Morality Binds and Blinds: Examining the Influence of Moral
Foundations and Moral Foundations Diversity on Unethical
Pro-Organisational Decisions and Behaviours
Lydia Shufang Teo
A thesis in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
UNSW Business School School of Management
April 2015
i Abstract
Abstract
People conceptualise ethics differently. To some, ethics involves displays of care and fairness to all individuals (individualising foundations). To others, it also encompasses displays of loyalty to in-groups and respect for authorities (binding foundations).
According to moral foundations (MF) theory, people endorse both individualising and binding foundations, but to differing extents. However, organisation research has mainly examined ethics as if it merely involves the former considerations. Thus, I examine individuals’ endorsement of both types of MF and how it influences their
(un)ethical decisions and behaviours that benefit their organisations.
In the first part of this thesis, I examine how MF and organisational identification interact to influence individuals’ unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours
(UPB). I conducted five studies; each using different methodologies to extend the previous study. All studies, unless otherwise stated, measured MF and organisational identification. Study 1 surveyed students’ UPB intentions, Study 2, an experiment, captured students’ actual UPB, and Study 3 manipulated MF and measured students’
UPB intentions (3a) and evaluations of another’s UPB (3b). Further, in a cross-sectional
(Study 4) and a two-wave (Study 5) survey, I assessed workers’ UPB intentions.
Although findings were not fully consistent across studies, results tentatively show that binding foundations were more strongly associated with engagement in UPB, when individualising foundations were low and organisational identification was high.
The second part of my thesis extends the first part by examining how individuals’ decisions regarding UPB change when they encounter MF diversity (i.e., when
ii Abstract
individuals place varying degrees of importance on binding and individualising MF and thus have different ideas of right and wrong). I conducted two scenario studies using different designs with student and worker samples (Studies 6 and 7) to examine whether individuals faced with MF diversity change their initial decisions, by adopting opposing decisions and by making alternate creative decisions, to manage the ethical issues at hand. Results tentatively showed that compared to when there is no MF diversity, individuals were more likely to change their initial decisions by adopting opposing decisions when there is MF diversity.
The contributions of this thesis, its limitations, and future research avenues are discussed.
iii Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to several wonderful individuals. Without their support, guidance, and encouragement, completing this PhD journey would not have been possible.
First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr Suzanne Chan-Serafin, for her invaluable advice and guidance throughout these three and a half years. Suzanne has played an important role in shaping the way that I think about and approach research. Her passion for and curiosity about research has inspired me to want to continuously learn and improve. I am blessed to have had Suzanne as my supervisor!
Second, I want to thank my parents for their encouragement, support, and love. My parents have always been there for me, and they have provided me with the strength to persevere through difficult times.
I would also like to thank many people from the School of Management. To begin, I thank Dr Amirali Minbashian for his advice and help over the years. I also want to thank Karyn who, despite having her own busy schedule, has always taken the time to listen to my worries, provide valuable feedback to improve my work, and give advice when I face problems; she is an amazing friend and an inspiration to me. I am grateful to Ilro, Brad, Emily, Dave, Esha, and Lee for making the office an enjoyable and engaging work environment and for their help at different times during this process.
Finally, this thesis was edited by Elite Editing, and this editorial intervention was restricted to Standards D and E of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice.
iv Acknowledgements
v Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Abstract i
Acknowledgments iii
Table of Contents v
List of Figures ix
List of Tables xi
List of Abbreviations xiv
CHAPTER 1: Introduction and Overview
1.1 Research Background ...... 1
1.2 Contributions ...... 3
1.3 Organisation of the Thesis ...... 5
CHAPTER 2: Theoretical Background
2.1 Introduction ...... 9
2.2 The Difficulty of Defining Ethics ...... 10
2.3 Moral Foundations Theory: Expanding the Moral Domain ...... 15
2.3.1 Decision Framing ...... 29
2.3.1.1 Moral intuition ...... 32 2.4 Unethical Pro-organisational Decisions and Behaviours ...... 35
2.5 Moral Foundations and UPB ...... 43
2.5.1 Person-Centred Clustering Approach: Moral Foundations and UPB ...... 45
2.5.2 Interactive Approach: Moral Foundations and UPB ...... 47 2.6 The Role of Organisational Identification ...... 49
2.6.1 Person-Centred Clustering Approach: Moral Foundations, Organisational
Identification, and UPB ...... 54
vi Table of Contents
2.6.2 Interactive Approaches: Moral Foundations, Organisational Identification, and
UPB ...... 56 2.7 Conclusion ...... 59
CHAPTER 3: Studies 1, 2, and 3a and b
3.1 Introduction ...... 61
3.2 Study 1 ...... 62
3.2.1 Method ...... 62
3.2.2 Results ...... 68 3.3 Study 2 ...... 77
3.3.1 Method ...... 77
3.3.2 Results ...... 82 3.4 Study 3a ...... 90
3.4.1 Method ...... 90
3.4.2 Results ...... 92 3.5 Study 3b ...... 96
3.5.1 Method ...... 97
3.5.2 Results ...... 100 3.6 Discussion ...... 103
CHAPTER 4: Studies 4 and 5
4.1 Introduction ...... 109
4.2 Study 4 ...... 110
4.2.1 Method ...... 110
4.2.2 Results ...... 113 4.3 Study 5 ...... 124
4.3.1 Method ...... 124
4.3.2 Results ...... 126
4.4 Discussion ...... 135
vii Table of Contents
CHAPTER 5: Theoretical background- Moral Foundations Diversity
5.1 Introduction ...... 139
5.2 The Social Organisation ...... 142
5.2.1 Advancing Research on the Social Influences of (Un)Ethical Decisions and
Behaviours ...... 145 5.3 Moral Foundations Diversity Defined ...... 147
5.3.1 Ethical Conversations: How MF Diversity Becomes Visible in Organisations .. 148 5.4 MF Diversity’s Impact on (Un)Ethical Decisions ...... 150
5.4.1 Outcome 1: No Change of Initial Decisions ...... 155
5.4.2 Outcomes 2 and 3: Change of Initial Decisions ...... 157 5.5 Conclusion ...... 166
CHAPTER 6: Studies 6 and 7
6.1 Introduction ...... 169
6.2 Study 6 ...... 170
6.2.1 Method ...... 170
6.2.2 Results ...... 175 6.3 Study 7 ...... 181
6.3.1 Method ...... 181
6.3.2 Results ...... 187 6.4 Discussion ...... 192
CHAPTER 7: General Discussion
7.1 Overview ...... 193
7.2 Summary and Interpretation of Main Findings ...... 195
7.3 Contributions ...... 207
7.3.1 Theoretical Contributions ...... 207
7.3.2 Methodological Contributions ...... 212
7.3.3 Practical Contributions ...... 214
viii Table of Contents
7.4 Limitations and Future Research Avenues ...... 218
7.5 Conclusion ...... 225
REFERENCES 227
APPENDICES 255
A- Materials used in Chapter 3 (Studies 1, 2, 3a, and 3b) ...... 255
B- Materials used in Chapter 4 (Studies 4 and 5) ...... 269
C- Confirmatory Factor Analyses Results ...... 271
D- Materials used in Chapter 6 (Studies 6 and 7) ...... 273
ix List of Figures
List of Figures
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1: Mechanism underlying the relationships between moral foundations, moral
intuitions, and subsequent decisions and behaviours ...... 30
Figure 2.2: Adapted from Haidt’s (2001) SIM of moral judgement ...... 34
Figure 2.3: Haidt et al.’s (2009) unconstrained two cluster outcome ...... 47
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1: The interaction effect of binding foundations, individualising foundations,
and organisational identification on UPB (Study 1) ...... 74
Figure 3.2: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by
commission (Study 1) ...... 75
Figure 3.3: The interaction effect of binding foundations, individualising foundations,
and organisational identification on UPB (Study 2) ...... 87
Figure 3.4: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on subtle
UPB (Study 2) ...... 88
Figure 3.5: The interaction effect of MF prime and organisational identification on
UPB by omission (Study 3a) ...... 95
Figure 3.6: Alternate moral foundations cluster outcomes (N = 975) ...... 105
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1: Interaction effect of clusters and organisational identification on a) UPB
and b) UPB by commission (Study 4) ...... 117
Figure 4.2: The interaction effect of binding foundations, individualising foundations,
and organisational identification on UPB (Study 4)...... 120
x List of Figures
Figure 4.3: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by
commission (Study 4) ...... 122
Figure 4.4: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by
omission (Study 4) ...... 122
Figure 4.5: The interaction effect of binding foundations, individualising foundations,
and organisational identification on UPB (Study 5) ...... 131
Figure 4.6: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by
commission (Study 5) ...... 132
Figure 4.7: Additional analysis: The interaction effect of binding foundations,
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by
omission (Study 5) ...... 133
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1: Decision outcomes associated with MF diversity ...... 151
Chapter 7
Figure 7.1: Cluster outcomes of the survey of N = 975 university students across all
five moral foundations ...... 197
xi List of Tables
List of Tables
Chapter 2
Table 2.1: Summary of Moral Foundations ...... 27
Table 2.2: Deviant pro-organisational constructs...…...………………………….…………… 39
Chapter 3
Table 3.1: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 1 ...... 69
Table 3.2: Moral foundations principles cluster profile (Study 1) ...... 70
Table 3.3: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 1) ...... 73
Table 3.4: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB (Study 1) ...... 74
Table 3.5: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB by commission (Study 1) 76
RESULTS: Study 1 ...... 76
Table 3.6: Examples of subtle and blatant UPB ...... 81
Table 3.7: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 2 ...... 83
Table 3.8: Moral foundations principles cluster profiles (Study 2)...... 84
Table 3.9: Combined regression results with UPB, subtle UPB, and blatant UPB as
dependent variables (Study 2) ...... 86
Table 3.10: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB (Study 2) ...... 87
Table 3.11: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on subtle UPB (Study 2) ...... 88
RESULTS: Study 2 ...... 89
Table 3.12: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 3a ...... 93
Table 3.13: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 3a) ...... 94
xii List of Tables
RESULTS: Study 3a ...... 95
Table 3.14: Examples of adaptations to Umphress et al.’s (2010) measure of UPB ..... 99
Table 3.15: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 3b ...... 100
Table 3.16: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as DVs (Study 3b) ...... 101
RESULTS: Study 3b ...... 102 Table 3.17: Moral foundations principles cluster profiles (N = 975) ...... 105
Chapter 4
Table 4.1: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 4 ...... 114
Table 4.2: Moral foundations principles cluster profiles (Study 4) ...... 115
Table 4.3: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 4) ...... 117
Table 4.4: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 4) ...... 119
Table 4.5: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB (Study 4) ...... 120
Table 4.6: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB- commission and UPB-
omission (Study 4) ...... 122
RESULTS: Study 4 ...... 123
Table 4.7: Moral foundations principles cluster profiles (Study 5) ...... 127
Table 4.8: Descriptive (mean, SD) and correlational (r) statistics for all variables in
Study 5 ...... 128
Table 4.9: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 5) ...... 129
Table 4.10: Combined regression results with UPB, UPB- commission, and UPB-
omission as dependent variables (Study 5) ...... 130
xiii List of Tables
Table 4.11: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB (Study 5) ...... 131
Table 4.12: Slope analysis for the 3-way interaction on UPB-commission and UPB-
omission (Study 5) ...... 133
RESULTS: Study 5 ...... 134
Table 4.13: Summary of findings ...... 137
Chapter 6
Table 6.1: Examples of information and Options A and B ...... 172
Table 6.2: Examples of reasons for selecting Option A(B) and for not selecting Option
B(A) ...... 177
Table 6.3: Decision outcomes by conditions (Study 6) ...... 179
RESULTS: Study 6 ...... 180
Table 6.4: Candidates profiles ...... 183
Table 6.5: Decision outcomes by conditions (Study 7) ...... 190
RESULTS: Study 7 ...... 191
xiv List of Abbreviations
List of Abbreviations
UPB = Unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours
MF Diversity = Moral foundations diversity
1 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
Chapter 1
Introduction and Overview
1.1 Research Background
Over the last decade, there has been an increase in the number of and costs associated with business scandals and fraudulent business practices (KPMG, 2013). The prevalence of such unethical conduct has negatively affected public trust in organisations worldwide. This is evidenced in a 2011 Gallup poll, conducted in 140 countries surveying 1000 adults per country, which found that around two in every three adults believed that corruption was widespread in their nation’s businesses (Ogisi,
2011). Such public distrust is associated with negative organisational consequences, such as reduced stock prices (Pozner, 2008), which may ultimately increase the likelihood of bankruptcies (Pfarrer, DeCelles, Smith, & Taylor, 2008). Increasing research attention has, thus, been directed towards better understanding why organisational members make unethical decisions and engage in unethical behaviours
(Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008). For example, one line of research demonstrates that ‘bad apples’ in organisations (e.g., individuals with low cognitive moral development) tend to be the ones who make unethical decisions and engage in unethical behaviours to achieve self-interested aims (Treviño & Youngblood, 1990).
That unethical decisions and behaviours may stem from ‘bad’ organisational members, is not surprising. However, there is more to understanding why organisational members make unethical decisions and engage in unethical behaviours. For example, Palmer
(2012) argued that organisational wrongdoing is a normal phenomenon, and that 2 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
ordinary people may inadvertently be unethical because of the structures and processes in organisations that facilitate unethical decisions and behaviours. I agree with Palmer’s assertion that individuals’ unethical decisions and behaviours in the organisation are normal phenomena. However, I go one step further by arguing that ordinary organisational members who strive to be ethical, at least in their own eyes, may unwittingly make unethical decisions and engage in unethical behaviours that benefit their own organisations. Accordingly, in this thesis, I aim to better understand why some organisational members make decisions and engage in behaviours they perceive to be ethical, yet fail to realise that the very same decisions and behaviours are unethical according to global normative standards.
To achieve this aim, in the first part of this thesis, I introduce to the behavioural business ethics literature the notion that people conceptualise ethics differently (i.e., moral foundations theory; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). To some, ethics primarily involves displays of care and fairness to all individuals, while to others it also encompasses displays of loyalty to in-groups and respect for authority figures. I am interested in whether and how differences in organisational members conceptualisation of ethics, influence their unethical decisions and behaviours. In brief, I seek to uncover whether and how the endorsement of individual-oriented ethical concerns (care and fairness; individualising foundations) and group-oriented ethical concerns (loyalty and authority; binding foundations) are associated with unethical decisions and behaviours that benefit individuals’ own organisations (Umphress & Bingham, 2011). Further, incorporating the construct of organisational identification, I argue why individuals endorsing more strongly group-oriented ethical concerns than individual-oriented ethical concerns, 3 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
coupled with identification with their organisations, will increase their likelihood to make and engage in unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours.
In the second part of my thesis, I theorise about why and how individuals’ (un)ethical decisions and behaviours are influenced by the people around them. Morality is, after all, influenced by and embedded in social bonds and relationships (e.g., Rai & Fiske, 2011;
Haidt, 2001; Moore & Gino, 2013). Accordingly, while the first part of this thesis explores how individuals’ endorsed moral foundations and organisational identification shape their (initial) decisions regarding whether or not to engage in unethical pro- organisational behaviours, the second part of this thesis examines whether and how these initial decisions can be changed. More specifically, I investigate whether and how ethical conversations between co-workers, who endorse binding and individualising foundations to different extents and, thus, have different ethical perspectives and decisions (i.e., when moral foundations diversity surfaces), change target individuals’ initial decisions. This change, I argue, involves target individuals’ conforming to their co-workers opposing decisions or making alternate creative decisions to manage the ethical issue at hand.
1.2 Contributions
This thesis contributes to organisational research in three main ways. First, it contributes by bringing the study of moral foundations into the organisational literature.
In doing so, I broaden the study of behavioural ethics in organisations by examining both individual-oriented (e.g., care) and group-oriented (e.g., respect of authority) concerns, the latter of which have, to my knowledge, not been explicitly examined as ethical concepts in organisational research (e.g., showing respect to one’s superior, 4 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
while praise-worthy in some contexts, has not been examined as a behaviour that contains moral content). This broadened understanding of ethics allows researchers and organisational decision makers, alike, to be aware that organisational members’ decisions and behaviours may be driven by a range of different ethical considerations.
Such an understanding has various implications. First, it influences the way that researchers conduct and frame research on ethics in organisations. For example, researchers can examine organisational members’ decisions, such as their intentions to leave their organisations, from an ethical perspective. More specifically, members who endorse group-oriented ethical concerns may perceive that joining another organisation is an act of disloyalty, and researchers can frame their findings about individuals’ intentions to leave their organisations as violations of an ethical imperative. Second, this understanding also impacts the way that organisational decision makers frame their messages to persuade their employees to behave in a manner that these decision makers desire. For example, the effectiveness of equipment safety training may be enhanced when instructions are framed so as to speak to trainees who endorse individual- and group-oriented ethical concerns (see Feinberg & Willer, 2012). For instance, adherence to safety standards can be framed as an ethical behaviour that prevents harm from befalling others (i.e., an individual-oriented ethical concern) and aligns with the desire of the CEO to reduce organisational losses due to worker injuries (i.e., a group-oriented ethical concern).
Second, this thesis contributes by examining how moral foundations influence unethical decisions and behaviours that benefit individuals’ own organisations. To my knowledge, this research is one of the first to investigate the associations between moral foundations and outcomes of organisational relevance. By arguing that individuals held ethical 5 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
concerns may lead them to focus on the pro-social sides, and disregard the unethical aspects of their decisions and behaviours, I question the long-held perspective that unethical decisions and behaviours are only committed by organisational members who seek to achieve self-interested aims (e.g., ‘bad apples’ research; Treviño & Youngblood,
1990). Accordingly, this thesis aligns with and contributes to the school of thought that considers organisational wrongdoing a normal phenomenon that is unintentionally committed by ordinary organisational members (e.g., Palmer, 2012).
Third, this thesis contributes to organisational research by introducing the concept of moral foundations diversity, or the diversity that exists when group members endorse different moral foundations and have different ideas of right and wrong. Organisations are made up of individuals from different cultures, backgrounds (e.g., political), and religions, and these differences are associated with the support of varied moral foundations (e.g., van Leeuwen, Koenig, Graham, & Park, 2014). Given the existence of moral foundations diversity in organisations, understanding whether and how this form of diversity influences outcomes of organisational relevance is a worthwhile endeavour. Armed with such an understanding, organisational decision makers can leverage this form of diversity to maximise the ethical decisions of organisational members.
1.3 Organisation of the Thesis
In this chapter, I introduced the aims of my research and three main contributions. The remainder of the thesis is structured as follows.
6 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
In Chapter 2, I present the theoretical background for the relationship between individuals’ moral foundations, organisational identification, and unethical pro- organisational decisions and behaviours. In this chapter, I highlight the need to re- conceptualise how ethics is viewed, as researchers have long considered ethics as only involving individual-oriented concerns (i.e., care and fairness), and not group-oriented ones (i.e., loyalty and respect for authority; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). I then propose a process that explains how moral foundations shape unethical decisions and behaviours.
Next, I introduce the outcome variable of interest, unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours; and argue that the reasons behind making these decisions and engaging in these behaviours are in line with the group-oriented ethical concerns. The in-group promoting nature of these group-oriented moral foundations suggests that strongly endorsing the group-oriented moral foundations will be associated with unethical pro- organisational decisions and behaviours when organisations are part of individuals’ in- groups. Accordingly, I discuss the role of organisational identification on the relationship between moral foundations and this form of unethical decision and behaviour. I propose three hypotheses in relation to the aforementioned relationship and test them in five studies of various experimental and survey designs conducted using both worker and student samples.
In Chapter 3, I report the methods and results of three studies of various designs conducted using student samples. All studies, except when otherwise stated, measured moral foundations and organisational identification. Study 1 surveyed respondents’ self- reported intentions to engage in unethical pro-organisational behaviours, Study 2 was an experiment that captured participants’ actual unethical pro-organisational behaviours, and Study 3 consisted of two experiments that manipulated moral foundations and 7 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
examined students’ self-reported intentions to engage in unethical pro-organisational behaviours (Study 3a) and students’ evaluations of another’s unethical pro- organisational behaviours (Study 3b). In Chapter 4, I report the methods and results of two studies conducted using worker samples. Study 4 was a cross-sectional survey and
Study 5 a two-wave survey. Both studies measured respondents’ self-reported intentions to engage in unethical pro-organisational behaviours.
In Chapter 5, I extend the first part of my thesis by introducing the construct of moral foundations diversity. I begin this chapter by discussing the social nature of organisations, and argue that individuals often consult with or are influenced by others when they make decisions to deal with ethical issues. I then define moral foundations diversity and propose that an ethical conversation is one avenue through which such diversity becomes visible in organisations. The main focus of this chapter is on examining how moral foundations diversity changes individuals’ initial decisions. As such, I discuss the subsequent decision outcomes of individuals who are exposed to moral foundations diversity, that is, individuals’ initial decisions may: 1) not change, 2) change to conform with their conversation partners’ opposing viewpoints (e.g., change their initial group-oriented decisions to ones that are individual-oriented), or 3) change to alternate and more creative decisions to manage the ethical issue at hand. I propose two hypotheses which state that compared to no moral foundations diversity, moral foundations diversity is more likely to change individuals’ initial decisions. In Chapter 6,
I present the methods and results of two scenario studies that manipulated moral foundations diversity to test my hypotheses. Study 6 was conducted using a student sample and Study 7 a worker sample to examine the influence of moral foundations diversity on change in decision outcomes. 8 Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview
In Chapter 7, I provide an overview of this thesis and summarise and interpret the main findings of my studies. I then discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions of this thesis. Finally, I highlight the limitations of my research and suggest avenues for future research.
9 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Chapter 2
Theoretical Background
2.1 Introduction
On last estimate, there are over 7 billion people in the world (World Bank, 2014) from approximately 196 countries. It is not surprising then that individuals from different parts of the world have different attitudes, values, preferences, and behaviours. By way of examples, East Asians and European Americans differ in relation to their preferences for conformity and uniqueness (Kim & Markus, 1999) and during times of prosperity, high and low social class (within a single society) predicts risky and conservative decision making, respectively (Côté, 2011). However, despite recognising that individuals are fundamentally different from one another, behavioural business ethicists and moral psychologists have generally treated individual ethical concerns as if they only consist of a narrow set of universally similar ethical considerations; that is, the promotion of care and fairness towards others (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Kesebir,
2010). A similar trend exists in the ethical decision making literature in management
(Brief, 2012).
I begin this chapter by arguing that there is a need to re-conceptualise how ethics is viewed and studied in organisations. Here, I highlight the difficulty faced by scholars in defining ethics and explaining why ethical conduct has mainly been examined as consisting of only care and fairness concerns, and not loyalty and respect for authority concerns (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010; Haidt & Joseph, 2007). I then review the moral foundations theory advanced by Haidt and his colleagues, that purports to expand the 10 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
moral domain to include a wider range of ethical concerns held by all individuals (e.g.,
Haidt & Joseph, 2004). Subsequently, I draw on decision frames research (Tenbrunsel
& Messick, 1999) and Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model to theorise about how individuals’ endorsement of moral foundations frames their world in a foundations- consistent manner which in turn shapes their ethical decisions and behaviours. Next, I discuss the reasons why unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours are potential outcomes associated with the endorsement of various moral foundations.
Finally, I discuss why and how organisational identification is a prerequisite for the proposed relationship between moral foundations and unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours to occur.
2.2 The Difficulty of Defining Ethics
Morality [Ethicality] is less of an absolute than we would like to think.
- Leidner and Castano (2012; p. 82)
It is not easy to define ethics.1 Tenbrunsel and Smith-Crowe (2008) shared this sentiment in their review of the current state of business ethics research and commented that there is a lack of consensus on the definition of ethics. Similarly, Jones (1991) recognised the difficulty of establishing an adequate definition of ethical decisions and observed that his definition (i.e., ethical decisions are both legal and morally acceptable to the larger community) was inadvertently imprecise and relativistic. This difficulty may be attributed to the fact that individuals and cultures disagree about what ethics means and what types of concerns fall within the ethical domain (Graham, Meindl, &
1 Similar to Hannah, Avolio, and May (2011), I treat the terms ethics and morals as synonyms. The term ethics will be used in the majority of this thesis, except for instances when the research presented is based on moral philosophy; in these cases, the term morality is used (e.g., moral foundations).
11 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Beall, 2012). This viewpoint is similar to that of van Leeuwen and his colleagues (2014) who argued that while people around the world are concerned with morality, there are large variations in what is perceived to be moral, immoral, or amoral behaviours.
Ethicality is indeed ‘less of an absolute’, whereby a single ethically charged event may be interpreted using different ethical perspectives (Leidner & Castano, 2012). As part of this thesis, I seek to introduce a more expansive range of concerns (e.g., loyalty and respect for authority) that falls in the ethical domain to the behavioural business ethics literature. Specifically, I examine how these concerns influence individuals’ perceptions of what constitute ethical and unethical decisions and behaviours. I further argue that such perceptions are associated with unethical decisions and behaviours in the workplace. In the remainder of this section, I provide a brief history of how ethics has been conceptualised, and why such a conceptualisation has generally only included care and fairness concerns.
Early writings on morality by philosophers, such as Aristotle, conceptualised ethics as numerous virtues (e.g., honesty, obedience) that define an ethical person (see Haidt &
Kesebir, 2010). This virtues-based approach to ethics informed people about the numerous and specific virtues that they should cultivate in themselves, depending on their roles and positions (e.g., loyalty). However around the 18th century, ideas about morality started to change. This change was driven, in part, by Enlightenment philosophers who saw morality in more abstract terms as opposed to specific virtues and as distinct from religious beliefs (religious virtues were often emphasised in the teachings of major religions; Haidt & Joseph, 2007).
12 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Consequently, two different approaches to understand morality rose in popularity; deontology and consequentialism. Deontology considers moral judgements to be those that are consistent with ethical principles, while consequentialism views judgements as moral when they result in the greatest good (Greene, Morelli, Lowenberg, Nystrom, &
Cohen, 2008). While the earlier virtues-based approach to ethics required individuals to think about who they ought to be to behave ethically, deontological and consequentialist approaches to ethics narrowed the scope of inquiry to what people ought to do to be ethical (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010). Thus, these approaches shifted the focus of ethics to the actions that individuals should engage in to be ethical. Behavioural business ethics saw a similar change in relation to the topic of ethical inquiry (see Bazerman & Gino,
2012 and Lapsley & Lasky, 2001 for discussions).
To understand what individuals ought to do when faced with an ethical dilemma,
Kohlberg (1969) conducted a longitudinal study on how children resolved ethical dilemmas. From his research, Kohlberg concluded that children reached the highest stage of moral development when their decisions were driven by the principle of justice.
Gilligan (1982) disagreed with Kohlberg’s perspective and asserted that greater focus should be given to the principle of care. In their investigations, both Kohlberg and
Gilligan posed quandaries to their participants; for example, Kohlberg asked whether an individual (Heinz) should steal medicine to save his wife’s life.
Social and moral psychologists also used such quandaries to examine how individuals ought to behave in ethical situations. Similar to Kohlberg (1969) and Gilligan (1982), these quandaries were limited to ethical situations that involved considerations about fairness/justice and care (Graham et al., 2011). In fact, even when quandaries were not 13 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
used in empirical investigations, researchers remained bound to the implicit assumption that ethics merely involved care and fairness. For instance, Turiel (1983) defined ethics in relation to welfare, justice, and the rights of individuals. In behavioural business ethics research, Jones (1991) defined ethical issues as being present when individuals’ actions harm or benefit others. In their measure of moral identity, Aquino and Reed
(2002), asserted that the existence of such an identity depends on the extent to which individuals organise their self-concepts around nine moral traits, including being caring, compassionate, helpful, honest, fair, hardworking, kind, generous, and friendly. These moral traits for the most part relate only to care and fairness.
Today, the topics that continue to be commonly explored in behavioural business ethics research are similarly limited to an understanding of ethics based on care and fairness.
Examples of such research include the exploitation of workers via the provision of low wages or inhumane working conditions that violates employers’ duty to care for their employees (e.g., Pines & Meyer, 2005) and the mistreatment of select groups of individuals that violates notions of fairness and care (e.g., Deitch et al., 2003). Haidt
(2010) offered a possible explanation for this continued narrow focus; that is, that social scientists are predominantly politically liberal. Research by Haidt and his colleagues informs us that the politically liberal and politically conservative differ in their perceptions of ethics. For example, Graham, Haidt, and Nosek (2009) found that liberals value individual-oriented ethical concerns of care and fairness more than group- oriented ethical concerns (i.e., loyalty to one’s in-group and respect for authority).
Conversely, conservatives value individual- and group-oriented ethical concerns equally; however, their endorsement of group-oriented ethical concerns is higher than that of the liberals (Graham et al., 2009). It may be that the continued narrow consideration of care 14 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
and fairness as ethical concerns is inadvertently due to liberal social scientists failing to consider group-oriented ethical concerns of loyalty and authority (Haidt, 2010).
In summary, ethical behaviours, including those examined in the context of organisations, are often conceptualised as behaviours that show care and fairness towards others (e.g., discrimination that violates fairness and care principles, Deitch et al., 2003; see also Turiel, 1983) and not behaviours that relate to group-oriented ethical concerns. Such a narrow understanding, while informative, limits the current state of behavioural business ethics research, because an understanding of the behaviours and decisions that may arise from the additional group-oriented ethical concerns held by individuals is currently lacking (see Haidt & Joseph, 2004 and Brief, 2012 for discussions). For example, to date, research has not considered that individuals who endorse group-oriented ethical concerns might perceive loyalty to and respect for their leaders to be ethical imperatives and, in seeking to be ethical, engage in unethical behaviours at the behest of an unethical leader. This thesis examines both individual- and group-oriented ethical concerns and seeks to investigate whether individuals’ who endorse more strongly group-oriented concerns are unwittingly blinded to the fact that certain decisions and behaviours that benefit their own groups are normatively unethical.
In the next section, I discuss the moral foundations theory. This theory highlights the need to expand the moral domain and suggests how this domain can be broadened.
15 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
2.3 Moral Foundations Theory: Expanding the Moral
Domain
Why does everyone take for granted that we don’t learn to grow arms, but rather,
are designed to grow arms?... Similarly, we should conclude that in the case of
the development of moral systems, there is a biological endowment which in
effect requires us to develop a system of moral judgment and a theory of justice,
if you like, that in fact has detailed applicability over an enormous range.
—Noam Chomsky (2004, p. 210).
Ethical behaviour is more than just the display of care and fairness towards others. This statement reflects the central premise of the moral foundations theory; that is, that the long held view of morality, as simply constituting care and fairness, is an insufficient account of the range of moral concerns that individuals may hold (Haidt & Joseph,
2004). Ethnographic research conducted by Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and Park (1997) attests to the need to re-conceptualise our understanding of the moral domain. In their research conducted in Bhubaneswar, India, Shweder and his colleagues found that that there are universals found in the moral discourse that individuals from around the world use to explain suffering. According to Shweder et al., moral discourse is structured around three distinct types of ethics and different cultures place different levels of importance on each type. The following two types of ethics are relevant to this thesis: the ethics of autonomy (which refers to the protection of all individuals from harm and injustice) and the ethics of community (which pertains to the preservation of community life, via individuals’ fulfilment of group duty and their respect for group hierarchy) 16 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
(Shweder et al., 1997).2 The latter type (i.e., the ethics of community) represents an expansion of the moral domain beyond mere individual-oriented care and fairness.
Similarly, Rai and Fiske (2011) drew on the relational models theory (Fiske, 1991) and asserted that moral judgement relies on four motives that drive the formation of social relationships and cultural differences in the endorsement of each of these motives are responsible for moral disagreements among individuals. Moral motives include unity
(caring for and supporting the integrity of the in-group), hierarchy (respecting rank in social groups), equality (ensuring balance and reciprocity in social relations), and proportionality (rewarding and punishing based on merit or cost; Rai & Fiske, 2011). In addition to care and fairness concerns, the moral motives of unity and hierarchy suggest that morality may also involve considerations about the protection and preservation of one’s groups. Hannah, Jennings, Bluhm, Peng, and Schaubroeck (2014) found that ethical organisational behaviours could stem from a member’s volitional orientation to be loyal and faithful to his/her organisation’s members, mission, and codes. This is known as high duty orientation and while it is not an ethical construct or value (unlike moral foundations), it can be associated with ethical behaviours. For example, an individual with high duty orientation toward his/her organisation may refrain from engaging in unethical behaviours or may speak out against the unethical behaviours of others, as the unethical behaviours go against the norms of the organisation.
Consequently, I assume these researchers would (i.e., Shweder et al., 1997, Rai & Fiske,
2011 and Hannah et al., 2014) agree with Haidt and Joseph (2004) that ethical behaviours involve more than care and fairness and can include behaviours that focus
2 The third type of ethics is the ethics of divinity. It refers to the protection of individuals’ spirits/souls from degradation; for example, via adherence to culturally relevant traditions, customs, and sacred/religious authority. 17 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
on helping in-groups and respecting authority. However, Shweder et al.’s (1997) and
Rai and Fiske’s (2011) conceptualisations of morality are restricted as they are derived specifically from the analysis of moral discourses that explain suffering and from identifying the social relationships present in moral situations, respectively. Conversely,
Haidt and Joseph (2004) used a broader perspective to derive a more general conceptualisation of morality that can be applied to describe a range of decisions and behaviours across cultures; that conceptualisation is the moral foundations theory, which is examined in this thesis. With regards to the research by Hannah et al. (2014), the researchers examined the relationship between an amoral construct (duty orientation) and organisational members’ engagement in ethical behaviours. In contrast, moral foundations are ethical constructs or values and, in this thesis, I am interested in how these ethical values influence individuals’ behaviours.
Haidt and Joseph (2004) developed the moral foundations theory by analysing anthropological and evolutionary accounts of human moral systems that are both universal (i.e., Brown, 1991; Fiske, 1991; de Waal, 1996) and culturally variable (i.e.,
Schwartz & Bilsky, 1990; Shweder et al., 1997). From these accounts, Haidt and Joseph
(2004) identified virtues (e.g., kindness, obedience, and trustworthiness) that elicit intuitive evaluative responses (i.e., approval or disapproval) across different cultures and determined the evolutionary basis for these virtues. They mapped these virtues on five innate moral foundations and proposed that moral intuitions emerge in response to situations that trigger these foundations (Haidt & Joseph, 2007). They argued that these five moral foundations represent blueprints inherent in all individuals (i.e., every individual is born equipped with a dormant preparedness to develop moral intuition in each of the five moral domains). However, because different cultures place different 18 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
levels of emphasis on each of the five foundations, culturally unique local systems of morality have developed. Further, the different levels of emphasis placed on each of the five moral foundations are the reason why cultures differ in relation to the virtues, practices, and vices deemed vital for harmonious living (Haidt & Joseph, 2004).
Chomsky’s (2004) quote, above, also reflects the notion that morality stems from an innate and universal basis. Chomsky (2004) argued that just as growing limbs is a biological imperative hardwired in all humans, humans are also equipped with an innate preparedness to develop moral systems.
To summarise, according to Haidt and his colleagues (e.g., Haidt & Joesph, 2004;
Graham, Haidt, et al., 2013), moral foundations: 1) are innate, in that they are hardwired in all individuals; 2) are culturally shaped, in that different cultures derive their local systems of morality by placing different degrees of importance on each of the moral foundations, and; 3) form intuitive responses that result in quick automatic evaluative judgements.
