The roles of selfinterest and ethical reasoning in project continuance decisions a comparative study of US and the Peoples Republic of China

This study aims to advance the understanding, in a crosscultural context, of the roles that ethical vs. selfinterest considerations play in project continuation decisions. Fiftyeight executive MBA students from the Peoples Republic of China PRC completed a project continuation decision using an instrument previously employed by Harrell and Harrison 1994 on U.S. subjects, and Harrison, Chow, Wu and Harrell 1999 on Chinese nationals from Taiwan. Results indicated that while the PRC subjects generally had a lower tendency than these other groups to continue an unprofitable project, they still tended towards continuance. Further analysis revealed that the PRC subjects decisions were motivated by an emphasis on their selfinterest as well as ethical considerations. The role of self interests in the PRC subjects decisions seems consistent with recent claims that Chinas new market ethic is shifting people towards emphasizing their own economic welfare over that of the collective entity. Also of substantive interest was that as compared to their U.S. counterparts, the PRC subjects ethical reasoning had a different structure. The relative impacts of their ethical reasoning dimensions also differed from those from their U.S. counterparts.