EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF MORAL IMAGINATION ON ORGANIZATIONAL DECISION-MAKING by LINDSEY NICOLE GODWIN Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Dr. Ronald Fry, Chair Dr. David Cooperrider Dr. David Kolb Dr. Peter Whitehouse Department of Organizational Behavior CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY May, 2008 2 SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES We hereby approve the thesis/dissertation of Lindsey Nicole Godwin candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree *. Dr. Ronald Fry (chair of the committee) Dr. David Cooperrider Dr. David Kolb Dr. Peter Whitehouse March 31, 2008 *We also certify that written approval has been obtained for any proprietary material contained therein. 3 Copyright © 2008 by Lindsey Nicole Godwin All rights reserved 4 DEDICATION For Adam Paul whose youthful innocence and ever-unfolding potential reminds me that the world is still a beautiful place that is just waiting to be discovered anew everyday. For Matthew who gives me steadfast strength, unending love, and the encouragement to believe that one person can make a difference, but also shows me everyday what happens when you “multiple life by the power of two.” 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES 7 LIST OF FIGURES 9 PREFACE 10 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 12 DEFINITION OF TERMS 13 ABSTRACT 15 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 17 1.1 Research Opportunity and Purpose Statement 25 1.2 Organization of the Dissertation 27 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES 28 2.1: Mutually Beneficial Decision Making in Business 28 2.2: Defining Moral Imagination 33 2.3: Moral Awareness: The Ability to Discern Moral Issues 37 2.4: Creativity and Imagination: The Ability to Envision Possibilities 42 2.5: Moral Imagination: Greater than the Sum of it Parts 45 2.6: Factors Potentially Impacting Moral Imagination 46 2.7: Hypotheses Summary and Model 58 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY 61 3.1: Procedures 61 3.2: Participants 65 3.3: Independent Variable: Assessing Moral Imagination 67 3.4: Dependent Variable: Assessing Decision-Making Outcomes 75 3.5: Assessment of Factors Impacting Moral Imagination 79 3.6: Validity and Reliability of Measures 82 3.7: Social Desirability Check 94 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 95 4.1 Review of Theoretical Model 95 4.2 Hypotheses Testing 96 4.3 Post-hoc Exploratory Analysis 104 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 120 6 5.1 Discussion and Findings of Results 120 5.2 Limitations 130 5.3 Implications for Practice, Education and Future Research 133 APPENDIX A: SURVEY INSTRUMENT 142 APPENDIX B: MORAL AWARENESS SCORING RUBRIC 150 REFERENCES 151 7 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: An Integrated Framework for Altruism and Self-Interest 32 Table 2: Moral Imagination Scoring Calculation Example 72 Table 3: Descriptive Statistics for Moral Imagination Dimensions 73 Table 4: Correlation Matrix for Issue Awareness, Impact Awareness, 74 Fluency, Flexibility Table 5: Frequencies of Moral Imagination Groupings 75 Table 6: Coding Rubric for Moral Imagination and Decision-Making Outcome 77 Table 7: Frequencies of Type of Decision-Making Outcome 79 Table 8: Inter-rater Reliability Coefficients by Scenario 83 Table 9: Mean differences for Fluency and Flexibility by Vignette 84 Table 10: Mean differences for Social Benefit by Vignette 84 Table 11: Descriptive Statistics for the Moral Awareness Measures 89 Table 12: Correlation Matrix for Moral Awareness and Discerning 91 Table 13: Correlation Matrix for Creativity, Developing, Fluency and Flexibility 93 Table 14: Discerning Averages by Type of Decision-Making Outcome 97 Table 15: Developing Averages by Type of Decision-Making Outcome 98 Table 16: Decision-making Outcome by Moral Imagination Group 100 Table 17: Gender by Type of Decision-Making Outcome 106 Table 18: Mean Discerning and Developing Scores by Gender 107 Table 19: Gender by Moral Imagination Group 108 Table 20: Age Group by Type of Decision-Making Outcome 109 Table 21: Mean Discerning and Developing Scores by Age Group 111 Table 22: Moral Imagination Group by Age Group 112 8 Table 23: Mean years of work experience by type of decision-making outcome 114 Table 24: Years of Work Experience by Moral Imagination Group 114 Table 25: Correlations for Discerning, Developing and Yrs. Work Exp. 115 Table 26: Net Impact Member ship by Type of Decision-Making Outcome 116 Table 27: Moral Imagination group by Net Impact Membership 117 Table 28: Discerning and Developing Scores by Net Impact Membership 119 Table 29: An Expanded Framework for Moral Imagination 136 9 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: An Integrated conception of Altruism and Self-Interest 22; 96 Figure 2: Proposed Model for Moral Imagination and Mutually Beneficial 60 Decision-Making Figure 3: Expanded Conceptual Model 137 Figure 4: Dimensions and Degrees of Mutual Benefit 140 10 PREFACE Before delving