What are the Moral Foundations?
Haidt and Joseph (2007) proposed five moral foundations, four of which are relevant to this thesis. Consistent with previous conceptualisations of ethics, the first two foundations are care/harm and fairness/cheating (Haidt & Graham, 2007; see also Turiel,
1983). Care/harm is concerned with the protection of others while fairness/cheating promotes the need to treat others fairly and protect their rights. Taken together, these two foundations form the individualising foundations, as they focus on how one treats other individuals. These foundations function to suppress selfishness in society by emphasising to individuals the need to protect and respect the rights of others (Graham 19 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
et al., 2009). A meta-analysis by Boer and Fischer (2013) provides support for this other-focused nature of the individualising foundations, by showing that social attitudes based on the care and fairness foundations (e.g., pro-social attitudes based on the care/harm moral foundation) are associated with the other-focused values of benevolence and universal equality (i.e., Schwartz’s, 1992 self-transcendence values).
According to the MF theory, the moral domain does not only consist of individualising foundations. Haidt and his colleagues (e.g., Haidt & Graham, 2007, Haidt & Joseph,
2004; Graham, Haidt, et al., 2013) expanded the moral domain through the incorporation of loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion concerns. Such concerns are vital to various societies and cultures. Loyalty/betrayal is concerned with the fulfilment of in-group obligations; for example, giving preferential treatment to in-group, as opposed to out-group members (Graham, Englander, et al., 2012). Comparatively, authority/subversion emphasises the maintenance of group order by respecting social hierarchies. Respect is displayed when individuals fulfil the obligations associated with their positions within group hierarchies. Lower status individuals defer to their superiors and, in turn, superiors protect subordinates. Taken together, these foundations represent the binding foundations, as they focus on suppressing selfishness within the group by uniting individuals via their roles in and duties to the group and, consequently strengthening the group (Graham et al., 2009). Support for the binding nature of the authority/subversion foundation comes from a meta-analysis that shows that social attitudes based on this foundation (i.e., politically conservative attitudes that prioritise respect for traditions, institutions, and authorities, and consider status as a means of social stratification) were associated with Schwartz’s (1992) conservation values, which include valuing conformity and security (Boer & Fischer, 2013). 20 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
A final binding foundation is sanctity/purity (Haidt & Joseph, 2004); this foundation is however not included in my current investigations. Sanctity/purity refers to the prevention of physical and spiritual contagion from tainting one’s groups, and is related to one’s reaction to issues pertaining to sexuality and the sanctity of life. The endorsement of this foundation may therefore influence an individual’s decisions and behaviours in response to important organisational issues, such as one’s reaction to workplace romances (Quinn, 1977), sexual harassment (Williams, Giuffrre, & Dellinger,
1999), and co-workers’ displays of religious identities (Weaver & Agle, 2002).
However, this foundation is less relevant to the current investigation of why organisational members engage in unethical behaviours to benefit their organisations
(e.g., lying to customers; I will discuss this outcome in Section 2.4). Accordingly, in my thesis, I do not examine this foundation and the binding foundations refer only to loyalty and authority foundations.
In the following sections, I review the current research findings on moral foundations. I begin by describing research on individual differences in moral foundations endorsement. I then discuss the attitudinal and behavioural consequences associated with the endorsement of different moral foundations.
Differences in endorsement of moral foundations
Individuals differ in relation to what concerns they perceive as belonging to the moral domain. This is evident from: 1) cross-cultural research that examined the moral foundations of individuals from Brazil and the United States (Haidt, Koller, & Dias,
1993); 2) research that examined the moral foundations endorsed by individuals across 21 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
different countries (e.g., Graham et al., 2011; van Leeuwen, Park, Koenig, & Graham,
2012); 3) within-cultural research that examined the ethical concerns held by individuals from India (Shweder et al., 1997) and the United States (e.g., Haidt &
Graham, 2007), and; 4) studies that show that the endorsement of various personality profiles is associated with different moral foundations (e.g., Lewis & Bates, 2011).
First, in terms of cross-cultural research evidence, Haidt and his colleagues (1993) found that participants belonging to a higher socioeconomic status (participants included more westernised college students from the United States and Brazil) displayed a more permissive attitude towards offensive yet harmless vignettes (e.g., the use of one’s national flag as a cleaning rag) that violated the moral concerns of loyalty and authority, but upheld care and fairness standards. Conversely, participants of lower socioeconomic status (especially from the ‘less westernised’ regions in Brazil) were appalled by these offensive yet harmless vignettes and indicated that the actions depicted in these vignettes defiled the binding foundations and were morally reprehensible (Haidt et al., 1993).
Second, the results of an international survey conducted by Graham et al. (2011) provided further evidence of the universality of the moral foundations and showed that binding and individualising foundations are endorsed across different world regions.
Analysis of this international sample also revealed eastern and western cultural differences; for instance, respondents from eastern cultures (e.g., Southeast Asia) endorsed loyalty concerns more strongly than respondents from western cultures (e.g.,
United Kingdom; Graham et al., 2011).3 Evidence of cross-cultural differences in the
3 Graham et al. (2011) noted that the survey was administered in English and conducted online. Thus, they acknowledged that it is possible the results may have been skewed; that is, the findings may have 22 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
endorsement of moral foundations was also revealed in studies that explored how the past environmental condition of different countries influenced the present strength of their citizens’ moral foundations. Studies have shown that a society’s current endorsement of the binding foundations, but not the individualising foundations, is associated with the past prevalence of environmental pathogens (Boer & Fischer, 2013; van Leeuwen et al., 2012; Park & Isherwood, 2011). Specifically, van Leeuwen et al.
(2012) argued that some societies have developed defensive strategies, such as adhering to various group-oriented traditions/norms and developing interpersonal interaction styles, to reduce the contagion of diseases (e.g., the avoidance of out-group members, who may carry novel pathogens). Ultimately, this group-oriented way of thinking also became ingrained as part of the culture of these societies.
Third, differences in the endorsement of moral foundations can also be found within single nations. Shweder et al. (1997) found that individuals from Bhubaneswar, India, were not just concerned with care and fairness, but also viewed the preservation of harmonious group life as a moral imperative. Haidt and Graham (2007) further established a strong association between political orientations of individuals from the
United States and moral foundations. Specifically, compared to political conservatives, political liberals were found to be more concerned about care and fairness than loyalty and authority (see also Graham et al., 2009; McAdams et al., 2008).
Finally, research has also revealed differences between individuals’ personality profiles and their endorsed moral foundations. Federico, Weber, Ergun, and Hunt (2013) showed that low social dominance orientation is aligned with the endorsement of reflected the sentiments of more westernised segments of various world regions (Graham, Haidt, et al., 2013). Accordingly, it is possible that individuals may endorse the binding foundations even more strongly than was demonstrated by this study. 23 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
individualising foundations (i.e., greater preference for equality) and high right-wing authoritarianism is aligned with the endorsement of binding foundations. Lewis and
Bates (2011) investigated the association between the Big Five measure of personality and moral foundations and found that high agreeableness, which is linked to the preference for preventing injustice and suffering, predicted the endorsement of individualising foundations. Conversely, high extraversion, which is linked to right- wing authoritarianism, predicted the endorsement of binding foundations.
Consequences associated with moral foundations
A number of studies have examined the attitudinal and behavioural outcomes associated with moral foundations. For instance, Winegard and Deaner (2010) explored sports fandom from an evolutionary perspective and found that endorsement of the binding foundations was correlated with sports spectator identification (i.e., the sense of affiliation with a sporting team) in men. Endorsing binding foundations was also found to be associated with increased support for the torture of out-group members (i.e., to the extent that participants perceived the torture to be justified during the interrogation of a suspected terrorist), especially among participants with low moral identity (Smith,
Aquino, Koleva & Graham, 2014).
Feinberg and Willer (2012) and Winterich, Zhang, and Mittal (2012) both examined how framing situations in individualising and binding manners is associated with different outcomes. For instance, Feinber and Willer explored the moral foundational roots of environmental conservation and found that public service announcements in relation to environmental conservation are often framed in terms of the care/harm foundation. Such announcements resonate with individuals who endorse the 24 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
individualising foundations (i.e., political liberals) and may explain why liberals are more likely to support environmental conservation (i.e., hold pro-environment attitudes).
When Feinberg and Willer manipulated the environmental conservation announcements by reframing it to focus on the defilement of environmental purity (i.e., a binding foundation term: sanctity/purity), they found that in response to these announcements, individuals who endorsed the binding foundations (i.e., political conservatives) became more pro-environment. Similarly, Winterich et al. explored how the selective framing of message content differentially influenced the amount that individuals endorsing varied moral foundations donated to a charitable organisation. Specifically, when a charitable foundation’s mission statement was framed to incorporate binding foundational concerns (e.g., community and leadership), donations increased among individuals high in the binding foundations (i.e., political conservatives). In contrast, when a charitable foundation’s mission statement was framed to include individualising foundational concerns (e.g., meeting the physical and emotional needs of children), donations from individuals high in the individualising foundations (i.e., political liberals) increased.
Waytz, Dungan, and Young (2013) explored individuals’ whistleblowing intentions and behaviours following exposure to a range of unethical actions (e.g., vandalism, shop- lifting) committed by other people. Whistleblowing is the act of exposing to a third party another individual’s unethical behaviour(s). It represents a trade-off between fairness (i.e., blowing the whistle on another’s unethical action to promote justice for all stakeholders) and loyalty (i.e., not blowing the whistle on another’s unethical action to display loyalty to this person). Waytz et al. (2013) found that endorsing the fairness foundation was positively associated with whistleblowing willingness and action.
However, endorsing the loyalty foundation was negatively associated with 25 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
whistleblowing willingness and action. Additionally, the greater willingness to blow the whistle when endorsing the fairness foundation than when endorsing the loyalty foundation was more pronounced when the relationship between the participant and the perpetrator of the unethical act was stronger/closer (e.g., family members), as opposed to distant (e.g., a stranger). While none of the above studies were set in the organisational context, it is possible that these findings can be generalised to organisations. Indeed, the endorsement of either the fairness or loyalty foundation may be associated with an organisational member’s unwillingness or willingness to contribute to wrongdoings at the behest of one’s organisation or leader, respectively.
Taken together, the above studies show that individuals across different cultures, within the same culture, and with different personality profiles (e.g., personality factors; Lewis
& Bates, 2011; political orientation; Haidt & Graham, 2007), place varying levels of importance on the individualising and binding foundations (e.g., Haidt et al., 1993;
Graham et al., 2011). Further, the endorsement of these different moral foundations has been found to be associated with varied attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (e.g.,
Waytz et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2014). In this thesis, I draw on these studies and assert that organisational members’ endorsement of different moral foundations is associated with them making unethical decisions and engaging in unethical behaviours of organisational relevance.
To illustrate possible outcomes of organisational relevance, examples have been provided in Table 2.1 that might be associated with the endorsement of each moral foundation (see the last column of Table 2.1). The examples provided in the individualising rows (i.e., the first two rows discussing the individualising foundations) 26 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
have been studied in organisational contexts and can be understood in ethical terms.
Thus, when an individual cares for and acts fairly towards another individual, researchers consider these behaviours to be ethical and this individual may be praised for being ethical (e.g., an organisational member who behaves in a fair/just manner, is being ethical; Cropanzano, Goldman, & Folger, 2003). On the other hand, when this individual harms and cheats another person, these behaviours are considered unethical; for example, Pines and Meyer (2005) analysed worker exploitation and considered organisational leaders who neglected worker safety (i.e., displayed a lack of care for their workers) to be behaving unethically.
Conversely, in relation to the organisational examples included for the authority/subversion and loyalty/betrayal foundations, they were examined without ethical connotations (i.e., Carsten & Uhl-bien, 2012) and/or in non-organisational contexts (i.e., Waytz et al., 2013). Thus, when an organisational member shows loyalty to his/her organisation and is respectful to authority figures, his/her behaviours while praiseworthy are not perceived to be ethical and were not examined from an ethical lens
(e.g., respect for authority is perceived as an amoral organisational concept; Brief, 2012).
Accordingly, the examples provided in the binding rows of Table 2.1, depict how these binding foundations can potentially be examined from a moral lens in organisational contexts. These examples show how endorsing binding moral foundations may lead individuals to perceive behaviours that show loyalty and respect for authority to be an 27 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
ethical imperative. In these instances, ethical choices are those that fulfil the obligations associated with group membership (e.g., displaying loyalty to one’s organisation by keeping silent about the organisation’s misleading advertising). However, under certain circumstances, individuals’ intentions to behave ethically by fulfilling their group obligations may result in their engagement in behaviours that violate global ethical norms and standards.4 For example, Carsten and Uhl-Bien (2012) found that obedience and deference to authority in the organisation was associated with unethical behaviours committed by members at the behest of a superior. Of note, such obedience was not
4 These examples show how an individual who believes that loyalty to one’s group and respect for authority are moral imperatives may engage in unethical behaviours; however, it is also possible for the same individual to engage in ethical behaviours, should those actions be requested by his/her organisation, group or leader. 28 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
considered by Carsten and Uhl-Bien (2012) to be a moral imperative on the part of those who committed those behaviours. Extending their finding to this thesis, I argue that organisational members may obediently fulfil their superiors’ requests because they perceive respect for authority to be a moral prerogative. In circumstances where superiors make unethical requests of members, these members may fail to realise that the requested actions are normatively unethical and, in fact, may perceive the fulfilment of these requests to be ethical.
Given the paucity of research on the consequences of moral foundations, particularly in the organisational context, my thesis contributes to the behavioural business ethics literature by examining how differences in the endorsement of the binding and individualising foundations influence individuals’ decisions and behaviours related to ethical matters in their organisations. This research responds to Brief’s (2012) call to rectify the lack of research on the influence of these foundations in behavioural business ethics. As will be discussed in Section 2.4, I seek to show how the endorsement of different moral foundations can increase or decrease a particular form of unethical decision and behaviour (i.e., unethical pro-organisational decision and behaviour).
However, before discussing the influence of moral foundations on such decisions and behaviours, I first theorise how moral foundations exert their foundations-consistent effects on decision making.
29 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
2.3.1 Decision Framing
Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams… it blinds us to the
fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important
to say.
—Haidt (2012, p. 313).
Moral foundations are the basis for moral intuitions or the experienced flash of approval or disapproval (good or bad) about moral situations (Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008; Haidt &
Joseph, 2004). Individuals endorse particular moral foundations and when these foundations are violated they experience affectively charged negative moral intuitions.
For example, Haidt et al. (1993) found that participants who held group-oriented moral concerns experienced a quick flash of disapproval when they read a scenario that depicted an individual using her nation’s flag as a cleaning rag. However, it remains unknown how these participants’ moral foundations resulted in their experiencing this flash of disapproval. Accordingly, I propose a process through which individuals’ endorsed moral foundations shape their intuitive reactions to situations (i.e., flashes of approval or disapproval) and their subsequent decisions and behaviours. This process is, however, not explicitly tested in this thesis. Rather, my theorising allows me to provide a rationale for why and how the endorsement of the individualising and binding foundations is associated with (un)ethical decisions and behaviours that have organisational relevance. Specifically, I propose that the endorsement of the two forms of moral foundations encourages the specific and constant framing of the world in a foundations-consistent manner, which in turn elicit the associated intuitions and shape subsequent decisions and behaviours (see Figure 2.1).
30 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
In his notion ‘morality binds and blinds’, Haidt (2012, p. 313) posited that the endorsement of binding or individualising foundations ‘binds’ an individual to his/her community. This then leads the individual to selectively frame the world according to that community’s moral perspective and essentially ‘blinds’ him/her to the alternative viewpoints of other communities. In essence, cultural learning, via a child’s upbringing and experiences within a community or society, result in the individual developing culturally determined levels of the binding and individualising foundations (Haidt &
Joseph, 2004).
I, further, propose that individuals’ culturally determined endorsement of individualising and binding foundations leads them to frame all their experiences that have ethical relevance in foundations-consistent manners. Several researchers have made similar assertions about how individual factors (e.g., cultural background) may determine individuals’ decision frames; for example, Sonenshein (2007) in his sense- making-intuition model argued that both individual factors and situational cues influence how ethical situations are framed and interpreted. Sonenshein’s (2007) model 31 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
illustrates that individuals’ motivational drives and expectations influence their issue framing. At the same time, social factors (such as the presence of another decision maker whose decisions may act as an anchor) were posited to consciously determine issue framing (Sonenshein, 2007). In addition, Moore (2007) posited that an individual factor, individuals’ propensity for moral disengagement, influenced how individuals frame situations. In her model of organisational corruption, Moore (2007) argued that individuals who scored high on this propensity held behavioural scripts that frame situations in a manner that precludes them from being morally aware and increases their engagement in unethical organisational decisions. In relation to this thesis, I argue that individuals’ endorsed moral foundations predispose them towards framing the world in moral foundations-consistent manners; albeit, such predispositions are unconscious and intuitive (cf. Haidt’s, 2001 social intuitionist model). Thus, individuals who possess binding foundations will enter all ethically charged situations holding a binding frame and instinctively construe the situation using a ‘benefit for the in-group’ lens.
Conversely, individuals who hold an individualising frame will view the same situations using a ‘universal protection’ lens.
Interestingly, the majority of research on decision framing is focused on how situational cues (as opposed to individual factors; for exceptions, see Moore, 2007 and Sonenshein,
2007) determine individuals’ decision frames. For example, Tenbrunsel and Messick
(1999) showed that when faced with an ethical dilemma, the presence of sanctioning, via surveillance, directed participants’ attention to the economic side of the dilemma
(e.g., fines) and resulted in their framing the situation as involving a business decision as opposed to an ethical decision. Research has also shown that the mere presence of money can activate a business/profit frame in individuals, rather than an ethical frame. 32 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
For instance, such framing can diminish the intrinsic motivation of individuals to engage in principled actions, such as volunteering (Frey & Jegen, 2001) and increase the propensity of individuals to engage in unethical behaviours (Gino & Pierce, 2009;
Kouchaki, Smith-Crowe, Brief, & Sousa, 2013). Aquino, Freeman, Reed, Lim, and
Felps (2009) argued that situational cues influence the frames that individuals hold, as these cues are seen and experienced recently and, thus, activated at the forefront of individuals’ working self-concepts. Although this thesis is primarily focused on how individuals’ culturally-determined moral foundations shape the decision frames that they hold and their subsequent decisions and behaviours, I also investigate the influence of moral foundations-based situational cues on decision frames (see p. 57 for more details) in two studies (Studies 3a and 3b).
In summary, an individual’s endorsed moral foundations may be determined by his/her cultural background or activated via situational cues. The endorsement of the individualising or binding foundations results in this individual framing all the ethically relevant situations that s/he encounters in foundations-consistent manners, which leads to associated intuitions being elicited in these situations. In the following section I draw on Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model to explain how foundations-based intuitions shape judgements and their corresponding decisions and behaviours.
2.3.1.1 Moral intuition
Earlier, I proposed that, in a morally charged situation, holding particular moral foundations would result in a corresponding foundations-based intuition (see Figure 2.1).
This intuition, in turn, shapes an individual’s subsequent decision and behaviour. This argument is supported by emerging research that shows that unconscious processes are 33 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
also implicated in ethical decision making and, thus, ethical decision making is not always a purely rational cognitive-based process (Chugh, Bazerman, & Banaji, 2005;
Weaver, Reynolds, & Brown, 2013; Haidt, 2001). For example, Reynolds (2008) theorised that when individuals frame their experiences using an ethical lens, these experiences are ‘automatically colour[ed]’ (p. 1028) in ethical terms and these individuals are more likely to make decisions and engage in behaviours that are ethical.
This thesis, however, is not concerned with whether intuition or rationality plays the primary role in individual ethical decision making. Indeed, this debate is beyond the scope of the thesis (but see Paxton, Ungar, & Greene, 2011 for this debate) and is not tested in any of the studies in this thesis. I am merely drawing on Haidt and his colleagues’ (e.g., Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008; Haidt & Joseph, 2004) theoretical conceptualisation of moral foundations, as an evolutionary-derived basis upon which intuitive moral judgements are made, to make an assumption that the effect of an individual’s endorsed moral foundations is intuitive.
Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model provides an explanation for how an individual’s foundations-based intuition shapes his/her (un)ethical judgement. The model contains six links that purport to capture the relationship between intuition, judgements, and reasoning (see Figure 2.2). The first four links are relevant to this thesis, and I discuss the first two links in the first part of my thesis. The latter two links relate to the social contagion of one’s reasoning and judgement and will be described in Chapter 5. The first link highlights situation that elicits an immediate intuition and provokes a moral judgement. This is a process through which instantaneous evaluative feelings are formed without the individual holding any awareness of having engaged in active reasoning. As argued above, culturally-determined and situationally activated 34 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
endorsement of moral foundations are responsible for this instantaneous intuition. The second link shows that an individual may evoke conscious reasoning to justify his/her moral judgement, a process that involves a search for supporting evidence and plausible rationales. This process is a post hoc examination of reasons why a particular judgement was made and may evoke moral foundations-based rationale to support the judgement.
Taken together, individuals frame ethically relevant situations in foundations-consistent manners, which subsequently shape their corresponding intuitions and judgements
(Link 1) and post hoc reasoning (Link 2). What remains unclear is the impact that a strongly held individualising or binding frame has on individuals in ethically charged organisational situations. I seek to answer this question in the next section, by focusing on how moral foundations lead to perceptions that different decisions and behaviours are ethical and whether this influences a specific type of organisationally relevant outcome; that is, unethical decisions and behaviours perpetrated by organisational members to benefit the organisation (i.e., unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours; Umphress & Bingham, 2011). 35 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
2.4 Unethical Pro-Organisational Decisions and Behaviours
A commentator’s description of General Electric executives caught conspiring
to fix prices: “[They were] good organizational men who surrendered their
own individualities to the corporate gods they served.”
—As cited in Pillutla and Thau (2009, p. 121).
What are the consequences of organisational members holding different moral foundations? The arguments presented earlier suggest that endorsing either binding or individualising foundations can cause an individual to frame the world in a foundations- consistent manner. In all ethically relevant situations, the frame this individual holds will elicit a foundations-consistent intuition (see Reynolds, 2008). Thus, in ethically charged situations, this frame activates foundations-consistent intuitions of ‘right/good’ or ‘wrong/bad’, which in turn shapes the individual’s moral judgements or decisions
(see Haidt, 2001).
In this section, I ask the question of how this intuition influences an individual’s decisions and behaviours in an organisation. This thesis focuses its inquiry on how the moral foundations an individual holds influence his/her unethical decisions and behaviours that benefit his/her organisation (Umphress & Bingham, 2011). This research is consistent with the finding that an individual may sometimes be obedient and comply with the demands of his/her group, organisation, or leader (e.g., Milgram,
1963; Zimbardo, 2007). Thus, an individual may seek to be ethical, by complying with these demands, but unwittingly commits unethical acts when such demands are unethical. To my knowledge, this thesis is the first to examine unethical outcomes of organisational relevance that may be driven by an individual’s perception that such obedience and compliance are moral obligations. In the context of this thesis, it is 36 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
theorised that an organisational member, who endorses group-oriented foundations, perceive bringing benefits to his/her group (i.e., the organisation) to be a moral obligation. Consequently, this member may selectively focus on the pro-social (i.e., benefit to the organisation) aspects of a behaviour and, in doing so, unknowingly disregard the unethical aspects of that behaviour. Indeed, as articulated in the quotation of Pillutla and Thau (2009), unethical behaviours may be committed by ‘good’ organisational members who seek to benefit their superiors/organisations.
Unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours defined
Unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours (referred to hereafter as UPB)5 are defined as the decisions made or actions taken by organisational members to promote the effective functioning of the organisation or its members (e.g., the CEO of the company; Umphress & Bingham, 2011). UPB are unethical, as they violate globally held beliefs, principles, and values of what constitute ethical actions (i.e., hypernorms;
Donaldson & Dunfee, 1994). According to Umphress and Bingham (2011), decisions and behaviours are only considered to be UPB if individuals intend to make these unethical decisions and engage in these unethical actions for the benefit of their organisations.
Consistent with previous research on UPB, I agree that unethical decisions and behaviours are not always committed for self-gain. However, expanding upon this phenomenon, I offer an alternative perspective; that is, organisational members may also not intend to be unethical, but may engage in UPB because they are driven by their desire to benefit their organisations. More specifically, the pre-occupation of these
5 UPB consist of both decisions and behaviours. However, from hereafter UPB are referred to as if they were only behaviours; for example, the phrase ‘engage in UPB’ is used as opposed to ‘make an unethical pro-organisational decision and engage in an unethical pro-organisational behaviour’. 37 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
members with the pro-social side of UPB may blind them to the fact that such decisions and behaviours violate hypernorms. In fact, they may perceive these decisions and behaviours to be ethical. I argue that this pre-occupation may be attributed to members’ endorsed moral foundations (i.e., the binding foundations), whereby members intuitively perceive that they are morally obligated to benefit their organisations and their members (e.g., CEOs, supervisors). Accordingly, while I use the term UPB in this thesis, compared to Umphress and Bingham’s (2011), I define this construct in a broader manner by including individuals’ unethical decisions and behaviours that are made and engaged upon both with and without intention, and in both cases individuals make such decisions and engage in such behaviours so as to benefit their organisations.
Pierce and Aguinis (2013) proposed that detrimental citizenship behaviours, or discretionary employee behaviours that advance organisational goals at the expense of legitimate stakeholders, are often driven by automatic evaluations by members that prioritise the interest of their organisations. Notably, UPB are examples of such detrimental citizenship behaviours.
Comparing UPB with other deviant pro-organisational constructs
To date, organisational research has provided a wealth of information on organisational citizenship behaviours and counter-productive work behaviours. The former are intentional and voluntary pro-social behaviours that contribute to organisational effectiveness and the latter are deviant behaviours that harm organisational functioning
(Pierce & Aguinis, 2013). In recent years, these two disparate streams of research have converged with increasing attention directed towards understanding the deviance of organisational members that stems from a desire to benefit their organisations (e.g., destructive conformity; Warren, 2003). Such behaviours are deviant because they 38 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
violate organisational norms and/or global hypernorms; however, at the same time, these behaviours are committed to benefit members’ organisations. UPB are examples of such behaviours. In addition to UPB, researchers have identified several other types of behaviours that are both pro-organisational and deviant. These behaviours are discussed below and to distinguish UPB from these other deviant behaviours, I highlight conceptual similarities and differences between UPB and these deviant behaviours (see
Table 2.2).
Deviant workplace behaviours, such as destructive conformity (Warren, 2003) and positive deviance (Spreitzer & Sonenshein, 2004), are examples of behaviours that are pro-organisational yet deviant. Destructive conformity refers to behaviours that are deviant because they violate global normative standards of ethics, but align with organisational norms (Warren, 2003). The constructs of destructive conformity and
UPB are similar in that they both include instances in which the behaviours of organisational members’ violate global hypernorms. However, unlike destructive conformity behaviours, UPB do not need to align with organisational norms and, in fact, may include unethical behaviours that defy as well as comply with organisational norms.
UPB can also be distinguished from destructive conformity behaviours, as individuals engage in UPB with the intent of benefiting their organisations, whereby this intention is not necessary for acts of destructive conformity (Umphress & Bingham, 2011). 39 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Positive deviance refers to voluntary and intentional behaviours that depart from a referent group norm (e.g., department, organisation) in honourable ways (Spreitzer &
Sonenshein, 2004). Positive deviance behaviours and UPB are similar in that members’ engage in both behaviours with the intention of benefiting a particular target (e.g., a co- worker or the organisation). However, positive deviance differs from UPB as it refers to intentional behaviours that are positive, honourable, or even ethical, whereas UPB are specific to unethical decisions and behaviours that violate global hypernorms.
40 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Pro-social rule breaking (PSRB) is a form of volitional rule breaking for the benefit of members’ organisations or organisational stakeholders (Morrison, 2006). PSRB is similar to UPB in that both types of behaviours are deviant, but committed with constructive intentions (Dahling, Chau, Mayer, & Gregory, 2012). The behaviour of
PSRB, however, is different from UPB, as PSRB violates organisational norms (e.g., appeasing an angry customer with complimentary dessert, even though doing so goes against company rules and regulations), whereas UPB can either violate or comply with organisational norms but also oppose global hypernorms.
In this thesis, I focus on UPB as they cover a more expansive range of decisions and behaviours and refer to unethical decisions and behaviours only. Specifically, while destructive conformity involves unethical behaviours that comply with organisational norms, UPB includes decisions and behaviours that comply as well as defy such norms, provided that these decisions and behaviours oppose global hypernorms. In this manner,
UPB covers a more expansive range of decisions and behaviours. Given the wider range of unethical decisions and behaviours that can be classified as UPB, it is clear why it is important to studying this phenomenon. Further, while it is important to understand what drives ethical decisions and behaviours, this study specifically investigates the associations between moral foundations and unethical outcomes. Thus, for these reasons, this thesis focused on UPB rather than positive deviance or PSRB.
Antecedents of UPB
A survey of over 200 individuals from Australia and New Zealand arrested for engaging in fraudulent organisational actions found that approximately 30% of the respondents reported that their actions were motivated by positive and social-based reasons (e.g., 41 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
desire to ensure the viability of the corporation or pleasing others; Smith, 2003).6 While the behaviours of these individuals’ may have been driven by the desire to benefit their organisations or individuals in their organisations, the consequences of these behaviours were severe and ranged from substantial fines to jail sentences (Smith, 2003). Given the potential risks and personal costs of engaging in such unethical behaviours (i.e., UPB), why do organisational members engage in UPB? In this section, I first discuss several antecedents of UPB.
Organisational leaders can influence their subordinates’ engagement in unethical behaviours (e.g., Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005) and UPB are no exception.
Graham, Ziegart, and Capitone (2013) and Effelsberg, Solga, and Gurt (2014) found that, compared to transactional leaders, transformational leaders (i.e., inspirational and charismatic leaders) were more likely to elicit UPB in subordinates. Graham, Ziegart, et al. argued that this is because transformational leaders are able to motivate their subordinates to identify with and be loyal to their organisations, which encourages subordinates to engage in UPB. An association between organisational identification and UPB has also been found. Umphress, Bingham, and Mitchell (2010) found that organisational members who identified with their organisations were motivated to engage in UPB, when they also held strong positive reciprocity beliefs (i.e., beliefs that the performance of organisational duties would be rewarded accordingly). It was postulated that a positive association between organisational identification and UPB existed because identification helps to foster the formation of psychological bonds between members and their organisations. Such bonds (e.g., loyalty and organisational concern) increase individuals’ willingness to prioritise the wellbeing of their
6 The other social-based reasons reported included: ‘maintaining own/family business’ and ‘influenced/implicated by others’. 42 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
organisations ahead of themselves and/or other stakeholders (see Vardi & Wiener, 1996;
Pierce & Aguinis, 2013).
Consequences of UPB
In the previous section, the reasons why organisational members are willing to engage in UPB were discussed. In this section, I examine some potential individual and organisational consequences associated with organisational members’ engagement in
UPB. To date, behavioural business ethics research has focused more on the antecedents of UPB, and less on the consequences of such decisions and behaviours. However, research examining detrimental citizenship behaviours (i.e., Pierce & Aguinis, 2013) and the antecedents and consequences of moral emotions (e.g., Tangney, Stuewig, &
Mashek, 2007) suggest that UPB are associated with several detrimental consequences.
These potential detrimental consequences of UPB further demonstrate why it is an important phenomenon to study.
Undoubtedly, there can be short-term gains from organisational members’ engagement in UPB (e.g., organisational profit from a member’s sale of defective products).
However, a range of negative short-term and long-term individual and organisational consequences may also be associated with UPB (Umphress & Bingham, 2011; Pierce &
Aguinis, 2013). For example, an individual may experience negative emotions, such as shame or humiliation, after engaging in or being exposed by others for having engaged in UPB. Such negative emotions have also been associated with maladaptive psychological symptoms, such as depression and lowered self-esteem (Tangney et al.,
2007) and negative interpersonal consequences, such as the withdrawal from social interactions (Tangney, 1990). Further, an individual may face criminal, career, and 43 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
monetary penalties (e.g., jail sentences, lowered employability, or paying fines) after being caught for engaging in UPB (Pierce & Aguinis, 2013). Organisations may also be stigmatised for being associated with an organisational member who has engaged in
UPB. These organisations may face long-term reputational costs, which may result in the loss of current and potential clients, criminal charges, as well as civil suits; all of which place financial strains on organisations (Pierce & Aguinis, 2013).
2.5 Moral Foundations and UPB
Given the potential prevalence (i.e., 30% of the individuals jailed for fraudulent organisational actions reported that their behaviours were driven by social-based reasons; Smith 2003) and detrimental consequences of organisational members engaging in UPB, it is vital to gain a better understanding of why organisational members engage in UPB. To this end, in this thesis, I theorise and examine how particular moral foundations are associated with UPB. As mentioned above, to date, research on moral foundations has largely been descriptive. Few studies have explored the actual outcomes associated with endorsing different moral foundations (see Waytz et al., 2012 and Smith et al., 2014 for exceptions) and no previous studies have examined outcomes that are organisationally-relevant. To my knowledge, this thesis is the first to investigate outcomes with organisational relevance (i.e., UPB) associated with the endorsement of different moral foundations.
I argue that individuals who endorse group-oriented moral foundations are more likely to engage in UPB because such individuals tend to focus on the pro-social side of UPB and unknowingly disregard the unethical aspects of such decisions and behaviours.
Some evidence for this argument comes from the study by Smith et al. (2014) that 44 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
found that endorsing the binding foundations is associated with greater tolerance of the mistreatment of out-group members (e.g., greater support for the use of torture on suspected terrorists), especially among individuals with low moral identity. In Smith et al.’s study, participants who endorsed the binding foundations (and who had low moral identity) may have considered the torture of terrorists to attain information to be beneficial to national security, and ignored the fact that torture harms another person.
Similarly, Leidner and Castano (2012) showed that high in-group glorification, which was argued to enhance the cognitive accessibility of loyalty and authority principles, was positively associated with moralising in-group violence against out-group members
(e.g., prisoner abuse). According to Leidner and Castano, in-group members maintained the perception of in-group morality by rationalising these behaviours as displays of patriotic respect to authority and group loyalty; the suffering and injustice experienced by out-group members as a result of these behaviours were thus ignored. Waytz et al.
(2013) further found that the endorsement of the loyalty foundation (i.e., a binding foundation), as compared to the fairness foundation (i.e., an individualising foundation), is associated with decreased whistleblowing intentions and behaviours across of variety of everyday situations (e.g., witnessing someone cheating on an exam); this effect more pronounced the closer the relationship between the participant and the perpetrator (e.g., the perpetrator is a family member versus a stranger). Janoff-Bulman and Carnes (2013) also commented on the ‘dark side’ of holding a moral system that is sensitive to protecting the in-group. They argued that this moral motive has the potential to elicit immoral actions in the name of protecting one’s group.
One issue that arose was how best to study the influence of moral foundations on UPB. 45 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Researchers have approached the study of moral foundations by showing how these foundations correlate with various constructs of interest (e.g., personality variables;
Lewis & Bates, 2011) or by examining how specific moral foundations (e.g., loyalty foundation; Waytz et al., 2013) or groups of foundations (e.g., the binding foundations only; Smith et al., 2014) are associated with particular non-organisational outcomes.
