DISCUSSION OF A Cross-Cultural Study of the Influence of Country of Origin, Justice, Power Distance, and Gender on Ethical Decision Making

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Greg Burton
2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary B. Curtis ◽  
Teresa L. Conover ◽  
Lawrence C. Chui

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of national culture on ethical decision making. We theorize and test a mediation model where country of origin influences perceptions of justice and power distance, which in turn influence behavioral intentions in regard to ethical dilemmas. Our sample includes accounting students from four countries: China, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S. We find that country of origin, justice perceptions, power distance perception, and gender are all related to ethical decision making. We investigate these relationships with two different ethical scenarios, and find that these relationships differ between the two contexts. Additionally, power distance and justice partially mediate the relationship between country of origin and ethical decision making. We find that gender is significantly related to ethical decision making in one of the two scenarios, and explore gender differences in all of the measured constructs across countries. Finally, we contrast the various measures of justice, power distance, and agreement with behavioral intentions in the two ethical scenarios between countries. We find that the two eastern countries (China and Japan) and the two western countries (U.S. and Mexico) demonstrate expected East-West patterns in power distance. However, this East-versus-West pattern is not supported when considering between-country differences in justice, agreement with the layoff decision, and agreement with whistleblowing.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 230-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
LaChelle R. Wilborn ◽  
Robert A. Brymer ◽  
Ray Schmidgall

The purpose of this paper is to assess the sources influencing an ethical decision-making process of European hospitality students. Ten scenarios were used (1) to indicate whether the action posed was ‘ethical’, ‘unethical’, or ‘not a question of ethics’ and (2) to indicate what they would do if they were in this situation. We found that of the nearly 400 European hospitality students, 54 per cent females and 46 per cent males, both genders indicated that parents, close friends, and business management courses influenced their ethical beliefs the most. Additionally, we found that responses were significantly different for only one of the ten scenarios with regards to gender. The action responses to the proposed scenarios were, however, statistically significant for five scenarios; four of these five were business scenarios. Female European hospitality students were more likely to engage in ethical behaviour and are generally less tolerant of questionable practices than their male peers.


Human Nature ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 318-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Fiddick ◽  
Denise Dellarosa Cummins ◽  
Maria Janicki ◽  
Sean Lee ◽  
Nicole Erlich

1973 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
William T. Liu ◽  
Ira W. Hutchison ◽  
Lawrence K. Hong

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donna D. Bobek ◽  
Amy M. Hageman ◽  
Robin R. Radtke

ABSTRACT This study investigates the degree to which professional role (auditor or tax professional), decision context (an audit or tax environment), and gender influence the ethical decision making of public accounting professionals. The primary analysis, including all 134 accounting professionals who participated in our experiment, indicates that these participants are both less likely to indicate they would concede to a client in a contentious situation and less likely to recommend conceding when they are in an audit as opposed to tax context. Furthermore, work experience in auditing (as opposed to tax) is associated with a decreased likelihood of conceding to the client in both contexts. However, when data for males and females are analyzed separately, professional role, context, and moral intensity are significantly related to males' decision making, but are not significant with respect to females' decisions. This suggests that males and females may use different decision-making processes. Possible theoretical explanations for these findings are discussed.


2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 86-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jatinder J. Singh ◽  
Scott J. Vitell ◽  
Jamal Al-Khatib ◽  
Irvine Clark

This study uses cross-cultural samples from the United States and China to replicate previous empirical findings regarding the relationship among moral philosophies, moral intensity, and ethical decision making. The authors use a two-step structural equations modeling approach to analyze the measurement and structural models. The findings partially replicate those from previous studies and provide evidence that the measurement model is somewhat invariant across the two groups studied but the structural model is not. In addition, there is evidence that the relationship between personal moral philosophies (mainly relativism) and moral intensity varies across the two cultures. That is, whereas relativism is a significant predictor of moral intensity for the Chinese sample, it is not for the U.S. sample. However, idealism is a significant predictor of perceived moral intensity for both samples of marketing practitioners. Finally, perceived moral intensity is a significant, direct predictor of ethical judgments, and ethical judgments are a significant, direct predictor of behavioral intentions in both instances.


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