into my current study, it is first important to take a moment and trace the experiences and ideas that led me to even conduct this inquiry. The seeds of this dissertation were planted on June 24, 2004. While just days before I found myself sitting in a hospital room with my father who was recovering from a heart-attack, on the 24th of June, I was sitting in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations, listening to Kofi Annan declare with his distinct timbre, “Let us choose to unite the strengths of markets with the power of universal ideals, let us choose to reconcile the forces of private entrepreneurship with needs of the disadvantaged and the well-being of future generations.” I was there as part of the team of students from Case Western Reserve University working with Dr. David Cooperrider to support his facilitation of the largest meeting ever held between the UN and leaders of business, non-profit and governmental agencies. This historic gathering of nearly 1000 organizational leaders was aimed at exploring the next phases of global corporate citizenship and offered a rare opportunity for CEOs of top companies like BP, Hewlett Packard, Nokia, Microsoft, to sit together and share as peers their successes and challenges with social responsibility efforts. Listening to the dialogues throughout the day, I realized that the conversations were not asking, “Should we be trying to create mutually beneficial outcomes through our business actions?” but rather were more focused on the question, “How can we create mutual benefit?” This shift in conversation was particularly interesting to me and represented an important movement in the world of business practice toward an implicit acceptance of mutual benefit as the fundamental purpose of business. As a doctoral student who was 11 studying social responsibility in business, I had been steeped in current academic theory and research on the subject, which had yet to resolve the question about the purpose of business. Yet sitting there among some of the business leaders in the world, I that they were not waiting for the academic world to settle the ongoing debate over the purpose of business, rather they were moving ahead at full speed with the intentions of creating benefit for both their company and wider society. They just wanted to find the best practices for doing such. This realization became even more poignant in conjunction with my experiences just 72 hours prior, when I reminded once again of the fragility of life after my dad’s survival of a potentially fatal heart blockage. I decided then and there that I while could use my energy as a scholar to engage in the ongoing argument on whether or not business should be engaged in social efforts and work to bring about positive social change, life was too short. Rather than spend a career trying to prove something that in my heart I already believed to be true, I decided to begin my inquiry building on the assumption that indeed businesses should be creating mutual benefit. This decision led me to a new stream of research that explores the nature of mutually beneficial decision-making in business, what impacts it, and how can we foster it? This dissertation represents my initial step toward trying to answer such questions. 12 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to first acknowledge the great minds that inspired my current inquiry. Although we have not met, I would like to thank Patricia Werhane and Mark Johnson whose writings on moral imagination first sparked my own imagination. I would also like to acknowledge the inspiration I found in Jennifer Jordan’s work on moral awareness, which helped provide a foundation for me to explore moral imagination. Also to the host of other scholars I site herein, I thank you for your contributions to the pool of knowledge in which I now enjoy swimming. I would also like to thank all the special souls in my life who have made this dissertation possible. First, to Ron Fry I say thank you for always believing a gal from the hills can do good work, and making sure that I do! Your patience, humor, and guidance are the reason this work has progressed from an initial inkling to an actual dissertation. To David Kolb, thank you for your generous mind and kind heart that were always willing to engage so fully with my work. To Peter Whitehouse, thank you for your unending energy, curiosity and encouragement to get me to think like a mountain. To David Cooperrider, thank you for teaching me to see the world through appreciative eyes and to see the promise that lies not only in others, but within myself. Special thanks to my parents whose unending query, “Is your paper done?” reminded me they were also passengers on my academic journey. Thanks also to my in- laws who were sure I would finish school, “one day….”! Special thanks to my dear friend MG who never stopped being my cheerleader, to GP and CB who provided the unconditional love for me to keep writing at 3 a.m., and the biggest thanks of all to my husband, Matt, who makes everything I do possible.