Ethical ideology, Spirituality and Ethical Decision Making
Author(s): Jennifer Ah-Kion, FSSH
Poster
Never has there been such intense concern about ethics among the public,
business and academic community than in this present day and age (Conroy & Emerson,
2004; Forte, 2004). Recent financial scandals involving large reputable corporations like
Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom amongst others, have threatened the moral fibre of
both the public and private sector. Today, virtually, every country has had their “Enron”
(Elliot and Schroth, 2002) with cases of false accounts, manipulation of information,
corruption of public agents, political connections (Buelens, 2002; Sanger, 2002), cheating
on expense accounts, paying or accepting bribes (Beu, Buckley and Harvey, 2003). Such
unethical practices not only cost industries billions of dollars, but have deleterious effects
on employees, public confidence and economic stability.
Understandably, one of the primary aims of ethics research is to examine the
underlying factors that influence individuals’ perceptions and decisions to respond
ethically or unethically when confronted with ethical dilemmas in the work setting.
Giacalone and Jurkiewicz (2003) rightly argue that how employees resolve ethical
dilemmas depends upon personal values such as ethical ideology (Forsyth, 1992;
Jurkiewicz, 2002) and spirituality (McKee, 2003; Velasquez, 2002), which have not
received adequate empirical investigation. Since studies on ethical decision-making have
mostly been confined to developed countries (Giacobbe and Segal, 2000), it is most
imperative to develop a better understanding of how such personal factors impact on the
ethical decision making process of individuals in the context of a developing economy
like Mauritius.
This study is conducted in the context of this background. The sample consisted
of 250 participants from different levels and functional divisions of the organization
representing the public, private and para-statal sectors. Six ethical vignettes were
developed to determine the relationship between ethical ideology, spirituality and
perceived ethicality and behavioural intentions of participants to ethical dilemmas. They
were (a) ‘bribery’; (b) ‘nepotism’; (c) ‘padding up expense account’ (d) ‘political
favouritism’ (e) ‘accounting tricks’ (f) ‘software piracy’. Construct validity of the
predictors was assessed using primarily varimax rotated principal component analysis
and confirmatory factor analysis in order to examine the structure of the scales. As
hypothesized, two dimensions, idealism and relativism, emerged under the ethical
ideology construct, and three dimensions, prayer fulfillment, universality and
connectedness, under spirituality, with alpha reliability coefficients ranging between 0.55
and 0.88.
To explore the statistical relationship between dimensions of ethical ideology,
spirituality and the ethical decision making process, correlations were calculated. Results
show relationships are in the expected directions. There was a significant negative
correlation (p<0.01) between idealism and perceived ethicality of ‘bribery’ (r = -.190);
‘nepotism’ (r = -.194); ‘political favouritism’ (r = .187); ‘software piracy’ (r= -.211) and
‘accounting tricks’ (p<0.05, r = -.142). Relativism was significantly positively correlated
only with perceived ethicality of ‘bribery’ (p<0.01, r = .195). There was a significant
negative correlation between idealism (p<0.01) and behavioural intentions to ‘bribery’ (r
= -.217); ‘padding up expense account’ (r = -.175); ‘political favouritism’ (r = -.167) and
‘software piracy’ (p<0.05, r = -.132). Relativism was significantly positively correlated
with behavioural intentions to ‘bribery’ (p<0.05; r = .146) and ‘padding up expense
account’ (p<0.01, r = .170).
No significant correlation was found between the three dimensions of spirituality and
perceived ethicality of the six vignettes. Universality was significantly negatively
correlated (scores reversed) with behavioural intentions to report peer’s unethical
behaviour to ‘accounting tricks’ (p< 0.05, r = -.133) and significantly positively
correlated with behavioural intentions to ‘software piracy’ (p<0.05, r = .144).
* Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities, Department of Social
Studies, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius. Tel: (020) (230) 454 1041, Fax:
(020) (230) 465 6184, Email: ahkion@uom.ac.mu
** Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities, Department of
Social Studies, University of Mauritius, Reduit, Mauritius. Tel: (020) (230) 454 1041,
Fax: (020) (230) 465 6184, Email: ubhowon@uom.ac.mu