(A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for Middle Managers’ Exercise of Moral Agency in Ethical Problems

This paper investigates qualitatively the significance of different dimensions of ethical organisation culture for the exercise of middle managers’ moral agency in ethical problems. The research draws on the social cognitive theory of morality and on the corporate ethical virtues model. This study broadens understanding of the factors which enable or constrain managers’ potential for moral agency in organisations, and shows that an insufficient ethical organisational culture may contribute to indifference towards ethical issues, the experiencing of moral conflicts, lack of self-efficacy and morally disengaged reasoning. In contrast, a healthy ethical culture can contribute to motivation to tackle ethical problems, an increased capacity for self-regulation and ultimately ethical behaviour.


Introduction
The aim of this study is to investigate qualitatively the significance of different dimensions of ethical organisational culture for middle managers' exercise of moral agency in the context of ethical problems in the workplace.
Ethical problems in business are situations in which, on the one hand, one does not know what is the right or wrong thing to do and, on the other, one knows the right thing to do but fails to act accordingly (Nash 1990). As shown in a substantial body of literature (e.g . Nash 1990;Dukerich et al. 2000;Crane and Matten 2004;Dean et al. 2010;Huhtala et al. 2011;Riivari and Lämsä 2014;Hassan et al. 2014), ethical problems, such as a lack of courage, managing conflicts poorly, employees not taking responsibility for their work, relationship problems and self-interested behaviour, are everyday concerns for managers in organisations.
In this paper, we follow the virtue-based theory of business ethics (Solomon 1992) which, instead of emphasising an individualistic view of ethical behaviour in organisations, posits that belonging to a community affects people's moral agency (Treviño 1986;Victor and Cullen 1988;MacIntyre 1999;O'Fallon and Butterfield 2005;Nielsen 2006;Craft 2013;Ferrero and Sison 2014). We argue in this study that the organisational environment, and in particular the ethical organisational culture, is significant in the exercise of the manager's moral agency (see e.g. Bandura 1991Bandura , 2001Forte 2004;Nielsen 2006;Detert et al. 2008;Dean et al. 2010;Kish-Gephart et al. 2010;Yukl 2010;Kaptein 2011). In addition to moral agency theory (Bandura 1991), which explains how moral reasoning together with other psychosocial factors such as an individual's self-concept or environmental circumstances govern ethical behaviour (Bandura 1991), we approach the topic by drawing on the only multidimensional model of ethical organisation culture, namely the corporate ethical virtues model of Kaptein (1998).
The focus of the paper is on middle managers' moral agency since they are responsible both for pursuing the organisation's strategic objectives and for keeping an eye on the well-being of the staff. This is an interface position that may itself serve as a breeding ground for ethical concerns (Alam 1999;Treviño et al. 2008;Marshall 2012). Also, middle managers are in a position to influence and to be influenced in ethical matters by those above and below them in the organisational hierarchy Jackall 2010). On the other hand, as shown by Treviño et al. (2008), middle managers can perceive ethical aspects of the organisation differently from executives, and this can have important implications for their moral agency. Nielsen (2006) proposes that managerial and bureaucratic systems can manipulate and constrain the moral agency of individual managers. Therefore, it is important to identify what kind of organisational environment can enable the exercise of moral agency (Detert et al. 2008;Wilcox 2012).

Contributions of the Study
This research contributes to prior research on the topic in the following ways. First of all, we show how the theory of moral agency could add to earlier theories of ethical organisational culture and consequently to individuals' ethical behaviour. Moral agency theory is an overarching theory of ethical behaviour which not only takes into account moral reasoning based on the weighing of individual moral standards (Rest 1984) and environmental influences such as the ethical organisational culture (Treviño 1986) and situational circumstances (Jones 1991), but also considers how reasoning is translated into action through anticipatory self-regulatory mechanisms, including anticipated self-sanctions and social sanctions (Bandura 1991(Bandura , 2001Weaver 2006). Moreover, unlike most relevant theories of ethical behaviour in the organisational context (e.g. Treviño 1986;Victor and Cullen 1988;Collier 1998;Kaptein 1998), moral agency theory offers a three-dimensional view of how social influences, such as the organisation's ethical culture, can affect ethical judgment and behaviour (Bandura 1991). In the first place, social influences affect individuals' self-regulatory competence (Treviño 1986;Bandura 1991). That means that individuals can generate perceptions about moral behaviour by observing the behaviour of others and by internalising the standards that they observe in action. Secondly, the organisational environment can provide collective support (e.g. supportive and positive feedback, clear guidelines and principles for the sort of behaviour that is expected), for an individual's own moral standards. Thirdly, the organisational environment can facilitate the selective activation or disengagement of moral self-regulation (Bandura 1991). We argue here that combining the theory of moral agency and the theory of ethical organisational culture adds a more diverse theoretical viewpoint to the literature on the subject.
The second contribution that this article makes to the literature on ethical organisational culture and individual ethical behaviour is a systematic empirical analysis of middle managers' perceptions of the ethical culture of their organisation and the value of different corporate ethical virtues. In addition, it provides a rich view of the actual conduct of middle managers when handling ethical problems. Thus, this study broadens understanding of the mechanisms which foster and hinder the effective exercise of moral agency in organisations. Prior studies on the ethical culture of an organisation (e.g. Kaptein 2010;Huhtala et al. 2011Huhtala et al. , 2013aRiivari and Lämsä 2014;Huhtala et al. 2015) have measured the impact of ethical organisational culture on, for instance, innovativeness, burnout, sickness absence, occupational well-being and managers' work goals. This body of research offers rich evidence to support the validity of the construct of ethical organisational culture and shows the wide range of ways in which it is important. These studies, however, do not directly address the significance of ethical organisational culture for the individual exercise of moral agency.
Thirdly, in spite of the significant organisational position that middle managers hold (Jackall 2010;Treviño et al. 2008), the ethical problems of specifically middle managers are largely missing from recent business ethics research (apart from a few empirical studies such as Alam 1999;Dean et al. 2010;Hiekkataipale and Lämsä 2015). Therefore, this paper is important in that it adds the middle management perspective to earlier research in the field.