Given that, universally, individuals endorse every one of the moral foundations, albeit to different extents, separating the foundations in such manners (i.e., seeking main effects from individualising or binding foundations) provides a limited view of the influence of moral foundations. My assertion is in line with Haidt and Joseph (2007) who posited that moral foundations are the blueprints upon which cultures derive specific virtues, and that every individual possesses sensitivity to varying levels of all foundations. Accordingly, to fully understand the impact of moral foundations in the organisation, I argue that the foundations should not be studied in isolation. I will therefore examine the impact of moral foundations using two approaches that take into account various combinations of moral foundations, namely, a person-centred clustering approach and an interactive foundations approach.
2.5.1 Person-Centred Clustering Approach: Moral Foundations and
UPB
Approaching moral foundations in a person-centred clustering manner allows consideration to be given to the constellation of moral foundations that make up the moral system of each individual. This approach focuses on the configuration of different foundations held by individuals and aims to identify groups of individuals who possess similar configurations. Thus, individuals who belong to the same group/cluster are thought to have the same basic moral make-up (see Block, 1971). 46 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Haidt, Graham, and Joseph (2009) adopted this person-centred clustering approach to group their sample of approximately 21,000 respondents from the United States.
Respondents were grouped based on their scores on all five moral foundations. One of the main findings by Haidt and his colleagues was that there were two unconstrained clusters: a cluster of respondents high in individualising foundations and low in binding foundations; and a second cluster of respondents who scored equally on binding and individualising foundations. For the latter cluster, the individualising foundations were lower than cluster one and the binding foundations higher than cluster one (refer to
Figure 2.3). The clusters represented the moral worldview of the respondents within the two clusters; that is, they described how the respondents from each of the two clusters framed situations and perceived and intuitively interpreted events.
The moral worldview of respondents in the high individualising, low binding cluster can be described as being based on the ‘individualising principles’ (cluster 1). This cluster of individuals makes decisions that favour the duties to protect and be fair towards all people. The violation of these duties is associated with the experience of intuitive negative reactions (Haidt, 2001). It is, therefore, less likely that individuals in this cluster will engage in UPB, as these decisions and behaviours go against global hypernorms and are perceived to be harmful and unfair to others.
Cluster Two consisted of individuals with approximately equal scores on both individualising and binding foundations. These individuals not only care about universal rights (i.e., care and fairness towards others), but are also sensitive to the need to benefit the community to which they belong (Haidt et al., 2009). Compared to the 47 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
individualising principles cluster (cluster 1), people in this second cluster are more likely to make decisions using the ‘binding principles’ stance. If individuals in this cluster consider the organisation to be their ‘in-group’ (as will be discussed in Section
2.6), they will be more likely to engage in UPB, as they are more sensitive to promoting and advancing the goals of their organisation (and UPB are pro-social decisions and behaviours that are directed towards the organisation). Compared to individuals in cluster 1, the needs of individuals in cluster 2 to care for and be fair towards others are lower.
2.5.2 Interactive Approach: Moral Foundations and UPB
There are, however, two main problems inherent in clustering techniques that may negatively impact the adequacy of the conclusions attained. One such problem pertains to the loss of unique information about the variability of individual construct scores (i.e., binding and individualising foundations score) once individuals are clustered into groups (Everitt, 1979). A second problem is that predictions made using clustering technique are based on the assumption that Haidt et al.’s (2009) grouping of individuals into two clusters (i.e., high individualising and low binding foundations cluster [cluster 48 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
1], and equal on both foundations cluster [cluster 2]) is an accurate representation of the patterns that will emerge in the datasets in this research. Accordingly, if this assumption does not hold, the appropriateness of predictions made based on the individualising principles and the binding principles clusters may require further thought.
To combat these problems, I also use an interactive approach to examine the relationship between moral foundations and UPB. Among organisational and personality researchers, this interactive approach is common (Witt, Burke, Barrick, &
Mount, 2002; Grant & Langan-Fox, 2006). This is due, in part, to the recognition that basing personnel decisions on a single personality construct is an imprecise measure of an individual’s performance (Hogan, Hogan, & Roberts, 1996). In studies that examine only one single personality construct, there is the assumption that the effects of each personality variable are independent of the others and that the joint effects of all the personality constructs are additive (Witt, 2002). Refuting this assumption, Witt et al.
(2002) found that the interactive effect between personality variables is a more accurate predictor of an outcome, such as performance, as opposed to the main effects based on single personality constructs. For instance, although conscientiousness has been widely accepted as the strongest predictor of job performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991), Witt et al. demonstrated that the interactive relationship between conscientiousness and agreeableness explained additional variance in job performance beyond what is explained by conscientiousness and agreeableness alone. The strength of this interactive technique, thus, makes it a viable way to explore the impact of moral foundations on
UPB.
49 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Consequently, in this thesis, I argue that within an individual, the impact of one group of foundations (e.g., binding foundations) on decisions and behaviours depends on the level of the other group of foundations (e.g., individualising foundations). Specifically, binding foundations will be most strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when there are low levels of individualising foundations. In other words, when an individual’s conceptualisation of ethics is strongly aligned with a drive to benefit one’s own group
(i.e., the organisation) and less so towards avoiding the violation of being caring and fair to others, this individual will be more likely to engage in unethical acts that benefit the organisation.
2.6 The Role of Organisational Identification
In the previous section, I did not propose main effect hypotheses as the relationships between moral foundations and UPB are incomplete without consideration being given to the strength of an individual’s sense of belongingness to his/her organisation. The notion that binding foundations are associated with in-group promoting behaviours indicates that the positive relationship between the binding principles cluster on the engagement in UPB and the interactive relationship between high binding and low individualising foundations on high engagement in UPB, will only occur if the organisation is part of the individual’s valued in-group. The organisation becomes a part of an individual’s valued in-group when the individual identifies with the organisation to which s/he belongs (Ashforth & Mael, 1989).
Organisational identification defined
Organisational identification refers to the extent to which an organisational member defines (or partly defines) him/herself in relation to what his/her organisation is 50 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
perceived to represent (Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004). This construct incorporates the logics from three main strands of identity research: social identity research, identity theory, and macro-level organisational identity research (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley,
2008).
Social identity researchers, such as Tajfel (1982), posit that an individual’s self-concept is derived, in part, from his/her membership in a social group coupled with the value and emotional significance that the individual associates with this membership. In contrast, identity theory focuses on the various roles that an individual holds (e.g., the role of a worker) and proposes that an individual's identity is derived from the meanings s/he affixes to these roles and the relational networks produced from being embedded in these roles (Stryker & Burke, 2000). Finally, macro-level organisational identity research focuses on organisational members’ collective understanding of the core, permanent, and distinct characteristics of their organisation and how this understanding develops (Albert & Whetton, 1985).
Combining identity theory and macro-level organisational identity research reveals that an individual’s identity in an organisation stems from the characteristics of the organisation and the roles that an individual plays in the organisation (Ashforth et al.,
2008). Together with social identity research, organisational identification reflects the alignment of these characteristics and roles and an individual’s self-concept and is the sense of oneness and belongingness an individual feels towards an organisation
(Ashforth et al., 2008). Consequently, when an individual identifies with an organisation, the values, norms, interests, and successes and failures of the organisation 51 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
are assimilated into his/her self-concept (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; van Knippenberg &
Sleebos, 2006).
This perception of oneness with an organisation and its impact on an individual’s self- concept distinguishes organisational identification from other related constructs, such as organisational commitment (Kreiner & Ashforth, 2004). Organisational identification and organisational commitment share conceptual similarities (e.g., both constructs refer to a sense of attachment felt towards an organisation; Ashforth et al., 2008); however, organisational commitment refers to an individual’s positive attitude towards or his/her dedication and responsibility to an organisation (Klein, Molloy, & Brinsfield, 2012).
Accordingly, unlike organisational identification, organisational commitment may exist without the organisation being a part of the member’s in-group and without implicating this member’s self-concept. Further, because organisational commitment occurs when an individual perceives an alignment of his/her self-view with the goals and values of an organisation, an individual may be committed to several organisations providing that these organisations espouse the same goals and values (Vadera & Pratt, 2103; Kreiner
& Ashforth, 2004). Conversely, an individual will only identify with a specific organisation (i.e., his/her workplace) and will experience a deep existential loss when s/he no longer belongs to this organisation.
Antecedents and consequences of organisational identification
There are several reasons why individuals will identify with organisations. Individuals may identify with organisations that have attributes that appeal to them, such as prestige and organisational distinctiveness or uniqueness (Cooper & Thatcher, 2010; Mael &
Ashforth, 1992). Individuals may also identify more strongly with organisations that 52 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
have positive communication climates (Smidts, Pruyn, & van Riel, 2001). In such climates, individuals perceive that communication in their organisations is open and trustworthy, that they have a voice in their organisations, and will be taken seriously when they voice issues. Smidts et al. (2001) argued that in a positive communication climate, individuals are more likely to see themselves as important members of the organisation. Mael and Ashforth (1992) further found that individuals’ satisfaction with their organisations’ contributions towards their personal goal achievements (e.g., promotion) is positively associated with their organisational identification.
Identifying with one’s organisation creates numerous positive outcomes for an organisational member. For instance, when a member’s sense of self is construed through his/her belongingness to an organisation with appealing attributes, this member may subsequently develop an enhanced sense of pride, self-esteem, and connectedness to the social world (cf. Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Further, when a member identifies with an organisation, s/he is provided with self-knowledge, avenues for self-expression, the experience of self-coherence and self-continuity, and opportunities for self- enhancement and self-distinctiveness, all of which assist the individual to maintain a sense of stability and consistency (Ashforth, 2001).
Organisational leaders have also mainly viewed members' identification with the organisation as a valuable quality, as it signifies the psychological bond of a member with the organisation (Edwards, 2005). Such bonds have been found to be responsible for numerous positive organisational consequences, including increased member effort, motivation, cooperation and coordination, participation, and pro-organisational decision making (Ashforth et al., 2008). When a member identifies with an organisation, s/he is 53 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
also less likely to have turnover intentions and more likely to engage in in-role and extra-role citizenship behaviours (Riketta, 2005; Edwards, 2005). A study found that the positive association between work group identification and organisational citizenship behaviours, as well as between work group identification and job satisfaction, were strongest when a member identified with his/her organisation, as compared to when the member was less identified with the organisation (van Dick, van Kippenberg,
Kerschreiter, Hertel, & Wieseke, 2008). Lipponen, Bardi, and Haapamäki (2008) further showed that an organisational member who valued openness to change was more likely to make suggestions to improve organisational functioning when s/he identified with the organisation.
There is, however, a dark side to organisational identification. Dukerich, Kramer, and
Parks (1998) asserted that organisational identification might sometimes cause low differentiation between a member’s sense of self and his/her organisation. This can lead to an inability to question suspicious organisational actions and a tendency to conform to, cover-up, and promote wrongdoing in the name of the organisation (Dukerich et al.,
1998). In a review of organisational misbehaviour, Vardi and Wiener (1996) noted that misbehaviour to benefit one’s organisation is often selectively committed by a member who identifies with the organisation, its mission, and its leadership. Similarly, Ashforth and Anand (2003) argued that identification with one’s organisation predicts corrupt behaviours on behalf of one’s organisation. Umphress and Bingham (2011) further suggested that organisational identification is a motivating factor that allows a member to justify UPB as positive behaviours, as UPB are viewed as behaviours that will help and benefit the organisation. Thus, organisational identification may mask or help the individual to dismiss the unethical content inherent in UPB. Indeed, Umphress et al. 54 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
(2010) showed that organisational identification is associated with UPB, when an individual holds a belief in positive reciprocity (i.e., belief that the performance of organisational duties would be rewarded accordingly).
2.6.1 Person-Centred Clustering Approach: Moral Foundations,
Organisational Identification, and UPB
Incorporating organisational identification provides a more complete understanding of the relationship between moral foundations principles clusters and UPB. I will first discuss the relationships between the clusters and UPB when organisational identification is high. Based on my earlier arguments, I posit that organisational members in the binding principles cluster, as opposed to the individualising principles cluster, will more likely engage in UPB if they identify with their organisations, as individuals with high organisational identification perceive their organisations as valued in-groups. Although these individuals are concerned with caring for and being fair to others (i.e., individualising foundations), their endorsement of the binding foundations coupled with their identification with their organisations, will inadvertently increase their sensitivity to the desires of their important in-groups. As such, I argue that given their in-group-oriented focus, organisational members in the binding principles cluster, who identify with their organisations, will be more willing to engage in UPB.
Conversely, I posit that when organisational identification is high, individuals in the individualising principles cluster will be less likely than their binding counterparts to engage in UPB. This owes to the fact that these individuals favour the individualising foundations rather than the binding foundations and, compared to individuals from the binding principles cluster, they are more concerned about caring for and being fair to others and will perceive the violation of these concerns as unethical. Accordingly, even 55 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
when these individuals identify with their organisations they still will not engage in
UPB, as such decisions and behaviours are contradictory to their ethical stances.
Low organisational identification occurs when members do not consider their organisations as part of their valued in-group and view the successes and failures of the organisations as inconsequential. I argue that when organisational identification is low, members from the binding and individualising principles clusters will be equally less likely to engage in UPB. This is because the binding principles cluster will be less strongly associated with the engagement in UPB as members belonging to this cluster will not be as concerned about having their organisations be the recipient of their pro- social decisions and behaviours. Doing so simply will not boost the self-concepts of these individuals. Rather, these individuals may identify with different groups (i.e., external to their organisation) and focus their behaviours on promoting these other in- groups (e.g., the community, a sports group). Similarly, members belonging to the individualising principles cluster will be less likely to engage in UPB, as they view UPB as violations of their held ethical obligation to care for and be fair to others.
Furthermore, these individuals’ connection with their organisations is not so strong that they would engage in wrongdoing just to benefit the organisations. Based on the arguments presented, I predict:
Hypothesis 1: The effect of the binding and individualising principle clusters on UPB is moderated by organisational identification, such that when organisational identification is high, individuals belonging to the binding principles cluster will be more likely to engage in UPB, compared to individuals belonging to the individualising principles cluster. 56 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
2.6.2 Interactive Approaches: Moral Foundations, Organisational
Identification, and UPB
The interactive impact of binding and individualising foundations on UPB can only be understood if organisational identification is considered. In relation to the two-way interaction between binding foundations and individualising foundations, it was argued earlier that when an individual’s conceptualisation of ethics is more aligned with a drive to benefit their in-group (i.e., an individual with high endorsement on the binding foundations) and less aligned with avoiding the violation of being caring and fair to others (i.e., an individual with low endorsement on the individualising foundations), such an individual will be more likely to engage in UPB. However, the nature of the binding foundations suggests that an individual’s UPB are targeted at their in-group organisations. Organisational identification, or the psychological bond an individual has with the organisation, establishes the organisation as part of the individual’s valued in- group. I argue that such identification is a necessary prerequisite for the occurrence of the aforementioned two-way interaction. Specifically, I posit that organisational identification will moderate the two-way interaction between the binding and individualising foundations, such that the binding foundations will be more likely to lead to UPB when individualising foundations are low, but only when organisational identification is high. In contrast, when organisational identification is low, an individual who endorses the binding foundations will not perceive the organisation to be part of his/her important in-group and will not direct pro-social (albeit unethical) decisions and behaviours towards the organisation. In this manner, I argue that when organisational identification is low, there will be no two-way interaction between the binding and individualising foundations on UPB. Stated more formally, I predict:
57 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
Hypothesis 2: There will be a three-way interaction between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB, such that the binding foundations will be associated more strongly with the engagement in UPB when individualising foundations are low, as compared to high, but only when organisational identification is high.
In hypotheses 1 and 2, individuals’ endorsed moral foundations are implicitly assumed to be determined by their cultural backgrounds. However, I argue that in addition to cultural backgrounds, individuals may also be primed via foundations-consistent situational cues to temporarily endorse the individualising or the binding foundations or have these foundations triggered in their working self-concepts. The endorsement of the individualising or the binding foundations encourages individuals to frame the world in foundations-consistent manners, and in ethically relevant situations, these frames elicit associated intuitions and shape subsequent decisions and behaviours (refer to p. 29 for an explanation on decision frames). The notion that situational cues may lead individuals to endorse particular ideas, values, or perspectives, is not novel. For example, Treviño (1986) argued that situational cues can momentarily ‘overpower’ an individual’s own values to exert a strong influence on decisions and behaviours.
Similarly, Aquino et al. (2009) posited that the recentness of experiencing a situation ensures that situational cues are at the forefront of individuals’ working self-concept.
This ‘recency’ effect may explain the strong momentary influence of situations on behaviours. For example, equivalent questions framed to activate an inclusion or exclusion mindset in participants (i.e., mindsets focused on what should be included and what should not be included in one’s moral circle, respectively) led participants to generate larger and smaller moral circles (the boundary that determines the entities that 58 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
deserve moral consideration), respectively (Laham, 2009). In a similar vein, other research has shown that the presence of material objects in an environment increases the cognitive accessibility of concepts associated with these objects. Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, and Ross (2004) showed that participants exposed to business-related objects (e.g., a boardroom table, a briefcase, and a leather portfolio), momentarily activated concepts related to winning and rivalry (i.e., a business frame) and behaved in a more competitive manner than participants exposed to neutral materials (e.g., a toothbrush and sheet music). Additionally, Kouchaki et al. (2013) found that the mere presence of money in the workplace primed participants with an economic/business decision frame that increased their unethical behaviours.
Situations may also prime individuals to activate particular moral foundations (i.e., individualising or binding foundations) in their working self-concepts. Given that all individuals endorse all moral foundations (albeit at different levels for each foundation), primed moral foundations merely momentarily activate or bring these foundations to the forefront of individuals’ working memories. Waytz et al. (2013) primed their participants to consider either a fairness or loyalty foundation and activated the accessibility of these respective foundations in participants’ working memories. The endorsement of the fairness and loyalty foundations increased and decreased participants’ propensity to whistle blow on the unethical behaviours of others (e.g., friends), respectively. In light of such research, I expect that the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB as discussed earlier will also exist when moral foundations are primed. Accordingly, I examine the interactive relationship between primed moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB.
I propose that there will be a two-way interaction between primed moral foundations 59 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
and organisational identification on UPB, such that individuals who will be primed with the binding foundations will be more likely to engage in UPB, as compared to individuals who will be primed with the individualising foundations, but only when organisational identification is high. The theoretical rationale for this proposed relationship is similar to the rationale provided to explain the three-way interaction found in hypothesis 2; however, as this relationship involves a two-way interaction, I propose a third hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3: The effect of primed moral foundations on UPB is moderated by organisational identification, such that when organisational identification is high, individuals primed with the binding foundations will be more likely to engage in UPB, compared to individuals primed with the individualising foundations.
2.7 Conclusion
In this chapter, I introduced the moral foundations theory into behavioural business ethics research. Based on this theory, organisational members not only consider ethical decisions and behaviours to be those that show care and fairness towards others (i.e., individualising moral foundations), but also consider group-oriented decisions and behaviours, such as displays of loyalty to in-groups and respect of authority (i.e., binding moral foundations; see Haidt & Joseph, 2004) to be ethical. I then explained how the endorsement of these different moral foundations influences individuals’ decisions and behaviours. The explanation drew on decision frames research
(Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1999) and Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model. Next, I proposed that individuals’ endorsed moral foundations and organisational identification interact to influence their unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours (i.e., 60 Chapter 2: Theoretical Background
UPB). Specifically, I argued that members who endorse group-oriented moral foundations more strongly (i.e., by belonging to the binding principles cluster or by endorsing high binding foundations and low individualising foundations) and who identified with their organisations, would be more likely to engage in UPB. I proposed to examine the relationship between moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB using a person-centred clustering approach and interactive foundations approaches.
In Chapters 3 and 4, I outline the methods and results of five studies conducted to test my hypotheses. These studies test the proposed relationships between moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB. While these studies examine the same relationships, different respondent/participant samples (i.e., student vs. worker samples), measures of UPB (i.e., intentions to engage in UPB vs. actual engagement in UPB), and study designs (i.e., cross-sectional vs. two wave and experimental vs. survey) were used.
61 Chapter 3: Moral Foundations, Organisational Identification, and UPB
Chapter 3
Studies 1, 2, and 3a and b: Relationships between Moral Foundations, Organisational Identification, and UPB
3.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I present the methods and results of Studies 1, 2, and 3a and b. The materials for these studies can be found in Appendix A. All studies were conducted using students from a university in Australia. Study 1 explored the relationships between moral foundations and organisational identification on participants’ self- reported intentions to engage in UPB, while Study 2 explored these relationships on participants’ actual engagement in UPB. In Studies 3a and b, I examined the relationships between primed moral foundations and organisational identification on participants’ self-reported intentions to engage in UPB (Study 3a) and participants’ evaluation of a colleague’s UPB (Study 3b).
62 Chapter 3: Study 1
3.2 Study 1
Study 1 represents a preliminary exploration of the relationships between moral foundations, organisational identification (i.e., the business school as the organisation), and UPB. This study tested hypotheses 1 and 2, with respondents’ self-reported intentions to engage in UPB as the dependent variable.
3.2.1 Method
Respondents
One hundred and seventy two students, from a university in Australia, participated in this survey.8 I removed 21 respondents from the analyses, for failing attention checks
(e.g., by not clicking on ‘strongly agree’ when they were asked to do so in one of the measures), leaving 151 respondents (36% male; 64% female).9 Respondents were recruited from an experimental laboratory subject pool and were compensated with a gift card worth AUD15 for their time. This subject pool consists of students who volunteer to participate in studies in exchange for monetary compensation. I requested that only students who were enrolled in this university’s business school (referred to hereafter as ASB) participate in this study, as survey items were tailored for ASB students. Respondents were on average 22.7 years of age (SD = 4.3). The majority of the respondents were Asian (approximately 89%), followed by White/Caucasian
(approximately 10%). The cultures/countries that participants identified most strongly with were China (approximately 40%), followed by Australia (approximately 23%),
India (approximately 9%), and Malaysia (approximately 5%). Approximately sixty percent of the respondents were enrolled in an undergraduate program and the
8 The data for Studies 1 and 6 (presented in Chapter 6) were collected together using the same student sample. No focal variables in these studies overlapped and the two studies explored different constructs. 9 Similar attention check items were used in all my studies. 63 Chapter 3: Study 1
remaining respondents were enrolled in a post-graduate program. The majority of respondents had work experience (78%) and had worked an average of 2.3 years (SD =
3.1). Around thirty percent of the respondents were currently employed and worked an average of 14.4 hours per week (SD = 10.5).
Design and procedure
The online survey was conducted in a laboratory and respondents were seated at separate cubicles. Respondents were informed that the study investigated decision making in the workplace. All respondents completed the Moral Foundations
Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009), a measure of organisational identification (i.e., with the business school as the organisation; adapted from Mael & Ashforth, 1992), and a measure that captured the extent to which respondents were willing to engage in UPB
(Umphress et al., 2010). In the final section, all respondents completed a university student life satisfaction measure and a Machiavellianism measure (i.e., control variables) and demographic questions.
Measures
Predictor variables
Moral foundations were measured using a 24-item questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009), composed of twelve items assessing moral relevance and twelve items assessing moral judgement.10 Moral relevance assessed the extent to which different considerations were relevant to respondents when deciding whether something was right or wrong, and was measured on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all relevant) to 5 (extremely relevant). Sample items include ‘whether or not someone acted unfairly
10 Based on the theoretical rationale forwarded in Chapter 2 (p. 20), I did not explore the influence of the purity/sanctity foundation on UPB. In other words, the binding foundations consist only of the loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion foundations. 64 Chapter 3: Study 1
(fairness/cheating)’ and ‘whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society
(authority/subversion)’. Moral judgement assessed the moral foundations that respondents used when making judgements. Respondents indicated, on a 6-point scale ranging from 0 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree), the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with various statements. Sample items include ‘compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue (care/harm)’ and ‘it is more important to be a team player than to express oneself (loyalty/betrayal)’. Following van Leeuwen and
Park’s (2009) approach, I combined the moral relevance and moral judgement items, and computed scores for the care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, and authority/subversion foundations. I then averaged the scores of the care/harm and fairness/cheating foundations to attain a composite measure of individualising foundations (Cronbach’s α = .81) and averaged the scores of the loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion foundations to attain a composite measure of binding foundations
(Cronbach’s α = .80). Higher scores on the binding and individualising foundations indicated stronger endorsement of the foundations.
Organisational identification (i.e., with the business school as students’ main organisation at this moment) was assessed with an adaptation of Mael and Ashforth’s
(1992) six-item measure. The measure captured the extent to which respondents identified with their organisation. In the original measure, the target of identification was the school (i.e., Mael and Ashforth, 1992 measured the identification of college alumni to their alma mater. The researchers selected this sample as: 1) the college can be considered as a ‘holographic organisation’, in which members share a common organisation-wide identity and, 2) alumni are an important source of support for colleges, such that alumni identification strongly influences the welfare of their alma 65 Chapter 3: Study 1
maters). However, to increase the relevance of the items to these business school students and to make the items more specific to the current context, in my measure of organisational identification, the target of identification was my business school. Sample items include ‘I am interested in what others think about my business school’ and ‘my business school’s successes are my successes’. Items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and higher scores indicated stronger identification. The items were averaged to obtain an overall organisational identification score (Cronbach’s α = .76).
Dependent variable
Unethical pro-organisation decisions and behaviours (UPB) were measured using a six-item measure by Umphress and her colleagues (2010). The measure captured the extent to which respondents were willing to engage in unethical behaviours that benefitted their organisation. In this study, I adapted Umphress et al.’s (2010) measure in two ways. First, as with the organisational identification measure, I tailored items to be context specific; instead of having the target of UPB as one’s organisation, the target was one’s business school. This made the survey relevant to the student respondents.
Second, the severity of the UPB were reduced in three of the items by including words, such as a little and slightly when describing the extent to which one was willing to engage in the behaviours. I reduced the severity of these unethical behaviours so as to make the behaviours more relatable to the student respondents, as students are less likely to make, or encounter opportunities to make, serious unethical behaviours to benefit their own universities. The roles that employees have in their organisations are very different to those of students in their universities. For instance, employees are paid in return for providing their service, students, on the other hand, often pay their 66 Chapter 3: Study 1
universities in return for an education and degrees. Sample items include (the former adaptation is in italics and the latter is underlined), ‘If my business school needed me to,
I would not retract misleading information that I accidently told others previously about my business school’ and ‘If it would help my business school, I would slightly misrepresent the truth to make my business school look good’. Items were rated on a 7- point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and higher scores indicated greater willingness to engage in UPB. Items were averaged to obtain an overall UPB score (Cronbach’s α = .87).
Umphress et al. (2010) noted that UPB can refer to the engagement in unethical behaviour by commission and by omission. Unethical acts of commission are blatant misstatements of truth, while unethical acts of omission occur when an individual withholds information that results in the deception of another person (Tenbrunsel &
Messick, 2004; Bok, 1989). The UPB measure developed by Umphress and her colleagues includes both types of unethical behaviour. The first sample item given in the above paragraph is an example of UPB by omission, and the second sample item is an example of UPB by commission (refer to Appendix A for the list of omission and commission items). Individuals consider UPB by omission and UPB by commission as distinct from each other; unethical acts of omission are considered to be less harmful, and thus more acceptable, than unethical acts of commission (e.g., Spranca, Minsk, &
Baron, 2003). Accordingly, there may be differences in the relationships between moral foundations and organisational identification (i.e., the business school as the organisation) on UPB by commission and UPB by omission; for instance, significant relationships may be found for UPB by omission but not UPB by commission. To explore this notion, I created two additional dependent variables by separating the UPB 67 Chapter 3: Study 1
scale into UPB by commission and UPB by omission. The former consisted of four items and the latter consisted of two items (Cronbach’s α = .82 and Spearman Brown coefficient11 = .64, respectively). Additional analyses were conducted with these two dependent variables.
Control variables
I controlled for four variables that could influence the predictor and/or dependent variables in the current study. First, I controlled for respondents’ age, as this variable has been shown to be positively associated with ethical decision making (O’Fallon &
Butterfield, 2005). By controlling for this variable, I accounted for the possibility that engagement in UPB is associated with respondents’ age (i.e., younger participants being more likely to engage in UPB). Second, I controlled for respondents’ satisfaction with their life as a university student (university satisfaction), as engagement in UPB may be positively associated with respondents’ positive evaluations of their lives as university students (cf. Umphress et al., 2010). University satisfaction was measured using an adapted version of Edwards and Rothbard’s (1999) three-item job satisfaction measure.
Items were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The three items were ‘University student life is very enjoyable’, ‘All in all, being a university student is great’, and ‘In general, I am satisfied with being a university student’. These items were averaged to obtain a composite university satisfaction score (Cronbach’s α = .88), with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction. Third, I controlled for respondents’ university tenure, as tenure has been found to be positively associated with individuals’ identification with their
11 I use the Spearman Brown coefficient to estimate reliability for all two-item scales, as this coefficient is the most accurate and robust indicator of reliability for two-item measures (e.g., Eisinga, te Grotenhuis, & Pelzer, 2012). 68 Chapter 3: Study 1
universities/schools (Mael & Ashforth, 1992) and their willingness to engage in unethical organisational behaviours (e.g., Zahra, Priem, & Rasheed, 2005).
Finally, I controlled for respondents’ trait Machiavellianism (amorality), which is their propensity to engage in amoral behaviours (Dahling, Whitaker, & Levy, 2009).
Compared to individuals low on this trait, individuals high on this trait were found to be more likely to make unethical decisions and engage in unethical behaviours (Dahling et al., 2009; Kish-Gephart, Harrison, & Treviño, 2010). Thus, individuals high on trait
Machiavellianism (amorality) may be more likely to engage in UPB because they are more inclined towards engaging in unethical behaviour in general, and not because they desire to promote their organisation. Five-items assessed this trait, and were rated on a
7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Sample items include ‘I would cheat if there was a low chance of getting caught’ and ‘I am willing to be unethical if I believe it will help me succeed’. Higher scores indicated respondents’ greater willingness to disregard standards of morality, especially if they could benefit from doing so. The five items were averaged to obtain an overall score of
Machiavellianism (amorality) (Cronbach’s α = .84).
3.2.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 1 are provided in Table 3.1. I conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the main variables in the study (i.e., binding and individualising foundations, organisational identification, and UPB) to verify the distinctiveness of each construct. I compared the four-factor and one-factor (i.e., all items combined into a latent factor) models, and found that the four- factor model fit the data significantly better than the one-factor model, ∆ 2 (6, N = 151)
69
Chapter 3 : Study 1
70 Chapter 3: Study 1
= 205.93, p < .01, indicating that the items tapped into four different underlying constructs.12
To test hypothesis 1, I first used the TwoStep cluster approach to group participants into clusters based on their moral foundation scores. This cluster approach first grouped respondents into pre-clusters based on the similarity of their moral foundation scores
(i.e., determined using a log-likelihood distance measure). Using a hierarchical clustering algorithm, these pre-clusters were then grouped into the final two clusters
(Norušis, 2012). Seventy participants fell into cluster 1 (46%) and 81 participants fell into cluster 2 (54%). Table 3.2 provides the means and standard deviations of the moral foundations that made up the two clusters.
T-tests revealed that respondents in cluster 2 scored significantly higher on all four moral foundations, compared to respondents in cluster 1 (for all analyses, p < .001). In both clusters, the scores on the individualising foundations were significantly higher than the binding foundations (cluster 1: t(69) = 5.47, p < .01; cluster 2: t(80) = 4.90, p
< .01; refer to Figure 3.7, p. 105, for a graphic depiction of similar clusters that were
12 Refer to Appendix C (Table 1) for the CFA results of the one-factor, two-factor, three-factor, and four- factor models. 71 Chapter 3: Study 1
attained from a larger data set). The clusters attained in this study, thus, differed from the clusters that Haidt et al. (2009) attained from their analysis. More specifically, Haidt et al. found two clusters, the first cluster had respondents high on individualising foundations and low on binding foundations, and the second cluster had participants with equal binding and individualising foundations, with the individualising foundations lower, and the binding foundations higher, than the first cluster (see Figure 2.3, p. 47, for a graph depiction of the clusters obtained by Haidt et al., 2009). In hypothesis 1, I referred to Haidt et al.’s clusters as the individualising principles cluster (cluster 1) and the binding principles cluster (cluster 2).
I conducted t-tests to explore the differences between the clusters attained in this study on the variables of interest in this study. The results revealed that respondents in cluster
2 scored significantly higher on organisational identification (t(149) = 4.14, p < .01) and were significantly more likely to engage in UPB by omission (t(149) = 1.99, p < .05).
These respondents were also significantly more likely (i.e., at p < .10) to engage in UPB and UPB by commission (t(149) = 1.97, p = .051 and t(149) = 1.77, p =.08, respectively). Compared to participants in cluster 1, cluster 2 participants also scored significantly lower (i.e., at p < .10) on the measure of Machiavellianism (amorality; t(149) = -1.70, p = .09).
While unable to test hypothesis 1 because the clusters attained in this study did not match the clusters assumed in the hypothesis based on Haidt and his colleagues’ (2009) research, I, nevertheless, conducted a regression analysis to better understand the relationship between these clusters, organisational identification, and UPB. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West. 1991). The control variables 72 Chapter 3: Study 1
were entered first, followed by the lower order predictors, and the two-way interaction term. The analysis revealed no significant interaction between the clusters and organisational identification on the engagement in UPB (β = .19, p = .48). Additional analyses with UPB by commission and UPB by omission as dependent variables also revealed no significant interactions (β = .13, p = .64 and β = .31, p = .35, respectively).
Hypothesis 2 states that binding foundations are more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when individualising foundations are low (compared to high), and organisational identification is high. Regression analysis was conducted to test the three-way interaction between the binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken
& West, 1991). The control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, two-way interaction terms, and finally the three-way interaction term. The first column in Table 3.3 displays the regression results with UPB as the dependent variable. The results revealed a significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p < .10) between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB (β = .56, p = .06).
Following Dawson and Richter’s (2006) recommendation for comparing pairs of slopes,
I plotted the three-way interaction effects to obtain a better understanding of the results.
I then conducted slope difference tests to examine whether the pairs of slopes differed significantly at high and low levels of the individualising foundations and organisational identification (Dawson & Richter, 2006; Table 3.4). Contrary to the relationship proposed in hypothesis 2, there was no significant interaction between the binding and individualising foundations on UPB, under high organisational identification (see lines
73
Chapter 3 : Study 1
74 Chapter 3: Study 1
1 and 3; Figure 3.1a). Hypothesis 2 was, thus, partly supported. Specifically, the hypothesis was supported in terms of the significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p
< .10), but it was not supported because the expected significant slope difference test was not found (i.e., lines 1 and 3). It was, however, promising that the specific combinations of moral foundations and organisational identification that produced the greatest and least engagement in UPB appear to be consistent with my theorising regarding the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and
UPB. For example, the greatest engagement in UPB occurred when the binding foundations were high, individualising foundations were low, and organisational identification was high (see Figure 3.1a).
