Two essays on business ethics : the role of work-personal spheres overlapping on "misusing" company resources and that of decision frame on intention to bribe

This dissertation is dedicated to investigating individuals’ decision-making regarding situations with ethical concerns. Given the importance of business ethics to organizations and societies, research on decision-making in ethics related issues has significant impact on individuals, organizations, and societies. This dissertation consists of two essays. Essay One examines decision-making in using company resources for personal ties, involving the tension between relational and ethical concerns. Use of company resources is costly yet common in organizations. Integrating social cognition theory and social exchange theory, I propose that obligation to help could encourage using company resources for personal ties. And the boundary permeability between work and personal spheres further licenses this behavior. The current research examines whether culture affects people’s representation of the boundary permeability between work and personal spheres, which in turn affect their intention of using company resources to benefit personal ties. Specifically, I hypothesize that Chinese are more likely to use company resources for personal ties than Americans, whereas Americans are less likely to use personal resources for work ties than Chinese. These cross-cultural differences are arguably driven by the overlaps of work and personal spheres rooted in Chinese culture, and the segregation of work and personal spheres espoused by the Protestant Relational Ideology in the United States. I conducted three studies using surveys and experiments among working adults in China and the United States. The findings largely support my hypotheses. Essay Two investigates the role of decision frame on decision-making regarding bribe giving. Previous research on bribe giving focuses on either an ethics or a business oriented perspective. Recently, the Sensemaking-Intuition Model (SIM) of ethical decision-making challenges a single perspective assumed by researchers, and suggests that individuals actively construe the situations, and employ decision frames to interpret the situation. In fact, decision makers can simultaneously use an ethical frame and a business frame to interpret situations involving bribery. I hypothesize that using an ethical frame lowers intention to give a bribe as bribery is considered an unethical behavior. In contrast, a business frame encourages bribe giving, as business frame induces a dominant self-interest mindset over others’ interests, thus undermines the role of ethical concerns. Furthermore, temporary salience of ethics versus business constructs could activate ethical versus business frame accordingly, which further influence intention of giving bribe. I conducted two experiments and one survey to test these hypotheses. The results largely support these hypotheses. Overall, my research contributes to the literature in ethical decision making, and provides implications for policy-making regarding ethical conducts and curbing the use of company resources for personal interests and bribery.Doctor of Philosophy (NBS