Moral Agency
The social cognitive theory (Bandura 1991;Bandura et al. 1996Bandura et al. , 2001 suggests that the relationship between moral thought and conduct is mediated through the exercise of self-regulation and, more specifically, the mechanism of moral agency. Self-regulation, which is a key concept with regard to the theory of moral agency, includes self-monitoring one's own conduct, exercising moral judgment of the rightness or wrongness of one's conduct in terms of one's personal standards and the relevant circumstances, and affective self-reactions (Bandura 1991(Bandura , 2001. External social sanctions (such as isolation in the workplace, dismissal, or reprimands) and internalised self-sanctions (such as self-contempt, guilt, or self-condemnation) play a major role in self-regulation (Bandura 1991(Bandura , 2001. Personal moral standards are formed in the course of the individual's socialisation process (Bandura et al. 1996). Thus, social reality is essential to the development of effective moral agency. However, the social environment can also activate the disengagement of moral self-regulation and contribute to weak moral agency (Bandura et al. 1996).
The deactivation of self-regulation can take place through (1) moral justification, (2) the use of euphemistic language to hide the actual purpose of one's action, (3) advantageous comparison, (4) the displacement of responsibility, (5) the diffusion of responsibility, (6) minimising or ignoring the consequences of one's conduct, (7) dehumanising the victim and (8) the attribution of blame (Bandura et al. 1996;Weaver 2006;Treviño et al. 2006;Detert et al. 2008). Let us now look briefly at these mechanisms and their significance to moral agency.
The first disengagement mechanism is moral justification, which refers to making unethical actions personally and socially acceptable by portraying them as serving a moral purpose, such as the success of the organisation or community (Bandura 1991). The second, using euphemistic language, means that reprehensible activities are described in more neutral or even positive terms in order to make them justifiable, and those who engage in them are relieved of the sense of personal moral agency and responsibility (Bandura et al. 1996). Moral self-regulation can be weakened, thirdly, by means of advantageous comparison, when unethical decisions and actions are compared with even more harmful deeds so that the original behaviour begins to appear benign (Detert et al. 2008).
People may also free themselves from responsibility by displacing or diffusing responsibility (Bandura et al. 1996). Detert et al. (2008) define the displacement of responsibility as follows: ''When individuals view their behaviour as a direct result of authoritative dictates, they may displace responsibility for their actions to the authority figure, negating any personal accountability for the unfavourable act''. The diffusion of responsibility, on the other hand, can take place when people work together in teams, for instance, and take part in collective decision-making. Fragmented jobs may also diffuse individual responsibility, when people perform only sub-functions of larger entities and exercise little personal judgment over the end result (Bandura 1991). These two displacement mechanisms have been found to be common in organisational settings where people feel compelled to follow orders, and responsibility for any harmful outcomes can be diffused to organisational teams or units (Detert et al. 2008).
People may also avoid self-sanctions by minimising or disregarding the consequences of unethical behaviour (Bandura et al. 1996). As long as the outcomes of conduct are ignored, minimised or disbelieved, there is no reason for self-contempt or guilt. If the consequences of an action are physically remote, people are more prone to ignore them (Bandura 1991).
Finally, a sense of personal moral agency can also be reduced by blaming other people for bringing suffering on themselves, or devaluing them as human beings (Bandura 1991). In organisational life, the formation of closed groups may lead to this type of disengagement behaviour (Detert et al. 2008).
Effective moral agency requires not only the ability of self-regulation but also the ability to exercise it under the contradictory influences of working life (Bandura 1991(Bandura , 2001MacIntyre 1999). Self-efficacy is also fundamental to the exercise of moral agency (Bandura 1991). The concept of self-efficacy refers to the idea that the more people believe they can exert control over their motivation, thought patterns and actions, the better they can resist social pressures to behave contrary to their own moral standards (MacIntyre 1999). Bandura (1991) suggests that a strong sense of self-efficacy (or alternatively, self-belief) reduces vulnerability to stress and depression under adversity. From the point of view of moral agency, selfefficacy beliefs are pivotal since they determine whether people deal with ethical challenges pessimistically or optimistically, what challenges they accept and how much effort they put into overcoming difficulties and contradictions (Bandura 2001).