75 Chapter 3: Study 1
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were also conducted to test the three-way interactions between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisation identification on UPB by commission and UPB by omission. The results of these analyses are displayed in Table 3.3 (columns 2 and 3, respectively). There was a significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p < .10) for UPB by commission (β = .55, p
= .08), but not for UPB by omission (β= .59, p = .11). I plotted the graph for the three- way interaction between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by commission. Similar to the main analysis using
UPB as the dependent variable, hypothesis 2 was initially supported in terms of the significant three-way interaction, but the expected significant slope difference test was not found (i.e., lines 1 and 3; Figure 3.2a, Table 3.5). Once again similar to the results from the main analysis, the specific combinations of predictor variables that were associated with the greatest and least engagement in UPB appear to be consistent with my earlier theorising.
76 Chapter 3: Study 1
77 Chapter 3: Study 2
3.3 Study 2
Study 1 was a preliminary examination of the relationships between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB. In Study 1, UPB was operationalised as respondents’ self-reported intentions to engage in unethical behaviours that benefitted their business school. In Study 2, I seek to extend Study 1 by examining the same relationships, but with participants’ actual engagement in UPB as the dependent variable. Ajzen’s (1985) theory of planned behaviour states that the greater individuals’ intentions to engage in a particular behaviour, the more likely they are to engage in that behaviour. As such, in Study 2, I seek to show that individuals do not merely hold intentions to engage in UPB, but they do engage in actual UPB. Study 2 tested hypotheses 1 and 2.
3.3.1 Method
Participants
One hundred and eighty six undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory management course offered at a university in Australia participated in this study in exchange for course credits. Three students did not complete the experiment and twenty-one students participated in a similar study that used several of the same measures; these 24 participants were excluded from analyses. In total, there were 162 participants (54% male and 46% female). Participants were on average 19 years of age
(SD = 2.2). The majority of the participants were Asian (approximately 72%), followed by White/Caucasian (approximately 21%). The cultures/countries that participants identified most strongly with were Australia (approximately 52%), followed by China
(approximately 18%), Hong Kong (approximately 6%), and Indonesia (approximately
4%). Within this sample, a large majority of the participants had work experience (75%), 78 Chapter 3: Study 2
and had worked for an average of 2.3 years (SD = 2.9). Sixty-five percent of the participants with work experience are currently employed and work an average of 12.4 hours per week (SD = 7.9).
Design and procedure
The study was conducted in a laboratory and participants were seated at separate cubicles. At the start of the study, participants were informed that the study investigated decision making in the workplace. The study was conducted using pen and paper.
Participants first completed the 24-item Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009). They were then placed in a hypothetical scenario, where they were provided with opportunities to engage in unethical behaviours that benefitted their business school (i.e., ASB). As part of the scenario, participants played the role of a student volunteer from ASB, who was asked to promote ASB to top scoring high school leavers, or prospective students of ASB. Participants were provided with details of their task via a formal letter from a hypothetical Director of the External Relations Office for the ASB,
John Arrold. The letter consisted of four paragraphs.
The first paragraph provided information about the role of the External Relations Office in attracting students to the ASB. In this paragraph, John Arrold highlighted the outstanding performance of the business school (e.g., one of Australia’s top business school), and stressed the importance of attracting top talent to the school. In the second paragraph, participants were provided with details about an upcoming information session, hosted by the ASB, for high school leavers from top schools around Australia.
In that paragraph, it was mentioned that representatives from competitor business schools will also be at the information session, and will seek to attract these students to 79 Chapter 3: Study 2
their schools. In the third paragraph, participants were provided with details of their task.
In brief, participants were asked to edit the promotional slides that will be used during the information session. Participants were informed that they were suited for this task as they had recently made the decision to study at the ASB, and, thus, understood what it meant to want to study in this school. In the final paragraph, participants were given instructions on how to perform their task. They were asked to first read some facts about the ASB, before proceeding to work on the promotional slides. Participants were also informed that a draft version of the slides had been created and that they were to revise these draft slides based on the facts provided.
After reading the letter, participants were provided with a fact sheet about the ASB.
These facts were taken from the actual business school’s website. Examples of facts include ‘In total, the ASB is host to 8 disciplinary schools and 10 research centres’ and
‘Commerce, Information Systems, and Actuarial Studies Co-op scholarship programs offer financial support for top scoring undergraduate students’. Participants were only permitted to start editing the draft slides after they have finished reading the fact sheet, but they were allowed to refer to the fact sheet as they edited the slides. Editing was done directly in the spaces provided on the slides. The slides contained misleading and exaggerated information that positively promoted the ASB (i.e., the dependent variable; see Table 3.6, column 2, for examples). Participants’ engagement in UPB was operationalised as the number of such information that was not changed or removed when they edited the slides. After the editing task (i.e., the UPB measure), participants completed a measure of organisational identification (i.e., with the business school as the organisation; Mael & Ashforth, 1992), university student life satisfaction and
Machiavellianism measures (i.e., control variables), and demographic items. 80 Chapter 3: Study 2
Measures
Independent variables
Moral foundations were measured using the same 24-item questionnaire (Graham et al.,
2009) used in Study 1. The care/harm and fairness/cheating items were averaged to attain a composite measure of the individualising foundations (Cronbach’s α = .70) and the loyalty/betrayal and authority/subversion items were averaged to attain a composite measure of the binding foundations (Cronbach’s α = .73).
Organisational identification (i.e., the business school as the organisation) was assessed with an adapted version of Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six-item measure. This measure was also used in Study 1. The items were averaged to obtain an overall identification score (Cronbach’s α = .84).
Dependent variable
Unethical pro-organisational behaviours (UPB) were operationalised as the total number of misleading and exaggerated facts that remained unedited in participants’ slides. Each misleading comment in the slides was an opportunity for UPB. In total, there were 14 UPB opportunities for participants, seven of which were more subtle forms of the behaviour and the remaining seven opportunities were more blatant. Subtle
UPB were operationalised as exaggerations of facts or half-truths and blatant UPB were operationalised as explicit lies about factual information. These blatant lies all involved numerical exaggerations, such as exaggerations about the rankings of particular programs and the number of staff/facilities in the ASB. Table 3.6 provides examples of each type of UPB (refer to column 3).
81 Chapter 3: Study 2
Control variables
I controlled for four variables that were not of direct interest in the study, but that could influence the independent and/or dependent variables of the current study. Similar to
Study 1, I controlled for participants’ age, university student life satisfaction (university satisfaction; Cronbach’s α = .88), and trait Machiavellianism (amorality) (Cronbach’s α
= .78).
Specific to this study, I also controlled for participants’ trait Machiavellianism (distrust of others) or participants’ propensity to distrust others (Dahling et al., 2009). Individuals high on this trait are cynical about the motivations of others and are wary that they may 82 Chapter 3: Study 2
fall prey to others’ manipulations (Dahling et al., 2009). Not only are these individuals distrustful of the intentions and actions of others, they also are vigilant against the potential for others’ actions to negatively impact them. As Study 2 was the only study which required participants to work at the request of another person on a task, I controlled for this variable to account for the possibility that some participants may not feel obliged to work on the task, and as a result may not have been involved in or exerted effort on this task, because of their distrust of others. This distrust is a potential explanation for why some participants made very few or minor changes on the slides.
Machiavellianism (distrust of others) was measured using Dahling and colleagues’
(2009) five-item measure. Items were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) and higher scores indicated that participants were more cynical and distrustful about the intentions of others. Sample items include, ‘People are only motivated by personal gain’ and ‘Other people are always planning ways to take advantage of the situation at my expense’. The five items were averaged to obtain an overall score for Machiavellianism (distrust of others) (Cronbach’s α = .68).
3.3.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 1 are provided in Table 3.7. To test hypothesis 1, I used the same procedure as that used in Study 1, and assigned cluster memberships to participants, by conducting a TwoStep cluster analysis using SPSS. Forty-two participants fell into cluster 1 (26%) and 120 participants fell into cluster 2 (74%).13 Table 3.8 provides the means and standard deviations of the moral foundations that make up the two clusters. T-tests revealed that
13 Note that in this study, I constrained the cluster analysis to derive two clusters, as the unconstrained analysis attained a three cluster outcome.
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Chapter 3: Study 2
84 Chapter 3: Study 2
participants in cluster 2 had significantly higher scores on all four moral foundations, compared to participants in cluster 1. The clusters attained in this study were similar to the clusters found in Study 1. That is, both clusters had higher individualising foundations scores and lower binding foundations scores (cluster 1: t(41) = 9.16, p < .01; cluster 2: t(119) = 7.21, p < .01), and cluster 2 had significantly higher scores across all foundations compared to cluster 1 (p < .05). These clusters, thus, differed from the clusters obtained by Haidt et al. (2009). To better understand the clusters, I conducted t- tests to explore the differences between clusters on variables of interest (e.g., UPB), and found that participants in cluster 2 identified with their organisation significantly more than those in cluster 1 (t(59.2) = 3.53, p < .01).
Similar to Study 1, hypothesis 1 could not be tested as the clusters attained in this study were different from those found by Haidt et al. (2009). I, nevertheless, conducted a regression analysis to better understand the relationship between these clusters, organisational identification, and UPB. All variables were centred for the analysis
(Aiken & West. 1991). The control variables were entered first, followed by the lower order predictors, and the two-way interaction term. The analysis revealed no significant interaction between the clusters and organisational identification on engagement in UPB
(β = .25, p = .80). Additional analyses with subtle UPB and blatant UPB as dependent 85 Chapter 3: Study 2
variables also revealed no significant interactions (β = .10, p = .81 and β = .16, p = .81, respectively).
To test hypothesis 2, a regression analysis was conducted to test the three-way interaction of binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West, 1991).
The control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, two-way interaction terms, and finally the three-way interaction term. The first column in Table
3.9 displays the regression results when UPB was the dependent variable. The results revealed a significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p < .10) for binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB (β = 1.71, p
= .09). I plotted the three-way interaction effect (Dawson & Richter, 2006; Figure 3.3) and conducted slope difference tests (Dawson & Richter, 2006; Table 3.10). Contrary to the relationship proposed in hypothesis 2, there was no significant interaction between binding and individualising foundations on UPB, when organisational identification was high (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 3.3a). Hypothesis 2 was, thus, partly supported; the hypothesis was supported in terms of the significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p
< .10), but it was not supported by slope difference tests (i.e., lines 1 and 3).
Unexpectedly, the slopes difference tests revealed that when the individualising foundations were high, the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when organisational identification was high, as opposed to low
(t(151) = 1.90, p = .06; see lines 1 and 2; Figure 3.3 and Table 3.10).
86
Chapter 3: Study 2
87 Chapter 3: Study 2
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were conducted to test the interactions between moral foundations and organisational identification on subtle UPB and blatant
UPB. The results are displayed in Table 3.9 (columns 2 and 3, respectively). There was a significant three-way interaction (i.e., at p < .10) for subtle UPB (β = .80, p = .052), but not for blatant UPB (β = .91, p = .17). I plotted the graph for the three-way interaction between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on subtle UPB.
88 Chapter 3: Study 2
Similar to the results found in the main analysis, I did not find the expected interaction between the binding and individualising foundations on subtle UPB, under high organisational identification (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 3.4a). Hypothesis 2 was, thus, partly supported. Consistent with the main analysis, when the individualising foundations were high, the binding foundations were more strongly associated with engagement in subtle UPB when organisational identification was high, as opposed to low ((t(151) = 1.96, p = .052); see lines 1 and 2; Figure 3.4, Table 3.11).
89 Chapter 3: Study 2
90 Chapter 3: Study 3a
3.4 Study 3a
Building on Studies 1 and 2, Study 3a examined the relationship between primed moral foundations and organisational identification (i.e., with the business school as the organisation) on the extent to which participants were willing to engage in UPB. By priming moral foundations, I was able to examine if foundations-consistent situations triggered associated moral foundations in individuals’ self-concepts and influenced their decisions. Experimentally manipulating the endorsement of moral foundations also allowed me to make stronger casual inferences regarding the influence of moral foundations on UPB. This study was designed to test hypothesis 3.
3.4.1 Method
Participants
One hundred and ninety one undergraduate students, enrolled in a core introductory management course offered at a university in Australia, participated in this study for course credit. I removed 18 participants from analyses because 17 students failed an attention check item and one student withdrew from the study for personal reasons. One hundred and seventy-three participants (41% male and 59% female) remained.
Participants were on average 19 years of age (SD = 1.6). The majority of the participants were Asian (approximately 76%), followed by White/Caucasian
(approximately 18%). The cultures/countries that participants identified most strongly with were Australia (approximately 49%), followed by China (approximately 21%),
Malaysia (approximately 5%), and Indonesia (approximately 4%). The majority of participants had work experience (approximately 82%) and had worked an average of
1.8 years (SD = 2.0). Sixty two percent of the participants are currently employed and work an average of 11.8 hours per week (SD = 8.8). 91 Chapter 3: Study 3a
Design and procedure
The study was conducted online and in a laboratory. Participants were seated at separate cubicles. Participants were informed that the study investigated decision making in the workplace. The study consisted of three parts. In the first part, participants were randomly assigned to two moral foundations conditions; namely individualising and binding. In each condition, participants were asked to think and write a few sentences about issues related to either the individualising or binding foundations. In the second part of the study, participants completed a measure of organisational identification (i.e., the business school as the organisation; Mael & Ashforth, 1992) and a measure that captured willingness to engage in UPB (Umphress et al., 2010). In the final part of the study, participants responded to the university satisfaction and Machiavellianism measures (i.e., control variables) and demographic items.
Moral Foundations manipulation. Participants were primed using an adapted version of the procedure used by Waytz et al. (2013) to prime loyalty and fairness foundations.
Specifically, I asked participants in each prime condition to write two short essays (i.e., a few sentences) about either the individualising or binding foundations. Participants in the individualising condition were asked to think and write about the times when they behaved in a caring manner and the times when they behaved in a fair manner.
Following that, participants were asked to write about why, to be a good person, it was more important to be caring and fair than to be loyal to one’s group and respectful of authority. Participants in the binding condition were asked to think and write about the times when they behaved in a loyal manner towards a group in which they belonged and the times when they behaved in a manner that was respectful to authority. Participants were, then, asked to write about why, to be a good person, it was more important to be 92 Chapter 3: Study 3a
loyal to their group and respectful to authority than to be caring and fair. All participants were given 5 minutes to answer each question, after which they automatically advanced to the next section of the study.
Measures
Independent variable
Organisational identification (i.e., the business school as the organisation) was assessed with the same six-item measure used in Studies 1 and 2 (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). The items were averaged to obtain an overall organisational identification score (Cronbach’s
α = .80).
Dependent variables
Unethical pro-organisation decisions and behaviours (UPB) were measured using the same adapted six-item measure (Umphress et al., 2010) that was used in Study 1. The items were averaged to obtain an overall UPB score (Cronbach’s α = .78). I also created the UPB by commission and UPB by omission subscales (Cronbach’s α = .67 and
Spearman-Brown coefficient = .55, respectively).
Control variables
I controlled for the same four variables as Study 1, and the same rationale provided in
Study 1 applies to Study 3a (see Table 3.12 for these variables).
3.4.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 3a are provided in Table 3.12. 93 Chapter 3: Study 3a
Hypothesis 3 states that participants who endorse the binding foundations (via priming of the foundations), as compared to the individualising foundations, will be more likely to engage in UPB, but only when organisational identification is high. To test this relationship, a regression analysis was conducted to examine the two-way interaction between the moral foundations prime and organisational identification on UPB. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West, 1991). Control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, and finally the two way interaction term. The first column in Table 3.13 shows the regression results when UPB was the dependent variable. The results revealed a non-significant two-way interaction on UPB
(β =.17, p = .41); thus, the hypothesis was not supported when the dependent variable was UPB.
94 Chapter 3: Study 3a
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were conducted to test the two-way interactions between the moral foundations prime and organisational identification on
UPB by commission and UPB by omission. As can be seen from Table 3.13 (column 2 and 3, respectively), there was a significant interaction for UPB by omission (β =.51, p
≤ .05), but not for UPB by commission (β = -.02, p = .92). I plotted the graph for the interaction between moral foundations prime and organisational identification on UPB by omission (Figure 3.5). Figure 3.5 shows that participants primed with the binding foundations were more likely to engage in UPB, compared to individuals primed with the individualising foundations, but only when organisational identification was high. I probed this interaction by testing the significance of simple slopes, using the procedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991). Simple slopes analysis revealed that when organisational identification was high, participants primed with the binding foundations 95 Chapter 3: Study 3a
were more likely to engage in UPB by omission compared to participants primed with the individualising foundations (t(167) = 2.21, p < .05). In contrast, when organisational identification was low, primed moral foundations did not predict the engagement in
UPB by omission (t(167) = -.69, p = .50). Thus, hypothesis 3 was supported when the dependent variable was UPB by omission.
96 Chapter 3: Study 3b
3.5 Study 3b14
Study 3b tested the same hypothesis as Study 3a (i.e., hypothesis 3), but extended Study
3a by operationalising UPB as participants’ evaluation of a colleague’s UPB, rather than participants’ self-reported intentions to engage in UPB (i.e., as operationalised in Study
3a). In my previous studies that examined respondents’ intentions to engage in UPB
(i.e., Studies 1 and 3a) I found that engaging in UPB was a low base rate phenomenon.
In fact, participants in Study 3a were slightly unwilling to engage in UPB (the average score for willingness to engage in UPB was 3.45 out of 7). However, despite UPB being a low base rate phenomenon, in Study 3a I found the hypothesised two-way interaction when the dependent variable was UPB by omission. This finding suggests that the relationship between endorsed moral foundations, organisational identification, and
UPB exists, but only when the UPB are less effortful, whereby participants’ could benefit their organisations through their inaction. I examine this possibility in Study 3b by operationalising UPB as participants’ evaluation of another’s engagement in UPB.
The positive evaluation of another person’s engagement in UPB is an unethical act of omission, as participants’ could benefit their organisations simply by ‘accepting’ (and not preventing) the unethical actions of another person. Thus, it is also possible that participants will be more willing to engage in this form of UPB. This study conceptually replicates (Schmidt, 2009) Study 3a, by using a different study design and dependent variable to confirm the validity of my prediction.
14 Study 3b was funded by the ASB Lab Small Project Grant. 97 Chapter 3: Study 3b
3.5.1 Method
Participants
One hundred and thirty nine students participated in this study. I removed 16 participants from the analyses because 15 students failed the attention check item and one student did not complete the study. One hundred and twenty-three participants (61% male; 39% female) remained. Participants were recruited from an experimental laboratory subject pool (i.e., the same subject pool used to recruit respondents for Study
1), and were compensated AUD15 for their time. Participants were on average 21.3 years of age (SD = 3.9). The majority of the participants were Asian (approximately
83%), followed by White/Caucasian (approximately 14%). The cultures/countries that participants identified most strongly with were China (approximately 33%), followed by
Australia (approximately 30%), Malaysia (approximately 8%), and Singapore
(approximately 7%). Participants came from a range of faculties, with around 59% from the business school and the remaining 41% from other faculties (e.g., medicine, law, and psychology). The majority of participants had work experience (78%) and had worked an average of 1.7 years (SD = 2.5). Forty-one percent of the participants are currently employed and work an average of 9.2 hours per week (SD = 6.2).
Design and procedure
This study consisted of the same three parts as Study 3a. In the first part, participants were randomly assigned to one of the two moral foundations prime condition
(individualising and binding). The priming procedures used in Study 3a were also used in this study. In part two, participants were asked to play the role of a university student who is attending his/her university’s Annual Networking Party together with a colleague (Jamie). In this role, participants were provided with several short scenarios, 98 Chapter 3: Study 3b
and in each scenario, participants evaluated their colleague’s engagement in UPB.
Subsequently, participants completed a measure of organisational identification (i.e., with the university as the organisation; Mael & Ashforth, 1992). In the final part of this study, participants completed university student life satisfaction and Machiavellianism measures (i.e., control variables), as well as demographic items.
Measures
Independent variable
Organisational identification (i.e., the university as the organisation) was assessed with an adapted version of Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six-item measure. This measure is similar to the one used in Studies 1, 2, and 3a, the only difference is that the target of identification in this measure was my university, as opposed to my business school
(Studies 1, 2, and 3a). For example, a sample item includes ‘I am interested in what others think about my university’. This slight modification was made to increase the relevance of the items to these university students and to make the items more specific to the current context. The six items were averaged to obtain an overall organisational identification score (Cronbach’s α = .80).
Dependent variable
Evaluation of other’s unethical pro-organisation behaviours (other UPB) was measured by adapting the six-item measure by Umphress et al. (2010), which I used in Studies 1 and 3a. Participants were asked to imagine that they, and a fellow student (Jamie), were at their university’s Annual Networking Party. They were informed that this party was aimed at marketing the university to prospective students. Participants were presented with six short scenarios each depicting an instance when Jamie engaged in UPB during 99 Chapter 3: Study 3b
the party. These six scenarios were based on Umphress et al.’s (2010) six items in their
UPB measure. Specifically, instead of capturing participants own willingness to engage in UPB (Umphress et al., 2010), my scenarios described another person’s (i.e., Jamie’s) engagement in UPB. By way of examples, Table 3.14 gives two examples of adaptations made to Umphress and her colleague’s UPB items, the first example describes another person’s engagement in UPB by commission and the second example describes another person’s engagement in UPB by omission.
For each of the six scenarios depicting Jamie’s engagement in UPB, participants indicated on four six-point bipolar scales the extent to which they thought the behaviour was 1) not at all immoral/extremely immoral (reverse scored), 2) not at all appropriate/completely appropriate, 3) not at all ethical/completely ethical, and 4) not at all wrong/ extremely wrong (reverse scored). For each scenario, the scores on the four scales were averaged to obtain an evaluation of other’s UPB score for that scenario. I averaged the scores from the six scenarios to obtain an overall UPB score (Cronbach’s α
= .65). Higher scores indicated more positive evaluation of Jamie’s engagement in UPB. 100 Chapter 3: Study 3b
I created the four-item evaluation of another’s UPB by commission and the two-item evaluation of another’s UPB by omission subscales (Cronbach’s α = .52 and Spearman-
Brown coefficient = .56, respectively).
Control variables
The same control variables used in Study 3a were used in this study and the same rationales for using those controls in Study 3a applies to this study. In brief, I controlled for participants’ age, university satisfaction (Cronbach’s α = .90), university tenure, and trait Machiavellianism (amorality) (Cronbach’s α = .80).
3.5.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 3b are provided in Table 3.15.
101 Chapter 3: Study 3b
Table 3.16 shows the results of the interactions between primed moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB, UPB by commission, and UPB by omission
(columns 1, 2, and 3, respectively). I conducted regression analyses to test these interactions. All variables were centred for all analyses (Aiken & West, 1991). For each analysis, control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, and finally the two way interaction term. The results revealed that there were no significant two-way interactions on UPB (β =-.06, p = .64), UPB by commission (β =-.11, p = .41), and UPB by omission (β =.04, p = .84).
However, the results revealed significant main effects for moral foundations prime on participants’ evaluation of another person’s engagement in UPB (β =.21, p < .05) and
UPB by omission (β =.04, p < .05). Participants primed with the binding foundations 102 Chapter 3: Study 3b
more positively evaluated another person’s UPB and UPB by omission (M = 3.14, SD
= .54 and M = 3.36, SD = .84, respectively). On the other hand, when primed with the individualising prime, participants more negatively evaluated the other person’s UPB and UPB by omission (M = 2.90, SD = .60 and M = 3.00, SD = .82, respectively).
103 Chapter 3: Discussion
3.6 Discussion
Studies 1, 2, 3a, and 3b were preliminary investigations that tested the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB. Of note, in these studies I captured participants’ self-reported intentions to engage in UPB (Studies 1 and
3a), actual engagement in UPB (Study 2), and evaluation of another’s engagement in
UPB (Study 3b). In what follows, I briefly discuss the results obtained from: 1) the person-centred clustering analyses (i.e., Studies 1 and 2; hypothesis 1); 2) the three-way interactive foundations analyses (i.e., Studies 1 and 2; hypothesis 2), and; 3) the two studies that primed moral foundations (i.e., Studies 3a and b; hypothesis 3).
In relation to the results of the cluster analyses, I found that the clusters from my studies differed from the clusters obtained in Haidt et al.’s (2009) study. Implicit in hypothesis
1 is the assumption that I would attain the same clusters as Haidt and his colleagues. As such, these clusters could not be used to test my theoretical rationale for hypothesis 1.
However, I did conduct post hoc analyses using these clusters to test hypothesis 1 even though they did not truly test my rationale behind hypothesis 1 or the proposed relationship between moral foundations clusters, organisational identification, and UPB.
Based upon this, there is the need to understand why the clusters found in my current studies differed to those found in Haidt and his colleagues’ study.
Haidt and his colleagues (2009) used the TwoStep cluster approach to assign participants into cluster memberships based on their scores on five moral foundations. I used the same procedure, but excluded the sanctity/purity foundation. This foundation was excluded from my theorising and empirical investigations because it was not relevant in the context of my research question (refer to Chapter 2, p. 20, for my 104 Chapter 3: Discussion
explanation as to why the sanctity/purity foundation was excluded). Accordingly, my participants in Studies 1 and 2 were assigned cluster memberships based on their pattern of scores on four foundations only. The exclusion of the sanctity/purity foundation may have accounted for the differences between the clusters attained in my studies and Haidt et al.’s study.
First, to further examine the clusters attained when only four moral foundations are included in the analysis, I conducted a post hoc cluster analysis using a larger sample of moral foundations data. My dataset included data that I had previously collected for unrelated studies, as well as data that I had collected for this purpose, by including the moral foundations questionnaire at the end of several unrelated studies. In all, I collected moral foundations data from around 1000 students from a university in
Australia (N = 975). Respondents were on average 19 years of age (SD = 2.4) and 48% were male. The majority of respondents were Asian (approximately 70%), followed by
White/Caucasian (approximately 20%). I conducted a TwoStep cluster analysis, which assigned respondents into two clusters (Table 3.17, Figure 3.7). The clusters were similar to those attained in Studies 1 and 2. That is, both clusters had higher individualising foundations scores and lower binding foundations scores (cluster 1: t(480) = 21.39, p < .001; cluster 2: t(493) = 14.84, p < .001), and cluster 2 respondents scored significantly higher across all foundations than cluster 1 participants (p < .001).
Given the consistent finding (i.e., from Studies 1, 2, and this post hoc survey) that cluster 2 respondents scored higher across all four foundations compared to cluster 1 respondents, I posit that in my studies and surveys, respondents may have been assigned cluster memberships based on the importance of the four moral foundations to their self- 105 Chapter 3: Discussion
concepts. Aquino and Reed (2002) found that individuals differed with regards to the extent to which they considered morality to be central to their sense of self (i.e., the importance of their moral identity). In relation to the findings from my cluster analyses, respondents in cluster 2 (with higher scores across all four foundations) may consider moral foundations to be more important to their self-concepts, as compared to respondents in cluster 1. Respondents in cluster 1 may consider other identities (e.g., gender) to be more important to their self-concepts. These clusters are, in fact, similar to
Haidt and his colleagues’ (2009) description of cluster outcomes for libertarians and the religious left. The former described as having their ‘moral volume turned down across 106 Chapter 3: Discussion
the board’ (p. 114), as these individuals scored low across all foundations (similar to my cluster 1 respondents). The latter described as having their moral volume turned up and as recognising the need to uphold their duties to each other (e.g., care) and to their groups (e.g., loyalty). Individuals belonging to the religious left scored high across all moral foundations (similar to my cluster 2 respondents). In Studies 4 and 5 (Chapter 4),
I examine whether these same clusters will be attained when worker samples respond to the moral foundations questionnaire and, in Chapter 7 (i.e., general discussion), I discuss the implications of these findings.
Second, in relation to the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB, in Studies 1 and 2, I found significant three-way interactions
(i.e., at p < .10) between the binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB. However, for both studies, the results of the slope difference tests did not support hypothesis 2; this hypothesis was, thus, partially supported. There were interesting results from both studies. In Study 1, the specific combinations of moral foundations and organisational identification associated with the greatest and least engagement in UPB appear to be as theorised (e.g., greatest engagement in UPB when binding foundations were high, individualising foundations were low, and organisational identification was high). Further, in Study 2, slope differences tests showed that the direction of the slopes were not consistent with my theorising, and that the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when both individualising foundations and organisational identification were high. I provide interpretations of these findings in Chapter 7 (i.e., in the general discussion).
107 Chapter 3: Discussion
Finally, Studies 3a and b showed that when individuals were primed with particular moral foundations, their engagement in UPB are influenced. In Study 3a, participants primed with the binding foundations, as opposed to the individualising foundations, were more likely to engage in UPB by omission when organisational identification was high. Hypothesis 2 was thus supported. Furthermore, Study 3b showed that participants primed with the binding foundations were more likely to positively evaluate another person’s engagement in UPB and UPB by omission, as opposed to participants primed with the individualising foundations. The interactive relationship between moral foundations prime and organisational identification on evaluation of another person’s
UPB was, however, not found in Study 3b. It may be the case that participants in Study
3b who were primed with the binding foundations focused on benefitting their in-group colleague (e.g., primed to think about loyalty to the group that they belonged to) and evaluated this colleague’s unethical behaviours less negatively. As such, participants’ primed with the binding foundations may have sought to promote their colleague rather than their university, and identification with their university had less of an influence on participants’ evaluation of their colleague’s UPB (i.e., the operationalisation of UPB in
Study 3b).
In summary, the findings from Studies 1, 2, 3a, and 3b provide some evidence that moral foundations and organisational identification were associated with one’s engagement in UPB. Further, Studies 1 and 3a both tentatively supported hypothesised relationships between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB. While
Studies 2 and 3b did not support hypotheses 2 and 3, it is possible that certain methodological issues in these studies were responsible for the results (as will be discussed in Chapter 7). These methodological issues involved considerations related to 108 Chapter 3: Discussion
the scenarios that I developed for these studies. I argue that the theory behind my hypotheses is sound and thus, further research was conducted to confirm the validity of the proposed relationships. Additionally, while the results of Studies 1 and 3a are promising, these studies were, however, conducted using student samples, which beg the question of whether the findings generalise to the working population. This is an important question because students and workers differ in regards to their experiences with UPB and the nature of their identification with their universities and organisations, respectively. For instance, workers, regardless of occupational type or position, are expected to help their organisations to succeed and profit; these are not expectations of university students. Rather, students are expected to attend classes and complete assignments. As a result of such expectations, workers may encounter situations where they have to decide whether or not to engage in UPB more often, compared to students.
For these reasons, the nature of the bond that workers have with their organisations may also be different from that of students with their universities. For example, workers’ identification with their organisations are experienced as the belongingness they feel towards their organisations, and is contingent on factors, such as the perception of a shared fate (van Kippenberg & Sleebos, 2006). In contrast, students’ identification with their universities will not be contingent on such a factor, and may be based on other considerations, such as the belief that their university degree will get them a good job
(e.g., Voelkl, 1996). Accordingly, in the next chapter (Chapter 4), I test the proposed relationships between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB in two studies using worker samples. These studies used a cross-sectional and a two-wave design, respectively, the latter of which addresses several potential common method issues.
109 Chapter 4: Moral Foundations, Organisational Identification, and UPB
Chapter 4
Studies 4 and 5: Relationships between Moral Foundations, Organisational Identification, and UPB
4.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I report the methods and results of two studies that examined the relationship between moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB using full-time worker samples from the United States. These studies used different samples and methodologies to test hypotheses 1 and 2. These studies also determined whether the same pattern of clusters found in previous studies and the survey conducted using a large student sample (N = 975) will be found with worker samples. Study 4 was conducted using a cross-sectional sample of workers. To address the potential influence of several common method biases (e.g., measurement context effects) in Study 4, Study
5 was conducted to assess the same predictions using a sample of workers surveyed at two points in time (i.e., a two-wave design; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff,
2003). The materials for these studies can be found in Appendix B. 110 Chapter 4: Study 4
4.2 Study 4
In Study 4, I tested the influence of moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB, using a sample of working individuals. The outcome variable of this study was respondents’ self-reported willingness to engage in UPB. This study extends Study 1 by testing if the relationships between moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB generalises to 1) a worker sample and 2) a sample of respondents from a different country (i.e., the United States). In addition, to ensure that I would obtain promising results regarding the proposed relationships in a worker sample from the
United States prior to designing and implementing the more time consuming and cost intensive two-wave survey (i.e., Study 5), I conducted this cross-sectional survey first.
4.2.1 Method
Respondents
Five hundred and eleven15 full-time employees from the United States were recruited to complete a web-based survey.16 The data of twenty-six respondents were removed from the analyses as these individuals failed attention check items. The final sample consisted of 485 respondents (56% male; 44% female). The majority of the respondents were
White/Caucasian (82.1%), Asian American/Asian (8.5%), and Hispanic/Latino/Latina
(5.8%). Respondents on average were 34.5 years old (SD = 10.2), worked an average of
43 hours per week (SD = 7.2), and had an average organisational tenure of approximately 5.4 years (SD = 4.7). The most common industries in which the
15 The large number of respondents in this study was due to my inexperience with using Mturk, and as a result, this survey was made available to a larger than required sample. However, the data from this large sample is useful because, with this data, I can account for the difficulty in detecting three-way interactions in field studies. This difficulty may be attributed to several facts, one of which is the reduction of residual variance after component main effects have been partialed out (see McClelland & Judd, 1993). 16 A full-time employee is defined as a person who works 35 hours or more per week. This is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (United States Department of Labor, 2014) definition of full-time work in the United States. 111 Chapter 4: Study 4
respondents worked were professional, scientific, or technical services (12.2%), health care or social assistance (10.5%), and educational services (10.3%). The most common occupational categories the respondents were employed in were computer or mathematical (11.3%), office or administrative support (10.1%), and education, training, or library (10.1%). Managerial/supervisory positions were held by around 39 percent of the respondents and about 85 percent currently work with an immediate supervisor.
Respondents were recruited from Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), a web- based crowd-sourcing system. Upon survey completion, respondents received US$1 as compensation. Previous studies conducted using MTurk have reported that data collection using MTurk is a method through which high quality data can be attained
(see Buhrmester, Kwang, & Gosling, 2011).
Design and procedure
Respondents completed the Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009), a measure of organisational identification (Mael & Ashforth, 1992), and a measure of
UPB (Umphress et al., 2010). Six counterbalancing conditions were implemented to reduce order effects. Conditions were randomly assigned to respondents and unrelated filler items were included after the UPB measure. In the final section of the survey, all respondents were given the job satisfaction measure and demographic questions.
Measures
Predictor variables
Moral foundations were measured using the same 24-item questionnaire (Graham et al.,
2009) used in Studies 1 and 2. A composite measure of the individualising foundations
(Cronbach’s α = .77) and the binding foundations (Cronbach’s α = .84) were attained. 112 Chapter 4: Study 4
Organisational identification was assessed with Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six-item measure (Cronbach’s α = .90). This measure is similar to the one used in Studies 1, 2,
3a, and 3b, the only difference is that the target of identification in this measure was my organization, as opposed to my business school (Studies 1, 2, and 3a) or my university
(Study 3b). Sample items include ‘I am interested in what others think about my organization’ and ‘My organization’s successes are my successes’.
