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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.

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.

This paper’s purpose is to challenge the traditional assumption in leadership studies that leaders’ traits and capabilities impact effectiveness irrespective of the environment in which they operate. We identify the cognitive capabilities (CCs) of moral leaders that increase their efficacy in turbulent environments. To identify these capabilities, we integrate the strategic management literature on dynamic managerial capabilities (DMCs) into the field of moral leadership. We explore the micro-foundations of DMCs—that is, the CCs of moral leaders that underpin their abilities to sense and seize opportunities and reconfigure organizations—and show that CCs are effective in environmental turbulence.

We review 74 articles on moral leaders—including ethical, authentic, and servant leaders—and analyze their CCs that enable effectiveness in turbulent environments.

Moral leaders sense opportunities by drawing on their CCs for attention and perception. They seize opportunities with intuitive moral judgment and conscious moral reasoning, and by considering diverse perspectives and followers’ needs when problem solving. They reconfigure with vision-inspired storytelling, collaboration, and trust-building among stakeholders.

Organizations should use coaching, mentoring, and training to develop the CCs of moral leaders, and institutionalize these skills in their organizations.

We illustrate that the environment is an important determinant of the effectiveness of moral leaders’ capabilities. By integrating the DMC literature into the moral leadership field, we identify the distinctive CCs of ethical, authentic, and servant leaders that make them effective in turbulent environments.

This paper aims to propose a multilevel framework of fashion consumer ethics that unpacks how ethical consumers publicly express their identity through sustainable fashion (SF). The author explores SF’s cognitive, relational and contextual dynamics, highlighting how attitude–behavior (A-B) gaps might impede consumers’ ethical identity and social image alignment.

The framework theoretically reconstructs fashion consumer ethics by integrating social intuitionism, social representation theory and the public sphere. This theorizing process sheds light on fragmented attempts found in previous research to understand how ethical consumers express their self-identity and socially represent their image through SF, avoiding A-B gaps.

The theoretical propositions suggest how ethical consumers’ self-concept is expressed at the cognitive level, leading to ethical commitment toward self-associated fashion brands; social image is manifested at the relational level, giving rise to consumers’ ethical engagement in SF; and ethical consumers’ self-verify their identity-image alignment in the public sphere, thus addressing A-B issues.

The sociopsychological approach suggests a novel understanding of ethical consumers’ individual and social representation through SF consumption. The framework interprets SF as an “aesthetic of existence,” co-constructed collectively and symbolically expressed publicly. As a result, the proposed model combines different theories to introduce new causal mechanisms and constructs of ethical consumers’ cognition, sociological relations and public spheres.

The present study seeks to examine the impact of ethical leadership on employees’ voice behavior and internal whistleblowing in organizations. Specifically, the study investigates the mediating role of moral emotions in the link between ethical leadership and employees’ reporting behaviors such as voice behavior and internal whistleblowing.

This research utilized a sample of 200 employees from various private companies in Pakistan, gathering data via questionnaires to validate the hypotheses. We employed Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to evaluate the model and conducted a mediation analysis using 5,000 bootstrap samples.

This research found that ethical leadership positively impacts employees' moral emotions, encouraging them to voice concerns and report misdeeds. Additionally, the study affirms a direct and positive connection between ethical leadership and employees' reporting behaviors, including voice behavior and internal whistleblowing.

The findings of the study emphasized the development of ethical leadership in organizations by highlighting the critical role of ethical leadership in enhancing moral emotions, voice behavior, and whistleblowing in organizations. It highlights the necessity of promoting moral behavior to enhance organizational effectiveness and the need for ethical leaders to foster an open environment in organizations that encourages whistle bellowing and reporting of unethical practices in organizations.

The current paper extends knowledge of ethical leadership based on the social cognitive theory of morality by considering that moral emotions serve as a strong motivational cognition between ethical leadership and reporting behaviors. Particularly, by examining the mediating role of moral emotion, this study provides a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanism through which ethical leadership influences reporting behaviors of employees at workplace.