scholarly journals The role of moral identity in auditor’s ethical decision making

Author(s):  
Nawfel Arrami ◽  
Yang QingXiang

This article aims to test and provide empirical evidence of the moderated mediating role that plays moral identity in explaining auditor’s ethical decision making based on Jones' model of moral intensity. Therefore, this research proposes a moderated mediation model where moral identity accessibility mediates the relationship between perceived moral intensity and auditors’ moral judgment. Moreover, Moral identity centrality is tested as a moderator variable for this socio-cognitive model. This study used random sampling methods for external senior auditors operating in audit firms in Morocco. Data obtained by 125 respondents and processed with SmartPLS. The results show that the impact of an auditor’s perceived moral intensity on his moral judgment is fully mediated by moral identity accessibility and moderated by moral identity centrality. Auditor’s moral intensity perception seems to trigger the access to moral identity which in turn affects positively the moral judgment based on how central is moral identity to the individual.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik G Helzer ◽  
Taya R. Cohen ◽  
Yeonjeong Kim

We introduce the character lens perspective to account for stable patterns in the way that individuals make sense of and construct the ethical choices and situations they face. We propose that the way that individuals make sense of their present experience is an enduring feature of their broader moral character, and that differences between people in ethical decision-making are traceable to upstream differences in the way that people disambiguate and give meaning to their present context. In three studies, we found that individuals with higher standing on moral character (operationalized as a combination of Honesty-Humility, Guilt Proneness, and Moral Identity Centrality) tended to construe their present context in more moral or ethical terms, and this difference in moral recognition accounted for differences in the ethical choices they made. Moreover, individuals with higher levels of moral character maintained high levels of moral recognition even as pressure to ignore moral considerations increased. Accordingly, this work unifies research on moral character, moral recognition, sensemaking, and judgment and decision-making into a person-centered account of ethical decision-making, highlighting the way decision-makers actively and directly shape the choice contexts to which they must respond.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hidayatul Khusnah

This study aims to investigate the factors that can encourage individuals to do whistleblowing. Factors that are predicted to affect whistleblowing intention are organizational Ethical Culture and Moral intensity and Ethical Decision Making. The sample in this study were 63 respondents. Total questionnaires distributed were 78 questionnaires, but as many as 65 questionnaires were returned, there were 2 questionnaires that were not filled out completely, so were excluded from testing. Data analysis techniques in this study used SEM-PLS. The results of this study found a positive effect of organizational ethical culture on whistleblowing intention. This shows that organizations that have a high ethical culture tend to have high whistleblowing intentions. The next finding is that moral intensity has a positive effect on ethical decission making and whistleblowing intention. This shows that individuals who have high moral intensity decisions that are made tend to be more ethical. The final finding in this research is ethical decision making which has a positive effect on whistleblowing intention. the higher the Ethical Decision Making, the higher the Whistleblowing Intention. When someone is able to make decisions ethically, it will go hand in hand with the whistleblowing intention    


2015 ◽  
pp. 145-162
Author(s):  
Ben Tran

Ethics in business ethics and law in business law are not as ambiguous, rhetorical, and esoteric as practitioners portray. Excuses as such have subconsciously become a habitus platinum safeguard against all wrongdoing. The usage of the habitus platinum safeguard is to defuse the unethical and malpractice of practitioners due to the ambiguous, rhetorical, and esoteric factors of and related to ethics in business ethics and law in business law. The ethical decision-making process, from ethics to law, involves five basic steps: moral awareness, moral judgment, ethical behavior, ethical behavior theorizing, and (business) law.


Author(s):  
Özgür Önen ◽  
Burcu Tibet

How many times do people encounter an ethical dilemma within a day? Many of them, probably, say more than one. Frequently encountering ethically questionable situations which have heavy costs to both business and educational organizations is very common. It is crucial to understand how teachers, for example, make decisions when they are faced with ethically questionable situations, such as intimate relationship offers or dishonest grading desires. Indeed, every individual involved with schools—not only teachers, but principals, students, and even parents—are faced with ethically questionable situations, forcing them to choose between right and wrong, possibly benefiting themselves or the ones they are close to and/or harming innocent others. So, increasing knowledge on how individuals make judgments and act when they are confronted a dilemma is important. Which factors affects ethical decisions? Do people simply choose the options granting their positions or beneficial for them in some way? A review of theoretical models of ethical decision-making revealed that existing models need to be modified in order to cover some ignored aspects. Additionally, there seems to be a need to add new constructs to the moral intensity factor: ease of the act and magnitude of the gain are possible issue contingents to be considered. Furthermore, empirical findings, in general, present contradictory results on proposed factors affecting ethical decision-making. However, some factors, such as moral intensity and reward–sanction systems, were found to consistently affect decisions on ethically questionable issues. There are, nonetheless, many finer points to be understood regarding what exactly is happening when people face dilemmas. This suggests new studies need to be conducted.


2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary B. Curtis ◽  
Teresa L. Conover ◽  
Lawrence C. Chui

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of national culture on ethical decision making. We theorize and test a mediation model where country of origin influences perceptions of justice and power distance, which in turn influence behavioral intentions in regard to ethical dilemmas. Our sample includes accounting students from four countries: China, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. We find that country of origin, justice perceptions, power distance perception, and gender are all related to ethical decision making. We investigate these relationships with two different ethical scenarios, and find that these relationships differ between the two contexts. Additionally, power distance and justice partially mediate the relationship between country of origin and ethical decision making. We find that gender is significantly related to ethical decision making in one of the two scenarios, and explore gender differences in all of the measured constructs across countries. Finally, we contrast the various measures of justice, power distance, and agreement with behavioral intentions in the two ethical scenarios between countries. We find that the two eastern countries (China and Japan) and the two western countries (U.S. and Mexico) demonstrate expected East-West patterns in power distance. However, this East-versus-West pattern is not supported when considering between-country differences in justice, agreement with the layoff decision, and agreement with whistleblowing.


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