previous research have examined the impact of news frames on the typical audience, there has been relatively little focus on news framing’s impact on consumers and their decision to boycott brands. This study addresses this gap by applying the work on emphasis framing to a consumer decision-making context. It also introduces moral intensity framing to the news frame classification. In addition, this study expands current conceptualizations of individual ethical decision-making to help explain consumer boycott intent.

Islam describes business as a legitimate means of halal income. However, little is known about what attracts people towards Islamic entrepreneurship or halalpreneurship. By applying the theory of planned behaviour, this study aims to contribute to this underexplored area by investigating the factors that affect Islamic entrepreneurial intention (IEI).

This study examined a mediation model using two country samples. First, the hypotheses were tested on a sample recruited from a high-income economy (i.e. Saudi Arabia) using structural equation modelling in AMOS V26. The authors then conducted a replication study to investigate the robustness of the findings using a sample recruited from a lower-middleincome economy (i.e. Bangladesh) and a different analysis technique, the PROCESS mediation model in SPSS V25.

The findings suggest that IEI depends on four antecedents, namely, attitude towards Islamic entrepreneurship, general entrepreneurial self-efficacy, Islamic entrepreneurial self-efficacy and perceived halal income. These antecedents also mediate the relationship between moral judgement and IEI.

This study offers an empirical framework that captures several perspectives on the formation of IEI. The findings contribute to entrepreneurial intention and motivation research by suggesting factors that motivate individuals to engage in Islamic entrepreneurship.

The findings imply that the framework of IEI can withstand diverse socioeconomic contexts. A novel perspective of this study is that Muslims who are motivated by perceived halal income show greater interest in becoming Islamic entrepreneurs.

This study aims to investigate the effects of attribution of responsibility (AOR) for layoffs on the components of ethical decision-making. Internal, external and no-fault AOR were examined using the model of moral intensity to determine if placement of blame for the layoff influences ethical awareness, judgment and intent.

Surveys were collected from 397 students. The survey provided a scenario about a layoff situation involving an African-American woman and a Caucasian woman. Respondents then answered questions about moral intensity, moral judgment and moral intent concerning the layoff and identified the reasons they believed the layoff occurred. We tested our hypotheses using multiple regression analysis.

Subjects were more likely to make a moral judgment about the situation when layoffs were blamed on the company’s actions (external AOR) and less likely to make a moral judgment when the layoff decision was blamed on employee performance (internal AOR) or on economic factors beyond anyone’s control (no-fault AOR). Results also indicate that layoffs blamed on employee performance negatively moderate the relationship between moral judgment and moral intent.

Previous studies of layoff ethics have not examined the influence of AOR for layoffs using the model of moral intensity. Thus, this paper extends the current understanding of these concepts in ethical decision-making.

This study aims to observe people’s decisions to commit fraud. This study is important in the current time because it provides insights into the development of fraudulent intentions within individuals.

The information used in this study is derived from semi-structured interviews, conducted with 16 high-ranking officials who are employed in Indonesian local government positions.

The study does not have strong evidence to support prior studies assuming that situational factors or social enablers have direct effects on fraud intentions. As suggested, individual factors which are related to moral reasoning (moral judgment and rationalisation) emerge as a consequence of social enablers. The significant role of that moral reasoning is to rationalise any fraud attempt as permissible conduct. As such, when an individual is capable of legitimising his/her fraud attempt into appropriate self-judgement, s/he is more likely to engage in fraudulent behaviours.

This study offers practical prescriptions in guiding the management to develop strategies to curb fraudulent behaviours. The study suggests that moral cognitive reasoning is found to be a parameter of whether fraud is an acceptable option or not. So, an understanding of observers’ moral reasoning is helpful in predicting the likelihood of fraud within an organisation or in detecting it.

This study provides a different perspective on the psychological pathway to fraud. It becomes a complement work for the fraud triangle to explain fraudulent behaviours. Specifically, it provides crucial insights into the underlying motivations that lead individuals to accept invitations to engage in fraudulent activities.

This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) authenticity and its relationship with repurchase intentions. In doing so, the current research also investigates the mediating role of perceived CSR (PCSR) and perceived moral judgement.

For the current research purpose, a sample of 262 Indian working professionals was surveyed.

Data analysis revealed that CSR authenticity significantly predicted the repurchase intentions of the survey participants. The studied research contributes significantly to the extant literature on CSR authenticity by studying the underlying mechanisms that make a consumer repurchase a product or service.

Research on CSR authenticity is still at a nascent stage. Furthermore, variables such as moral judgement and PCSR motives have not been studied in CSR authenticity literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of consumers’ moral preferences between moral and economic benefits and consumers’ moral and rational behaviour intentions based on moral decision-making models of previous studies.

Respondents were asked to answer a questionnaire measuring moral and economic benefits, consumers’ moral preferences and moral and rational behaviour intention after reading a stimulus describing imaginary fashion brand A’s unethical activities.

Moral and economic benefits directly and significantly affect moral and rational behaviour intention. Homo economicus evoked by an economic benefit had a negative effect on moral behaviour intention.

This study focused only on a moral benefit and an economic benefit as factors evoking consumers’ moral preferences. This study was also conducted only in a Korean context and considered a specific industry. In future research, the results of this study should be extended to design the “possibility of punishment” to encourage moral behaviour by discouraging the effect of homo economicus. The results have implications for companies such as social enterprises and charities that want to promote consumers’ moral behaviour.

This study provides evidence on why ethical consumers do not always make ethical decisions by confirming that homo economicus has a significant influence on not only rational behaviour intention but also moral behaviour intention.

