The Effects of Spirituality and Moral Intensity on Ethical Business Decisions: A Cross-Sectional Study

Stephen E. Anderson () and Jodine M. Burchell ()
Additional contact information
Stephen E. Anderson: Entrematic
Jodine M. Burchell: Columbia Southern University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2021, vol. 168, issue 1, No 10, 137-149

Abstract: Abstract We present a cross-sectional study of ethical decision-making correlated with spirituality and utilizing moral intensity as a moderator for workers in the Southeastern United States (N = 117). This study presents spirituality as an individual variable and moral intensity as a situational variable along with ethical decision-making to examine the interaction of these factors in moral dilemmas. Utilizing previously validated instruments for ethical decision-making and individual spirituality, we find that workers with relatively high measured spirituality made less ethical decisions compared to workers with relatively lower measures of spirituality. Further, we find that the introduction of high moral intensity as a situational variable does not moderate the observed correlation between spirituality and ethical decision-making. This research supports the conceptual nature of the Interactionist Theory by presenting in a single study both individual and situational variables in ethical decision-making.

Keywords: Ethical decision-making; Spirituality; Moral intensity; Interactionist theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G40 G41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-019-04258-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jbuset:v:168:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-019-04258-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04258-w

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().