Enhancing Self-Administered Questionnaire Response Quality Using Code of Conduct Reminders

A key challenge for self-administered questionnaires (SaQ) is ensuring quality responses in the absence of a marketing professional providing direct guidance on issues as they arise for respondents. While numerous approaches to improving SaQ response quality have been investigated including validity checks, interactive design, and instructional manipulation checks, these are primarily targeted at situations where expected responses are of a factual nature or stated preferences. These interventions have not been evaluated in scenarios that require higher levels of engagement and judgment from respondents. While professional marketers are guided by codes of conduct, there is no equivalent code of conduct for SaQ respondents. This is particularly salient for SaQ that require higher levels of reflection and judgment, since in the absence of professional guidance, respondents rely more on their individual ethical ideologies and experience, leaving SaQ responses potentially devoid of the standards that normally set the expectations around data quality for marketing professionals. As marketing professionals are unable to provide guidance directly in a SaQ context, the approach used in this study is to offer varying levels of professional marketing guidance indirectly through specific codes of conduct reminders that are easily consumable by SaQ participants. We demonstrate that reminders and ethical ideologies moderate the relationship between the participant’s experience with SaQ and compliance with a code of conduct. Specifically, SaQ respondents produce fewer code of conduct infractions when receiving reminders than the control group, and this improves even more when the reminders coincide with the SaQ task. The paper concludes with implications for theory and practice.

Do religious beliefs influence concerns for animal welfare? the role of religious orientation and ethical ideologies in attitudes toward animal protection amongst Muslim teachers and school staff in East Java, Indonesia

There is ample research supporting White’s (1967) thesis, which postulates that religion and religious belief inhibit ecological concerns. This study thus seeks to explore the relationship between individuals’ acceptability for harming animals as one representation of ecological concern (measured using Animal Issue scale (AIS)) and their religious belief (measured using Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)) and ethical ideology (measured using Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ)). The study surveyed 929 Muslim teachers and school staff in East Java, Indonesia. We found that ROS correlates with EPQ whereby intrinsic personal (IP) relates with idealism while extrinsic social religious orientation (ES)—where religion is perceived as an instrument for social gain, membership and support—relates with relativism. However, using multiple regression analysis to examine both EPQ and ROS relation to acceptability for harming animals suggests mixed results. We found that, idealism and IP relate to a lower acceptability for harming animals, while relativism and ES correlate to a higher acceptability for harming animals. In another model where we calculate all the main variables with all the demographical and other determinants, we found that only ROS consistently relates to acceptability for harming animals. Additionally, we identify, explain and discuss significant demographic determinants along with this study’s limitations.

The Ethics of Maximizing or Satisficing

This study explores the relationship between decision-making styles and moral judgements to understand how maximizers and satisficers differ in their analysis of ethical dilemmas. It also explores the linkage between decision-making styles and the moral reasoning perspectives of absolutism and relativism, investigating if ethical ideologies play a mediating role in how maximizers and satisficers evaluate ethical situations. In order to test these relationships, data is collected from a sample of 187 upper level business students. Results indicate that maximizers are significantly more likely than satisficers to judge ethically ambiguous actions as immoral. Underlying this effect, maximizers (vs. satisficers) have a more idealistic ethical ideology.

Professional values and ethical ideology: Perceptions of nursing students

Background: Moral philosophical positions and professional values have been shown to influence nurses’ practice behaviours. Understanding nursing students’ professional values and ethical ideologies, therefore, is important as they may help inform evidence-informed curriculum decisions and education strategies to develop students’ professional reflective competencies. However, there is a dearth in current empirical data on Canadian nursing students’ perceptions of professional values and ethical positions. Objectives: This study’s purpose was to examine undergraduate nursing student’s perceptions of professional values and ethical ideology and explore relationships in data and selected participant demographic variables. Research design, participants and context: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was conducted with a convenience sample of undergraduate nursing students recruited from a university in Canada. An online encrypted survey consisting of two validated instruments was administered to participants who met study eligibility criteria. Descriptive and inferential statistics were employed to analyse the data and classify nursing students’ ethical ideologies into four categories based on mean scores for idealism and relativism. Ethical considerations: This study received ethical approval from the institutional Behavioural Research Ethics Board and was executed in-line with ethical principles for research involving humans. Findings: Nursing students scored high on professional values and ethical idealism and differed significantly on a measure of ethical relativism in terms of age and year of study. Professional values were significantly associated with ethical idealism. Based on mean scores for idealism and relativism, most nursing students in the study were classified as situationists. Discussion and conclusion: Findings suggest that faculty pay attention to influences of moral philosophical positions in facilitating nursing students’ professional values development. Implications for future research and curriculum are highlighted to strengthen nursing students’ professional values.

The effects of length of service and ethical ideologies on moral development and behavioral intentions

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of length of service and ethical ideologies on cognitive moral development (CMD) and ethical behavioral intentions among public sector tax auditors in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach The research data were collected via survey questionnaires from a sample of 625 auditors who work for the Brazilian tax authority. Participants voluntarily complete an online instrument which included three scenarios with context-specific moral dilemmas, questions about the specific scenarios and an ethics position questionnaire. Multinomial logistic and ordinary least squares regressions were used to analyze the data. Findings The findings reveal that public sector tax auditors with shorter length of service are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development; relativistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with more lenient ethical behavioral intention; idealistic ideology among public sector auditors is positively associated with stricter ethical behavioral intention; public sector auditors classified as absolutists are stricter in their ethical behavioral intentions; and public sector auditors classified as absolutists with length of service between 5 and 15 years are more likely to be at higher stages of moral development when compared to public sector tax auditors with longer length of service. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the study is one of the first studies that attempt to understand the effects of length of service and ethical ideology on CMD and ethical behavioral intention among public sector auditors. Additionally, it examines these issues in the context of Latin America.