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Emotions and Ethical Decision Making at Work: Organizational Norms, Emotional Dogs, and the Rational Tales They Tell Themselves and Others

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  • Joseph McManus

    (Monmouth University)

Abstract

Organizations have become essential institutions that facilitate the vital coordination and cooperation necessary to create value across societies. Recent research within moral psychology and behavioral ethics indicates that emotions play a pivotal role in promoting ethical decision making. The theory developed here maintains that most organizations retain norms that disfavor the experience and expression of many strong emotions while at work. This dynamic inhibits individual’s ability to generate moral intuitions and reason about ethical issues they encounter. This occurs as individuals utilize specific emotion regulation mechanisms that stifle the experience and expression of emotion in organizational decision making. Over time, individuals fail to register emotion within organizational decision processes, which increases the prevalence of amoral decision making. Organizational emotion norms also influence the chronic accessibility of specific moral foundations that effect the contents of both moral intuitions that do occur, as well as deliberate reasoning that generates moral judgments.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph McManus, 2021. "Emotions and Ethical Decision Making at Work: Organizational Norms, Emotional Dogs, and the Rational Tales They Tell Themselves and Others," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 153-168, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:169:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-019-04286-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04286-6
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Gerardo A. Miranda & Jennifer L. Welbourne, 2023. "Examining Incivility Through a Moral Lens: Coworker Morality Appraisals, Other-Condemning Emotions, and Instigated Incivility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(2), pages 501-519, January.
    2. Ladislav Mura & Tibor Zsigmond & Renáta Machová, 2021. "The effects of emotional intelligence and ethics of SME employees on knowledge sharing in Central-European countries," Oeconomia Copernicana, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 12(4), pages 907-934, December.

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