WHEN MAKING MONEY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SAVING LIVES: REVISITING THE FORD PINTO CASE

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart C. Strother
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Financial Data ◽  
Management Behavior ◽  
Business Decisions ◽  
Business Colleges ◽  
Classroom Experiment ◽  
Wrongful Death

Despite a long tradition of ethics training in business colleges, managers commonly make unethical business decisions. This paper reports a five year study of ethical decision making of business students (n = 192). In an undergraduate microeconomics course, students were presented with financial data from the infamous Ford Pinto case where defective engineering, coupled with unethical management behavior, resulted in a number of fiery fatalities. Facing the decision to repair the cars or pay the estimated costs of lost wrongful death lawsuits, 56.8% of students chose to pay for the deaths. This paper describes the classroom experiment and uses logistic regression to compare the characteristics of the group choosing the correct ethical decision (repair the cars), with the group choosing the incorrect ethical decision (pay for the deaths).

scholarly journals Gender Differences In Responses To Hypothetical Business Ethical Dilemmas By Business Undergraduates

2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margie L. McInerney ◽  
Deanna D. Mader ◽  
Fred H. Mader
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Business Decisions ◽  
Business Undergraduates ◽  
Undergraduate Business Students

Business leaders are often failing to display ethical behavior in business decisions. This paper examines the gender differences found in undergraduate business students when faced with ethical decision making dilemmas.

scholarly journals Ethical Decision Making of Future Mexican Managers

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-94
Author(s):  
Maria A. Leach-López ◽  
Claire A. Stammerjohan ◽  
William W. Stammerjohan ◽  
Megan M. Leach
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Multinational Firms ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Ethical Values ◽  
Mexican Students ◽  
Doing Business

A study to measure ethical decision making of Mexican business students compared to their US counterparts. Results suggest that Mexican students’ ethical decision-making frameworks differ from those documented by Keller et al. (2007) in their study of US students. Mexican students were not found to be highly religious, but subscribed more to utilitarian, deontological and hermeneutical frameworks for their ethical values. It is suggested that multinational firms doing business in Mexico might want to schedule ethics training of managers and to have a set of standards that employees can follow.

Teaching ethics that honor the patient’s and the provider’s voice: The role of clinical integrity

2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 445-454
Author(s):  
Aaron J Grace ◽  
Heather A Kirkpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Providers ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Teaching Ethics ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Educational Module

Medical ethics training is as variable as it is widespread. Previous research has indicated that medical learners find systematic approaches to ethical dilemmas to be helpful. This article describes a bioethics educational module. It includes an overview of common bioethical principles and presents a tool for organizing health-care providers’ thinking and discussions about challenging ethical dilemmas. We discuss an area of bioethics that is often neglected, clinical integrity, and the role that a health-care provider’s clinical integrity plays in ethical decision-making. We provide several hypothetical ethical vignettes for practice and discussion using the clinical integrity tool. The article also describes how this module has been implemented in one medical education setting and provides suggestions for educators.

Ethical Consumerism: Contextual Issues of Ethical Decision-Making Processes

2020 ◽  
pp. 1434-1450
Author(s):  
Ebtihaj A. Al-A'ali ◽  
Abdul Redha Al-Sarraf
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Culture ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Reward Systems ◽  
Work Roles ◽  
Ethical Consumerism

Ethical consumerism is the outcome of an ethical decision-making process. This research examines situational factors exemplified in context-related issues affecting decision-making as perceived by business students at the University of Bahrain. Reward systems, authority, bureaucracy, work role, organizational culture and national and cultural context are investigated. Qualitative research employing open-ended questions in questionnaire form is used. Two hundred and forty students participated in this research. Five questions were asked in the research. Themes involved are illustrations of reward systems, bureaucracy, organizational culture, national and cultural context and work roles. This research suggests that work roles require to be thoroughly investigated in future research. The research also shows that students are unaware of ethical consumerism. This explains reasons for not translating views of students to behavior as a reflection of ethical consumerism.

