The impact of religiosity and culture on ethical decision making in South Africa

Abstract: This study examines the impact of religiosity and culture in ethical decision making in South Africa. In doing so, it discusses the importance of the influence of the personal values, moral philosophy and religion as related to ethical or unethical decision making. The author argues that religion and culture hold pervasive influence over many peoples‘ lives and, as such, have a direct bearing on the decision making of individuals. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of religion and culture on decision making. It used a quantitative research design to answer the research questions of the study. Both convenience and snowball sampling were adapted to select the sample for the study. Data was gathered from a sample of 217 respondents, and a structured questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. The majority of the respondents were drawn from the City of Tshwane Municipality, supplemented with responses from citizens around the Tshwane region. This study discovered the positive effect of religiosity on ethical decision making. Religious people seemingly follow their religious practices and this to a large degree influences their ethical decision making. On the other hand, culture also displayed a positive effect on the ethical decision making although to a lesser extent. It was recommended that African culture should be promoted and protected by its own people. In terms of religion, it appears that religious people are ethical and seemingly walk on the path of religious principles. The focus of this was to establish the existence of the effect of religiosity and culture on ethical decision making. This was achieved, but it recommends further studies to ascertain if religious people are indeed unlikely to engage in unethical behaviour in decision making processes.M.Com. (Business Management