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Don’t Just Trust Your Gut: The Importance of Normative Deliberation to Ethical Decision-Making at Work

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Abstract

While deliberation has traditionally played a central role in philosophical and behavioral accounts of ethical decision-making, several recent studies challenge the value of deliberation. These studies find that deliberative thinking, such as considering divergent views or different perspectives, leads to less ethical decisions. We observe, however, that these studies do not address normative deliberation, in which decision-makers consider or apply a normative standard. We predict that normative deliberation improves ethical decision-making. Across six experiments, we examine the effects of non-normative deliberation (mathematical calculations, word problems) and normative deliberation (elicited by considering ethical obligations, stakeholder interests, or a corporate ethics framework) on ethical decision-making (judgments, intentions, and behaviors). We find that normative deliberation improves ethical decision-making and, in contrast to recent studies, no form of deliberation harms ethical decision-making.

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Notes

  1. Our results remain the same if we vary the standard deviation cutoff (2 or 2.5 standard deviations) and our exclusion of outliers aligns with previous practice for this journal (Feldman & Halali, 2019; Xu & Ma, 2015) and recommendations for organizational researchers (Aguinis, Gottfredson & Joo, 2013).

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Acknowledgments

This paper benefited from helpful feedback offered by presentation audiences at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Oxford’s R:ETRO Seminar Series, Baruch’s Research Seminar Series, and the ComplianceNet Conference. We would like to thank Joe Gaspar, Oliver Sheldon, Alex Van Zant and the JBE editorial team for their thoughtful advice related to various aspects of the paper.

Funding

Danielle Warren and Tobey Scharding declare they have no financial interests. Mahak Nagpal and Oyku Arkan received summer funding from the Dean’s Office of the Rutgers Business School—Newark & New Brunswick. Oyku Arkan received summer funding from the Rutgers University Institute for Ethical Leadership. Mahak Nagpal received funding from the Centre on AI Technology for Humankind (AiTH N-311-000-781-001). All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript. The authors have no financial or proprietary interests in any material discussed in this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Management & Global Business, Rutgers Business School – Newark & New Brunswick, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 1 Washington Park, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA

    Oyku Arkan, Tobey K. Scharding & Danielle E. Warren

  2. National University of Singapore, NUS Business School, 1 Business Link, #03-30, Singapore, 117592, Singapore

    Mahak Nagpal

  3. Sabanci University, Orta Mahalle, Tuzla, 34956, İstanbul, Turkey

    Oyku Arkan

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  1. Oyku Arkan
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Arkan, O., Nagpal, M., Scharding, T.K. et al. Don’t Just Trust Your Gut: The Importance of Normative Deliberation to Ethical Decision-Making at Work. J Bus Ethics 186, 257–277 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05221-y

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