Ethical Culture of Organisations
The focus of this paper, ethical organisational culture, which is a subset of organisational culture, has been found to exert a powerful influence on the ethical behaviour of members of the organisation (Ford and Richardson 1994;Treviño et al. 1998;Koh and Boo 2001;O'Fallon and Butterfield 2005;Kaptein 2011;Martin et al. 2014;Huhtala et al. 2015). Ethical organisational culture refers to that aspect of the overall organisational culture that consists of formal and informal systems of behavioural control which either promote or hinder ethical behaviour (Treviño et al. 1998).
Operationalisation of the concept of ethical culture has progressed from Treviño's one-dimensional construct to a more explicit definition of the different sub-dimensions of ethical culture (e.g. Kaptein 1998Kaptein , 2008. In this study, we draw upon the only multidimensional model of ethical organisational culture, developed by Kaptein (1998Kaptein ( , 2008. This corporate ethical virtues model (CEV) builds on Solomon's (2004) virtue-based theory of business ethics, which suggests that virtues are desirable operational dispositions of both people and groups as moral agents. According to Kaptein (2015), organisation's ethical virtues are embedded in the organisation's strategies, structures and culture. The key idea of the CEV model is that the ethical culture of an organisation can be assessed, since organisations are moral entities (Kaptein 2008(Kaptein , 2015. The (A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for… 149 model assumes, further, that the stronger the presence of each of the eight virtues, the more ethically the members of the organisation will behave (Kaptein 2015). Kaptein (1998, p. 70) constructed his eight-dimensional model by conducting an extensive number of qualitative interviews and observations in companies. The model was later tested in several quantitative studies (e.g. Kaptein 2008Kaptein , 2010Kaptein , 2011Huhtala et al. 2011Huhtala et al. , 2013aRiivari and Lämsä 2014;Kangas et al. 2015).

Corporate Ethical Virtues
The first dimension in the CEV model is the virtue of clarity, which refers to how well the ethical expectations of the organisation, such as its values, norms and principles, have been translated into explicit, understandable and concrete guidelines for ethical conduct (Kaptein 2011). If clarity prevails in the organisation, expectations about what responsible choices should be made when dealing with ethical problems will be clear to both managers and employees (Kaptein 1999). In his study, Kaptein (2011) found evidence that high clarity encourages employees to intervene and correct observed wrongdoings in the workplace. There is also a substantial body of other empirical evidence, suggesting that clear normative policies and procedures reduce unethical behaviour in organisations (see e.g. Riivari and Lämsä 2014;Huhtala et al. 2013b).
The second and third dimensions in the CEV framework refer to the virtue of organisational congruency, which means supervisors' and senior management's consistent and unambiguous example of ethical behaviour and role modelling (Kaptein 1999;Huhtala et al. 2011). Jackall (2010 and Solomon (1992) make clear that the example set by leaders is of critical importance in contributing to the ethical behaviour of other organisational members. In other words, managers act as role models and salient authority figures whose example of (un)ethical behaviour is often noticed and most likely followed by the other organisational members (Solomon 1999, p. 54;Treviño et al. 2006).
The fourth organisational virtue, feasibility, refers to an organisation's ability to enable ethical behaviour by offering adequate time, financial resources, skills, training, facilities, information, technology, etc. for attaining the organisational objectives (Kaptein 2008(Kaptein , 2011. Thus, formulating achievable objectives promotes ethically sound choices (Kaptein 1999). In contrast, the lack of feasibility may be a threat to ethical behaviour, if managers feel that they are unable to achieve the set targets by means of ethical conduct and that they are required to make decisions or take actions that are not in line with their personal moral standards (Kaptein 1999). This has been proposed also by, for example, Jackall (2010, p. 213), who points out that middle managers often carry the heaviest burden in matters of organisational reform, for instance; unless adequate support (time, skills, information, etc.) is provided by their upper management, middle managers might become overtly cynical.
The fifth dimension in the CEV framework is organisational supportability. Kaptein (2008) suggests that an open, supportive and healthy organisation motivates staff to comply with normative ethical guidelines. According to Kaptein (2008, p. 925): ''The virtue of supportability refers to the extent to which the organisation stimulates identification with the ethics of the organisation among employees''. In a supportive environment, employees commit to the ethical objectives of the organisation and organisational values (Kaptein 1999). High supportability has also been found to promote a healthy working environment, which in turn increases commitment to organisational goals (Huhtala et al. 2013a).
In transparent organisations, employees, peers, colleagues and superiors are able to recognise and observe the consequences of (un)ethical behaviour. The sixth virtue, transparency, covers elements such as information sharing and open processes. Kaptein (2008) defines the organisational virtue of transparency as the degree to which actions and consequences are visible to everyone in the organisation. In their empirical study, Huhtala et al. (2013b) showed that ethical leaders increase the level of transparency in an organisation by intervening in unethical activity, handling violations actively and increasing awareness of the consequences of unethical actions.
The seventh corporal ethical virtue is discussability. This virtue refers to how extensively employees are able to discuss ethical issues and unethical behaviour with the management and their superiors. An open environment in which discussion is encouraged strengthens ethical conduct and increases the importance of ethical questions in general. The opposite kind of culture reduces and even silences ethical talk and increases the possibilities of unethical conduct (e.g. Huhtala et al. 2013b).
The last organisational virtue in the CEV model, that is, sanctionability, refers to the enforcement of ethical behaviour through punishment for behaving unethically and rewards for behaving ethically (Kaptein 2008;Huhtala et al. 2011Huhtala et al. , 2013b. For instance, Selart and Johansen (2011) found that organisational feedback and adequate information about ethically sound behaviour are vital to managers' ability to make ethical decisions.