Dependent variables
Unethical pro-organisational decisions and behaviours (UPB) were measured using the six-item measure developed by Umphress and colleagues (2010). Unlike Studies 1 and
3a, no changes were made to the original measure. That is, in this study, the items were not tailored to fit a particular context (i.e., business school or university) and the severity of UPB was not lessened. The items were averaged to obtain an overall UPB score (Cronbach’s α = .89). Additionally, I obtained the four-item UPB by commission and the two-item UPB by omission scores (Cronbach’s α = .84 and Spearman-Brown coefficient = .69, respectively). Additional analyses were conducted using UPB by commission and UPB by omission as dependent variables.
Control variables
I included four control variables that are theoretically associated with the engagement of
UPB and/or organisational identification, but were not of direct interest in this study.
Firstly, I controlled for three common demographic characteristics that have been found to be associated with unethical behaviours and/or organisational identification. These variables were age (in years), managerial/supervisory position (0 = Non-managerial 113 Chapter 4: Study 4
position, 1 = Managerial position), and organisational tenure (in years). These demographic items were measured by respondents’ self-reports. Age and organisational tenure were controlled for in Studies 1, 3a, and 3b, and the same rationale that I provided for including these control variables in those studies applies to this study. I controlled for managerial/supervisor position as holding a managerial/supervisory position has been found to have a negative influence on the engagement in unethical behaviours. For instance, individuals in managerial/supervisory positions were less likely to take revenge on blameworthy offenders (Aquino, Tripp, & Bies, 2001).
Job satisfaction was controlled for as organisational members who evaluate their jobs more positively may be more likely to engage in UPB, behaviours that benefit their own jobs or organisations (Umphress et al., 2010 controlled for this variable in their study).
Job satisfaction was measured using Edwards and Rothbard (1999) three-item measure.
Items were rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction. The three items were ‘My job is very enjoyable’, ‘All in all, the job I have is great and ‘In general, I am satisfied with my job’. I averaged the items to obtain a composite job satisfaction score (Cronbach’s α
= .96).
4.2.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 4 are in Table
4.1. For this study, I conducted a CFA to verify that the items measuring the binding foundations, individualising foundations, organisational identification and UPB did not tap into the same underlying construct. Results revealed that the four-factor model fit
114
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115 Chapter 4: Study 4
the data significantly better than the one-factor model, ∆ 2 (6, N = 485) = 377.56, p
< .01, and support the expected model of four distinct latent factors.17
Hypothesis 1 states that respondents in the binding principles cluster will be more likely to engage in UPB, as compared to respondents in the individualising principles cluster, but only when organisational identification is high. To test this hypothesis, I first ran a
TwoStep cluster analysis to assign cluster membership to respondents based on their moral foundations scores. Two hundred and thirty-five respondents fell into cluster 1
(48%) and 250 respondents fell into cluster 2 (52%).18 Table 4.2 provides the means and standard deviations of each of the four moral foundations that make up the two clusters.
T-tests revealed that respondents in cluster 2 scored significantly higher on all four moral foundations, compared to respondents in cluster 1 (for all analyses, p < .001). As with Studies 1 and 2 and the survey conducted using 975 students from a university in
Australia, the clusters I attained in this study differed from the clusters that Haidt et al.
(2009) attained in their analysis. Specifically, in both clusters the scores on the individualising foundations were higher than the binding foundations (cluster 1: t(234)
17 Refer to Appendix C (Table 2) for the CFA results of the one-factor, two-factor, three-factor, and four- factor models 18 Note that in this study, I constrained the cluster analysis to derive two clusters, as the unconstrained analysis attained a four cluster outcome. 116 Chapter 4: Study 4
= 17.66, p < .001; cluster 2: t(249) = 8.57, p < .001) and respondents in cluster 2 had higher scores across all four foundations, compared to respondents in cluster 1.
As with Studies 1 and 2, I conducted t-tests to explore differences between the clusters on the variables of interest in this study (e.g., organisational identification). The results revealed that respondents in cluster 2 scored significantly higher on organisational identification (t(458.9) = 6.56, p < .01) and were significantly more satisfied with their job (t(461.5) = 5.79, p < .01). These respondents were also found to have longer tenure with their current organisation (t(463.4) = 2.75, p < .01).
Hypothesis 1 could not be accurately tested in this study, as the clusters attained differed from the clusters that were assumed in hypothesis 1. Regardless, I conducted a regression analysis to examine the two-way interaction between clusters and organisational identification on UPB in the hope of obtaining further understanding on the relationship proposed. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West.
1991). The control variables were entered first, followed by the lower order predictors, and the two-way interaction term. As can be seen in Table 4.3, the interaction between clusters and organisational identification on UPB was significant (i.e., at p < .10; β = -
.25, p = .052). Following Dawson and Richter’s (2006) recommendation, I plotted this two-way interaction. As can be seen from Figure 4.1a, the pattern of results suggests that organisational identification more strongly influenced UPB when respondents were from cluster 1, as opposed to cluster 2. Respondents in cluster 1 were more willing to engage in UPB when organisational identification was high and less willing to do so when organisational identification was low, t(477) = 3.12, p < .01. Conversely, for 117 Chapter 4: Study 4
respondents in cluster 2, there was no significant difference in their UPB when organisational identification was high and low, t(477) = .45, p =.66.
118 Chapter 4: Study 4
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were also conducted to examine the relationships between clusters and organisational identification on UPB by commission and UPB by omission. The second and third columns in Table 4.3 show the results of these analyses, respectively. The interaction between clusters and organisational identification was a significant predictor of engagement in UPB by commission (β = -
.28, p < .05), but not UPB by omission (β = -.20, p = .15). I plotted the two-way interaction for UPB by commission only. The graph showed that respondents in cluster
1 were more willing to engage in UPB by commission when organisational identification was high, and less willing when organisational identification was low, t(477) = 3.56, p < .001. In contrast, respondents in cluster 2 were no more willing to engage in UPB by commission when their organisational identification was high than when it was low, t(477) = .68, p =.50 (refer to Figure 4.1b). Once again, the results suggested that organisational identification influenced the engagement in UPB by commission of respondents from cluster 1, but not cluster 2.
Hypothesis 2 states that binding foundations are more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when the individualising foundations are low, as opposed to high, but only when organisational identification is high. A regression analysis was conducted to test hypothesis 2. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West, 1991).
The control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, two-way interaction terms, and the three-way interaction term. The first column in Table 4.4 displays the regression results when UPB is the dependent variable. The results revealed a significant three-way interaction between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB (β = -.20, p < .05). To explore the interaction, I plotted the three-way interaction graph and conducted slope difference
119
| Chapter 4 : Study: 4
120 Chapter 4: Study 4
tests (Dawson & Richter, 2006; Figure 4.2). As seen in Figure 4.2a, when respondents identified with their organisations, the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when individualising foundations were low, as compared to high. The difference between these two slopes was significant at p < .10, t(474) = -1.94, p =.053 (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 4.2a; Table 4.5). There was no significant interaction between the binding and individualising foundations under low organisational identification (t(474) = .79, p =.43; see lines 2 and 4). Together the significant three-way interaction and slopes difference tests provided support for hypothesis 2.
121 Chapter 4: Study 4
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were also conducted to test the three-way interaction of binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB by commission and UPB by omission. The results of these analyses are displayed in columns 2 and 3 of Table 4.4, respectively. The results show that there was a significant three-way interaction for UPB by commission and UPB by omission (i.e., β = -.20, p ≤ .05 and β = -.19, p = .07, respectively). I plotted the three- way interaction and conducted slope difference tests for both interactions. For UPB by commission and omission, the patterns of slopes were similar to the pattern in the main analysis. For UPB by commission, slope difference tests showed that the binding foundations were significantly associated with UPB by commission (i.e., at p ≤ .10) when individualising foundations were low, compared to high, only when organisational identification was high, t(474) = -1.64, p =.10 (see lines 1 and 3; Figure
4.3a, Table 4.6). There was no significant interaction between the binding and individualising foundations, under low organisational identification (t(473) = 1.12, p
=.26; see lines 2 and 4; Figure 4.3b). Slope difference tests for UPB by omission revealed that when organisational identification was high, the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB by omission when individualising foundations were low, as compared to high, t(474) = -2.28, p <.05 (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 4.4a, Table 4.6). Once again, there was no significant interaction between the binding and individualising foundations, under low organisational identification (t(474) = .05, p =.96; see lines 2 and 4; Figure 4.4b).
122 Chapter 4: Study 4
123 Chapter 4: Study 4
124 Chapter 4: Study 5
4.3 Study 5
Study 5 used the same measures and tested the same hypotheses as Study 4. However, it extends Study 4 by including two waves of data collection. The advantage of this design is that several common method biases, such as measurement context effects, are reduced
(Podsakoff et al., 2003).
4.3.1 Method
Respondents
Respondents were full-time workers from the United States who each worked for a single organisation. They were recruited from MTurk, and only the data from respondents who completed both surveys, in this two wave survey, were included in the analyses. In the first-wave (T1), there were 205 respondents, and of those respondents,
144 completed the T2 survey. This resulted in a response rate of 70.2 percent.
Out of the 144 respondents, the data of seven respondents were removed from the analyses as these individuals failed attention check items. The final sample consisted of
137 respondents (67% male; 33% female). The majority of the respondents were
White/Caucasian (73.7%), Asian American/Asian (13.8%), and Hispanic/Latino/Latina
(6.6%). Respondents on average were 35.1 years old (SD = 10.3), worked an average of
42.2 hours per week (SD = 5.4), and had an average organisational tenure of approximately 5.3 years (SD = 4.8). The most common industries in which respondents worked were professional, scientific, or technical services (16.8%), health care or social assistance (13.9%), and retail trade (11.7%). The most common occupational categories the respondents were employed in were sales and service (27.7%), business, finance, and administration (11.7%), and manufacturing and utilities (9.5%). 125 Chapter 4: Study 5
Managerial/supervisory positions were held by around 49 percent of the respondents and about 90 percent currently work with an immediate supervisor. The demographics of the respondents in Studies 4 and 5 are similar.
Design and procedure
In the first-wave (T1) survey, respondents completed the Moral Foundations
Questionnaire (Graham et al., 2009) and a measure of organisational identification
(Mael & Ashforth, 1992). At the end of the T1 survey, respondents were given the option to provide their email addresses, so as to receive an email reminder when the second-wave (T2) survey was available on MTurk. Respondents who did not provide their email addresses, were given the name of the T2 survey and the keywords that they could use to search for this survey (i.e., when the T2 survey was available). All respondents who completed the T1 survey were assigned a unique qualification on
MTurk that allowed them to view and access the T2 survey. Three weeks later, the second-wave survey was conducted. In this survey, respondents completed the measure of UPB (Umphress et al., 2010), a job satisfaction measure (Edwards & Rothbard,
1999), and demographic questions. Respondents received US$2 in compensation for completing both surveys, and individuals who only completed the T1 survey received
US$0.50.
Measures
Predictor variables (T1)
Moral foundations were measured using Graham et al.’s (2009) 24-item questionnaire.
Composite measures of the individualising foundations (Cronbach’s α = .73) and binding foundations (Cronbach’s α = .87) were attained. 126 Chapter 4: Study 5
Organisational identification was assessed with Mael and Ashforth’s (1992) six-item measure (Cronbach’s α = .89).
Dependent variable (T2)
Unethical pro-organisational behaviour (UPB) was measured using Umphress and colleagues’ (2010) six-item measure (Cronbach’s α = .89). The four-item UPB by commission and the two-item UPB by omission scores (Cronbach’s α = .84 and
Spearman-Brown coefficient = .62, respectively) were attained.
Control variables (T2)
The same control variables used in Study 4 were used in this study. Specifically, I controlled for age (in years), managerial/supervisory position (0 = Non-managerial, 1 =
Managerial), organisational tenure (in years), and job satisfaction (Cronbach’s α = .95).
4.3.2 Results
The means, standard deviations, and correlations of all variables in Study 5 are in Table
4.8. As with previous studies, I conducted a CFA to verify that the items measuring the binding foundations, individualising foundations, organisational identification and UPB did not tap into the same underlying construct. Results revealed that the four-factor model fit the data significantly better than the one-factor model, ∆ 2 (6, N = 137) =
96.57 , p < .01.19
19 Refer to Appendix C (Table 3) for the CFA results of the one-factor, two-factor, three-factor, and four- factor models. 127 Chapter 4: Study 5
To test hypothesis 1, I first ran a TwoStep cluster analysis to assign respondents cluster memberships based on their moral foundations scores. Sixty-one respondents fell into cluster 1 (44.5%) and 76 respondents fell into cluster 2 (55.5%).20 Table 4.7 provides the means and standard deviations of each moral foundation from the two clusters.
Similar to the results from previous studies, t-tests revealed that respondents in cluster 2, compared to cluster 1, scored significantly higher on all four moral foundations (for all analyses p < .001). In both clusters, the individualising foundations scores were higher than the binding foundations (cluster 1: t(60) = 9.64, p < .001; cluster 2: t(75) = 7.77, p
< .001). Once again, these clusters differed from the clusters that Haidt and his colleagues (2009) found in their study. I conducted t-tests to better understand cluster differences. The results revealed that respondents from cluster 2 identified more strongly with their organisation (t(109.9) = 6.13, p < .01), were more satisfied with their job (t(135) = 2.98, p < .01), and were more likely to hold managerial positions (t(135) =
2.02, p < .05). These respondents were also more likely to engage in UPB and UPB by commission (t(135) = 1.88, p = .06 and t(135) = 1.91, p = .06, respectively), where these analyses were significant (i.e., at p < .10).
20 Note that in this study, I constrained the cluster analysis to derive two clusters, as the unconstrained analysis attained a four cluster outcome.
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Chapter 4 : Study 5
129 Chapter 4: Study 5
I conducted regression analyses to test the two-way interaction between clusters and organisational identification on UPB, UPB by commission, and UPB by omission
(Table 4.9). In all analyses, all variables were centred (Aiken & West. 1991). Control variables were entered first, followed by the lower order predictors, and the two-way interaction term. No significant interactions between clusters and organisational identification were found for UPB (β = -.04, p =.89), UPB by commission and omission
(β = -.03, p = .90 & β = -.04, p = .88).
I conducted a regression analysis to test hypothesis 2. All variables were centred for the analysis (Aiken & West, 1991), and control variables were entered first, followed by lower order predictors, two-way interaction terms, and the three-way interaction term.
The first column in Table 4.10 displays the regression results when UPB is the dependent variable.
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131 Chapter 4: Study 5
There was a significant three-way interaction between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB (β = -.30, p < .05).
I plotted the three-way interaction and conducted slope difference tests (Dawson &
Richter, 2006). The results revealed that when respondents identified with their organisations, their binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when their individualising foundations were low, as compared to high. The difference between these two slopes was significant, t(126) = -2.14, p < .05
(see lines 1 and 3; Figure 4.5a; Table 4.11). There was no significant interaction
132 Chapter 4: Study 5
between the binding and individualising foundations on UPB, when organisational identification was low (t(126) = .36, p =.72). Hypothesis 2 was supported.
Additional analyses. Regression analyses were also conducted for UPB by commission and UPB by omission. The results of these analyses are displayed in columns 2 and 3 of
Table 4.10, respectively. There was a significant three-way interaction for UPB by commission and a significant interaction for UPB by omission (i.e., β = -.32, p ≤ .05 and β = -.26, p = .08, respectively). For UPB by commission, slope difference tests showed that when organisational identification was high, the binding foundations were strongly associated with engagement in UPB when individualising foundations were low, as opposed to high, t(126) = -2.22, p <.05 (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 4.6a, Table
4.12).
Similarly, for UPB by omission, when organisational identification was high, the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when individualising foundations were low, as compared to high; the slope difference test was 133 Chapter 4: Study 5
significant (i.e., at p < .10), t(126) = -1.76, p =.08 (see lines 1 and 3; Figure 4.7a, Table
4.12). There was no significant interaction between the binding and individualising foundations under low organisational identification, for UPB by commission and UPB by omission (t(126) = .38, p =.71 and t(126) = .27, p =.78, respectively; see lines 2 and
4 in Figures 4.6b and 4.7b). Taken together, the results from the main analysis and the two additional analyses support hypothesis 2.
134 Chapter 4: Study 5
135 Chapter 4: Discussion
4.4 Discussion
Studies 4 and 5 examined the relationships between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB. These studies were conducted using worker samples. Neither study found support for hypothesis 1, because the data did not reveal the clusters that I assumed I would obtain based on Haidt and his colleagues’ (2009) study. However, these two studies confirmed that the clusters attained from workers were similar to the clusters attained in my studies using student samples. In other words, across all of my studies conducted using student and worker samples (including the survey conducted using a large student sample, N = 975), when the cluster analysis was based on the four moral foundations, I consistently found the same pattern of clusters. As discussed in
Chapter 3, this difference may be due to the fact that, amongst others, the sanctity/purity foundation was not included in my analyses.
Studies 4 and 5 supported hypothesis 2. That is, both studies showed that the binding foundations were more strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when the individualising foundations were low, as opposed to high, but only when organisational identification was high (Study 4: p = .053; Study 5: p = .03). For both studies, support was also found for UPB by commission (Study 4: p = .10; Study 5: p = .03) and UPB by omission (Study 4: p = .02; Study 5: p = .08).
In summary, across five studies, I have shown that individuals’ moral foundations are antecedents to their engagement in UPB. Aside from Study 3b, all of my studies showed that there was a relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB, although some were not in the expected direction. Specifically, Studies 1 and
2 found significant (i.e., at p < .10) three-way interactions between binding foundations, 136 Chapter 4: Discussion
individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB. However, these studies did not find the expected significant slope difference test. Conversely, both
Studies 4 and 5 found significant three-way interactions and the expected significant slope difference tests; that is, the binding foundations were most strongly associated with the engagement in UPB when the individualising foundations were low, and not high, but only when organisational identification was high. Furthermore, Study 3a showed that participants primed with binding foundations, as opposed to the individualising foundations, were more likely to engage in UPB by omission when organisational identification was high, as opposed to low. While Study 3b did not support the relevant hypothesis, a main effect was found in that individuals’ primed with binding foundations were more likely to engage in UPB. Table 4.13 provides a summary of the results from these five studies. Further interpretation and discussion of results will be presented in Chapter 7 (general discussion).
In the next chapter, I further explore the relationships between moral foundations and
UPB. There, I examine whether and how the initial UPB-related decisions made by individuals (e.g., as measured in Studies 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), that I argue are driven by their endorsed moral foundations, change when these individuals interact with others who endorse different moral foundations and thus have different ethical perspectives regarding UPB-related scenarios.
137
Chapter 4 : Discussion
138
Chapter 4 : Discussion
139 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Chapter 5
Theoretical Background: Moral Foundations
Diversity
5.1 Introduction
People react differently in response to (un)ethical situations at work. In Chapter 2, I introduced the moral foundations theory and posited that this difference is partly due to the fact that individuals conceptualise ethics differently. According to this theory, some people view ethics primarily as involving displays of care and fairness to all individuals
(individualising foundations), while others also view ethics as involving the displays of loyalty to in-groups and respect for group authority figures (binding foundations; Haidt
& Joseph, 2004). I argued that individuals’ conceptualisation of ethics influences them to frame experiences in foundations-consistent manners and this, in turn, shapes their
(un)ethical decisions and behaviours. In the first part of this thesis, I focused on better understanding how individuals’ moral foundations influence their unethical decisions and behaviours that benefit their organisations (i.e., UPB). I argued that individuals who more strongly endorse the binding foundations are more sensitive to the benefits that
UPB may bring to their organisations. Conversely, individuals who more strongly endorse the individualising foundations are more sensitive to how UPB are harmful and unfair to others (e.g., clients, customers). I provided some evidence that showed that individuals who more strongly endorsed the binding foundations, and less strongly endorsed the individualising foundations, were more likely to engage in UPB when they identified with their organisations. 140 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
In this second part of my thesis, I continue to examine moral foundations and UPB, and explore how individuals’ initial UPB-related decisions, which are mainly driven by their endorsed moral foundations, are influenced by others. After all, it has been argued that morality is influenced by, and embedded in, social bonds and relationships (e.g., Rai &
Fiske, 2011; Moore & Gino, 2013). In making decisions, individuals often consult with the people around them, draw on the experiences of their peers, observe and learn from the decisions and behaviours of others, and are influenced by their recollection of how others have been rewarded or punished for their past (un)ethical behaviours (e.g., Moore
& Gino, 2013; Bandura, 1977). Thus, the social environment has the potential to influence how individuals perceive situations (cf. social cognition; Frith & Frith, 2012) and determine appropriate responses to these situations. An organisation is one such social environment made up of a ‘melting pot’ of diverse individuals (e.g., Cox, 1993;
Beu & Buckley, 2004). Each member in an organisation is capable of influencing the ethicality of another member’s decision and may, in turn, be similarly influenced
(Palmer, 2008).
Accordingly, in this part of the thesis I extend the theories presented in earlier chapters by considering how the social environment, specifically the exchange of situation- relevant information between co-workers, influences the initial moral foundations-based decisions made by individuals. In other words, the first part of this thesis explored how individuals’ endorsed moral foundations and organisational identification shape their
(initial) decisions in relation to engaging in UPB. The second part of this thesis (i.e.,
Chapters 5 and 6) extends this research by examining whether and how these individuals’ initial decisions are influenced via interactions with others whose decisions 141 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
are different from theirs. Specifically, this part of the thesis explores how interactions between individuals who view what is moral and what is not moral differently can influence their subsequent (un)ethical decisions. Such theorising is in line with the arguments of Palmer (2012) that unethical behaviours are shaped by complex individual and contextual/social processes. Further, this research represents an important line of inquiry as it will provide a better understanding and accounting of social influences on the responses of individuals to ethical issues at work (e.g., Johns, 2006; Heath & Sitkin,
2001).
This chapter begins with an overview of the social nature of organisations. It focuses on why and how interpersonal factors in organisations (e.g., the presence of co-workers) influence the (un)ethical decisions and behaviours of individuals. I then introduce the novel concept of moral foundations (MF) diversity in organisations and suggest that such diversity also changes the (un)ethical decisions and behaviours of individuals. I posit that MF diversity becomes visible in organisations when co-workers engage in ethical conversations. Next, I discuss the manner in which MF diversity influences the initial decisions of individuals. There, I propose three possible outcomes that are associated with MF diversity’s influence on the initial decisions of individuals: 1) no change; 2) change to adopt opposing decisions (i.e., the decisions of their conversation partners), and; 3) change to alternate and more creative decisions. I hypothesise that, compared to situations where there is no MF diversity, MF diversity is more likely to be associated with the two change outcomes.
142 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
5.2 The Social Organisation
Organisations are social entities consisting of groups of people working towards a mutual goal (Daft, 2004). Recognising the inherent social nature of organisations, organisational researchers have developed theories (e.g., social information processing;
Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978) and conducted extensive empirical research addressing the impact of social influences on the (un)ethical decisions made by organisational members (Kish-Gephart et al., 2010). A recent review by Treviño, den Nieuwenboer, and Kish-Gephart (2014) highlighted that understanding why organisational members engage in (un)ethical behaviours requires a consideration of social variables (e.g., the influence of peers). This part of the thesis answers this call for research. In this section,
I review research on how social factors influence the (un)ethical decisions and behaviours of organisational members.
Researchers, such as Brass, Butterfield, and Skaggs (1998), have acknowledged that interpersonal relationships among organisational members (e.g., co-workers) influence the (un)ethical decisions and behaviours of individuals. This is not surprising, given that workplace relationships are important to individuals and serve as sources of advice that can influence the quality and content of decision making (Podolny & Baron, 1997).
Salancik and Pfeffer (1978) recognised the influence that co-workers have on the behaviours of individuals and argued that organisational members adapt their attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs according to social context (a broad term that includes the people around them; i.e., social information processing theory). Specifically, individuals make sense of organisational events by interacting and communicating with co-workers, which also assists them to interpret events in a socially acceptable manner (Festinger,
1954; Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). This mode of ‘sense-making’ is utilised when there are 143 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
multiple ways to interpret job-related information (Chen, Takeuchi, & Shum, 2013), including ambiguous ethical work dilemmas. Accordingly, when organisational members are faced with ambiguous ethical issues, they may interact with co-workers to make sense of these issues and if, for example, their co-workers hold and communicate viewpoints that encourage ethical responses, then it is likely that target organisational members will adopt these ethical viewpoints. Conversely, if these co-workers hold and communicate viewpoints that encourage unethical responses, then it is likely that the target individuals will adopt these unethical viewpoints.
Moore and Gino (2013) similarly argued that human immorality can often be attributed to our social nature. Using the compass as a metaphor for people’s standards of moral behaviours, Moore and Gino (2013) argued that the social processes present in an organisation, such as social categorisation, social comparison, and social conformity, may veer individuals’ moral compasses away from ‘true North’ (i.e., ethical behaviours and decisions). For example, social categorisation refers to the process whereby individuals differentiate between others who are like them (in-group) or different from them (out-group). Such categorisation influences how individuals evaluate and manage ethically charged issues. Gino, Ayal, and Ariely (2009) empirically illustrated this point by showing that participants cheated more on a task after they observed an in-group member (i.e., a student belonging to the same university) cheat on the same task; however, participants were less likely to cheat after they observed an out-group member
(i.e., a student from a rival university) cheat on the task. Interestingly, Gino, Gu, &
Zhong (2009) found that when an in-group member transgressed by behaving selfishly in the presence of out-group members, participants not only did not conform to such behaviour, they actually compensated for the in-group member’s transgression by 144 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
behaving more generously. Gino and Galinsky (2012) further showed that vicarious dishonesty may emerge among similar individuals (e.g., individuals sharing a birthday) due to a sense of psychological closeness experienced between the individuals. Strongly identifying with an in-group has also been found to be associated with moral licensing, whereby the prior ethical actions of fellow group members (e.g., in relation to non- prejudicial hiring) inflate the perceived moral credentials of members who strongly identify with their in-group and provide them with leeway to make subsequent unethical hiring decisions (Kouchaki, 2011).
Peers (whether in- or out-group members) can also determine whether an individual becomes aware that a situation involves ethical considerations. Thus, peers can influence ethical or unethical decisions and behaviours (e.g., Gino, Ayal, et al., 2009).
For example, Warren and Smith-Crowe (2008) argued that in an ambiguous ethical situation, the mere expression of disapproval by co-workers (e.g., a disapproving look) can make it clear that the situation involves an ethical issue and that the individual has behaved unethically (albeit unwittingly). Such expressions of disapproval can also recalibrate an individual’s perception of right and wrong and may improve the ethicality of his/her subsequent judgements (Warren & Smith-Crowe, 2008). Peers may also draw attention to the unethical aspects of a situation; for example, by questioning the ethicality of certain behaviours, which can reduce engagement in unethical behaviours
(Gino, Ayal, et al., 2009). Furthermore, the presence of peers may even facilitate one to engage in unethical behaviour. Notably, group ethical decision making has been associated with the diffusion of decision responsibility among group members (Detert,
Treviño, & Sweitzer, 2008). This diffusion of responsibility affords each member the perception of anonymity and obscures their sense of personal responsibility in relation 145 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
to decision outcomes. In these circumstances, unethical behaviours seem inconsequential and, as a result, each member may support unethical group decisions that they would not normally support as an individual (Bandura, 1999).
In summary, I highlighted how the social contexts of organisations, particularly factors such as the presence of unethical peers, can influence members’ (un)ethical decisions and behaviours. In the next section, I outline how this thesis advances this research by the examination of how interactions between co-workers cause them to reconsider and change the initial decisions they made in response to ethically-charged situations.
5.2.1 Advancing Research on the Social Influences of (Un)Ethical
Decisions and Behaviours
Previous research on ethical decision making has been limited to examination of static interpersonal influences on the (un)ethical decisions and behaviours of individuals. For example, to my knowledge, no research has examined whether and, if so, how individuals, when faced with ethical situations, waver or struggle between different options to deal with these ethical situations. Using Gino and Galinsky’s (2012) study as an example, vicarious dishonest conduct is examined as a one-off event, in that, there is no consideration of whether individuals struggled in their decisions to act honestly or dishonestly. Similarly, Gunia, Wang, Huang, and Murnighan’s (2012) compared the influence of different modes of contemplation (i.e., contemplation when given more time vs. social contemplation through ethical conversation) on participants’ ethical decision making, but did not examine whether individuals changed their initial decisions after contemplation. Further, researchers have examined how social factors influence target individuals’ ethical and unethical decisions and behaviours (e.g., in 146 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
relation to vicarious dishonesty, in-group members’ unethical behaviours can influence individuals to engage in the same unethical behaviours); however, researchers have not, examined whether individuals are able to use the ethical insights gained from others to change their initial decisions.
In his social intuitionist model of moral judgement (discussed in Chapter 2, p.33, see
Figure 2.2), Haidt (2001) captured the notion that an individual’s decisions can be influenced by interactions with other people (e.g., co-workers). In this model, Haidt argued that foundations-based intuition shapes an individual’s judgement and subsequent reasoning about ethical issues (links 1 and 2, respectively). Haidt’s model also includes interpersonal links (links 3 and 4) or the social contagion of an individual’s moral reasoning and judgement on another person’s intuition. Contagion occurs when an individual (Person A) experiences an ethically charged situation and makes an intuitive moral judgement (e.g., Robert stole therefore he is an evil person).
Person A then interacts with another individual (Person B) and uses affective persuasion
(i.e., persuasive arguments that trigger an affectively valanced intuition) on Person B
(e.g., A tells B ‘Robert cheated me out of my life savings’). Such persuasion is effective, when Person B subsequently makes a judgement based on the reasons consistent with those of Person A. However, such persuasion is ineffective when Person B holds an opposing intuition (e.g., Even though Robert stole, he is still a good person) that contradicts Person A’s judgement and reasoning. In the latter scenario, Person B may, in turn, engage in affective persuasion to try and change Person A’s intuition and subsequent judgement and reasoning.
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Similar to Haidt’s (2001) model when Persons A and B hold opposing intuitions, I seek to examine situations in which Persons A and B endorse different moral foundations and, thus, have different perspectives on and reactions to the same ethical situation. I focus on how ethical conversations between individuals influence their initial decisions.
Specifically, I explore whether and, if so, how an organisational member’s initial decision to resolve an ethical issue derived from his/her endorsed moral foundations is impacted after conversing with a co-worker who has a different viewpoint on the same issue. Further, extending Haidt’s model, I argue that not only can an individual’s initial decision remain the same (e.g., Person A fails to change Person B’s decision) or change to adopt the other person’s decision (e.g., Person A persuades Person B to adopt A’s decision), but that an individual may also use the ethical insights that s/he acquired to change his/her initial decision and make an alternate and more creative decision (e.g., the perspectives of Persons A and B are incorporated to derive a third alternate decision).
Accordingly, this thesis explores how the (initial) decision of a target individual (e.g.,
Person B) is influenced by the ethical judgement/reasoning of a conversation partner.21
5.3 Moral Foundations Diversity Defined
Individuals hold different beliefs about what constitutes moral or immoral decisions and behaviours (e.g., Haidt & Joseph, 2004). In social psychological research, Haidt,
Rosenberg, and Hom (2003) introduced the concept of moral diversity or the state of a group when its members hold many different ideas of right and wrong, which may prevent them from agreeing on which moral goods (social, moral, or spiritual
21 I recognise that when individuals make decisions using their endorsed moral values, they often resist changing these decisions. For example, Skitka (2010) found that individuals’ moral convictions about certain socio-moral issues may result in them experiencing these convictions as irrefutable and unchangeable facts. However, this thesis does not examine such socio-moral issues; rather, it concentrates on ambiguous ethical issues, which individuals are uncertain of what are right or wrong solutions and are receptive to learning about the ethical perspectives endorsed by others. 148 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
obligations; e.g., justice, social harmony, and piety) to pursue. I argue that moral diversity may be represented in a variety of ways, ranging from individuals having different ethical predispositions (e.g., a preference for deontological or consequentialist ideals) to individuals placing different values on various moral concerns (i.e., the valuing of different moral foundations).
In this thesis, I focus on the moral diversity that emerges when individuals place varying degrees of importance on the binding and individualising moral foundations.
Such diversity is referred to in this thesis as moral foundations diversity or MF diversity.
Drawing on the definition of Haidt et al. (2003), I define MF diversity as the state of a group when its members endorse the binding or individualising moral foundations and, thus, have different ideas of right and wrong. Such individuals use different ethical systems to perceive, approach, and make decisions to resolve the same ethical situations
(Graham et al., 2009). Individuals endorsing either the binding or individualising moral foundations focus on different aspects of an ethical issue, recommend different strategies to resolve the issue, and have different notions in relation to the successful resolution of the issue (cf. Rorty, 1992; refer to part one of this thesis where I argued that the endorsement of different moral foundations was associated with foundations- consistent framing of all ethical issues, which is associated with different perceptions of and decisions regarding these ethical issues).
5.3.1 Ethical Conversations: How MF Diversity Becomes Visible in
Organisations
Unlike gender or race diversity, value diversity, such as those related to the endorsed moral foundations of organisational members, is hidden and cannot be seen (Harrison, 149 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Price, & Bell, 1998). Given this, how do organisational members become aware of the existence of MF diversity? One situation in which MF diversity becomes visible is when organisational members, who endorse different moral foundations, interact to discuss ethical issues; for example, in a discussion one co-worker may make reference to justice violations and another to loyalty considerations. This social interaction involves the exchange of ethically relevant information between organisational members that could assist in decision making. This interaction is referred to as an ethical conversation (see Gunia et al., 2012 for a discussion of how and why ethical conversations improve ethical decision making).
Opportunities for ethical conversations are plentiful in organisations (e.g., Elm & Radin,
2012). Such conversations can occur by water-coolers or during formal meetings and provide platforms for organisational members to discuss, debate, and resolve ethical issues encountered at work (Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008). Ethical conversations have been found to be vital to the proper functioning of organisations; for example, such conversations were found to enhance individuals’ organisational commitment, awareness of ethical codes, and reporting of ethical violations (Fritz, Arnett, & Conkel,
1999; Treviño, Weaver, Gibson, & Toffler, 1999). Additionally, Trapp (2011) interviewed managers of a global healthcare company and found that even though the organisation had formal ethical guidelines, discussions at work between close colleagues, managers, and non-managers helped to establish shared interpretations of those guidelines and determine appropriate behaviours to manage ambiguous ethical issues.
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I assert that ethical conversations between organisational members endorsing different moral foundations give visibility to MF diversity and encountering such diversity may change the initial (un)ethical decisions of members. In Studies 6 and 7 (see Chapter 6), I operationalise ethical conversations as online instant message and face-to-face conversations between co-workers that involved ethically charged content.Maintainin g initial decision: Being 5.4 MF Diversity’s Impact on (Un)Ethical Decisions more confident How does MF diversity influence an individual’s decision making in relationwith to ethical and educating issues in an organisation? I posit that MF diversity is associated with three outcomes. others on That is, after a target individual has initially decided on whether or not to engagethe value in of his/her UPB, an ethical conversation with a co-worker who opposes the target’s decisionown (MF perspecti diversity) may influence this target’s initial decision in three ways (see Figure 5.1).ve First,
MF diversity may not change the individual’s initial (un)ethical decision. Second, MF diversity may change the individual’s initial (un)ethical decision, such that the individual adopts the opposing decision (i.e., their partner’s decision). Third, this diversity may change the individual’s initial (un)ethical decision, such that the individual makes an alternate and more creative decision. I posit that, compared to situations in which there is no MF diversity, MF diversity will be more strongly associated with an individual changing his/her initial decision by adopting the opposing decision or making an alternate and more creative decision (i.e., outcomes 2 and 3).