Aiming to resolve cross-cultural paradoxes in combining artificial intelligence (AI) with human intelligence (HI) for international humanitarian logistics, this paper aims to adopt an unorthodox Yin–Yang dialectic approach to address how AI–HI interactions can be interpreted as a sophisticated cross-cultural knowledge creation (KC) system that enables more effective decision-making for providing humanitarian relief across borders.

This paper is conceptual and pragmatic in nature, whereas its structure design follows the requirements of a real impact study.

Based on experimental information and logical reasoning, the authors first identify three critical cross-cultural challenges in AI–HI collaboration: paradoxes of building a cross-cultural KC system, paradoxes of integrative AI and HI in moral judgement and paradoxes of processing moral-related information with emotions in AI–HI collaboration. Then applying the Yin–Yang dialectic to interpret Klir’s epistemological frame (1993), the authors propose an unconventional stratified system of cross-cultural KC for understanding integrative AI–HI decision-making for humanitarian logistics across cultures.

This paper aids not only in deeply understanding complex issues stemming from human emotions and cultural cognitions in the context of cross-border humanitarian logistics, but also equips culturally-diverse stakeholders to effectively navigate these challenges and their potential ramifications. It enhances the decision-making process and optimizes the synergy between AI and HI for cross-cultural humanitarian logistics.

The originality lies in the use of a cognitive methodology of the Yin–Yang dialectic to metaphorize the dynamic genesis of integrative AI-HI KC for international humanitarian logistics. Based on system science and knowledge management, this paper applies game theory, multi-objective optimization and Markov decision process to operationalize the conceptual framework in the context of cross-cultural humanitarian logistics.

The key to preventing employees from engaging in deceptive knowledge hiding is fostering a responsible environment. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study aims to explore the factors that inhibit deceptive knowledge hiding and to construct potential pathways for enhancing individual moral cognition. This study further analyzes the moderating effect of leader–follower value congruence on these relationships.

Using data from 341 full-time employees in various service industries in China, this study conducted path analysis, the product-of-coefficients method and bootstrapping to test the hypotheses through a three-stage, time-lagged survey.

The empirical results show that responsible leadership is negatively associated with employees’ deceptive knowledge hiding. Employee moral reflectiveness mediates this relationship, whereas leader–follower value congruence moderates the indirect effect of responsible leadership on deceptive knowledge hiding through moral reflectiveness.

First, this study extends field research by introducing positive leadership factors to reduce deceptive knowledge hiding, whereas prior studies focused mainly on negative leadership antecedents. Second, this study sheds light on the underlying moral cognitive mechanisms and explains how responsible leadership can prevent implicit unethical behavior. Third, it reveals how leader–follower value congruence can enhance the impact of responsible leadership on moral reflectiveness, offering novel insights into the role of value-based fit in reducing deceptive knowledge hiding.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of moral intensity on the ethical decision-making process of professional accountants based on a combined importance-performance map analysis (cIPMA).

Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) on data from 309 accountants, the study examined the relationships between four moral intensity dimensions: magnitude of consequences, social consensus, probability of effect and concentration of effect, and the ethical decision-making process. The study also methodologically complemented by a combined importance-performance map analysis and necessary condition analysis.

The findings reveal that moral recognition and moral judgment are necessary conditions for predicting accountants’ moral intent. However, in terms of importance and performance, moral recognition plays a less significant role compared to moral judgment. Furthermore, the influence of moral intensity dimensions is pronounced on moral recognition, while their influence on moral judgment and moral intent is more context dependent. This is also exhibited in the combined importance-performance map analysis results.

The study highlights the importance of considering specific ethical dilemmas and the differential influence of moral intensity when developing strategies to strengthen ethical decision-making in the accounting profession. Future research is encouraged to explore how cultural backgrounds and diverse settings influence accountants’ ethical decision-making with tailored measurement tools for a more comprehensive understanding.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is among the first to complement the results of PLS-SEM with importance-performance map analysis and necessary condition analysis to examine the relationship between moral intensity and ethical decision-making of accountants.

This paper aims to understand employees’ propensity to blow the whistle in two East African countries. This study develops a model of ethical decision-making (EDM) to assist management in predicting the probability of whistleblowing in Kenya and Uganda. It also seeks to find the moderating effect of perceived retaliation on whistleblowing intention.

This study administers a standardized questionnaire to employees in Kenya and Uganda to measure their perceptions about whistleblowing in their organizations. This study uses partial least square structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. This study uses four constructs, namely, awareness, judgment, retaliation and likelihood, of blowing the whistle. These constructs are measured with multiple-item scales.

The results show that ethical awareness and judgment significantly increase willingness to engage in whistleblowing in East Africa. However, this study does not find a significant retaliation effect on whistleblowing intention. Instead, this study finds that awareness and judgment mediate between retaliation and willingness to engage in whistleblowing.

This study contributes to EDM topics. It advances the understanding of the whistleblowing concept, the retaliation effect and the reasons to encourage blowing the whistle in Africa. However, this study did not consider cultural factors, such as nationality, patriotism and ethnicity. Moreover, the results are only based on data from Uganda and Kenya and may not apply to other sub-Saharan nations.

These findings are particularly significant for managers and policymakers in East Africa, where fear of retaliation and lack of awareness are the main barriers to whistleblowing. The results may help managers develop human resource practices to include policies to support moral behavior. It may also provide insights to the policymakers to understand the factors that facilitate whistleblowing practices and help them to adopt new strategies or policies to stimulate whistleblowing culture.

This study is one of the initial empirical studies in the East Africa context to explore the EDM predictors and the impact of retaliation on the whistleblowing intention.