Corporate Ethical Virtues and Moral Agency
There are several parallels between the foundations of the corporate ethical virtues model and the theory of moral agency. For example, both virtue theory and moral agency theory address the highly social and contextual nature of morality (Solomon 1992(Solomon , 2001(Solomon , 2004MacIntyre 1999;Weaver 2006;Ciulla and Forsyth 2011;Ferrero and Sison 2014).
Second, both theories suggest that if organisations actively develop and sustain virtuous practices, individual moral agency is enhanced and strengthened in such a way that it contributes to a more ethical organisational environment, thus forming a virtuous circle (Kaptein 1998;MacIntyre 1999;Huhtala et al. 2013b;Weaver 2006).
Third, the underlying virtue theory behind the CEV contains a development aspect which focuses on what the agent does and who or what the agent becomes (Ferrero and Sison 2014). This viewpoint is shared in moral agency theory, which in itself involves triadic reciprocal causation (Bandura 1991). That means that people continuously monitor their behaviour, make choices and guide their actions according to their personal standards and changing environmental influences; people's self-regulatory capacities develop and may change over time (Bandura 1991).

Method
So far, Kaptein's (1998) corporate ethical virtues (CEV) framework, which was originally constructed on the basis of extensive qualitative data, has, to our knowledge, been applied only in quantitative studies, in which the ethical organisational culture has been measured with the 58-item CEV scale (see e.g. Huhtala et al. 2015). However, Campbell and Cowton (2015) criticise strong causal accounts of ethical behaviour and suggest that the important questions in business ethics are essentially qualitative; quantitative variables may not be capable of describing them adequately. The qualitative approach that we have chosen may therefore enable better understanding of the role of organisational culture in the behaviour of an individual faced with ethical issues than is possible with the more common quantitative approach. Brand (2009), too, drew attention to the need for increased emphasis on seeking contextual understanding of research participants' perceptions of business ethics, particularly using qualitative methods. Also, a rich body of other research calls for diverse methodologies in the field (e.g. O'Fallon and This study draws on empirical phenomenology, which acknowledges the central role of theory in research but at the same time stresses the importance of the actor's experiences and perspectives in understanding phenomena in the social world (Aspers 2009). This empirical study has been conducted in the field of higher education, which in recent years has been under increasing pressure, for example in terms of finance and more intense competition (Middlehurst 2010;Hotho 2013). According to some research (Folch and Ion 2009;Preston and Price 2012;Ben-David-Hadar 2013), these recent economic, demographic and managerial changes have affected the organisational cultures of educational institutions, resulting in new organisational practices, corporate values and norms as well as changed identities for people working in the sector, all of which might also have given rise to ethical problems.
In this research, individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in four higher education institutions in Finland. All of the institutions are multi-disciplinary with 4000-8000 students. The sample was purposive and discretionary. It consisted of altogether 20 middle managers, 4 men and 16 women, with ages ranging from 35 to 58, the average age being 50 years. All the respondents had masters or doctoral degrees. The work experience in a management position of these managers varied from one year to twenty years.
The data were collected using the critical incident technique (CIT), which allows respondents' rich self-recollections of incidents (Gremler 2004). CIT is a systematic, retrospective and flexible qualitative research method (Gremler 2004;Butterfield et al. 2005) in which the critical incidents are usually in the form of short stories told by the subjects about their experiences, in this case middle managers on the subject of ethical problems that had arisen in the course of their managerial careers.
The selection of respondents was based on snowballsampling. In this method, one respondent leads the researcher to another (Silverman 2005(Silverman , 2014. Individual interviews were conducted face to face and they were recorded and transcribed carefully, word for word, in order to ensure the reliability of the research, as suggested by Peräkylä (1997). All the respondents described between one and five incidents that were associated with ethical problems, and consequently altogether 52 problems were found in the data. In this research, the Atlas.ti programme was used for coding and categorising the data. In order to guarantee the anonymity of the respondents, each manager was given a number from 1 to 20, which is used in this study to refer to each particular manager.
A brief example of the analysis is presented in Table 1.
To start the process and to get properly acquainted with the data, all the critical incidents were read carefully several times. Then, following Hsieh and Shannon's (2005) approach to conventional content analysis, an inductive approach was chosen: the problems were grouped into six categories according to their content, as shown in the second column of Table 1. The research process then went on to a theory driven analysis, drawing on the chosen theoretical models (CEV and moral agency) as guidance (Hsieh and Shannon 2005;Aspers 2009 problem was first thoroughly investigated to detect any expressions that might refer to elements of moral agency in the situation (personal moral standards, environmental influences, self-sanctions, social sanctions, ethical (in)action, forms of moral disengagement). Then, the analysis proceeded to pick out expressions regarding the significance of corporate ethical virtues for moral agency. This significance was revealed in the descriptions of how ethical problems emerged, how they were recognised, how the problems were eventually handled (by the middle managers) and what were the final outcomes of the process in the organisation. In the last phase of the analysis, the virtues relevant to each specific problem were identified.