TrustUS: Cultural Influences on Ethical Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 217-230
Author(s):  
Bachman Fulmer ◽  
Sarah Fulmer ◽  
Zeynep Can Ozer ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Managerial Accounting ◽  
Multicultural Environment

This case study focuses on how divergent cultural norms can impact ethical decisionmaking between a superior and subordinate in a high-pressure workplace. In order to ensure that today’s business students (and tomorrow’s business leaders) adhere to the highest standards of ethical conduct in an international and multicultural environment, it is imperative they recognize and respond appropriately to different cultural views of ethics. In the accompanying case, Jane, a Chinese national living and working in the United States, encounters multiple ethical dilemmas during her employment at TrustUS. Readers are introduced to important cultural factors that differ between Eastern and Western societies (such as Power Distance and Collectivism) and are asked to apply these concepts to gain insight into how cultural background might influence the ethical decision making of a professional in a managerial accounting context.

Business Students’ Insights into Their Development of Ethical Decision-Making

2017 ◽  
Vol 155 (1) ◽  
pp. 275-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosina Mladenovic ◽  
Nonna Martinov-Bennie ◽  
Amani Bell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students

scholarly journals Ethical Decision-Making in Humanitarian Medicine: How Best to Prepare?

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Kadri Simm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Disaster Response ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Time Pressure ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Practical Importance ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Medical Professionals ◽  
Medical Response

ABSTRACT Ethical decision-making during humanitarian medical response is a topic of great moral as well as practical importance. The context of humanitarian disasters, often characterized by acute time-pressure, lack of resources, the unfamiliarity of circumstances, is stressful for medical professionals. The overall aim of this article is pragmatic, to introduce briefly the importance and context for preparing medical disaster response personnel for ethical decision-making and then to provide a discussion case and explain the particular value-reflection methodology. The focus of methodology is on providing space for the emotional and stressful aspects of ethics training for disasters.

Softening the Hearts of Business Students: The Role of Emotions in Ethical Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 278-312
Author(s):  
Sophia S. Jeong ◽  
Cong (Timothy) Sun ◽  
Ping Ping Fu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Business School ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Business Students ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Moral Emotions ◽  
School Education ◽  
Repeated Measure ◽  
School Students

Business schools face a dilemma of promoting prosocial values while maintaining the principles of self-interest and profit maximization. In response to recent research suggesting that emotions may be the key to ethical decision making, we ask two basic questions: Do emotions make business students more ethical? Is business school education inhibiting ethical decision making? Drawing on theories on moral emotions and ethical decision making, we hypothesize that moral emotions will enhance ethical decision making, whereas hedonic emotions will diminish ethical decision making. Furthermore, we predict that a higher level of business school education will strengthen the negative relationship between hedonic emotions and ethical decision making while weakening the positive relationship between moral emotions and ethical decision making. Using a scenario-based repeated-measure design, we tested our hypotheses with 217 students from secondary schools, undergraduate business majors, and MBA programs in Hong Kong. Multilevel modeling results supported our hypotheses, suggesting that business school students may benefit from education on the unique roles of moral and hedonic emotions in the ethical decision-making process. We conclude with a summary of the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.

An Experiential Investigation of Tax Professionals' Ethical Environments

2007 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna D. Bobek ◽  
Robin R. Radtke
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Behavior ◽  
Ethical Decision ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Ethics Training ◽  
Ethical Environment ◽  
Evaluation Systems ◽  
Tax Professionals ◽  
Personal Experiences

This paper investigates the ethical environment in which tax professionals operate by eliciting practicing tax professionals' personal experiences with ethical dilemmas in tax engagements. Since organizational culture can play a role in creating an environment where ethical decision making is encouraged (Arnold et al. 1999, 2000; Booth and Schulz 2004), we expected that tax professionals' self-identified ethical dilemmas would be related to their assessments of the ethical environments of their firms. Based on 146 responses from practicing tax professionals, most participants rated their ethical environment as very strong. Additionally, the 84 participants who did not describe a self-identified ethical dilemma rated the ethical environment of their firms significantly stronger than the 62 who reported a dilemma. Implications of this study include an emphasis on in-house ethics training and explicitly including rewards and sanctions regarding ethical behavior in performance evaluation systems.

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