Them’s Fightin’ Words: The Effects of Violent Rhetoric on Ethical Decision Making in Business

Abstract:     
This study examines how the use of violent rhetoric by business managers impacts the ethical decision making of employees. We develop and test a model that explains how the use of violent rhetoric impacts employees’ ethical decision making depending upon the source of the rhetoric. The results of two experiments suggest that the use of violent rhetoric by a CEO at a competing company increases employee’s willingness to engage in ethical violations while the use of violent rhetoric by employees’ own CEO decreases employee’s willingness to engage in unethical behavior. Furthermore, we find that participants who made less ethical decisions motivated by violent rhetoric used by a competitor’s CEO did not view their decision as less ethical than the relatively more ethical decisions made by participants exposed to the nonviolent rhetoric of a competitor’s CEO. The results of these studies should prove useful to managers and academics who want to increase ethical decision making within organizations.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 28

Keywords: Ethics, Decision Making, Violent Rhetoric, Leadership

JEL Classification: M1, M14, M54

working papers series