The effects of intuition on ethical decision making: the role of the concern for others' interests

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Title The effects of intuition on ethical decision making: the role of the concern for others' interests
Publication Type dissertation
School or College David Eccles School of Business
Department Business
Author Zhang, Teng
Date 2016
Description As a mode of thought and information processing strategy, intuition can lead people to behave ethically. However, very little is known about when intuition leads to ethical outcomes and why. Drawing on research on prosociality, I argue that intuitive decisions are generally more ethical than deliberative ones because people have a spontaneous concern for others’ interests, which can be overcome by self-interested deliberation. Drawing on research on framing, I argue that intuition is less likely to result in ethical decisions under the condition of business framing because business framing attenuates the effect of intuition on the concern for others’ interests. I examine the relationships among mode of thought (i.e., intuition vs. deliberation), framing of the decision making context (i.e., business vs. nonbusiness), the concern for others’ interests, and the ethicality of one’s decisions in a series of experiments. Data across these studies did not provide empirical support for my predictions. However, I found incidental yet consistent empirical evidence that the concern for others’ interests is positively associated with ethical decisions.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Decision making; Ethics; Intuition; Business administration; Management; Organizational behavior
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management ©Teng Zhang
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
ARK ark:/87278/s6qg2z1n
Setname ir_etd
ID 1344755
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6qg2z1n
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