ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIAL CUES, FRAMING, AND JUSTICE: EFFECTS ON MANAGEMENT'S ETHICAL DECISIONS

This project was designed as a laboratory study to investigate the effects of organizational social cues (OSC), decision framing, and justice on managerial decision making in ethical situations. The OSC (ethical unethical), the framing (gain loss), and the justice conditions (fair unfair) were manipulated within a managerial in-basket exercise. Participants read information about the organization and their situation within it. Next, they read scenarios and made several decisions involving ethical considerations. Results suggest that OSC and the experience of fairness or unfairness significantly influenced the managerial ethical decisions. Ethical OSC resulted in significantly more ethical decisions. Also, those in an "experienced fairness" justice condition made significantly more ethical decisions. The gain loss framing did not significantly influence ethical decisions.