Results
The different types of ethical problems identified from the data of 52 critical incidents were: self-interested behaviour (N = 15), avoiding/neglecting one's responsibilities (N = 12), hidden agendas (N = 10), gaps between targets and resources (N = 7), conflicts in relationships between subordinates (N = 7) and, finally, the questionable behaviour of a trade union representative (N = 1). Self-interested behaviour included, for instance, trying to maximise personal benefits, manipulating students or peers against the organisation and bending the organisation's rules for one's own good. Sweeping problems under the carpet, neglecting one's tasks and leaving relationship conflicts unsolved are examples of what is meant by avoiding one's responsibilities. Hidden agendas included, for instance, lying and deliberately hiding information from employees and upper management. The existence of a gap between targets and resources was experienced when there were perceived to be insufficient financial resources or a lack of information; ethical problems occurred, for example, if a manager had to push people beyond their limits to reach the set targets, or the managers themselves had to speculate about what was expected of them because of insufficient information from upper management. An example of the sort of relationship conflicts between subordinates that were mentioned was staff members undermining each other's position. In the last category, the questionable behaviour of a trade union representative, someone leaked confidential information during a dismissal process. We will now turn to a more detailed examination of the results for each virtue.

Clarity
When the organisational virtue of clarity was experienced as sufficient, it was interpreted as having an impact on the exercise of moral agency in two ways. On the one hand, clarity was described as guiding and motivating managers towards ethical conduct. For example, managers reported that with clear and explicit organisational rules they felt obliged to take action; in one case, when an employee avoided his duties due to a drinking problem and in another case, when an employee falsified documents for his own benefit. Managers underscored the importance of good institutional guidelines, procedures and principles as something they could lean on in complex situations.
On the other hand, high clarity seemed to support middle managers' capacity for self-regulation. Explicit organisational instructions, such as how to act in cases of substance abuse, were considered by the managers to be Thus, our data suggest that if organisational guidelines and the institutional logic and norms are compatible with managers' personal moral standards, moral agency is strengthened (see also Bandura 1991Bandura , 2001Wilcox 2012).
Managers also reported getting supportive feedback from their employees when they managed to solve complex problems in the working community. The successful handling of problems according to the organisation's guidelines was thus considered to be rewarding and it also contributed to the managers' sense of pride and self-satisfaction. This can also be seen as collective support for adhering to moral standards contributing to managers' capacity for self-regulation.
However, some of the relationship conflicts between employees and some of the problems with self-interested behaviour were described as being fuzzy, highly interdependent, or long-term, with no clear patterns for their solution, which indicated a lack of clarity in the organisation. For example, lack of clarity was described as being evident in situations in which employees or upper management deliberately and quietly bent the organisational rules for the sake of their own self-interest, and sometimes also treated students, supervisors or colleagues badly, even viciously. Middle managers appeared to lack belief in their efficacy to control such behaviour, which points to difficulties in the exercise of moral agency.
Respondents also described features of moral disengagement in their own behaviour, such as making moral justifications, or ignoring or dismissing the consequences, if they did not intervene in problems. Middle managers talked about a sharp contradiction between their own moral standards and prevailing conditions in the organisation, that is, a moral conflict, but said that since they had no tools, instructions, support or even courage to solve the problems, they had made little effort to change things. In the next quote, for instance, manager No 16 describes what coping strategies s/he used when faced with the self-interested behaviour of an upper manager.
''The situation with x has not become any easier over the years. I've come to the conclusion that I have other things to do in my work, I have this other job here, another network I work with, I don't know if this is a way out for me, which empowers me, and so here (in the respondent's main job) I just somehow move on.'' Interviewee No 16.

Congruency of Supervisors and Managers
Congruent behaviour on the part of upper management was experienced as being significant for the middle managers' exercise of moral agency in three ways. Firstly, congruent (upper) managers enabled discussion and collaborative reflection about ethical problems, which in turn encouraged middle managers to express their own moral convictions and increased their sense of self-efficacy (e.g. Weaver 2006). Secondly, the congruent behaviour of upper management was seen to set a standard for middle managers on how to solve ethical issues in the organisation in the future, and so it supported learning and developed their capacity for self-regulation. Also, middle managers wanted to reciprocate leaders' supportive treatment (Treviño et al. 2006;Bonner et al. 2016), and get their social approval (Bandura 1991). Thirdly, congruent executives took authority (and responsibility) in the most complex situations, which greatly supported middle managers' decisionmaking and self-belief, as we shall now see.
''I contacted my superior and asked what we could do about this problem and x actually gave this person a warning, x had the authority to do that. The matter was looked at more widely by x. I didn't have to take sole responsibility for the case anymore. I definitely got support, I was not alone, not at all. '' Interviewee No. 19 In contrast, incongruent behaviour on the part of upper management was experienced by middle managers as undermining the exercise of moral agency. A typical situation displaying lack of congruency happened when upper managers were experienced as showing self-interest and treating middle managers or other staff members unfairly. If they communicated in what was perceived to be an abrupt or even rude way, or behaved unexpectedly or made arbitrary demands, this was also described as undermining middle managers' overall motivation to set an example of open, honest and constructive communication, and added to middle managers' sense of isolation, secrecy and disloyalty to upper management. Also, if problems were swept under the carpet by the upper management, if information was not shared or there were hidden agendas, respondents reported feelings of ethical strain-the experience of ethical problems and stress caused by them-as well as growing cynicism. It appeared that managers recognised this type of behaviour as violating their own moral standards, but they mostly accommodated (A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for… themselves to it by using morally disengaged reasoning (e.g. the diffusion of responsibility). This freed them from moral conflicts, as described by manager No. 1 in a case in which an upper manager had falsely blamed the speaker for serious malpractices: ''At that point, I decided to mind my own business. I closed the communication channel between us. My way of working has changed here, I don't ask x about things any more.'' Interviewee No. 1 Middle managers further justified a lack of congruency by explaining that because the organisational culture accepts that kind of behaviour, they have no possibility of influencing the way their superiors behave; all they can do is find a way to bear the situation. This indicates a lack of self-efficacy, which is necessary for effective moral agency. Managers also appeared to ignore the consequences of incongruent behaviour on the part of upper management, even when they were the ones who principally suffered from unethical behaviour.
Only in two specific cases did middle managers come out strongly against their superiors' direct orders and behave according to their own moral standards. In those cases, the respondents described how they had no choice but to resist decisions that they considered were unfair, indicating strong self-efficacy and a resistance to social pressure. However, failing to be loyal to the management led to feelings of moral conflict and ethical strain, as is indicated in the next quote, concerning a case of unfair treatment of a mentally ill employee.
It took me a little while to take the right action, since I was given clear orders (to get rid of that sick person). There was a time when I was very bothered by it. But still, I wouldn't change anything. Afterwards, I've wondered if there was anything I could have done differently. But I would certainly have hoped for some discussion or interest in my well-being and in this person's well-being on the part of my superior, some sincere support and a willingness to help, to make this person well again. Manager No. 5

