A dynamic and cyclical model of bounded ethicality

How AI tools can-and cannot-help organizations become more ethical

In this paper, we argue that we cannot expect that AI systems-even given more data or better computational resources-will be more ethical than the humans who develop, deploy and use them. As such, we advocate that it is necessary to retain the responsibility for ethical decision-making in human hands. In reality, however, human decision-makers currently do not have the ethical maturity to meaningfully take on this responsibility. So, what to do? We develop the argument that to broaden and strengthen the ethical upskilling of our organizations and leaders, AI has a crucial role to play. Specifically, because AI is a mirror that reflects our biases and moral flaws back to us, decision-makers should look carefully into this mirror-taking advantage of the opportunities brought about by its scale, interpretability, and counterfactual modeling-to gain a deep understanding of the psychological underpinnings of our (un)ethical behaviors, and in turn, learn to consistently make ethical decisions. In discussing this proposal, we introduce a new collaborative paradigm between humans and AI that can help ethically upskill our organizations and leaders and thereby prepare them to responsibly navigate the impending digital future.

Withstanding Moral Disengagement: Moral Self-Efficacy as Moderator in Counterproductive Behavior Routinization

Moral disengagement plays an important role in the routinization of counterproductive work behavior (CWB) as a key mediator. What remains unclear are the factors that could attenuate the power of moral disengagement in this process. Building on social-cognitive theory, we hypothesize the moderating role of moral self-efficacy and suggest the importance of two different dimensions: self-reflective and behavioral moral self-efficacies. While the former should buffer the CWB-moral disengagement path over time, the latter should buffer the moral disengagement-CWB path. After presenting the psychometric properties of the moral self-efficacy scale in two independent samples (Study 1: United Kingdom, N = 359; Study 2: Italy, N = 1308), we test the posited multi-wave moderated-mediated model. Results from a structural equation model supported our hypotheses. Results demonstrate that the routinization of CWB through the mediation of moral disengagement over time is conditionally influenced by the two moral self-efficacy dimensions. Employees high in capability to look back and question the assumptions that affected their behavior (i.e., self-reflective moral self-efficacy) are less likely to morally disengage as a result of previous engagement in CWB. Employees high in capability to morally self-regulate (i.e., behavioral moral self-efficacy) are less likely to engage in CWB as a result of their moral disengagement. Results of the conditional indirect effect suggest that previous engagement in CWB is not translated in future engagement in CWB for those individuals high in both moral self-efficacy dimensions.

Proxyeconomics, a theory and model of proxy-based competition and cultural evolution

Competitive societal systems by necessity rely on imperfect proxy measures. For instance, profit is used to measure value to consumers, patient volumes to measure hospital performance, or the journal impact factor to measure scientific value. While there are numerous reasons why proxies will deviate from the underlying societal goals, they will nevertheless determine the selection of cultural practices and guide individual decisions. These considerations suggest that the study of proxy-based competition requires the integration of cultural evolution theory and economics or decision theory. Here, we attempt such an integration in two ways. First, we describe an agent-based simulation model, combining methods and insights from these disciplines. The model suggests that an individual intrinsic incentive can constrain a cultural evolutionary pressure, which would otherwise enforce fully proxy-oriented practices. The emergent outcome is distinct from that with either the isolated economic or evolutionary mechanism. It reflects what we term lock-in, where competitive pressure can undermine the ability of agents to pursue the shared social goal. Second, we elaborate the broader context, outlining the system-theoretic foundations as well as some philosophical and practical implications, towards a broader theory. Overall, we suggest such a theory may offer an explanatory and predictive framework for diverse subjects, ranging from scientific replicability to climate inaction, and outlining strategies for diagnosis and mitigation.

Behavioral Ethics: Ethical Practice Is More Than Memorizing Compliance Codes

Disciplines establish and enforce professional codes of ethics in order to guide ethical and safe practice. Unfortunately, ethical breaches still occur. Interestingly, it is found that breaches are often perpetrated by professionals who are aware of their codes of ethics and believe that they engage in ethical practice. The constructs of behavioral ethics, which are most often discussed in business settings, attempt to explain why ethical professionals sometimes engage in unethical behavior. Although traditionally based on theories of social psychology, the principles underlying behavioral ethics are consistent with behavior analysis. When conceptualized as operant behavior, ethical and unethical decisions are seen as being evoked and maintained by environmental variables. As with all forms of operant behavior, antecedents in the environment can trigger unethical responses, and consequences in the environment can shape future unethical responses. In order to increase ethical practice among professionals, an assessment of the environmental variables that affect behavior needs to be conducted on a situation-by-situation basis. Knowledge of discipline-specific professional codes of ethics is not enough to prevent unethical practice. In the current article, constructs used in behavioral ethics are translated into underlying behavior-analytic principles that are known to shape behavior. How these principles establish and maintain both ethical and unethical behavior is discussed.

Business Ethics Decision-Making: Examining Partial Reflective Awareness

The aim of this research was to examine partial reflective awareness in ethical business choices in Croatia. The ethical decision-making is interlinked with sustainable practices, but it is also its prerequisite. Thus, better understanding of business ethics decision-making provides a basis for designing and implementing sustainability in a corporate setting. The research was done on student populations who will soon carry important roles and make important decisions for individuals, organizations, and society. The field research was conducted using Kohlberg’s scenarios. The results reveal that the process of decision-making goes through the lenses of respondents’ own preferred ethics. However, the reflective awareness of respondents’ preferred ethics is skewed and regularities in that deviations point out to the relevance of the context characteristics and arousal factors. In addition, the individuals do not use all available information in the assessment process. The revealed partial reflective awareness contributes to explanation of why people have problems with justifying their choices. As there are many examples of unethical behavior in the environment that remain unpunished, it is necessary to raise awareness of the issue. Improvement in reflective awareness would contribute to more sustainable ethical choices and reveal a possibility of an intervention design within the higher education framework.

The Implicit Component of Moral Disengagement: Applying the Relational Responding Task to Investigate Its Relationship With Cheating Behavior

This article aims to conceptualize, for the first time, an implicit form of moral disengagement and investigate its role in relation to cheating behavior. In line with the implicit social-cognition models, we argue that the implicit moral disengagement would represent an unintentional, automatic, and less accessible form of the mechanisms bypassing the moral self-regulatory system. We anticipate that in situations implying on-the-spot decisions and where individuals might suffer no consequences for the misconduct, the implicit moral disengagement would predict the actual behavior while the explicit moral disengagement would predict self-reported conduct. The results of three empirical studies provide support for the theorization of an implicit moral disengagement and its assessment through a newly developed implicit measurement procedure using the relational responding task. Results of the structural equation models, including both implicit and explicit moral disengagement, demonstrated that only the implicit one was associated with the actual misconduct.