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How Personality and Moral Identity Relate to Individuals’ Ethical Ideology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Brent McFerran ,
Karl Aquino  and
Michelle Duffy
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Abstract

Two studies tested the relationship between three facets of personality—conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience—as well as moral identity, on individuals’ ethical ideology. Study 1 showed that moral personality and the centrality of moral identity to the self were associated with a more principled (versus expedient) ethical ideology in a sample of female speech therapists. Study 2 replicated these findings in a sample of male and female college students, and showed that ideology mediated the relationship between personality, moral identity, and two organizationally relevant outcomes: organizational citizenship behavior and the propensity to morally disengage. Implications for business ethics are discussed.

Type
Special Issue Behavioral Ethics: A New Empirical Perspective on Business Ethics Research
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 35 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2010

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References

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