I begin the following section by discussing two situations in which no MF diversity exists. I then highlight the boundary conditions of my preliminary investigation into MF diversity. Subsequently, I present the three potential outcomes of MF diversity and the hypotheses of this research. Maintainin 151 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity g initial
decision: Being more confident with and educating others on the value of his/her own perspecti ve
No MF diversity: No ethical conversation and ethical agreement
When organisational members do not converse about ethical issues (i.e., there is no ethical conversation) and when they agree on the same foundations-based perspectives and decisions to resolve ethical issues (i.e., there is ethical agreement), MF diversity will be absent. In the former situation (i.e., no ethical conversation), organisational members may endorse different moral foundations, but will not share their different foundations-based ethical perspectives, approaches, and decisions; for example, this includes instances of ‘moral muteness’ (i.e., the reluctance of managers to talk about their actions or behaviours in moral terms; Bird & Waters, 1989). Thus, in such circumstances, MF diversity will remain hidden. Bird (1996) argued that the absence of ethical conversations is detrimental to organisations, as not only do these organisations 152 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
forego the positive influences of ethical conversations on organisational decision making (e.g., the pooling of diverse foundations-based information and perspectives), such an absence may even implicitly signal that these organisations condone members engaging in unethical behaviours.
There is also no MF diversity when organisational members make the same foundations-based decisions to resolve ethical issues (i.e., ethical agreement). In these situations, conversational partners use the same ethical perspectives to resolve ethical issues and have the same decisions. Ethical agreement among co-workers may ensue when individuals endorse the same moral foundations, and, thus, frame ethical situations in a similar manner (i.e., using an individualising or binding frame). In the absence of MF diversity, organisational members will likely make decisions that are guided by their own ethical perspectives, as they are not exposed to new ethical perspectives and knowledge. Given that the outcomes associated with these two no MF diversity situations are similar, no hypotheses are proposed to compare their differences.
Boundary conditions
As this research constitutes a preliminary exploration of MF diversity, there are several boundary conditions in my theorising and empirical investigations. First, my investigations are directed only at ambiguous ethical situations in which definite right and wrong decisions are difficult to generate. Such ambiguous ethical situations are more likely to lead to organisational members engaging in ethical conversations and only then will MF diversity become visible. Conversely, in ‘clear-cut’ ethical situations in which there are definite right and wrong decisions, organisational members might only have to abide by legal and professional standards to behave ethically. In such 153 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
situations, ethical conversations are less likely to occur and MF diversity will remain hidden.
Second, as in the first part of this thesis, I do not distinguish between or subject a value judgement on ethical and unethical decisions. Whether a decision is ethical or unethical is determined on the basis of the ethical system espoused by the decision maker; for example, a manager may be faced with a situation in which s/he has to decide between writing a good testimonial for an incompetent employee and writing an accurate testimonial that mentions the poor performance of this employee. Consistent with the first part of this thesis (i.e., Chapter 2), if the manager endorses the binding foundations and identifies with the organisation, she may consider writing a good testimonial to be ethical, as this incompetent employee may be hired by another organisation and thus leave the organisation. Conversely, a manager who endorses the individualising foundations may perceive this same decision to be unethical, as the testimonial will contain lies that may negatively impact others (e.g., prospective employers). Thus, in this thesis, ethicality is determined in the ‘eyes of the beholder’. In fact, the focus of this part of the thesis is not on determining the ethicality of decisions; rather, it focuses on whether and how MF diversity changes one’s initial decision. For example, when faced with MF diversity, an individual who changes his initial decision to engage in UPB to adopt his partner’s decision to not engage in such a behaviour and an individual who changes his initial decision to not engage in UPB to adopt his partner’s decision to engage in UPB, have both changed their decision by adopting an opposing decision (i.e., outcome 2). As the focus of this thesis is to investigate whether and how individuals’ decisions are changed by MF diversity, no consideration is given to whether any of the three outcomes associated with MF diversity are more or less ethical than one another. 154 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Third, it is important to note that the theories and hypotheses are being tested in relation to the influence of MF diversity from the perspective of target individuals. However, it is also expected that the conversation partners in these situations will be similarly impacted by MF diversity; that is, the conversation partners will also encounter MF diversity and, after being exposed to the target individuals’ perspective, should also waver and/or struggle with their decisions.
Finally, I focus on MF diversity that is made visible via dyadic ethical conversations between organisational members of a similar status. In examining dyadic ethical conversations, group level processes, such as groupthink (Janis, 1982), groupshift
(Kogan & Wallach, 1967), and the majority/minority make-up of a group (Harrison &
Klein, 2007), are ignored, as they would unnecessarily add complex group dynamics to this initial research inquiry. The focus of this thesis is to understand how (un)ethical decisions are driven by individuals exposure to the different foundations-based system held by co-workers during the ethical conversation, and not by group dynamics.
Additionally, organisational members with similar statuses were used to investigate MF diversity to ensure that power differentials between members did not impact on decisions (e.g., to ensure that persuasive leadership did not impact the decisions of members; Cialdini, 2001).
In the following sections, I explore how MF diversity shapes an individual’s subsequent decisions in relation to an ethical issue. I draw on research from social psychology, organisational diversity, conflict resolution, and group decision making (e.g., judge- 155 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
advisor system; Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006), and propose three outcomes associated with
MF diversity.
5.4.1 Outcome 1: No Change of Initial Decisions
When faced with the choice of either maintaining their previous decisions or changing their decisions, individuals tend to choose the former option. In economics, Samuelson and Zeckhauser (1988) referred to this as the status quo bias and found that individuals preferred to maintain their current or previously made decisions (i.e., to maintain the status quo); rather than change their decisions. Medical practitioners are also susceptible to the status quo bias, such that when faced with a choice of treatment interventions, they tend to recommend interventions that have been used previously, as opposed to newer treatments (Redelmeier & Shafir, 1995). Kahneman (2003) noted that the preference of humans to maintain the status quo stems from the fact that people use the status quo as a reference point to evaluate the advantages or disadvantages of alternative decision options. Further, as the majority of individuals tend to be loss aversive (i.e., the preference for avoiding losses rather than procuring gains), the disadvantages of these alternative options tend to be more salient and, thus, these options are less attractive.
Indeed, people are notorious for their tendency to adhere to previously made decisions
(Kunda, 1990). This stubbornness can persist even when they are presented with evidence that contradicts the utility of maintaining these decisions (e.g., escalation of commitment; Staw, 1981). Such stubbornness can be attributed to the fact that people crave consistency, as shown by the finding that individuals experience cognitive dissonance when they encounter information that contradicts a belief that they hold
(Festinger, 1957). Accordingly, once a decision is made, as long as the individual is 156 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
able to justify the decision to him/herself, the decision is unlikely to change (e.g.,
Kunda, 1990).
In the ethical domain, Haidt (2001) likened such human reasoning about ethical decisions to ‘a lawyer defending a client [rather] than a judge or scientist seeking truth’
(p. 820). In other words, people do not readily change their ethical stance about an issue; rather, like lawyers, they tend to use available resources to defend and justify their stance. Indeed, because values are deeply entwined with self-identity, individuals tend to perceive their values (e.g., morals) as non-negotiable (Kouzakova, Ellemers, Harinck,
& Scheepers, 2012). Because ethical stances are driven by their moral values, individuals will defend and justify their stances. Defending and justifying their ethical stances helps people to maintain their positive self-perceptions (e.g., the perception that they are a moral person; Tenbrunsel, Diekmann, Wade-Benzoni, & Bazerman, 2010;
Schaumberg & Wiltermuth, 2014). MF diversity, however, presents a threat to the positive self-perceptions of individuals, as contradictory ethical perspectives of co- workers imply that target individuals’ perspectives, values, and/or decisions are potentially ethically questionable/wrong (Monin & Jordan, 2009; Monin, 2007). Target individuals are motivated to eliminate this threat (Monin, Sawyer, & Marquez, 2008). A strategy used to deal with this threat to identity (in this case, to identity based on moral foundations) is to defend and protect this identity by maintaining their ethical stances
(Petriglieri, 2011; Kouzakova et al., 2012). Accordingly, MF diversity may result in some individuals’ maintaining their initial decisions.
While MF diversity may be associated with individuals’ maintaining their initial decisions, I further propose that, in comparison, no MF diversity will be even more 157 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
strongly associated with no change in individuals’ initial decisions. Specifically, I posit that where there is no MF diversity (i.e., no ethical conversation and ethical agreement), individuals’ own ethical perspectives will determine their initial and subsequent decisions. In the two situations where no MF diversity arises, target organisational members will maintain their initial decisions, not because they need to defend their ethical self-perceptions, but because they are not exposed to alternative ethical perspectives and decisions. Conversely, when MF diversity arises and conversation partners explicitly discuss ethical situations and both become aware of alternate ways to approach and resolve these situations, such broadened ethical knowledge should increase the chance that these individuals will reflect on alternate perspectives and decisions and lower the likelihood that they maintain their initial decisions.
Note that I do not propose a formal hypothesis for the no change outcome as 1) I am interested in whether and how MF diversity, compared to no MF diversity, changes the initial decision of an organisational member and 2) this no change outcome and the change outcomes are mirror images of each other, such that when an individual chooses the no change outcome, s/he cannot simultaneously not choose a change outcome and vice versa. In other words, with regards to this second point, the change and no change outcomes are dependent on each other. Due to these reasons, I propose hypotheses that compare MF diversity and no MF diversity on change outcomes (p. 162 and p. 166), but not for the no change outcome.
5.4.2 Outcomes 2 and 3: Change of Initial Decisions
I discussed the possibility that when faced with MF diversity individuals will not change their initial decisions. In this section, I argue that MF diversity may also be 158 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
associated with individuals changing their initial decisions. Empirical evidence support this proposition; individuals have been shown to shift their ethical stances (and subsequently change their decisions and behaviours) as and when it suits their purpose.
Valdesolo and DeSteno (2007) found that the ethical stance used by their participants to judge others changed depending on whether the people being judged were in-group or out-group members. Notably, in-group members who committed unjust acts were judged as behaving in a fairer manner as compared to out-group members who committed the same acts. Leidner and Castano (2012) further found that participants changed the ethical systems they used to judge the unethical acts of in-group and out- group members. For example, participants who read about prisoner torture committed by in-group members were more likely to use loyalty/authority related words (e.g., solidarity) to refer to the wrongdoing and less likely to use harm/fairness related words
(e.g., abuse). Conversely, participants who read about wrongdoings committed by out- group members were more likely to use harm/fairness related words to refer to the wrongdoings and less likely to use loyalty/authority words.
Leidner and Castano (2012) referred to such changes as ‘morality shifting’ and argued that such a shift serves to protect the in-group moral identity of participants (and, consequently, participants’ own moral identity) by providing a justification for the unethical acts of in-group members (e.g., what they did was ‘right’, as these members displayed loyalty to their nation). In this way, the unethical/harmful acts performed by in-group members were morally justified in the minds of participants and the fact that the acts harmed others faded into the background (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004). Thus,
Leidner and Castano contend that to a certain extent individuals’ ethical stances are fluid, as they are sensitive to (moral self/group) threats present in individuals’ social 159 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
contexts. Notably, individuals’ innate ethical systems (e.g., ethical systems that prioritise the loyalty/authority foundations) do not shift; rather it is the accessibility and activation of these systems that momentarily shift (Leidner & Castano, 2012). I posit that an awareness of MF diversity may also represent an event in the social environment that triggers a morality shift in organisational members and changes their initial
(un)ethical decisions.
The research presented, thus far, provides some evidence that individuals can and do change their initial (un)ethical decisions. I propose that MF diversity, made visible via ethical conversations, is a trigger for change. Bohns, Roghanizad, and Xu (2013) showed that a mere verbal suggestion from a stranger to engage in an unethical act, such as writing in a library book, persuaded some individuals’ to engage in that act. This occurred despite the fact that prior to engaging in the act, many individuals had commented and/or shown awareness that the suggested act was unethical (Bohns et al.,
2013). Such findings suggest that an individuals’ initial stance on ethical issues can change after they encounter another person who advocates a different stance. Similarly,
Haidt (2001) argued that one’s ethical judgement may influence that of another person by persuasive conversation that elicits a quick and automatic intuitive judgement in that other person (i.e., social intuitionist model).
Gunia et al. (2012) likened conversations among individuals to social contemplation.
During these conversations, individuals think out loud and compare their interpretations of events with those of their conversation partners. In their empirical study, Gunia et al. found that when individuals were faced with right/wrong decisions (i.e., decisions that have clear ethical and unethical options), ethical conversations with a partner (i.e., via 160 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
an email exchange), as opposed to self-interested conversations (i.e., conversations that evoke the norms of self-interest, such as ensuring that one attains the most benefits from a situation), were more likely to lead to ethical decisions. Gunia et al. argued that ethical conversations provide individuals with information in the form of their partners’ interpretations of situations. When making right/wrong decisions, such information assists target individuals to distinguish between appropriate and inappropriate responses.
Extending Gunia et al.’s (2012) study, this thesis posits that by engaging in ethical conversations about ambiguous ethical issues with partners who endorse different moral foundations, target individuals are being presented with their partners’ interpretations of these ethical issues. Target individuals thus gain ethical knowledge that can influence and change their initial decisions. Notably, this research differs from Gunia et al. in that it investigates ambiguous ethical decisions and whether and how individuals’ initial decisions on ambiguous ethical issues are changed following conversations.
In the non-moral domain, researchers such as Bonaccio and Dalal (2006) and Tjosvold
(1985) have argued that interactions among diverse individuals can improve decision making. Specifically, Bonaccio and Dalal argued that decision makers choose to interact with others prior to making a decision as such interactions enrich the quality of decisions by providing more information about the problem and a range of alternate solutions. Tjosvold (1985) also argued that controversy (or the open discussion of opposing views) motivates individuals to explore and understand the rationales behind their partners’ opposing views. Similarly, MF diversity provides individuals engaged in conversation with ethical information that would otherwise remain unknown. This may motivate individuals to explore and better understand opposing views and change their 161 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
initial (un)ethical decisions. I propose that MF diversity may lead to two outcomes, both of which evoke change: 1) adopting the opposing decisions or 2) making alternate and more creative decisions.
Outcome 2: Change initial decisions by adopting the opposing decisions
MF diversity may trigger changes in individuals’ initial (un)ethical decisions and result in individuals adopting the opposing decisions (i.e., the decisions of their conversation partners). Warren and Smith-Crowe (2008) posited that the social environments of organisations (including co-workers) provide cues that help distinguish what decisions are acceptable and unacceptable in the resolution of ethical issues. When individuals make unethical decisions, these cues may come in the form of external sanctioning (e.g., facial or verbal disapproval) from co-workers. Not only does such sanctioning threaten target individuals’ self-perception of being ethical (Aquino & Reed, 2002; Mulder &
Aquino, 2013), it also threatens relationships between co-workers (Warren & Smith-
Crowe, 2008; see also Baumeister & Leary, 1995 for their arguments on why people are motivated to maintain good social relationships with others). In response to these threats, individuals engage in reconciliatory actions to repair their ethical reputations and/or maintain good social relationships (Warren & Smith-Crowe, 2008).
I argue that one such reconciliatory action target individuals can undertake is to change their initial decisions (which are now viewed as ‘wrong/unacceptable’) by adopting their partners’ decisions (which are now viewed as ‘right/acceptable’). In the context of this thesis, I argue that MF diversity among co-workers provides target individuals with cues that their partners perceive their ethical stances as deviant. Target individuals may then respond by changing their initial decisions to adopt their partners’ decisions. 162 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Notably, Cialdini and Goldstein (2004) argued that individuals adopt others’ decisions to increase the accuracy of their decisions (informational conformity) and to gain social approval from others (normative conformity).
However, this change outcome is less likely to occur when there is no MF diversity.
First, when organisational members do not engage in ethical conversations, individuals are not exposed to contradictory decisions and perspectives and their social relationships with their co-workers are not threatened. Such individuals remain unaware that there are different ways to approach ethical issues and will not perceive the need to reconsider their initial decisions; thus, their decisions will not change. Second, when organisational members engage in ethical conversations, but are in agreement and use the same foundations-based decisions to resolve ethical issues, individuals’ decisions and perspectives are shared and validated by their conversation partners. Research shows that when individuals are similar to each other; for example, in terms of their attitudes (e.g., views on death penalty), they tend to perceive each other in more positive terms and to like each other (e.g., Park & Schaller, 2005; Karylowski, 1976). Thus, change is less likely to occur when there is ethical agreement, as target individuals are not exposed to contradictory perspectives and maintaining their initial decisions may even assist these individuals to build better social relationships with their partners, who endorse the same decisions.
Based upon the arguments presented above, I predict that:
Hypothesis 4a: Compared to circumstances where there is no MF diversity (no ethical conversation), in circumstances where there is MF diversity, individuals will be more likely to change their initial decisions by adopting opposing decisions. 163 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Hypothesis 4b: Compared to circumstances where there is no MF diversity (ethical agreement), in circumstances where there is MF diversity, individuals will be more likely to change their initial decisions by adopting opposing decisions.
Outcome 3: Change initial decisions by making alternate and more creative
decisions
Individuals may also change their initial (un)ethical decisions to reach alternate and more creative decisions when exposed to MF diversity. Alternate and creative decisions can be beneficial because they may take into account the perspectives of other stakeholders. By way of example, one such alternate and creative decision is the decision that Levi Strauss & Co made in response to the discovery that their factories in
Bangladesh hired underage workers (Hansen, 2001). In such circumstances, the usual practice of companies was to terminate the employment of these underage workers; this action enabled companies to distance themselves from the scandals and repair their reputations. However, these underage workers often had families to support and terminating their employment could negatively affect their livelihoods. Instead of looking at this situation from a fire or hire perspective, Levi Strauss & Co came up with an alternate decision. They decided that they would continue to pay wages to these underage workers, provided they attended school and offered to re-hire these workers once they reached legal age. Thus, this decision helped both parties; Levi Strauss & Co repaired and raised their upstanding reputation and the underage workers were provided with a means to support themselves and their families.
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Drawing on research that demonstrates that dissent and debate within diverse groups may garner beneficial outcomes, such as creative idea generation (e.g., Nemeth &
Ormiston, 2007; Schulz-Hardt, Brodbeck, Mojzisch, Kerschreiter, & Frey, 2006), I propose that MF diversity may also lead to such outcomes. MF diversity provides an opportunity for different ethical perspectives (e.g., binding and individualising foundations-based perspectives) to be pooled together to derive alternate and more creative decisions. Interacting with dissimilar others allows for the transmission of new knowledge and enhances awareness of multiple viewpoints (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken,
1993; Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006; Tjosvold, 1985).
In support of the notion that MF diversity has the potential to change the ethical perspectives of conversation partners, Bird, Westley, and Waters (1989) interviewed
60 managers and found that these managers often engaged in ethical conversations when solving ethical problems. It was found that several managers used conversations to gain insights into alternative viewpoints. This allowed them to re-evaluate ethical issues using the ethical perspectives and insights that they had gained from the conversations. Similarly, Gunia et al. (2012) argued that ethical conversations enhance individuals’ ethical knowledge as they gain knowledge of another’s interpretation of the ethical situation at hand. An earlier study by Kuhn, Shaw, and Felton (1997) showed that participants who engaged in a series of dyadic discussions in relation to a social- moral issue (i.e., capital punishment) increased the quality and quantity of their argumentative reasoning on the issue. This improvement was credited to the transmission of unique knowledge between the dyadic partners during the series of conversations.
165 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
Nemeth and Ormiston (2007) further argued that dissent (e.g., argument about differences in ethical decisions) stimulates divergent thinking, the consideration of alternative information drawn from different perspectives, and the utilisation of a broader range of strategies to reach a decision. Further, Nemeth, Connell, Rogers, and
Brown (2001) showed that participants who faced dissent were more likely to remember dissenting viewpoints and consider both sides of an issue to derive original thoughts about the issue. Similarly, Schulz-Hardt et al. (2006) explored the influence of dissent on decision making accuracy in a hidden profile situation involving a hiring decision. In this hidden profile situation, each group member was given different pieces of information about several prospective job candidates and it was only by putting all the information together that the group could derive the full profile of each candidate.
Schulz-Hardt et al. (2006) found that dissent in groups (i.e., groups in which members made different individual initial hiring decisions based on the pieces of information they held, as opposed to groups with homogeneous decisions) was associated with greater discussion intensity and more accurate subsequent hiring decisions. The researchers argued that dissent resulted in group members exchanging more information about selected candidates, which led to the information being pooled and resulted in more informed decisions.
Akin to change via adopting an opposing decision (i.e., outcome 2), this outcome is also less likely to occur in circumstances where there is no MF diversity. Organisational members who fail to engage in ethical conversations will not gain new ethical insights, as they will not be exposed to contradictory perspectives and decisions. Similarly, in circumstances where there is ethical agreement, individuals will not gain new insights into or information about different ethical perspectives and will be less likely to change 166 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
their initial decisions. As such, in both the no MF diversity conditions, individuals will be less likely to change their initial decisions by making alternate and more creative decisions.
Based upon the arguments presented above, I predict that:
Hypothesis 5a: Compared to circumstances where there is no MF diversity (no ethical conversation), in circumstances where there is MF diversity, individuals will be more likely to change their initial decisions by making alternate and more creative decisions.
Hypothesis 5b: Compared to circumstances where there is no MF diversity (ethical agreement), in circumstances where there is MF diversity, individuals will be more likely to change their initial decisions by making alternate and more creative decisions.
5.5 Conclusion
In this chapter, I introduced the concept of MF diversity into behavioural business ethics research. I extended my theorising in the first part of my thesis and drew on research from moral psychology (e.g., Leidner & Castano, 2012), organisational diversity (e.g., Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007), and group decision making studies (e.g.,
Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006) to examine whether and how individuals’ initial (un)ethical decisions change when they encounter MF diversity in their organisations.
I posited that that MF diversity is associated with three outcomes. Specifically, I asserted that the initial decisions of individuals may: 1) not change; 2) change by adopting the opposing decisions of the conversation partners, and; 3) change by making alternate and more creative decisions. I argued that organisational members who 167 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
encounter MF diversity are exposed to alternate ethical perspectives and these individuals are more likely to change their initial decisions (i.e., outcomes 2 and 3), as compared to organisational members who do not encounter MF diversity.
In the next chapter, I outline the methods and results of two scenario studies that were conducted using student (Study 6) and worker (Study 7) samples. In both studies, I manipulated MF diversity and examined its influence on changing individuals’ decisions.
168 Chapter 5: Theoretical Background- MF Diversity
169 Chapter 6: MF Diversity and Decision Outcomes
Chapter 6
Studies 6 and 7: Moral Foundations Diversity and Decision Outcomes
6.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I present the methods and results of Studies 6 and 7. These studies tested hypotheses 4 and 5. In both scenario studies, I manipulated MF diversity and examined its influence on changing participants’ initial decisions. Study 6 was conducted using a student sample from a university in Australia and Study 7 was conducted using a worker sample from the United States. The materials for these studies can be found in
Appendix D.
170 Chapter 6: Study 6
6.2 Study 6
Study 6 represents a preliminary exploration of the influence of MF diversity on individuals’ (un)ethical decisions. In this study, the outcome variable was operationalised as the change between participants’ initial and final decisions.
6.2.1 Method
Main study: Participants
One hundred and seventy-two students (38% male; 62% female) from the ASB participated in this study in exchange for a gift card worth AUD15.22 Participants were on average 22.7 years of age (SD = 4.2). The majority of the participants were Asian
(approximately 90%), followed by White/Caucasian (approximately 10%). Fifty-eight percent of the participants were enrolled in an undergraduate program and forty-one percent in a post-graduate program. Within this sample, the majority of participants had work experience (77%) and had worked for an average of 2.2 years (SD = 3.0). Thirty- eight percent of the participants with work experience are currently employed and work an average of 14.1 hours per week (SD = 10.2).
Design and procedure
The study involved a between-subjects design, with participants randomly assigned to one of three MF diversity conditions (MF diversity vs. no MF diversity [ethical agreement] vs. no MF diversity [no ethical conversation]). Participants were informed that this study examined decision making.
22 As mentioned in Study 1, Study 6 was conducted using the same sample of students as Study 1. 171 Chapter 6: Study 6
Participants played the role of a student volunteer for a promotional event organised by their business school, the ASB. They were informed that the ASB was organising an information session to attract top scoring high school leavers to the school, and that they were to give a short presentation to these high school leavers. The aim of the presentation was to attract prospective students to the ASB. Participants were further informed that they would work on this presentation with a fellow student volunteer, Pat, over instant messaging. Participants were then told that the ASB Marketing Department had compiled some information about the ASB that participants were to use during the presentation. In addition, the marketing department had prepared two different presentations based on the compiled information; these two presentations were labelled
Option A and Option B. Participants were asked to select, from these two options, the presentation that contained the information they would like to use during the information session.
More specifically, participants first read the information about the ASB that was compiled by the ASB Marketing Department. They were then presented with the two options. The information found in Options A and B were similar in terms of topics (e.g., student support programs and access to computer laboratories). However, Option A presented the information in a more attractive manner, by exaggerating the qualities of the ASB or withholding less attractive details about the ASB. Selecting Option A, thus, represented a binding foundations-based decision, because this option promoted and benefitted the participants’ own business school. Conversely, Option B presented the information in a more accurate manner, by including all details about the ASB.
Selecting Option B represented an individualising foundations-based decision, because this option protected prospective students’ rights by providing them with accurate 172 Chapter 6: Study 6
information that allowed them to make informed decisions on their academic future.
Table 6.1 provides two examples of how information was presented in Options A and B, the first column shows the information that was found by the marketing department, and the second and third columns show how the same information was presented in each option. After reading the information and the two options, participants were shown an instant messaging window that contained a greeting from Pat, who asked them about the option they wanted to use. Here, all participants made an initial decision (i.e., either
Option A or B) and their decision was shared with Pat.
MF diversity was manipulated via Pat’s response to participants’ initial decision. In other words, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental condition, and in each condition, they were provided with a different instant message response from Pat.
In the MF diversity condition, participants who made an initial binding [individualising] 173 Chapter 6: Study 6
foundations-based decision conversed with Pat, who supported the opposing foundations-based decision. Participants who initially selected Option A were presented with this message:
Pat: I’m not so sure about Option A. Your decision seems unethical to me! I
think this option hurts prospective students by not providing them with accurate
information about the ASB - well not as accurate as it can be! The prospective
students won’t be able to make informed decisions about their education as a
result. What do you think?
Participants who initially selected Option B were presented with this message:
Pat: I’m not so sure about Option B. Your decision seems unethical to me! I
think this option hurts our business school by not painting an attractive picture to
prospective students – well not as attractive as it can be! Our business school
won’t look good to these top scoring students as a result. What do you think?
All participants in the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition were sent the following message:
Pat: Let’s meet up tomorrow to discuss how we are going to deliver this
presentation. I’ll leave the decision, regarding which set of notes we should base
our presentation on, to you.
Finally, in the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition, Pat agreed with participants’ initial decision. For participants who selected Option A, Pat expressed agreement by commenting that:
Pat: I agree with your selection of Option A. Your decision seems ethical to me!
I think this option helps our business school by painting an attractive picture to 174 Chapter 6: Study 6
prospective students. Our business school will look good to these top scoring
students. We should use the information in this option during the presentation!
Conversely, participants who selected Option B received the following message:
Pat: I agree with your selection of Option B. Your decision seems ethical to me!
I think this option helps prospective students by providing them with accurate
information about the ASB. The prospective students will be able to make
informed decisions about their education as a result. We should definitely use
the information in this option during the presentation!
After reading Pat’s response to their initial decision, all participants were asked to re- think the situation, by taking into account their initial decision and the feedback they received from Pat. They were presented with the information about the ASB and the two options, and were reminded about the option they had initially selected. Participants then made their final decision regarding the option they wanted to use during the presentation, that is: 1) retain their initial decision of presenting Option A (Option B); 2) change their initial decision from presenting Option A (Option B) to presenting Option
B (Option A), or; 3) neither options (i.e., participants indicated that they can do a better presentation than Option A and Option B). If participants selected neither options, they were asked by Pat to explain why neither options were suitable and describe their preferred alternative presentation. In the final part of the study, participants completed manipulation check items and demographics items.
Dependent variable
Decision outcome was measured by comparing participants’ initial and final (post- conversation) decisions. Participants who did not change their initial decisions were 175 Chapter 6: Study 6
coded as 1 (i.e., outcome 1- no change: initial and final decision was Option A [Option
B]); participants who changed to the opposing decisions, that is, changed from initially selecting one option to later selecting the other option were coded as 2 (i.e., outcome 2- change by adopting opposing decisions: initial decision was Option A [Option B] and final decision was Option B [Option A]); and participants who changed their initial decisions to provide alternate decisions were coded as 3 (i.e., outcome 3- change by making alternate more creative decisions: initial decision was Option A [Option B] and later decision was an alternate suggestion).23
6.2.2 Results
Pilot study
A pilot study was conducted to: 1) ensure that participants did not merely select Option
A and not Option B and vice versa and 2) capture the reasons why participants selected either Option A or Option B. The latter purpose ensured that participants who selected
Option A perceived this option as beneficial to their school (i.e., a binding foundations- based decision) and participants who selected Option B perceived this option as accurate, in that the information presented is truthful and will not harm prospective students (i.e., an individualising foundations-based decision). Participants were provided with information about their role as a student volunteer, the information collected by the ASB Marketing Department, and the two suggested options. In this pilot study, participants, in the role of a student volunteer, worked alone on the presentation. Participants selected the option they wanted to use during the presentation and explained why they selected that option for the presentation and why the option they did not select was not suitable for the presentation. Twenty-three participants
23 A brief description of some of the alternate decisions (outcome 3) made by participants can be found on p. 180. 176 Chapter 6: Study 6
enrolled in an introductory management course offered at a university in Australia, took part in this pilot study in exchange for course credit; these participants did not take part in Study 6. Participants were on average 19.4 years of age (SD = 2.0) and around half the participants were male (52%).
The results revealed that 10 participants selected Option A (43%) and 13 participants selected Option B (57%), and showed that participants were not merely selecting one option and not the other. The reasons that participants provided to justify their selected option was content coded by an independent coder (blind to the hypotheses) for the main reasons why each participant selected an option and why s/he did not select the other option. Participants who selected Option A did so because they thought the information was succinct and attractive and did not select Option B because this option was not succinct and unattractive. For participants who selected Option B, they all did so because they perceived the option to be informative and appropriate. These participants did not select Option A because they perceived this option to be unclear and misleading. Table 6.2 provides some examples of why participants selected one option and why they did not select the other option. In all, this pilot study showed that participants selected Option A because this option depicted the ASB in a more attractive manner, and, thus, promoted the school, and participants selected Option B because this option depicted the ASB in a more accurate/honest manner, which helped prospective students to make more well informed decisions.
177 Chapter 6: Study 6
Main study: Study 6
To assess the effectiveness of the MF diversity manipulations, the following questions were responded to on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree): 1) Pat had a different opinion about which Option to use for the presentation and shared his/her reasoning for his/her opinion; 2) Pat felt that my decision was unethical; 3) Pat agreed with my decision as to which Option to use for the presentation; 4) Pat felt that my decision was ethical; 5) Pat arranged to meet up with me to discuss how to deliver this presentation, and left the decision, as to which Option to use for the presentation, to me, and; 6) Pat did not share his opinions about my decision with me. Items (1) and (2) were averaged to attain a composite measure of MF diversity (Spearman Brown coefficient = .81), items (3) and (4) were averaged to attain a composite measure of 178 Chapter 6: Study 6
ethical agreement (Spearman Brown coefficient = .85), and items (5) and (6) were averaged to attain a composite measure of no ethical conversation (Spearman Brown coefficient = .62).
I conducted t-tests to check that the MF diversity manipulations were successful. The results showed that participants in the MF diversity condition scored higher on the MF diversity measure (M = 4.05, SD = .54), compared to participants from the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition (M = 2.61, SD = .59; t(113) = 13.72, p
< .01) and the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition (M = 1.84, SD = .61; t(112)
= 20.42, p < .01). Participants in the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition scored higher on the no ethical conversation measure (M = 3.87, SD = .78), compared to participants in the MF diversity condition (M = 2.54, SD = .69; t(113) =
9.73, p < .01) and the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition (M = 2.43, SD
= .78; t(113) = 9.96, p < .01). Participants in the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition scored higher on the ethical agreement measure (M = 4.11, SD = .57), then participants in the MF diversity condition (M = 1.98, SD = .67; t(112) = 18.16, p < .01) and the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition (M = 3.14, SD = .71; t(113)
= 8.08, p < .01). The manipulations were successful.
Table 6.3 presents the numbers and percentages of each decision outcome for the three
MF diversity conditions.
179 Chapter 6: Study 6
Multinomial logistics regressions were conducted to test hypothesis 4a and 4b, that is, compared to no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) and no MF diversity (ethical agreement), MF diversity is more likely to lead to change by adopting opposing decisions. The results did not support hypothesis 4a, β = .15, s.e. = .44, Wald 2(1) = .12, p =.72. In support of hypothesis 4b (i.e., at p < .10), the odds of MF diversity leading to change via adopting opposing decisions is 2.32 times more likely than no MF diversity
(ethical agreement), β = .84, s.e. = .50, Wald 2(1) = 2.88, p < .10. Twenty-six percent of the participants in the MF diversity condition changed their initial decisions to adopt opposing decisions compared to a 14% in the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition (N = 15 of 57 [26%] vs. N = 8 of 57 [14%]).
Finally, I conducted multinomial logistics regressions to test hypotheses 5a and 5b, that is, compared to no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) and no MF diversity (ethical agreement), MF diversity is more likely to lead to change by making alternate and more creative decisions. Both hypotheses were not supported, β = .22, s.e. = .57, Wald 2(1)
= .15, p = .70 and β = .35, s.e. = .57, Wald 2(1) = .37, p = .54, respectively. However, while the hypotheses were not supported, it is notable that several participants made alternate and more creative decisions (e.g., 8 from the MF diversity condition and 7 180 Chapter 6: Study 6
from the no MF diversity [no ethical conversation] condition). Examples of such decisions include: participants’ recommendation to combine both Options A and B, their promotion of other attractive aspects of the university, and the use of other sources of information during the presentation (e.g., getting the opinions of current students and educators about the school). It appears that such alternate and creative decisions may indeed be generated. In Chapter 7 (general discussion) I suggest that one reason why these hypotheses were not supported was because of a methodological limitation inherent in this study. It is, thus, possible that when this limitation is addressed, the data will show that MF diversity will be more likely to lead to alternate and creative decisions that are similar to those found in this study, as compared to when there is no
MF diversity.
181 Chapter 6: Study 7
6.3 Study 7
In Study 7, I seek to extend Study 6 by examining the same relationships using a different sample in a different context. First, Study 7 was conducted using a worker sample from the United States instead of a student sample from a university in Australia.