Feasibility
Respondents complained that they often suffered from a lack of adequate resources in relation to organisational targets. This reflects low organisational feasibility (see e.g. Huhtala et al. 2011). However, it appears that the middle managers' exercise of moral agency was not entirely constrained by the lack of resources; rather, it was first challenged but then finally strengthened, as the following will show.
Respondents reported that they were forced to cut back on what they considered essential expenses due to the lack of financial resources. These decisions made the middle managers worry about the fair division of the workload among the staff and staff well-being, students' learning, as well as how the goals of the organisation as a whole could be achieved. From the point of view of moral agency, these difficult decisions appeared to create a moral conflict between the managers' personal moral standards and pressure from the organisation, as expressed by interviewee No. 9.
''It gets crazier and crazier, it is a big ethical issue, especially that one now has to think about such big classes, and combining groups,'' Interviewee No. 9 On the other hand, as interviewee No. 7 pointed out, low feasibility had forced all levels of management to develop new yet ethical approaches to reaching the organisation's targets during financially challenging times.
''Finally, if we think about the big picture and the general good, overall it will be beneficial, as I see it, the organisation will benefit from these changes eventually, we'll be able to continue to work, a bit more wisely, I think. We've been rebuilding the organisation on a healthier basis '' Interviewee No. 7 In spite of the evident lack of resources (time, money, information) and the moral conflicts and the ethical strain caused by them, managers described strong belief in themselves and their ability to exercise moral agency in the situations that arose, even when they perceived a lack of both support and information from the upper management. Managers had the feeling that they had to find and that they succeeded in finding, good, innovative and ethical solutions to the problems, sometimes with the support of their employees. Moreover, there were no signs of moral disengagement in the context of low feasibility.
This research indicates that having to balance between inadequate resources and organisational objectives is a challenge to managers' moral agency. However, in line with Kaptein (2015), we found that if the goals are challenging but attainable, middle managers will behave ethically because they feel that it is their responsibility to find an ethical solution. Alternatively, as Jackall (2010) puts it, when middle managers are left to sort out very complicated problems related to inadequate resources by themselves, they become adept at navigating these issues to the best of their ability.

Supportability
The virtue of supportability was described as deficient throughout our data. The perceived lack of appreciation and commitment on the part of employees towards the work community appeared to have two consequences for the exercise of moral agency. Firstly, after several failed attempts to solve underlying problems such as relationship conflicts between employees, managers described low selfbelief in their capacity to exercise control over events or solve problems. Secondly, in spite of experiencing moral conflict and ethical strain, in the end managers appeared to settle for and adapt to the prevailing conditions, which indicated moral disengagement.
For instance, in most cases of relationship conflicts between employees, the intervention of the manager had been actively disregarded by staff members for a long time, and the manager felt helpless. This resulted in frustration, low self-efficacy and, ultimately, in rather passive moral agency, as shown in the following excerpt from the interview.
''I was bothered by the fact that the issue was unresolved. There had been situations like this before and nobody had intervened in any way. Actually, I wonder if this kind of intervention, being a middleman, can break a chain of events like this? I begin to think not, if the people themselves don't want it.'' Interviewee No 14.
Middle managers' exercise of moral agency appeared passive also in incidents in which teachers had spread negative information to students in order to smear colleagues, managers, or the whole organisation. The interviewees again voiced a sense of responsibility and the obligation to take action, but they mostly ended up abandoning their attempts to intervene. As a result, managers expressed serious concerns about the decreased well-being of the whole working community (themselves included) and even the reputation of the school. The managers observed that the whole organisational culture needed to be changed in this respect (by upper management), and they insisted that highly educated staff members should know that this was not ethical behaviour. These arguments indicate both a diffusion of responsibility and moral justification. The next excerpt, from the interview with manager No. 8, is an example of low supportability in a case of pedagogical reform and its outcomes.
There was no consensus among the teachers as to whether this was the right direction pedagogically, so the reform was kind of forced on them. So generally there was a very strong feeling of distrust and opposition. It was at that point we tried to do something, but the issues had simmered for such a long time, it was difficult to solve them. That caused a lot of problems. The whole reform turned into a dirty word. The issue was also taken up by the students, I don't even know what was discussed, there was opposition, the students were worried if they were going to learn anything! I spoke to the teachers and I had to speak to them several times. Then it turned out that a few teachers, it was apparent (that they had manipulated the students), I said that we needed to talk about this, we had some serious discussions, and I think the discussion possibly made a difference somehow. But it was funny, I don't know if they were telling the truth, but they didn't realise, or didn't want to understand, or didn't understand that there was an ethical problem in what they did when they spoke to the students, how much damage they did.

