Qualitative empirical research on ethical decision-making in organizations: Revisiting Waters, Bird, and Chant’s pioneering methodological approach

Marcos Luís Procópio ()
Additional contact information
Marcos Luís Procópio: State University of Mato Grosso

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, 2022, vol. 56, issue 3, No 37, 1680 pages

Abstract: Abstract Although ethical decision-making studies are growing within the realm of organizations, empirical research on this topic is still dominated by a positivist, quantitative, and descriptive methodological approach. At the same time, specialized literature shows that there is a sound call for methodological renovation within the organizational ethical decision-making field toward a richer manner of researching that, in turn, could go deeper into the explanation of the own decisional phenomenon itself. This paper aims to discuss how the organizational ethical decision-making empirical research may be alternatively conducted through a qualitative methodology, capable of probing into peoples’ reasons behind their decisions. To do so, it retrieves and reviews the method used by James Waters, Frederick Bird, and Peter Chant (Waters in J. Bus. Ethics 5: 373–384, 1986) in their pioneering study of the morality in everyday managerial work, exploring both the strengths and weaknesses of that promising qualitative research approach. The paper concludes with some recommendations and suggestions about how Waters, Bird, and Chant’s original method could be improved for future research, in order to help to advance the understanding of the organizational ethical decision-making phenomenon and, perhaps, contribute toward building fresh theory.

Keywords: Ethical decision-making in organizations; Interpretive epistemology; Managerial behavior; Moral standards; Open-ended interview; Qualitative research (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11135-021-01200-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:qualqt:v:56:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s11135-021-01200-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11135

DOI: 10.1007/s11135-021-01200-z

Access Statistics for this article

Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology is currently edited by Vittorio Capecchi

More articles in Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().