IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jsds00/v1y2010i4p25-43.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Toward Understanding Ethical Decision Making: A Redefined Measure of Intent to Act Ethically

Author

Listed:
  • Jennie Johnson

    (The University of Texas at Brownsville, USA)

  • Tom Coyle

    (The University of Texas at Brownsville, USA)

Abstract

This paper proposes a step-wise methodology for the development of a scale measuring intent-to-act ethically, which is a step forward in the ethical decision-making process. To test the robustness of the methodology, data from two different populations gathered from 75 students and 181 professionals were examined to ensure reliability in ethical workplace scenarios. This research is relevant to recent issues like the current economic crisis lead by the sub-prime banking failures. The failures of Enron and Tyco are extreme examples of failure of societal members to act ethically. The construction of scale-measuring items was based on a theory of intent, and issues identified from the human resource management literature related to reasons employees do not report perceived unethical behavior in the workplace. Tested for social desirability bias, the results show that the proposed scale offers an improved reliability for assessing behavioral intent related to ethical decision-making. With these findings, this paper provides a tool for research that relies on a measure of ethical intent as a proxy for ethical behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennie Johnson & Tom Coyle, 2010. "Toward Understanding Ethical Decision Making: A Redefined Measure of Intent to Act Ethically," International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences (IJSDS), IGI Global, vol. 1(4), pages 25-43, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:igg:jsds00:v:1:y:2010:i:4:p:25-43
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://services.igi-global.com/resolvedoi/resolve.aspx?doi=10.4018/jsds.2010100102
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:igg:jsds00:v:1:y:2010:i:4:p:25-43. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Journal Editor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.igi-global.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.