Transparency
In our data, ethical problems are often considered to be too complicated, too sensitive and too personal to be handled openly. This indicates a low level of transparency. Low transparency was experienced as being connected to indifference to ethical problems and consequently to ignoring their consequences, to moral conflicts, low selfefficacy and capacity for self-regulation, and the diffusion of responsibility.
In the first place, when managers monitored how unethical decisions remained hidden and were silently accepted by the upper level of management, the low transparency appeared to increase middle managers' own general indifference towards ethical issues and led to their ignoring the consequences of ethical problems. This was described, for instance, in a case in which someone in a middle management position acted openly against the basic ethical principles of the organisation but was not punished. On the contrary, the person was quietly promoted, and their serious malpractices were hidden. This was interpreted as increasing indifference to and cynicism about ethical behaviour among other middle managers.
In spite of their own moral standards and knowledge about ethical problems, managers described the obstacles and challenges to making their organisation more transparent, thus revealing an insufficient sense of self-efficacy. For example, interviewees experienced difficulty giving critical feedback to their staff about unethical practices, such as neglecting their duties or behaving in a self-interested way. Open discussion about ethical problems also appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable. Mostly the middle managers felt that upper management is responsible for initiating more general discussion about ethical conduct and thus for creating transparency. This can be regarded as a manifestation of the diffusion of responsibility. One manager illustrated this viewpoint as follows: (A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for… 155 ''In these situations (ethically questionable decisionmaking situations), I try to say that we should stop and reconsider, I try to present an alternative, but I'm not a member of the executive group. '' Interviewee No. 17 Our findings concerning the virtue of transparency lend support to Moberg (2006), Weaver (2006) and Wilcox (2012), who argue that in order to exercise moral agency, middle managers need to be able to observe and understand the consequences of unethical behaviour. This study shows, too, that a lack of transparency creates cynicism and indifference to ethical questions which, in turn, has been found to be connected to moral disengagement (Detert et al. 2008).

Discussability
Sufficient discussability was experienced as motivating managers to take determined action when faced with ethical problems, usually with the help of their superiors. Discussability was also described as increasing the self-efficacy of middle managers, thus improving their exercise of moral agency when dealing with ethical problems. For example, in one case of an employee's long-standing, destructive, selfinterested behaviour, the middle manager felt that handling the problem together with staff and upper management resulted in a more transparent and trusting atmosphere in the organisation as well as in stronger self-belief on the part of the manager that s/he could cope with similar situations in the future. Managers also reported experiences of learning when they were able to discuss ethical issues with their superiors and/or with their subordinates.
Even though the need for open discussion about ethical problems was widely recognised and was underscored in most of the interviews, managers expressed the view that silence is widely embedded in organisational practices. The virtue of discussability was mainly described as low. Low discussability had several implications for the potential exercise of moral agency. For example, managers reported that talking about ethical problems even at their own middle management level, not to mention upper management level, was neither common nor expected from them. Open talk about ethical issues appeared not to be a part of a professional middle manager's role. Our data showed that the tacit social expectation that one would keep silent regarding ethical matters could override middle managers' ethical concerns and personal moral standards, and this contributed to moral conflicts, but resulted in inaction in ethical problems, as is illustrated in the next excerpt.
''It is interesting, we talk a lot about interaction, we want to underscore it and it is important. It would be good if it was open, good and constructive, but somehow we are blind, even then it doesn't make part of our everyday routine and behaviour.'' Interviewee No. 17.
Managers justified inaction and muteness for example, by asserting that ethical problems concern people's private matters and should not be handled openly. Moreover, the fear of getting oneself onto some kind of blacklist was sometimes felt to prevent middle managers from openly communicating their ethical concerns. It appears, then, that in order to avoid social sanctions, middle managers usually refrain from raising ethical issues for wider discussion. They adapt to the situation by justifying it morally and also by ignoring possible consequences. However, blame for any lack of discussability was laid firmly at the door of upper management, or even with headstrong subordinates, which indicated the diffusion of responsibility.
This study shows that a lack of discussability, in other words, considering ethical issues to be an inappropriate topic for discussion by middle managers, can restrict middle managers' moral agency. This has also been found in other research (e.g. Bird and Waters 1989;Moberg 2006;Weaver 2006;Treviño et al. 2006).

