RT Article
T1 The Impact of Banality, Risky Shift and Escalating Commitment on Ethical Decision Making
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 53
IS 4
SP 365
OP 370
A1 Armstrong, Robert W.
A1 Williams, Robert J.
A1 Barrett, J. Douglas
A2 Williams, Robert J.
A2 Barrett, J. Douglas
LA English
YR 2004
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785622331
AB This paper posits that organizational variables are the factors that lead to the moral decline of companies like Enron and Worldcom. The individuals involved created environments within the organizations that precipitated a spiral of unethical decision-making. It is proposed that at the executive level, it is the organizational factors associated with “power” and decision-making that have the critical influence on moral and ethical behavior. The study has used variables that were deemed to be surrogate measures of the ethical violations (OSHA and EPA violations), the risky shift phenomenon (executive team size), banality of wrong-doing (reputation score for firms) and escalating commitment (tenure with the firm/change in revenue for declining firms). The research found that there were small correlations between ethical violations and the three organizational variables.
K1 Ethical decision making
K1 escalating commitment
K1 risky-shift
K1 banality
K1 Enron
K1 Worldcom
K1 Ethics
DO 10.1023/B:BUSI.0000043491.10007.9a