ABSTRACT

How can managers understand how people actually think and behave in ethically-charged situations and how can such knowledge help them to manage their own ethical conduct and the conduct of their employees? This sort of question approaches employee conduct (and misconduct) as a management challenge that can be successfully addressed if one understands more about human thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the realm of ethical and unethical conduct in organizations. In other words, this perspective approaches management ethics less as an abstract normative query (e.g., “what is the right thing to do?”) than as a practical, social scientifically based, endeavor. This chapter focuses, in particular, on how employees and managers face and respond to ethical dilemmas and problems in the workplace.