IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v132y2015i3p525-538.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Moral Foundations Theory: An Exploratory Study with Accounting and Other Business Students

Author

Listed:
  • Margaret Andersen
  • Jill Zuber
  • Brent Hill

Abstract

In this exploratory paper, we investigate the extension of Haidt’s (Psychol Rev 108(4):814–834, 2001 , The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion, 2012 ) Moral foundations theory (MFT), operationalized as the MFQ30 questionnaire, from a sample of the general public across many countries to a sample of business students. MFT posits that people rely on five major concerns, or foundations, when making moral judgments. The five concerns are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, respect/authority, and purity/degradation. In addition, Haidt suggests that intuition, rather than reasoning, leads to moral judgment. We replicate Haidt’s measurement model and find that the measurement model based on our sample is consistent. This indicates support for MFT. Further, we find structural differences in the measurement model between the genders and between areas of study. Our findings suggest that all students in the sample focus substantially on the fairness foundation. Ethics education and research may seek to expand the number of moral foundations individuals consider when discerning whether something is right or wrong. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Margaret Andersen & Jill Zuber & Brent Hill, 2015. "Moral Foundations Theory: An Exploratory Study with Accounting and Other Business Students," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 525-538, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:132:y:2015:i:3:p:525-538
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-014-2362-x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10551-014-2362-x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-014-2362-x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Özgür Özmen Uysal, 2010. "Business Ethics Research with an Accounting Focus: A Bibliometric Analysis from 1988 to 2007," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(1), pages 137-160, April.
    2. Jana Craft, 2013. "A Review of the Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: 2004–2011," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(2), pages 221-259, October.
    3. Peter Mudrack & E. Mason, 2013. "Ethical Judgments: What Do We Know, Where Do We Go?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 115(3), pages 575-597, July.
    4. Larry Floyd & Feng Xu & Ryan Atkins & Cam Caldwell, 2013. "Ethical Outcomes and Business Ethics: Toward Improving Business Ethics Education," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(4), pages 753-776, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Paul Shrivastava & Günter Schumacher & David Wasieleski & Marko Tasic, 2017. "Aesthetic Rationality in Organizations: Toward Developing a Sensibility for Sustainibility," Post-Print hal-01515126, HAL.
    2. Tamara Poje & Maja Zaman Groff, 2022. "Mapping Ethics Education in Accounting Research: A Bibliometric Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(2), pages 451-472, August.
    3. Warren Cook & Kristine M. Kuhn, 2021. "Off-Duty Deviance in the Eye of the Beholder: Implications of Moral Foundations Theory in the Age of Social Media," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 605-620, September.
    4. Agata Mirowska & Raymond B. Chiu & Rick D. Hackett, 2022. "The Allure of Tyrannical Leaders: Moral Foundations, Belief in a Dangerous World, and Follower Gender," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(2), pages 355-374, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tabea Franziska Hirth-Goebel & Barbara E. Weißenberger, 2019. "Management accountants and ethical dilemmas: How to promote ethical intention?," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 287-322, October.
    2. Loréa Baïada-Hirèche & Ghislaine Garmilis, 2016. "Accounting Professionals’ Ethical Judgment and the Institutional Disciplinary Context: A French–US Comparison," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(4), pages 639-659, December.
    3. Cherise Small & Charlene Lew, 2021. "Mindfulness, Moral Reasoning and Responsibility: Towards Virtue in Ethical Decision-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 103-117, February.
    4. Guillermina Tormo-Carbó & Elies Seguí-Mas & Víctor Oltra, 2018. "Business Ethics as a Sustainability Challenge: Higher Education Implications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-17, August.
    5. Mai Chi Vu & Nicholas Burton, 2022. "Bring Your Non-self to Work? The Interaction Between Self-decentralization and Moral Reasoning," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(2), pages 427-449, November.
    6. Anne L. Christensen & Angela Woodland, 2018. "An Investigation of the Relationships Among Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Participation and Ethical Judgment and Decision Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 529-543, February.
    7. Christoph Endenich & Rouven Trapp, 2020. "Ethical Implications of Management Accounting and Control: A Systematic Review of the Contributions from the Journal of Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 309-328, May.
    8. Kristen Bell DeTienne & Carol Frogley Ellertson & Marc-Charles Ingerson & William R. Dudley, 2021. "Moral Development in Business Ethics: An Examination and Critique," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 429-448, May.
    9. Tolkach, Denis & Pratt, Stephen & Zeng, Christine Y.H., 2017. "Ethics of Chinese & Western tourists in Hong Kong," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 83-96.
    10. Irene Chu & Mai Chi Vu, 2022. "The Nature of the Self, Self-regulation and Moral Action: Implications from the Confucian Relational Self and Buddhist Non-self," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 245-262, September.
    11. Marli Gonan Božac & Katarina Kostelić & Morena Paulišić & Charles G. Smith, 2021. "Business Ethics Decision-Making: Examining Partial Reflective Awareness," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-27, March.
    12. Jeremy Hall & Ben R. Martin, 2019. "Towards a Taxonomy of Academic Misconduct: The Case of Business School Research," SPRU Working Paper Series 2019-02, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    13. Shelley T. Price & Christopher M. Hartt & Albert J. Mills & Nia F. MacFarlane, 2022. "Indigenous and gendered persons and peoples in business ethics education: Intersections of Indigenous wisdoms and de Beauvoirian existentialism," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(1), pages 131-150, January.
    14. Xin Liu & Byron Y. Lee & Tae-Yeol Kim & Yaping Gong & Xiaoming Zheng, 2023. "Double-Edged Effects of Creative Personality on Moral Disengagement and Unethical Behaviors: Dual Motivational Mechanisms and a Situational Contingency," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 449-466, June.
    15. Tongyu Meng & Jamie Newth & Christine Woods, 2022. "Ethical Sensemaking in Impact Investing: Reasons and Motives in the Chinese Renewable Energy Sector," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(4), pages 1091-1117, September.
    16. Rachel Fichter, 2018. "Do the Right Thing! Developing Ethical Behavior in Financial Institutions," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(1), pages 69-84, August.
    17. Hengky Latan & Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour & Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, 2019. "Ethical Awareness, Ethical Judgment and Whistleblowing: A Moderated Mediation Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 289-304, March.
    18. Lamberto Zollo & Massimiliano Matteo Pellegrini & Cristiano Ciappei, 2017. "What Sparks Ethical Decision Making? The Interplay Between Moral Intuition and Moral Reasoning: Lessons from the Scholastic Doctrine," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(4), pages 681-700, November.
    19. Thushini S. Jayawardena-Willis & Edwina Pio & Peter McGhee, 2021. "The Divine States (brahmaviharas) in Managerial Ethical Decision-Making in Organisations in Sri Lanka: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(1), pages 151-171, January.
    20. Christof Miska & Günter K. Stahl & Matthias Fuchs, 2018. "The Moderating Role of Context in Determining Unethical Managerial Behavior: A Case Survey," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 793-812, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:132:y:2015:i:3:p:525-538. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.