Second, Study 7 examined the influence of MF diversity on an outcome of organisational relevance (rather than one that influences a university as found in Study
6). Study 7 tested hypotheses 4 and 5 and manipulated MF diversity to measure change in participants’ decisions.
6.3.1 Method
Main study: Participants
One hundred and seventy-nine participants (57% male; 43% female) from the United
States were recruited to complete a web-based experiment. Participants were on average
31.9 years of age (SD = 11.3). The majority of the participants were White/Caucasian
(70.9%), African American/Black (10.7%), Asian American/Asian (10.1%), and
Hispanic/Latino/Latina (4.6%). The majority of participants had work experience
(96.6%) and had worked for an average of 13.3 years (SD = 11.4). Sixty-nine percent of the participants were currently employed, and these participants worked an average of
37 hours per week (SD = 11.1) The most common industries in which participants worked were professional, scientific, or technical services (12.9%), retail trade (10.5%), and arts, entertainment, or recreation (9.7%). The most common occupational categories the participants were employed in were computer or mathematical (13.7%), sales or related occupations (8.9%), office or administrative support (8.1%), and arts, design, entertainment, sports, or media (8.1%). Managerial/supervisory positions were held by around 32 percent of employed participants and about 69 percent worked with an 182 Chapter 6: Study 7
immediate supervisor. Participants were recruited from MTurk, and received US$0.50 as compensation for completing this five minutes study.
Design and procedure
The experiment involved a between-subjects design, with each participant assigned to one of the three MF diversity conditions (MF diversity vs. no MF diversity [ethical agreement] vs. no MF diversity [no ethical conversation]). Participants were informed that the study examined managerial decision making. There were two sections in this study.
Section 1 consisted of four parts. In part 1, all participants read a scenario (adapted from
Butterfield, Treviño, & Weaver, 2000; see Appendix D for the scenario). Within the context of the scenario, participants were asked to play the role of a manager (Pat) of an electronics company (Johnson Company) and to make a hiring decision. They read that the company, Johnson Company, was performing poorly while competitor companies were thriving. Participants (in the role of Pat) were then asked by Pat’s boss Taylor, who is the vice-president of Johnson Company, to make a hiring decision to fill a sales manager position. The profiles of two shortlisted applicants were provided. The profile of one of the applicants, Mike Gibson, was depicted as more qualified compared to the second applicant, Joe Armstrong. In the scenario, it was also explicitly mentioned that
Mike Gibson was more qualified. Table 6.4 contains the candidates’ profiles that participants received. Participants were then informed that Joe Armstrong had previously been employed by Techtronics Inc., a primary competitor of Johnson
Company, and that he (i.e., Joe Armstrong) was willing to divulge inside information about a product that was being developed at Techtronics Inc. Participants were informed 183 Chapter 6: Study 7
that obtaining this inside information will benefit Johnson Company, but this comes at the expense of Techtronics Inc.’s profit. In the final part of the scenario, Taylor commented that he preferred Joe Armstrong for the position, due to the fact that this applicant was able, and willing, to provide Johnson Company with the inside information.
In part 2 of this section, participants were asked to make a decision as to who they would hire for the sales manager position. In part 3, participants were randomly assigned to one of three MF diversity conditions: 1) MF diversity; 2) no MF diversity
(no ethical conversation), or; 3) no MF diversity (ethical agreement). Up to this point in the experiment, the materials were identical for all participants.
In the MF diversity condition, MF diversity was made visible by having participants, who made an initial individualising (binding) foundations-based decision converse with 184 Chapter 6: Study 7
Roy, a colleague who supported a binding (individualising) foundations-based decision.
Selecting Mike Gibson represented an individualising foundations-based decision, because this hiring decision was a fair one based on both applicants’ merits. In other words, if Mike Gibson was chosen, he would have been treated fairly and been protected from a harmful career setback, because he was the more qualified applicant.
Conversely, selecting Joe Armstrong represented a binding foundations-based decision, because this hiring decision prioritised participants’ organisation ahead of other considerations (including care and justice). Specifically, hiring Joe Armstrong (1) benefitted the organisation by attaining inside information from a competitor company
(i.e., loyalty to the organisation) and (2) conformed to the wishes of authority figures in the organisation (i.e., the authority of Taylor Wright).
Participants who initially selected Mike Gibson for the sales manager position (i.e., an individualising foundations-based decision) were presented with a conversation between Pat and a colleague (Rory) who argued that Joe Armstrong was more suited for the position (i.e., a binding foundations argument, which includes loyalty and respect for authority).
Rory: Pat, let me get this straight, so you decided to choose Mike Gibson for the
position.
You: Yup, that’s right.
Rory: hmmm…Well after hearing your description of this situation, I have a
different perspective for you. In this case, I strongly believe that Joe Armstrong
is more suited for this role. Joe has valuable inside information about a
competitor company, which makes hiring Joe the best option. This is because he 185 Chapter 6: Study 7
will help our organisation succeed and regain its position as the market leader.
Our higher-ups in the organisation are also keen to have Joe on board.
In contrast, participants who initially selected Joe Armstrong for the sales manager position (i.e., a binding foundations-based decision) were presented with Rory’s argument that Mike Gibson was more suited for the position (i.e., an individualising foundations argument, which includes justice and care).
Rory: Pat, let me get this straight, so you decided to choose Joe Armstrong for
the position.
You: Yup, that’s right.
Rory: hmmm…Well after hearing your description of this situation, I have a
different perspective for you. In this case, I strongly believe that Mike Gibson is
more suited for this role. Mike is more qualified and has more experience
compared to Joe, which makes hiring Mike a fair decision. Certainly, this
decision does not harm Mike as it protects his rights.
In the no MF diversity condition (no ethical conversation), participants were informed that they met a colleague (Rory) for lunch. No other information/details were provided for this condition.
In the no MF diversity condition (ethical agreement), participants made an initial individualising or binding foundations-based decision and then read a conversation between Pat and Rory, who agreed with their initial decision. For participants who initially selected Mike Gibson, Rory first clarified participants’ decisions and then expressed agreement as follows: 186 Chapter 6: Study 7
Rory: Pat, let me get this straight, so you decided to choose Mike Gibson for the
position.
You: Yup, that’s right.
Rory: hmmmmm… Well after hearing your description of this situation, I share
your perspective. I too strongly believe that Mike Gibson is more suited for this
role. Mike is more qualified and has more experience compared to Joe, which
makes hiring Mike a fair decision. Certainly, this decision does not harm Mike
as it protects his rights.
For participants who initially selected Joe Armstrong, the conversation was as follows:
Rory: Pat, let me get this straight, so you decided to choose Joe Armstrong for
the position.
You: Yup, that’s right.
Rory: hmmmm…Well after hearing your description of this situation, I share
your perspective. I too strongly believe that Joe Armstrong is more suited for
this role. Joe has valuable inside information about a competitor company,
which makes hiring Joe the best option. This is because he will help our
organisation succeed and regain its position as the market leader. Our high-ups
in the organisation are also keen to have Joe on board.
In the final part of Section 1 (i.e., part 4), participants were given another opportunity to decide which applicant they would recommend for the sales manager position.
Participants were asked to think about the situation based on the decision they had made previously (i.e., in part 2) and other information they may have attained (e.g., from the conversation with their colleague; i.e., in part 3). Participants were asked to indicate their final hiring decision, that is, Mike Gibson, Joe Armstrong, or an alternate hiring 187 Chapter 6: Study 7
suggestion. If participants selected the alternate hiring suggestion option, they were asked to describe this alternate suggestion and to justify why this alternate suggestion was better than hiring either Mike Gibson or Joe Armstrong. In Section 2, participants completed demographics items.
Dependent variable
Decision outcome was measured by comparing participants’ initial and final (post- conversation) decisions. Participants who did not change their initial decision were coded as 1 (i.e., outcome 1- no change: initial and final decision were Mike Gibson [Joe
Armstrong]); participants who changed to the opposing decision, that is, changed from initially selecting one candidate to later selecting the other candidate were coded as 2
(i.e., outcome 2- adopt the opposing decision: initial decision was Mike Gibson [Joe
Armstrong] and final decision was Joe Armstrong [Mike Gibson]); and participants who changed their initial decision to provide an alternate hiring decision were coded as 3
(i.e., outcome 3- change to derive an alternate more creative decision: initial decision was Mike Gibson [Joe Armstrong] and later decision was an alternate suggestion).
6.3.2 Results
Pilot studies to test the validity of the experimental materials
Two pilot studies were conducted to ensure that the experimental materials were valid.
In these pilot studies, I sought to confirm that in the scenario: (1) Mike Gibson was perceived to be the more qualified and suitable candidate for the sales manager position and (2) selecting Mike Gibson for the position was perceived to be an individualising decision (i.e., the decision did not harm and was fair to Mike) and selecting Joe
Armstrong represented a binding decision (i.e., a decision that showed loyalty to one’s 188 Chapter 6: Study 7
organisation and respect for one’s superiors). The procedures, designs, and materials used in these pilot studies were similar to those used in the main study.
In pilot study 1, 138 participants rated on separate 5-point scales the extent to which they thought Mike Gibson and Joe Armstrong were 1) qualified (1 = not qualified at all;
5 = extremely qualified), 2) competent to fulfil the sales manager role (1 = not competent at all; 5 = very competent), and 3) experienced (1 = not experienced at all; 5
= very experienced).24 To obtain each candidates overall qualified score, the items for
Mike and Joe were averaged separately, with higher scores indicating greater qualification (Mike: M = 4.52, SD = .51; Joe: M = 3.68, SD = .68). A one-sample t-test revealed that participants perceived Mike to be significantly more qualified compared to
Joe (t(138) = 12.20, p < .001, d = 2.08).
In pilot study 2, 111 participants read the scenario depicted in section 1, part 1, and made their hiring decision. These participants then rated the extent to which they agreed with four individualising and three binding relevant reasons for why they chose to hire
Mike Gibson or Joe Armstrong. The reasons were rated on a 6-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree), with four of the items measuring individualising reasons, and three of the items measuring binding reasons. Examples of individualising reasons included: ‘I think it is fair, given the candidates’ qualifications’ and ‘I think this decision does not harm the candidate who is more qualified based on merit alone’.
Examples of binding reasons included: ‘I respect the viewpoint of my boss, Taylor’ and
24 Pilot studies 1 and 2 each took less than 5 minutes to complete. As studies conducted in the experimental laboratory and on student participants have to be at least 30-45 minutes, each pilot study was conducted together with other unrelated studies. The number of participants in both pilot studies reflects the number of participants recruited for these other studies. Furthermore, to ensure that the significant differences were due to differences between the groups, and not due to the large sample sizes, I examined effect sizes using Cohen’s d. Both pilot studies had large effect sizes, and these findings increased confidence that the respective groups being compared were significantly different. 189 Chapter 6: Study 7
‘It benefits my organisation by placing the success of my organisation ahead of any other considerations (e.g., the consideration regarding how I will obtain inside information about Techtronics Inc., our competitor)’. A t-test revealed that participants who hired Mike Gibson were more likely to base their decision on individualising reasons (M = 4.65, SD = .90), compared to participants who hired Joe Armstrong (M =
3.36, SD = .81), t(109) = 7.86, p < .001, d = 1.96. Conversely, participants who hired
Joe Armstrong were more likely to base their decision on binding reasons (M = 4.58, SD
= .63), compared to participants who hired Mike Gibson (M = 3.67, SD = 1.08), t(95.3)
= 5.50, p < .001, d = 1.01.
Main study - Study 7
The pilot studies showed that participants perceived Mike Gibson to be more qualified and Joe Armstrong to be less qualified for the sales manager position and that participants who hired Mike Gibson based their decision on individualising reasons (i.e., given that Mike is the more qualified and better suited for the position than Joe), while participants who hired Joe Armstrong based their decision on binding reasons. Thus, these pilot studies confirmed the validity of the materials to be used for its intended purpose. In Study 7, I used these materials to test the hypotheses that MF diversity is more likely to lead to the two change outcomes, as compared to no MF diversity (i.e., no ethical conversation and ethical agreement).
Table 6.5 presents the numbers and percentages of each outcome for the three MF diversity conditions. The results revealed that few people changed their initial decisions to derive alternate and more creative decisions, a finding that was consistent across all three conditions. 190 Chapter 6: Study 7
Multinomial logistics regressions were conducted to test hypothesis 4a and 4b, that is, compared to no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) and no MF diversity (ethical agreement), MF diversity is more likely to lead to change via participants adopting opposing decisions. In support of hypothesis 4a, the odds of MF diversity leading to change via adopting opposing decisions is 18.49 times more likely than no MF diversity
(no ethical conversation), β = 2.92, s.e. = 1.05, Wald 2(1) = 7.68, p < .01. Close to 25 percent of the participants in the MF diversity condition changed their initial decisions via adopting opposing decisions compared to a mere 2% in the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition (N = 15 of 61 [24.6%] vs. N = 1 of 58 [1.7%]). In support of hypothesis 4b, the odds of MF diversity leading to change via adopting opposing decisions is 9.77 times more likely than no MF diversity (ethical agreement),
β = 2.28, s.e. = .78, Wald 2(1) = 8.55, p < .01. Close to 25% of the participants in the
MF diversity condition changed their initial decisions compared to just 3% in the no MF diversity (ethical agreement) condition (N = 18 of 61 [24.6%] vs. N = 2 of 60 [3.3%]).
I also conducted multinomial logistics regressions to test hypotheses 5a and 5b, that is, compared to no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) and no MF diversity (ethical 191 Chapter 6: Study 7
agreement), MF diversity is more likely to lead participants to change their initial decisions via making alternate and more creative decisions. These hypotheses were not supported, β = -.08, s.e. = .79, Wald 2(1) = .01, p = .92 and β = .67, s.e. = .94, Wald
2(1) = .51, p = .47, respectively. Similar to Study 6, while these hypotheses were not supported, several participants did make alternate and more creative decisions. For example, participants’ recommended hiring both Mike Gibson and Joe Armstrong for different positions and hiring a competent internal candidate for the position (instead of hiring Mike Gibson or Joe Armstrong). It appears that such alternate and creative decisions may indeed be generated. I argue that a methodological limitation might be the reason why hypotheses 5a and 5b were not supported. Accordingly, future research that addresses this limitation may find that MF diversity, as opposed to no MF diversity, is more likely to generate these alternate and more creative decisions.
192 Chapter 6: Discussion
6.4 Discussion
In this chapter, I empirically examined decision outcomes associated with MF diversity.
Specifically, I examined how an individual’s initial (un)ethical decision was changed by
MF diversity. In Studies 6 and 7, I found that compared to a participant who did not face MF diversity because there was ethical agreement among conversation partners, a participant faced with MF diversity was more likely to change his/her initial decision to adopt the opposing decision (hypothesis 4b). In Study 7, I also found that compared to a participant who did not encounter MF diversity (i.e., did not engage in ethical conversation), a participant who encountered MF diversity was more likely to change his/her initial decision to adopt the opposing decision (hypothesis 4a). There was, however, no evidence from these studies to show that MF diversity, compared to no MF diversity, was more likely to lead one to change his/her initial decision to derive an alternate and more creative decision (hypotheses 5a and 5b).
Notably, the scenarios used in Studies 6 and 7 involved ambiguous ethical decision situations. Both studies used a scenario where two ‘right/ethical’ decisions were pitted against each other; for example in Study 6, one ‘right’ decision benefitted the business school, and the other ‘right’ decision benefitted perspective students. In fact, the hiring scenario used in Study 7 was adapted from Butterfield and his colleagues (2000) to examine how organisational factors (e.g., a competitive context) influenced decision making in an ethically ambiguous situation.
In the next chapter, I provide a more in depth discussion of the results attained from all the studies conducted in this thesis. There, I also highlight the contributions of this thesis, the limitations of my research, and several future research avenues. 193 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Chapter 7
General Discussion
This chapter begins with an overview of my thesis, followed by a summary of the main findings from my studies. I then discuss the theoretical, methodological and practical contributions made by this thesis. Finally, I consider the limitations of the research, as well as future avenues for research.
7.1 Overview
Individuals have different views of what is ethical and unethical (Haidt & Joseph, 2007).
Some individuals primarily view ethics as the protection of all people by caring for and being fair to them (i.e., endorsing the individualising foundations). Other individuals also view ethics as protecting in-groups by being loyal to these groups and respectful to authority figures (i.e., endorsing the binding foundations). According to the moral foundations theory (Haidt & Joseph, 2004), all individuals endorse both individualising and binding foundations, but to differing extents. To date, the majority of organisational research has focused on the former class of ethical values and behaviours (i.e., individualising foundations; Graham et al., 2011).
The first part of this thesis examined how differences in organisational members’ endorsement of both individualising and binding foundations can influence their unethical decisions and behaviours to benefit their organisations (i.e., UPB). I argued that individuals who endorse the individualising foundations perceive decisions and behaviours that protect and are fair to others to be ethical. Conversely, individuals who endorse the binding foundations perceive decisions and behaviours that protect their in- 194 Chapter 7: General Discussion
groups (e.g., their organisations) to be ethical. I proposed that individuals, who endorse the binding foundations more strongly and identify with their organisations, may seek to be ethical by making decisions and engaging in behaviours that benefit their organisations, and unwittingly disregard the fact that these decisions and behaviours are unethical according to global normative standards. Specifically, these individuals are more likely to engage in UPB. Five studies were undertaken to test my theorising; each study used a different research design and sample and was designed to build upon the previous study.
Organisations are social environments. Thus, individuals may interact and converse with their co-workers in relation to the initial UPB-related decisions they have made.
Such interactions have the potential to impact the way the individuals interpret and think about ethical issues and may ultimately lead them to change their initial decisions.
Accordingly, while the first part of this thesis investigated why some individuals make
(initial) (un)ethical decisions, the second part of this thesis answers the questions of whether and how individuals’ initial (un)ethical decisions are changed after conversing with co-workers who hold different ethical perspectives and who would have made different initial (un)ethical decisions (i.e., MF diversity). In this second part of the thesis,
I drew on research from moral psychology (e.g., Leidner & Castano, 2012), organisational diversity (e.g., Nemeth & Ormiston, 2007), and group decision making
(e.g., Bonaccio & Dalal, 2006), and posited that compared to circumstances in which there is no MF diversity (i.e., no ethical conversation or ethical agreement), individuals faced with MF diversity are more likely to change their initial decisions and adopt the opposing decisions or make alternate and more creative decisions. I tested these 195 Chapter 7: General Discussion
proposed relationships in Studies 6 and 7 and used different experimental designs (e.g., with a student sample and a worker sample).
The following section presents a summary of the key findings of the seven studies, from the first and second part of this thesis, and provides interpretations of the main findings of interest.
7.2 Summary and Interpretation of Main Findings
In this section, I first discuss the main findings derived in the first part of my thesis that examined moral foundations using a person-centred clustering approach (hypothesis 1) and interactive approaches (hypotheses 2 and 3). The main findings from the second part of the thesis on MF diversity (hypotheses 4 and 5) are then discussed.
Hypothesis 1: Person-centred clustering approach (Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5)
Hypothesis 1 could not be tested because the clusters obtained in Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5 did not match the clusters that had been assumed based on Haidt et al.’s (2009) research.
However, the clusters that I attained did show that the moral foundations clusters were associated with outcomes of organisational relevance. Specifically, compared to cluster
1 (i.e., the cluster with lower scores across all foundations), cluster 2 (i.e., the cluster with higher scores across all four moral foundations) was more strongly associated with organisational identification (see Studies 1, 2, 4 and 5) and UPB (see Studies 1 and 5).
Additionally, in the studies conducted using worker samples, respondents from cluster 2 were more satisfied with their job (see Studies 4 and 5), were more likely to hold managerial positions (Study 5), and had longer organisational tenure (Study 4), as compared to cluster 1. It is, however, also possible that the differences between clusters, 196 Chapter 7: General Discussion
specifically on survey measures such as organisational identification and job satisfaction, may be attributed to the fact that respondents from cluster 2 simply responded higher to all measures (with the exception of the Machiavellianism
(amorality) measure in Study 1), as compared to respondents from cluster 1.
I suggested in Chapter 3 (p. 103) that the clusters found by Haidt et al. (2009) differed from the clusters found in my studies because the sanctity/purity foundation had been excluded from my analyses. To investigate this explanation, post hoc exploratory cluster analyses were conducted on Studies 1, 2, 4, and 5 and the survey of 975 university students. In these post hoc analyses, the sanctity/purity foundation was included. With the exception of Study 5, all studies, showed cluster outcomes that were similar to those previously obtained when the sanctity/purity foundation had been excluded from the analyses (see Figure 7.1 for a graphical depiction of these cluster patterns when all five foundations were included in the post hoc analysis on the results from the survey of 975 university students). These cluster patterns were different from those obtained by Haidt et al. (refer to Figure 2.3, p. 47, for the graphical depiction of clusters found in Haidt et al.’s, 2009 study). Interestingly, the cluster outcomes in Study 5 were similar to those obtained by Haidt et al. However, no support was found for hypothesis 1 using these clusters (β =-.02, p = .94). This may be because the sanctity/purity foundation is not theoretically related to UPB (see Chapter 2, p. 20). Thus, the inclusion of this foundation in the post hoc analysis did not help in providing support for the proposed relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB.
197 Chapter 7: General Discussion
In relation to the four studies that found different cluster outcomes from Haidt et al.
(2009), it is likely that other factors (i.e., not the exclusion of the sanctity/purity foundation) accounted for the difference; for example, differences between respondents in Haidt et al.’s study and the respondents who participated in my studies may account for the different clusters. The respondents surveyed by Haidt and his colleagues were interested in learning about their moral values and thus self-registered on a website hosted by social/moral psychologists. Unsurprisingly, this sample was comprised of educated individuals (Graham et al., 2011) and it is possible that a large proportion of these respondents were social psychologists or students of social psychology. Haidt
(2010) posited that social/moral psychologists are predominantly liberal. This may explain why a large number of their respondents fell into the individualising principles cluster (cluster 1), as compared to the binding principles cluster (cluster 2). The motives of Haidt et al.’s respondents differed to those of the student and worker respondents in my research, because not only were my respondents unaware that moral values were being examined prior to participation, they also participated in my studies in exchange 198 Chapter 7: General Discussion
for course credit (the student samples) or monetary compensation (the worker and student samples). Thus, significant differences in the nature of my respondents and those of Haidt et al.’s may be a reason for why the cluster outcomes in these studies differed from those obtained by Haidt and his colleagues.
Another factor that might account for the differences between respondents in Haidt et al.’s (2009) study and the respondents who participated in my studies is that Haidt et al. analysed the results of a sample of approximately 21,000 respondents, while my studies had significantly smaller sample sizes (e.g., the largest sample of N = 975 was obtained from the survey of students from an Australian university). Further, Haidt et al. limited their respondents to individuals who grew up and currently lived in the United States.
Comparatively, the majority of the student respondents in my studies were Asians.
Differences in the endorsement of particular moral foundations have been found to exist between individuals from Asian and western cultural backgrounds; for example, individuals from Asian cultures have been found to be more concerned about displaying loyalty to their in-groups, compared to individuals from western cultures (Graham et al.,
2011). Such differences in terms of moral foundations endorsement, may explain why the cluster outcomes from my student samples differed from the cluster outcome from
Haidt et al.’s study. In relation to my worker samples (i.e., respondents in Studies 4 and
5), while they were similar to the respondents in Haidt et al.’s study in that my respondents currently resided in the United States, they were also different in that my respondents had to be full-time workers and did not have to have grown up in the
United States. Such demographic differences between the respondents who participated in Haidt et al.’s study and those who participated in my studies may have contributed to the differences in the clusters. 199 Chapter 7: General Discussion
The clusters I obtained in Studies 1, 2, and 4 were not consistent with Haidt et al.’s clusters; however, interestingly, in Study 4, cluster 1 was more likely to lead to UPB when organisational identification was high, as compared to when it was low.
Conversely, cluster 2 was not influenced by the strength of individuals’ organisational identification. It may be that the decisions and behaviours of cluster 1 respondents, who had lower scores across all moral foundations, were more influenced by their identification with their organisations and less influenced by ethical considerations. In contrast, the decisions and behaviours of cluster 2 respondents, who had higher scores across all the foundations, may have been driven by their ethical considerations and not by their organisational identification. In Chapter 3 (p. 105), cluster 1 respondents were likened to individuals with low moral identity and cluster 2 respondents were likened to individuals with high moral identity. These comparisons fit this finding; that is, the decisions and behaviours of individuals with low moral identity are influenced by identities (e.g., organisational identification) other than their moral identity (i.e., akin to respondents in cluster 1). On the other hand, the decisions and behaviours of individuals with high moral identity are more driven by ethical considerations (i.e., akin to respondents in cluster 2). This finding, however, was unique to Study 4 and further investigation needs to be undertaken to determine the validity of this explanation.
Hypotheses 2 and 3: Interactive approaches (Studies 1, 2, 3a and 3b, 4, and 5)
In this section, I first discuss Studies 1, 4, and 5, as these studies used the same materials, had the same experimental design, and tested hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 2 stated that binding foundations are more strongly associated with engagement in UPB 200 Chapter 7: General Discussion
when individualising foundations are low (as compared to high), but only when organisational identification is high.
In Study 1, hypothesis 2 was partially supported in that a significant three-way interaction, between binding foundations, individualising foundations, and organisational identification on UPB, was found. However, the slope difference tests did not support hypothesis 2. Conversely, the results of Studies 4 and 5 fully supported this hypothesis. It may be that the difference in results arose because Study 1 was conducted using a student sample and Studies 4 and 5 were conducted using worker samples. As discussed in Chapter 3 (p. 108), students and workers differed in relation to how they identified with their universities and organisations, as well as in relation to their perceptions of UPB. These differences in identification may be attributed to the fact that the relationships between workers and their organisations and students and their universities differ vastly. Workers are expected to generate profit for their organisations while university students are expected to attend classes, complete various assessments, learn, and, ultimately, obtain degrees. Workers invest time and effort to ensure that their organisations are profitable while students receive an education and obtain degrees from their universities. Thus, the identification of workers is intertwined with the contributions they make to their organisations; however, the identification of students is associated with what they gain from their universities. As a result of such different relationships and expectations, workers may encounter more opportunities to engage in UPB, compared to students (who are less likely to encounter situations in which they have the opportunity to do something unethical to benefit their universities).
201 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Study 2 did not support hypothesis 2; however, I found that when individualising foundations were high, binding foundations were more likely to be associated with engagement in UPB when organisational identification was high (as opposed to low).
This was an intriguing finding because earlier, I theorised that individualising foundations were less strongly associated with engagement in UPB, as UPB violated moral obligations to care for and be fair to others. The nature of the scenario given in this study could account for this result. Specifically, in this study, participants read from a fact sheet provided about the achievements, facilities, programmes, and scholarships offered at their business school. They then were asked to edit slides containing exaggerated and misleading information that were to be used to attract prospective students to their school. UPB were operationalised as the number of misleading or exaggerated pieces of information that were not edited to reflect the accurate information on the fact sheet and that were left on the slides. It is possible that after reading the promotional information about the school (i.e., from the fact sheet; see
Appendix A), participants with high individualising foundations and high organisational identification, genuinely believed that prospective students would benefit by enrolling in the school. For these participants, their high organisational identification might also have blinded them to the fact that some of the information on the slides was exaggerated, as these participants may have believed that the school they identified with was superior to other schools. After all, individuals who identify with their organisations may develop an enhanced sense of self-esteem and pride (cf. Tajfel & Turner, 1979). These reasons may explain why these participants did not remove the attractive (albeit misleading or exaggerated) information from the slides.
202 Chapter 7: General Discussion
In Study 3a, I showed that individuals primed with the binding foundations were more willing to engage in UPB by omission when organisational identification was high (as compared to low). In Study 3b, I showed that individuals primed with the binding foundations evaluated another’s engagement in UPB, including UPB by omission, more positively than individuals primed with the individualising foundations. Study 3b did not, however, find the proposed two-way interaction between moral foundations and organisational identification on UPB. This may be because participants primed with the binding foundations focused on benefitting their in-group colleague, rather than their organisation. Thus, these participants did not need to identify with their organisation for the primed binding foundations to be associated with positive evaluations of their colleague’s behaviours (which is how UPB were operationalised in Study 3b). The inconsistency between the findings in Studies 3a and b may also have arisen because of sample differences. Study 3a used first year undergraduate business students and measured participants’ identification with their business school. Study 3b used a wider population, including university students from a range of faculties and at different stages of their degrees, and measured participants’ identification with their university. I posit that the nature of students’ identification with their business school (Study 3a) and their university (Study 3b) may differ, as students may distinguish and develop different attachments to their own business school as compared to the university itself. This distinction is akin to how employees belonging to multi-national corporations (MNCs) develop dual identifications, whereby there are differences between how they identify with their local subsidiaries (i.e., where they work) and the global organisation (Reade,
2001). By way of example, the business school may be perceived as representing the place where students attain their specialised degrees and the university as a general location of study. The more specific nature of students’ attachment to their business 203 Chapter 7: General Discussion
school might explain why identification to the school was a significant moderator of the relationship between moral foundations and UPB by omission in Study 3a; while the more general nature of students’ attachment to their university may explain why identification did not influence the aforementioned relationship in Study 3b.
Are there differences on how moral foundations and organisational identification influenced UPB by commission and UPB by omission? This question prompted me to conduct additional analyses using the commission and omission subscales of the main measure of UPB (i.e., in Studies 1, 3a, 3b, 4, and 5). Note, however, that each UPB subscale had a small number of items (e.g., UPB by omission had two items) and low reliabilities (e.g., the Spearman-Brown coefficients of the UPB by omission scale ranged from .55 to .69 across the studies). This led to reduced confidence in the results and further research that uses more reliable measures of UPB by commission and omission is required. However, these additional analyses suggest that individuals’ moral foundations influence their engagement in UPB by commission and omission.
Moral foundations may influence individuals to engage in UPB by omission more strongly than UPB by commission. The results of all the studies (with the exception of
Study 1) showed that moral foundations were associated with UPB by omission. Studies
3a, 4, and 5 also revealed the expected relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB by omission. It is possible that the respondents and participants in these studies found it easier to engage in UPB by omission because they required less effort (i.e., individuals could benefit their organisations by doing nothing; see Spranca et al., 2003). In relation to UPB by commission, data from Studies
4 and 5 showed the expected three-way interaction (i.e., supported hypothesis 2). This 204 Chapter 7: General Discussion
suggests that workers who more strongly endorse group-oriented ethical considerations and identify with their organisations, are less likely to differentiate between effortful
UPB and effortless UPB, but would be willing to engage in UPB as such behaviours were considered ‘right/ethical’.
Hypotheses 4 and 5: MF diversity (Studies 6 and 7)
The second part of this thesis focused on MF diversity. I conducted two studies that investigated whether and how MF diversity changed individuals’ initial decisions, as compared to situations in which there was no MF diversity. Studies 6 and 7 found that, compared to individuals who did not encounter MF diversity (i.e., situations in which there was ethical agreement), individuals who encountered MF diversity were more likely to change their initial decisions and adopt opposing decisions. These findings were consistent with my theory that MF diversity introduces individuals to opposing ethical perspective and decisions, while ethical agreement impedes individuals from learning about contradictory perspectives and validates their already made decisions.
Thus, MF diversity is more likely to lead to individuals changing their initial decisions
(via adopting opposing decisions) than situations in which there is no MF diversity (i.e., where there is ethical agreement).
In Study 7, I showed that compared to individuals who did not face MF diversity (i.e., situations in which there was no ethical conversation), individuals who faced MF diversity were more likely to change their initial decisions by adopting opposing decisions. This result was not found in Study 6. One reason for this may be that participants assigned to the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition in
Study 6 were given the responsibility of making the final decisions by a team member 205 Chapter 7: General Discussion
(i.e., in the scenario, the partner stated ‘I’ll leave the decision, regarding…to you’; p.
173). However, in Study 7, participants assigned to the no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) condition merely had lunch with a colleague who was not involved in the hiring decision. McAllister, Mitchell, and Beach (1979) found that when decision makers were personally responsible for decisions, they used more analytical strategies in approaching their decisions. Accordingly, when participants in the no MF diversity
(no ethical conversation) condition were given the responsibility of making the final decision, they may have analysed the situation using a range of strategies, including considering different perspectives. Such consideration is comparable to exposing target individuals to different ethical perspectives as in the MF diversity condition. The use of analytical strategies may, thus, explain why there were no differences between the MF diversity and no MF diversity (no ethical conversation) conditions on decision outcomes in Study 6.
Finally, the results of Studies 6 and 7 did not support hypotheses 5a and b; that is, participants were not more likely to make alternate and more creative decisions when there was MF diversity, compared to when there was no MF diversity (i.e., situations in which there was no ethical conversation and ethical agreement). The lack of support for these hypotheses may reflect the fact that humans are loss aversive (cf. Kahneman, 2003) and creative decision making is stimulated when discussions involve dissent or debate
(cf. Schulz-Hardt et al., 2006). In respect of this first point, recall that in Chapter 6, I discussed the status quo bias; that is, the tendency of individuals to maintain current decisions due to an aversion to potential losses that could result from change. Research also shows that when individuals are deciding between changing their initial decisions and maintaining the status quo, they simplify their decisions into a series of queries 206 Chapter 7: General Discussion
(query theory; Lu & Xie, 2014). As individuals are loss aversive, their first query probes the disadvantages of changing their initial decisions and results in the retrieval of information against change (Weber et al., 2007). Changing to alternate and more creative decisions is risky because there is a high possibility that the new decisions are wrong (see Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). After all, nobody has implemented such novel decisions before. When individuals consider a novel change, they are likely to retrieve a host of negative information that opposes change. This may explain why participants across all conditions were less willing to change their initial decisions and no significant differences across conditions were found in relation to this decision outcome. Notably, in relation to the change outcome whereby participants adopted the opposing decisions of their conversation partners, it may have been the case that when individuals in the MF diversity condition were deciding whether to change their decisions in this manner, perceptions of risk and the retrieval of information discouraging change were less evident. In this situation, change is seen as less risky because their conversation partners have already made these opposing decisions.
Second, reaching alternate and more creative decisions may require conversations that involve active discussion, dissent, argument, and/or conflict, which were not evident in the designs of Studies 6 and 7. In support of this contention, Tjosvold (1985) argued that when individuals openly discuss opposing viewpoints, they are motivated to consider the rationales behind their partners’ viewpoints. In fact, dissent and disagreements among diverse team members have been found to enhance the quality and accuracy of decision making (De Dreu & West, 2001; Schulz-Hardt et al., 2006).
Thus, it appears that the MF diversity scenarios used in Studies 6 and 7, whereby conversation partners merely presented their ethical perspectives and/or decisions to 207 Chapter 7: General Discussion
each other, may not have been conducive for the development of alternate and creative decisions.
7.3 Contributions
This thesis has theoretical, methodological, and practical implications that advance existing research.
7.3.1 Theoretical Contributions
This thesis theoretically advances research in three areas; that is, moral foundations, behavioural business ethics, and organisational diversity.
In relation to moral foundations research, this thesis contributes by: 1) examining decision and behaviour outcomes of organisational relevance, instead of only examining the individual characteristics (e.g., political orientations; Haidt & Graham, 2007) associated with an individual’s endorsement of different moral foundations, and 2) proposing a process that explains how and why the endorsement of different moral foundations may be associated with (un)ethical decisions and behaviours.
