The Unintended Effects of Ethical Decision Aids in Organizations

Malte Baader, Maxim Egorov, Baiba Renerte, Carmen Tanner, Alexander F. Wagner and Nicole Witt

No 19960, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Unethical behavior, deception, and fraud are major concerns in corporate governance. This paper examines the effectiveness of contemplation questions (CQs) as ethical decision aids intended to activate moral agency and prompt employees to consider their actions from various perspectives (e.g., self, peers, company). Although we find that 44% of S&P 200 and Fortune Global 200 companies use CQs, their behavioral impact is not well understood. Using two preregistered, incentivized vignette experiments, we show that the effects of CQs depend critically on the level of engagement they require. In Study 1 (N = 1,986), where participants were only passively presented with CQs, we find no impact on ethical decisions, either in the aggregate or by reference group. In Study 2 (N = 1,322), where participants were actively engaged by answering CQs, we again find no overall effect, but uncover a striking heterogeneity: CQs marginally increase ethical decisions among individuals with high moral identity, yet significantly reduce such decisions among those with low moral identity. These findings align with a conceptual framework of motivated moral reasoning and suggest that while CQs can benefit some individuals, they may backfire precisely among those predisposed to unethical behavior.

JEL-codes: C91 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19960 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19960

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19960

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().