Exploring Ethical Dilemmas in a Professional Field: A Person x Situation Analysis of Individual Level Decision Making

Abstract

A number of high profile scandals have evidenced the involvement of professionals in unethical behavior. The three papers in this thesis address the puzzle of why some members of the professions engage in such unethical conduct whereas others adhere to the high ethical standards expected of them. Paper 1 (Chapter 2) advances a socio-cognitive theory that seeks to explain why and how decision makers in the professions variously make more or less ethical decisions in their work. Drawing on institutional theory, I posit that a range of competing institutional logics confront decision makers in all professions. I propose that the particular logics prevailing in decision makers' mental representations will determine the likelihood of an (un)ethical decision. Adopting a person x situation perspective, the theory highlights the critical role of individual differences. It proposes that which logics come to prevail in decision makers' mental representations depends on stable individual differences; namely, variations in human agency (i.e. core self-evaluation) and an individual's chronic preference for how they process information (i.e. stylistic preferences for rational or experiential processing or both, known as cognitive style). Paper 2 (Chapter 3) discusses the advantages of the experimental technique known as policy-capturing. The technique is advocated as a means of operationalizing and testing the theory advanced in Chapter 2. Paper 3 (Chapter 4) reports the findings of an empirical study in the context of the legal profession. Utilizing policy-capturing, the study tests and extends the theorizing reported in Chapter 2. Several key findings emerged. The most salient institutional logics in decision makers' mental representations were those associated with 'normative practices' in the profession and the 'market logic' cued by competition from comparator organizations. Despite the professions being considered a collective community, the findings reveal significant differences between individuals' responses to the logics prevailing. Decision makers with higher levels of agency were more resistant to situational influences that encouraged unethical behavior as were those who indicated a chronic preference for rational or experiential processing. The study also examined the influence of an additional intra-personal factor; namely, experience in the professional domain. The results showed that participants with greater levels of experience were more willing to engage in unethical conduct. The findings demonstrate how individual differences in agentic beliefs, cognitive style and professional experience have an important bearing on the structure and content of decision makers' mental representations of ethical problems, which in turn influences the likelihood of ethical transgressions. In highlighting how individual differences interact with key features of the organizational and institutional landscape to shape decisions, this thesis contributes to the emerging literature on the microfoundations of institutional theory by providing a psychologically grounded explanation of how decision makers navigate the institutional complexity confronting them in their everyday work. In addition, by adopting a dual-process foundation for theorizing and exploring situational influences at the institutional level, this thesis contributes to the behavioral ethics literature by extending previous interactionist models of ethical decision making.

Date of Award	19 May 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Mark Healey (Co Supervisor) & Gerard Hodgkinson (Main Supervisor)