In relation to behavioural business ethics research, this thesis contributes by:
1) introducing moral foundations theory to this research, which guides researchers to think differently and more expansively about what constitutes ethics in the organisation;
2) extending the school of thought that views organisational wrongdoing as a normal phenomenon (i.e., wrongdoings are viewed as being committed unintentionally by ordinary organisational members who are acting in accordance with their endorsed moral foundations, as opposed to being committed intentionally to achieve self- 208 Chapter 7: General Discussion
interested gains); 3) examining a common yet relatively less examined form of unethical behaviour (i.e., UPB), and; 4) expanding prior models of and research on ethical decision making, by investigating how MF diversity changes individuals’ initial
(un)ethical decisions.
Finally, this thesis contributes to organisational diversity research by introducing the novel concept of MF diversity, which brings research attention to this form of hidden or unseen diversity. The theoretical contributions to these three research areas are discussed in greater detail below.
Theoretical contributions to moral foundations research
This thesis advances research on moral foundations in two ways. First, this thesis went beyond providing a mere description of the associations between moral foundations and individuals’ characteristics (e.g., political orientations) as moral psychologist have previously done (e.g., Haidt & Graham, 2007). Specifically, I examined how actual outcomes of organisational relevance (i.e., UPB) were shaped by members’ endorsed moral foundations and organisational identification. To my knowledge, this thesis was the first to empirically test this relationship. In the non-organisational context only two studies (see Waytz et al., 2013 and Smith et al., 2014) have examined behavioural and decisional outcomes associated with moral foundations. Thus, there is a paucity of research on the outcomes, particularly organisationally relevant outcomes, associated with moral foundations. This paucity needs to be addressed as an organisational member’s moral foundations may influence various important work-related outcomes.
In fact, my studies showed that moral foundations and organisational identification were associated with workers engagement in UPB. 209 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Second, this thesis incorporates research on decision frames (Tenbrunsel & Messick,
1999) and Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model to advance the theoretical understanding of the process through which the endorsement of certain moral foundations may be associated with (un)ethical decision and behaviours. The process was not empirically tested in this thesis; however, the proposed theoretical framework enriches our understanding of how moral foundations might exert their influence on individuals’ decisions and behaviours.
Theoretical contributions to behavioural business ethics research
This thesis also advances behavioural business ethics research in three ways. First, it broadens the current narrow conceptualisation of ethics by introducing the moral foundations theory into this area of research. In doing so, it provides a more expansive understanding of ethics in organisations that includes both individual- and group- oriented ethical considerations. Notably, the group-oriented ethical considerations have remained relatively less examined as ethical concepts in this area of research (e.g., showing respect to one’s superior has not previously been viewed and examined as an ethical behaviour). Further, the introduction of group-oriented ethical considerations to this area of research encourages others to explore, in addition to UPB, other organisationally relevant consequences associated with the endorsement of these additional moral foundations (e.g., an individual’s reluctance to leave an organisation may be driven by a perception that loyalty to the organisation is an ethical imperative).
Second, this thesis aligns with and theoretically advances the school of thought that considers organisational wrongdoing a normal phenomenon (e.g., Palmer, 2012). 210 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Specifically, I posited that the ways individuals conceptualise ethics may result in their paying selective attention to particular aspects of behaviours (e.g., the pro- organisational side of UPB), which may lead them to perceive these behaviours as ethical and blind them to the fact that these behaviours are normatively unethical. Thus, ordinary organisational members may at times unintentionally commit unethical behaviours by behaving in accordance with the moral foundations they endorse. This raises questions as to the validity of consistent findings that unethical decisions and behaviours stem from anomalous individuals, the ‘bad apples’, in organisations (e.g.,
Treviño & Youngblood, 1990) who constantly scheme to achieve self-interested aims
(e.g., individuals high in Machiavellianism; Tang, Chen, & Sutarso, 2008).
Third, the inclusion of UPB as outcomes of interest in this thesis extends understanding of this under-studied, pro-social form of unethical decisions and behaviours in organisations (Matherne & Litchfield, 2012; Umphress et al., 2010). To date, there has been extensive research examining organisational members’ engagement in unethical acts committed to benefit the self (e.g., individuals profiting at the expense of their organisations; CEO earnings manipulation behaviours; Zhang, Bartol, Smith, Pfarrer, &
Khanin, 2008). However, limited research has been undertaken on unethical organisational decisions and behaviours that arise from members’ desire to promote their own organisations (Ashforth & Anand, 2003). This thesis addresses this gap in the literature and shows that moral foundations and organisational identification are potential antecedents of such unethical decisions and behaviours.
Finally, the second part of this thesis considered whether and how MF diversity changed individuals’ initial (un)ethical decisions. My theorising complimented and extended 211 Chapter 7: General Discussion
current models and previous research on ethical decision making (e.g., Sonenshein,
2007; Haidt, 2001; Gino et al., 2009). Specifically, MF diversity, as examined in this thesis, is revealed (via target individuals’ interactions with their co-workers) after target individuals’ initial (un)ethical decisions have been made. MF diversity thus influences and may change the initial decisions of target individuals. Previous research in behavioural business ethics has mainly focused on how individuals arrive at their initial decisions; for example, the ethical decision making models by Sonenshein (2007) and
Haidt (2001) largely focused on how initial (un)ethical decisions came about and Gino et al.’s (2009) study examined how individuals’ initial decisions were shaped by in- group members. Conversely, my research on MF diversity focused on individuals’ subsequent decisions (or the change in their initial decisions).
Theoretical contributions to organisational diversity research
This thesis contributes to organisational diversity research by introducing the idea that organisational members endorse different moral foundations and that such difference is a source of diversity in organisations. I argued that MF diversity is ubiquitous in organisations, which implies that MF diversity is present in the majority of (if not all) divisions and teams in organisations. Such diversity may influence these groups and teams in unknown and unaccounted for ways. Similarly, conflict that arises from MF diversity may be falsely attributed to other types of diversity (e.g., socio-economic status; cf. Haidt et al., 1993). Additionally, conflict that arises from other differences among group members may be exacerbated by the presence of MF diversity (e.g., faultlines or the hypothetical dividing lines that split groups into relatively homogenous subgroups based on group members’ alignment along multiple attributes; Bezrukova, 212 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Jehn, Zanutto, & Thatcher, 2009). Introducing MF diversity to organisational diversity research encourages further investigation of this relatively novel phenomenon.
7.3.2 Methodological Contributions
This thesis makes two important methodological contributions to behavioural business ethics research. First, future research that extends my theorising might consider the adoption of the following three methodological strengths of my thesis. The first strength is that, in my studies, the hypotheses were tested using different participant and respondent samples; that is, Studies 1, 2, 3a, 3b, and 6 were conducted using student samples, while Studies 4, 5, and 7 were conducted using worker samples. Given that students and workers differ in demographic factors (e.g., age) and experiences (e.g., with UPB), it would be premature to assume that findings from the student samples will generalise to workers and vice versa. In fact, my studies found slight differences in the outcomes between students and workers. Future papers that extend my theorising, thus, may consider collecting data from multiple samples to address their research questions.
Second, different outcome measures were used in the different studies. For example, in the first part of this thesis, Studies 1, 3a, 4, and 5 measured respondents’ intentions to engage in UPB, Study 2 measured participants’ actual engagement in UPB, and Study
3b captured participants’ evaluation of another’s engagement in UPB. Given that all the studies found associations between the predictor variable(s) and UPB (albeit unexpected relationships were also found), the argument that there is an association between these constructs is strengthened. Finally, different survey designs were used to test the hypotheses. Specifically, Study 4 was conducted using a cross-sectional sample of workers and Study 5 was conducted using a sample of workers surveyed at two points in time. Podsakoff et al. (2003) cautioned that because of common method biases, the 213 Chapter 7: General Discussion
use of surveys to test predictions might result in inaccurate findings. Study 5, involving a two-wave survey, addressed several potential biases, such as item context effects and measurement context effects (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Further, in all the studies, I incorporated the advice of Podsakoff et al. (2003) and implemented several non- statistical methods of reducing common method biases, such as ensuring the confidentiality of participants and respondents. In summary, the various studies conducted in this thesis helped to address the methodological weaknesses inherent in single method studies (such as low generalisability of results and common method bias) and can be used as a guide in the design of future studies in similar areas.
A second methodological contribution made by this research is related to my use of the clustering technique to group respondents and participants into clusters on the basis of their scores on each moral foundation. Using this clustering technique, individuals with similar configurations of scores were clustered into groups. To date, cluster techniques have not been commonly used in behavioural business ethics research (for an exception see Cortina and Wasti, 2005); however, this technique has been used in clinical research to examine the profiles of patients with psychiatric disorders (e.g., Strauss, Bartko, &
Carpenter, 1973; Helmes & Landmark, 2003) and personality research to classify the various personality types (e.g., Mount, Barrick, Scullen, & Rounds, 2005). Previous research on business ethics has mainly focused on identifying individual difference variables (e.g., Machiavellianism) that can explain why certain organisational members engage in (un)ethical behaviours (e.g., Jones & Kavanagh, 1996). The identification of such individual variables is informative; however, it is an oversimplification of how
(un)ethical decisions and behaviours come about. Accordingly, I argue that using cluster analyses to group individuals, based on multiple individual difference variables (e.g., 214 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Machiavellianism and neuroticism), may derive meaningful clusters of individuals; these clusters may better explain why certain groups of individuals engage in unethical behaviours.
7.3.3 Practical Contributions
This research offers practical advice to organisational members, managers, and organisational decision makers.
For organisational members, this thesis informs their decision making in two ways. First, it advocates for a more precise and expansive understanding of the range of ethical concerns held by all individuals. Such an understanding may assist individuals to identify why they are dissatisfied in their current organisations. Anderson, Spataro, and
Flynn (2008) found that members experience dissatisfaction in their organisations when there are incompatibilities between these members and their working environments.
These incompatibilities occur because of poor person-organisation (P-O) fit that arises from misalignments between the characteristics of members and organisations
(Anderson et al., 2008). In relation to this thesis, individuals endorsing the individualising foundations may fit poorly in organisations with cultures that encourage the binding foundations and vice versa; for example, organisational members who endorse the fairness foundation may strongly believe that promotions should be based on performance (i.e., meritocracy) and will be dissatisfied in organisations that value loyalty, where promotions depend on organisational tenure instead of performance.
Such incongruences are detrimental to worker commitment, performance, and satisfaction (O’Reilly, Chatman, & Caldwell, 1991). When organisational members are aware of the moral foundations they endorse, they may be able to take actions to 215 Chapter 7: General Discussion
minimise their dissatisfaction or avoid situations that result in negative experiences. For example, members may focus on other organisational policies that align with their moral foundations or avoid joining organisations that have cultures incompatible with their moral foundations.
Second, for organisational members who endorse the binding foundations, this thesis increases their awareness that their conceptualisation of ethics may bias their perceptions in some ethically-charged situations and lead them to make and engage in unethical decisions and behaviours. Despite being unintentional, these decisions and behaviours can have negative consequences for themselves, ranging from criminal charges to the experience of negative emotions, such as guilt and shame (Smith,
Webster, Parrott, & Eyre, 2002). Understanding how and why their moral foundations influence their decisions and behaviours related to ethics, may allow organisational members to take extra steps to assess their actions. As an example, these members may engage in perspective taking prior to finalising their decisions. Haidt (2001) argued that by cognitively taking on the role of others, individuals may activate new intuitions and see issues from different perspectives (see also Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000).
Perspective taking assists individuals to reframe their viewpoints on situations (Hoever, van Kippenberg, van Ginkel, & Barkema, 2012). Accordingly, members who endorse the binding foundations may evaluate their behaviours by examining situations from the perspective of various stakeholders (e.g., customers and community members). This will enable them to see the impact of their decisions on different stakeholders and potentially assist them to make more informed decisions.
216 Chapter 7: General Discussion
This thesis helps managers to better understand the motivations behind their subordinates’ unethical actions and has implications for the management of ethics in organisations. Specifically, being aware that the same ethical situations may be perceived and reacted to differently by subordinates who endorse different moral foundations will allow managers to develop more targeted methods to manage unethical behaviours at work. For example, while extant research shows that unethical leadership is one determinant of unethical follower behaviours (Brown & Treviño, 2006), the findings of this thesis imply that unethical leadership may have a greater negative impact on individuals who value the binding foundations (as opposed to the individualising foundations) and who identify with their organisations. Ethical leadership is thus vital when dealing with subordinates who endorse the binding foundations (and identify with their organisations). Further, managers should also be aware that the content and delivery of their messages will have different influences on different subordinates (cf. Awamleh & Gardner, 1999) and tailor their messages according to their subordinates’ endorsed moral foundations. For example, managers should avoid communicating messages that strongly invoke profiting their own organisation or winning against competitors, to subordinates who strongly endorse the binding foundations and who identify with their organisations, as these subordinates may unwittingly engage in UPB.
This thesis also provides practical advice to assist organisations in upholding their ethical reputations by reducing their members’ unethical decisions and behaviours.
Organisational decision makers who know that certain members’ may be more inclined to engage in UPB can monitor, address, and prevent members from engaging in this form of unethicality via human resource interventions (e.g., mentoring and formal 217 Chapter 7: General Discussion
policies). Similarly, as UPB are committed by organisational members who desire to benefit their organisations, organisational policies on unethical conduct may reduce such unethicality by being more explicit in relation to the negative/non-beneficial organisational consequences of UPB. Alternatively, reducing such unethicality may involve organisational codes of ethics, mission statements, core values, and other forms of communication on ethics (e.g., newsletters) being couched in the language of both individualising and binding foundations to appeal to members who endorse individual- and group-oriented ethical concerns (cf. Feinberg & Willer, 2012).
Margolis (2009) suggested that instead of merely analysing how organisational members make decisions when faced with the competing demands in ethical dilemmas, behavioural business ethics research should identify strategies that allow members to act effectively when faced with these simultaneous demands. Based on the findings of this thesis, I suggest organisations should embrace MF diversity and provide their members with opportunities to voice their diverse perspectives on ethical issues. In doing so, when faced with ethical dilemmas, members will have access to different perspectives that provide them with more holistic views of these dilemmas. In fact, the absence of
MF diversity and avenues to voice different ethical viewpoints may result in members unknowingly engaging in unethical actions that they (falsely) deem to be the socially agreed upon ethical course of action (e.g., false consensus; Flynn & Wiltermuth, 2010) or failing to consider that ethical issues may have alternative and more suitable solutions (Bird & Waters, 1989).
218 Chapter 7: General Discussion
7.4 Limitations and Future Research Avenues
The limitations of this thesis should be noted. First, I grounded my arguments in relation to how moral foundations shape decisions and behaviours on decision frames research (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 1999) and Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model.
Specifically, I argued that endorsing the binding foundations is associated with framing the world in a ‘benefit for the in-group’ manner, which leads to individuals perceiving decisions and behaviours to protect and benefit their organisations as ethical (i.e., should the organisation be their in-group) and to experience ‘right/good’ intuitions when faced with UPB. In contrast, endorsing the individualising foundations leads individuals to frame the world in a ‘universal protection’ manner, whereby ethical decisions and behaviours are deemed to be those that protect and are fair to other people.
Thus, situations that involve UPB elicit ‘wrong/bad’ intuitions. While it was beyond the scope of this thesis to empirically verify these processes, future researchers can, however, empirically examine these processes. This will lead to a better understanding of the influence of moral foundations and more accurately guide the development of strategies required to change individuals’ unethical decisions and behaviours (e.g., strategies to ensure that all individuals derive ‘wrong/bad’ intuitions when faced with
UPB).
Second, I theorised and examined how specific strengths of the binding and individualising foundations and organisational identification influence UPB. For example, I proposed a three-way interaction in which the binding foundations were associated with greater engagement in UPB when individualising foundations were low and organisational identification was high. Studies 4 and 5 supported this relationship.
However, Study 2 revealed that other combinations of these constructs (i.e., moral 219 Chapter 7: General Discussion
foundations and organisational identification) at different high and low strengths influenced engagement in UPB. Specifically, I found that the binding foundations were more strongly associated with engagement in UPB, when both organisational identification and the individualising foundations were high. I argued that this may be due to the experimental scenario itself; participants were informed and reminded about the good qualities of their school (p. 201), such that participants with high individualising foundations may have thought that they were helping prospective students by attracting them to a good school. This raises the question of whether the influence of varied strengths of moral foundations and organisational identification on
UPB is dependent on context. For instance, when UPB benefit members’ organisations, as well as important external stakeholders (e.g., customers), and the harm associated with UPB appears trivial, individuals who endorse both individualising and binding foundations and who identify with their organisations may focus on both stakeholders and organisational benefits and may be willing to engage in UPB. The potential influence of situational variables on the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB can be investigated in future research.
A third limitation of this research is that it did not examine the potential moderators and mediators that influence the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB. For example, one potential moderator is moral identity or the extent that morality is central to an individual’s self-concept (Aquino & Reed, 2002).
Individuals with a high moral identity, regardless of their moral foundations and organisational identification, are generally more sensitive to the ethical content of situations and will be aware that UPB are harmful and unfair to others. Conversely, individuals with low moral identity do not possess such sensitivity and their 220 Chapter 7: General Discussion
engagement in UPB will be influenced by their moral foundations and organisational identification. A potential mediator may be job involvement or the extent that work constitutes an important aspect of an individual’s life (Brown, 1996). Here, I suggest that individuals who strongly endorse group-oriented moral foundations and who identify with their organisations may be more involved with their work and more willing to engage in UPB. In examining the relationship between moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB, future research can include such mediators and moderators.
A limitation of the second part of this thesis is that it did not investigate whether the decision outcomes associated with MF diversity varied as a function of contextual and individual factors. For instance, in environments of high interpersonal trust (as compared to environments of low interpersonal trust) MF diversity might be more likely to change individuals’ initial decisions. This is because interpersonal trust mitigates the negative interpersonal outcomes that derive from workplace diversity (Mayer, Davis, &
Schoorman, 1995) and allows diversity to be leveraged to increase learning and creative problem solving (Edmondson, 1999; Ely & Roberts, 2008). Other contextual factors might include the diversity climate (Kossek & Zonia, 1993) or ethical climate (Martin
& Cullen, 2006; Smith-Crowe et al., 2014) of an organisation. Similarly, the personal attributes of organisational members are also likely to determine how MF diversity influences their decision outcomes. For example, individuals with high moral identity
(Aquino & Reed, 2002) may perceive their initial decisions to be based on ethically
‘right’ assumptions and perspectives and be less willing to change such decisions. Thus, future research can examine the potential contextual and individual factors that might moderate MF diversity’s influence on organisational outcomes. On a practical note, 221 Chapter 7: General Discussion
identifying these factors (e.g., contextual factors) will enable decision makers in organisations to leverage MF diversity to create environments that help maximise the occurrence of ethical decision outcomes.
A final limitation of this thesis relates to the use of scenarios to study MF diversity (i.e., in Studies 6 and 7). Scenarios were favoured in this thesis, as they standardised situations across participants and allowed for the manipulation of the different conditions (e.g., MF diversity and no MF diversity [no ethical conversation]). Thus, other factors could be ruled out and the causal influences that MF diversity had on changing participants’ initial decisions could be examined. As MF diversity is a novel phenomenon that has been the subject of relatively little research, the use of scenarios in controlled laboratory settings to examine this phenomenon was necessary prior to testing it in the field (Dipboye & Flanagan, 1979). However, the scenarios that I used forced all participants to choose one of three decision outcomes as their final decision.
This may have inflated the associations between MF diversity and the three decision outcomes. It is possible that MF diversity is associated with more or fewer outcomes or even different outcomes from those proposed and tested. Future researchers can investigate this possibility. One way to do so would be to redesign Studies 6 and 7, such that participants are asked to describe the initial and final decisions they wish to make, rather than select their decisions from a pre-determined set of decisions. Such a design requires qualitative data collection and analysis. Similarly, participants may engage in face-to-face dyadic conversations with another individual or with a confederate playing the role of a fellow participant. Thus, decision outcomes would not be specified beforehand, but derived from the conversations.
222 Chapter 7: General Discussion
Besides addressing these limitations, there are other avenues for future research. For instance, future research can investigate whether the findings observed in my studies on moral foundations, organisational identification, and UPB extend to ethical pro- organisational decisions and behaviours. The studies by Waytz et al. (2013) and Smith et al. (2014), as well as the findings from this thesis, show that the binding foundations are associated with less desirable outcomes. This is informative; however, it provides a one-sided view of individuals who endorse binding foundations. Group-oriented ethical concerns should also be associated with an individual doing ‘good’ or behaving ethically to benefit his/her organisation, as the individual perceives such behaviours to be ethical. For example, an individual may engage in ethical extra-role behaviours in an organisation, such as contributing part of her salary to help cover the hospital bills of a sick colleague, because doing so displays loyalty to her in-group and fulfils her ethical obligation to the group (i.e., the organisation) and its members. Chen, Tsui, and Farh
(2002) showed that in China, loyalty to one’s supervisor was associated with improved in-role and extra-role performance. Thus, it is not difficult to imagine that an organisational member who perceives loyalty to his/her in-group members and supervisors as a moral obligation may strive even harder to engage in ethical in-role and extra-role behaviours.
Can the individualising foundations be associated with unethical decisions and behaviours? O’Reilly and Aquino (2011) suggested that an individual who sees an act of injustice against another individual may, under certain circumstances (e.g., where the victim has low power), punish the perpetrator of the injustice in an overly harsh and even unethical manner (i.e., by a non-organisationally sanctioned punishment). It is possible that after witnessing another individual behave in an unfair and harmful 223 Chapter 7: General Discussion
manner towards third parties, a target individual who endorses the individualising foundations may be morally compelled to take matters into his/her hands and punish the perpetrator. Such punishment may be non-organisationally sanctioned and unethical
(e.g., sabotaging the perpetrator’s work or spreading malicious gossip to ruin the perpetrator’s reputation; Skarlicki & Kulik, 2004). Future research can examine this potential ‘dark side’ of the individualising foundations.
In relation to MF diversity, expanding theorising to include the specified boundary conditions is a worthwhile future endeavour. For example, future researchers may consider examining MF diversity beyond dyadic interactions. Given that MF diversity exists in most (if not all) work groups, it is worth exploring how group-level decisions are made when the group consists of minority and majority subgroups holding different moral foundations. Researchers, such as De Dreu and West (2001), provide some clues as to what the outcomes might be when MF diversity is examined at the group-level. De
Dreu and West demonstrated that group dissent, arising from minority group members’ disagreements, contributes to innovative group decision making (note De Dreu & West,
2001 were not examining ethical decision making). This suggests that minority dissenters, who endorse different moral foundations to those of the majority and have perspectives that go against the ethical stance of the majority, may enhance group’s creativity in ethical decision making.
Future researchers may also seek to better understand how individuals who make initial
(un)ethical decisions and are exposed to MF diversity, waver and struggle between different decisions before settling on their final decisions (e.g., maintaining their initial decisions or adopting their partners’ decisions). To my knowledge, there is a paucity of 224 Chapter 7: General Discussion
research in behavioural business ethics that examines processes such as these. To investigate this process, researchers may present participants with the same scenarios used to examine MF diversity in Studies 6 and 7, but ask participants to verbalise their thought processes from the time they make their initial decisions to the time they make their final decisions; these sessions should be recorded. In this manner, the struggle and indecision faced by individuals faced with MF diversity can be captured.
Finally, future researchers can also consider exploring how the moral emotions that emerge during ethical conversations among individuals endorsing different moral foundations influence decision outcomes. Ethical decision making cannot be divorced from the moral emotions that drive such decisions (Haidt, 2001). The affective revolution that took place in organisational research attests to this notion; it has been argued and demonstrated that cognitive processes (i.e., decision making) cannot be fully understood without considering their affective foundations (e.g., Barsade, Brief, &
Spataro, 2003; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995). Accordingly, it is likely that each decision outcome is driven by a specific moral emotion that is elicited during the ethical conversation (Teo & Chan-Serafin, 2015). For example, embarrassment may be elicited after target individuals realise that their conversation partners’ decisions are ethically right, which leads to target individuals’ questioning their own decisions. Embarrassment is a self-critical emotion that is elicited when an aspect of the moral self is publically appraised to be inadequate or to have violated, albeit unintentionally, certain moral conventions (Haidt, 2003; Warren & Smith-Crowe, 2008). Experiencing embarrassment may increase the likelihood that target individuals take reconciliatory actions, such as changing their initial decisions and adopting their partners’ decisions.
225 Chapter 7: General Discussion
7.5 Conclusion
At the heart of this thesis is the acknowledgment that individuals conceptualise ethics differently. The question that arises then is, how do these differences impact organisationally relevant outcomes. In the first part of this thesis, there is evidence that showed that the endorsement of different moral foundations, coupled with organisational identification, influenced organisational members’ engagement in UPB.
In the second part of this thesis, I showed that when individuals, who endorsed different moral foundations and had different ethical viewpoints on an issue, interacted with one another, they were, in general, more likely to change their decisions and adopt their partners’ decisions, as compared to individuals who did not interact with morally diverse others. As a whole, this thesis provides a holistic picture of how moral foundations influence (un)ethical decisions and behaviours, by examining both individual and dyadic influences of moral foundations. Despite the limitations present in my research, the findings of this thesis, I argued, have important implications and open avenues for future research in behavioural business ethics.
226 Chapter 7: General Discussion
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255 Appendix A
Appendix A
Materials used in Chapter 3 (Studies 1, 2, 3a, and 3b; the studies that each measure was used in are indicated in parenthesis)
Independent / predictor variables
Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Studies 1 & 2; the moral foundation captured by each item is found in parenthesis at the end of the item)25
When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking?
Please rate each statement using this scale:
1. Whether or not someone suffered emotionally (care/harm) 2. Whether or not some people were treated differently than others (fairness/cheating) 3. Whether or not someone’s action showed love for his or her country (loyalty/betrayal) 4. Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority (authority/subversion) 5. Whether or not someone cared for someone weak or vulnerable (care/harm) 6. Whether or not someone acted unfairly (fairness/cheating) 7. Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group (loyalty/betrayal) 8. Whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society (authority/subversion) 9. Whether or not someone was cruel (care/harm) 10. Whether or not someone was denied his or her rights (fairness/cheating) 11. Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty (loyalty/betrayal) 12. Whether or not an action caused chaos or disorder (authority/subversion)
25 The purity/sanctity foundation items were removed from the measure, as this foundation was not examined in this thesis. 256 Appendix A
Please read the following statements and indicate your agreement or disagreement:
13. Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue. (care/harm) 14. When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly. (fairness/cheating) 15. I am proud of my country’s history. (loyalty/betrayal) 16. Respect for authority is something all children need to learn. (authority/subversion) 17. One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal. (care/harm) 18. Justice is the most important requirement for a society. (fairness/cheating) 19. People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong. (loyalty/betrayal) 20. Men and women each have different roles to play in society. (authority/subversion) 21. It can never be right to kill a human being. (care/harm) 22. I think it’s morally wrong that rich children inherit a lot of money while poor children inherit nothing. (fairness/cheating) 23. It is more important to be a team player than to express oneself. (loyalty/betrayal) 24. If I were a soldier and disagreed with my commanding officer’s orders, I would obey anyway because that is my duty. (authority/subversion)
257 Appendix A
Moral Foundations Primes (Studies 3a & b)
258 Appendix A
259 Appendix A
Organisational Identification (Studies 1, 2, 3a, & 3b; note that for Study 3b only, the target is ’my university’)
Based on your current experience in the ASB (i.e., your business school), please answer the questions below by indicating your agreement or disagreement.
1. When someone criticises my business school (my university), it feels like a personal insult. 2. I am very interested in what others think about my business school (my university). 3. When I talk about my business school (my university), I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 4. My business school’s (My university’s) successes are my successes. 5. When someone praises my business school (my university), it feels like a personal compliment. 6. If a story in the media criticised my business school (my university), I would feel embarrassed.
Dependent variables
Unethical Pro-Organisational Decisions (Studies 1 & 3a; commission and omission items are indicated in parenthesis at the end of the item)
Please select the option which best represents your willingness to engage in the following for the Australian School of Business (ASB; your business school):
1. If it would help my business school, I would slightly misrepresent the truth to make my business school look good. (commission) 2. If it would help my business school, I would exaggerate the truth a little about the quality of teaching, research, and services to prospective students. (commission) 260 Appendix A
3. If it would benefit my business school, I would withhold negative information about my business school or about its teaching, research, and services from prospective students. (omission) 4. If my business school needed me to, I would exaggerate a little the positive qualities of a competitor business school to an incompetent prospective student in the hope that the student will enrol in the other school instead of my business school. (commission) 5. If my business school needed me to, I would not retract misleading information that I accidentally told others previously about my business school. (omission) 6. If needed, I would conceal information from the public that could be damaging to my business school. (commission)
Unethical Pro-Organisational Behaviours (Study 2) a) (i) Fact Sheet – letter
261 Appendix A
a) (ii) Fact Sheet – Information about the ASB
262 Appendix A
263 Appendix A
b) Draft Slides
264 Appendix A
c) Operationalisation of UPB
265 Appendix A
Evaluation of Other’s Unethical Pro-Organisational Behaviours (Study 3b; commission and omission items are indicated in parenthesis at the end of the item)
Below are scenarios describing Jamie's, a fellow student's, behaviours on behalf of UNSW (your university). We would like to know your impressions of each of these actions taken by Jamie.
Imagine that you are at a UNSW Annual Networking Party, which is an event aimed at marketing UNSW to prospective (future) students.
You attend the party with Jamie, a fellow student at UNSW.
1. During the party, you noticed Jamie talking to a prospective student.
In order to help UNSW, Jamie misrepresented the truth about your university to make your university look good. (commission)
2. During the party, you noticed Jamie talking to a prospective student.
In order to help UNSW (your university), Jamie exaggerated the truth about the quality of teaching, research, and services to the prospective student. (commission)
3. During the party, you noticed Jamie talking to a prospective student.
In order to benefit UNSW, Jamie withheld negative information about your university and about its teaching, research, and services from the prospective student. (omission)
266 Appendix A
4. During the party, you noticed Jamie talking to a prospective student. Earlier, you talked to this same prospective student and found out that this student is performing poorly at school and is not interested in studying harder to improve.
You overheard Jamie exaggerate the positive qualities of a competitor university to this incompetent prospective student in the hope that this student will enrol in another university instead of UNSW (your university). (commission)
5. University ranking. After discussing with you, Jamie realised that she accidentally told a prospective student that UNSW's ranking was higher than what it actually is.
Jamie did not retract the misleading information that she accidentally told this prospective student previously about UNSW's ranking. (omission)
6. During the party, you noticed Jamie talking to a prospective student.
Jamie concealed information from this prospective student that could be damaging to UNSW (your university). (commission)
267 Appendix A
Control variables
University Satisfaction (Studies 1, 3a, & 3b)
Please answer the following questions by indicating your agreement or disagreement.
1. University student life is very enjoyable. 2. All in all, being a university student is great. 3. In general, I am satisfied with being a university student.
Machiavellianism (amorality; Studies 1, 2, 3a, &3b)
Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the statements below. There are no right or wrong answers, so please give your honest response.
1. I believe that lying is necessary to maintain a competitive advantage over others. 2. The only good reason to talk to others is to get information that I can use to my benefit. 3. I am willing to be unethical if I believe it will help me succeed. 4. I am willing to sabotage the efforts of other people if they threaten my own goals. 5. I would cheat if there was a low chance of getting caught.
268 Appendix A
Machiavellianism (distrust of others; Study 2)
Please indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the statements below. There are no right or wrong answers, so please give your honest response.
1. People are only motivated by personal gain. 2. I dislike committing to groups because I don’t trust others. 3. Team members backstab each other all the time to get ahead. 4. If I show any weakness at work, other people will take advantage of it. 5. Other people are always planning ways to take advantage of the situation at my expense. 269 Appendix B
Appendix B
Materials used in Chapter 4 (Studies 4 and 5)
Predictor variables
Moral Foundations Questionnaire (Studies 4 & 5): same measure used in Studies 1 and 2 (refer to Appendix A)
Organisational Identification (Studies 4 & 5)
Based on your current experience in your organization, please answer the questions below by indicating your agreement or disagreement.
1. When someone criticizes my organization, it feels like a personal insult. 2. I am very interested in what others think about my organization. 3. When I talk about my organization, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 4. My organization’s successes are my successes. 5. When someone praises my organization, it feels like a personal compliment. 6. If a story in the media criticized my organization, I would feel embarrassed.
270 Appendix B
Dependent variables
Unethical Pro-Organisational Decisions (Studies 4 & 5; commission and omission items are indicated in parenthesis at the end of the item)
Please select the option which best represents your willingness to engage in the following for your organization (i.e., main place of employment if you work part-time)
1. If it would help my organization, I would misrepresent the truth to make my organization look good. (commission) 2. If it would help my organization, I would exaggerate the truth about my company’s products or services to customers and clients. (commission) 3. If it would benefit my organization, I would withhold negative information about my organization or its products from customers and clients. (omission) 4. If my organization needed me to, I would give a good recommendation on the behalf of an incompetent employee in the hope that the person will become another organization’s problem instead of my own. (commission) 5. If my organization needed me to, I would withhold issuing a refund to a customer or client accidentally overcharged. (omission) 6. If needed, I would conceal information from the public that could be damaging to my organization. (commission)
Control variables
Job Satisfaction (Studies 4 & 5)
1. My job is very enjoyable. 2. All in all, the job I have is great. 3. In general, I am satisfied with my job. 271 Appendix C
Appendix C
Confirmatory Factor Analyses Results
272 Appendix C
273 Appendix D
Appendix D
Materials used in Chapter 6 (Studies 6 and 7)
Scenario used in Study 6
In this study, you will play the role of a student volunteer in a promotional event organised by your business school, The Australian School of Business (ASB). It is important that you put yourself in the role of the student volunteer when answering the questions and going through the tasks.
The ASB is organising an information session for top scoring High School Leavers. The purpose of this session is to communicate to these High School students the unique and valuable experiences they will gain by studying at the ASB. It is vital that the ASB attracts these top talents. Please note that the ASB will not be the only business school attempting to attract these students; notably, the University of Sydney Business School and the Melbourne Business School will also be in attendance.
As an ASB student volunteer, you will be giving a short presentation during the information session to these prospective students. Having made the decision to study at ASB yourself not too long ago, you understand what it means to be a part of this institution, and why UNSW is such an excellent university. During your presentation, you need to convey these sentiments to the prospective students, the future of the ASB.
You will be working together with another student volunteer, Pat, over instant messaging. Together, you will decide on the information that you will present to the prospective students.
To help you draft your presentation, the ASB Marketing Department has put together some information about the ASB, and suggested two different sets of notes that you can use during the presentation.
The information that the Marketing Department found comes from the ASB's website, and is presented first. Please read the information carefully.
The Table under the information contains the two options from which you choose. For example, selecting Option A means that you wish to present the information found in this Option during the information session to the top scoring High school leavers.
Please choose the option that contains the information you would like to present to attract the prospective students. 274 Appendix D
Purpose of the presentation: to attract top students to attend the ASB instead of other competitor schools, such as Sydney and Melbourne Business Schools
275 Appendix D
276 Appendix D
Scenario used in Study 7 (adapted from Butterfield et al., 2000)
277 Appendix D