Sanctionability
Sufficient sanctionability affected the exercise of moral agency in several ways. First of all, managers expressed feelings of self-satisfaction and pride when they were able to take action against unethical behaviour under the moral standards applied by the organisation as a whole. Feelings of self-efficacy, empowerment and learning were also described in the next excerpt.
''My superior was of the opinion that this discussion (about employees' relationship conflicts and spreading false rumours) needed to take place. And we did it together. At that point I got support and it was good. It created the feeling, the atmosphere, that we intervene in problems here. We don't turn a blind eye. '' Interviewee No. 8 Secondly, when middle managers reported that measures had been taken in the organisation to punish unethical action, they also reported positive organisational outcomes such as increased trust, dialogue and a better atmosphere. This in turn seemed to create a virtuous circle which again reinforced middle managers' capacity for self-regulation. In other words, they were more motivated and confident about acting in further problems because there was a sense of social obligation and wide support for it among the staff. The role of upper management was again highlighted here as having an important influence on the moral behaviour of middle managers. However, our data show how commonly managers experienced a lack of clear sanctions. This was interpreted as having wide-ranging implications for the exercise of moral agency. Personal moral conflicts developed especially when the wrongdoings of top management were disregarded and accepted in the organisation. For example, middle managers reported that they had felt growing cynicism and a sense of hopelessness, given up certain personal or organisational objectives, or even planned a change of career, to escape from morally intolerable situations. It was perceived that in order to cope with a lack of sanctionability and consequent moral conflicts, middle managers came up with some kind of moral justification or the diffusion of responsibility. For instance, they justified their turning a blind eye to problems by explaining that they had no power over their superiors and thus no responsibility in the matter. If they tried to intervene in unethical behaviour on the part of upper managers, in most cases their initiatives were ignored. This was experienced by middle managers as leading to a vicious circle of lower self-efficacy, and growing indifference to ethical issues.
Finally, middle managers' exercise of moral agency was felt to be undermined when certain staff members were considered to be very good at debating, challenging and overruling decisions and sanctions on ethical problems. Such people were also thought to have powerful allies at the top of the organisation. Under those circumstances, managers felt that the only way out was to leave the problem unsolved and regard it as unavoidable, and out of their reach. Apparently, due to a lack of self-efficacy, managers evaluated the consequences of doing nothing as more morally tolerable than the consequences of active interference. That means that middle managers' ability to be steadfast and stick to decisions was ultimately compromised by using advantageous comparison, moral justification, diffusion of responsibility and ignorance of the consequences.
To sum up, as Wilcox (2012) claims, the collective and mutual reinforcing of norms and duties, that is, sufficient sanctionability in the terms of this study, provides middle managers with potential for moral agency (see also Huhtala et al. 2013b). We argue that support, encouragement and open feedback on middle managers' virtuous actions from both upper managers and employees reinforce managers' self-efficacy, capacity for self-regulation and thus moral agency, a result supported also by Moberg (2006).

Summary and Discussion
The results of this study show that a low level of corporate ethical virtues may affect middle managers' capacity to exercise moral agency, for instance by increasing moral disengagement (see e.g. Nielsen 2006;Moberg 2006;Weaver 2006;Detert et al. 2008;Wilcox 2012;Martin et al. 2014). On the other hand, sufficient virtues were connected to the experience of successfully handling ethical problems, learning, a sense of self-satisfaction and selfefficacy. This indicates that a virtuous ethical culture can create the potential for effective moral agency when responding to ethical problems (e.g. Weaver 2006;Wilcox 2012).
Moreover, drawing on Solomon (1992) and Weaver (2006), we conclude that middle managers adopt socially defined roles in organisational settings and this can sometimes obscure their moral agency. We found evidence that actors who positionally represent the organisation (toplevel managers) are often assumed to be responsible for exercising moral agency while middle managers are given no role here (Weaver 2006).
The results of this study on the significance of the virtues of discussability, transparency and sanctionability lead us to posit that both middle and upper managers prefer to avoid public talk about ethics, or visible rewards and sanctions, possibly to sustain their and others' organisational ''face'', and organisational harmony (Martin et al. 2014). We now propose, consistently with Moberg (2006), Kaptein (2011Kaptein ( , 2015 and Bonner et al. (2016), that if employees are left without any encouragement (from their superiors) to behave ethically, this will lead to cynicism and less commitment to the organisation's objectives and a reduction in moral behaviour, thus contributing to low supportability. Low supportability, for its part, can discourage middle managers from exercising moral agency, as a vicious circle of compartmentalised middle management roles (shared expectations of not getting involved in problems) and moral muteness (Bird and Waters 1989;Detert et al. 2008) undermine ethical behaviour (see also Macintyre 2006;Rozuel 2011). Organisational virtues are thus interdependent (Kaptein 1998(Kaptein , 2008. To sum up, drawing on Bandura (2001) and Weaver (2006), we propose that sufficient organisational virtues make the exercise of moral agency more central, salient and important to middle managers (see also Weaver 2006). On the other hand, this study confirms that a lack of organisational virtues can inhibit middle managers from understanding themselves as accountable moral agents and thus prevent them from taking courageous action when handling ethical problems (MacIntyre 1999;Wilcox 2012). Our study proposes that the position of middle management is complex and may contain role expectations that, with a low level of organisational virtues, can contribute to ethical strain, cynicism, moral disengagement and unethical behaviour (Bird and Waters 1989;Macintyre 1991;Treviño et al. 2008;Jackall 2010;Wilcox 2012;Martin et al. 2014;Huhtala et al. 2015). This study confirms, (A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for… 157 further, that middle managers also shape their ethical organisational culture when they act as moral agents (Bandura 2001;Weaver 2006;Huhtala et al. 2013b). Several examples were given in which the organisational atmosphere was felt to improve and more open communication practices were adopted when middle managers exercised effective moral agency.

Theoretical Implications
In this article, we integrated work on ethical organisational culture, the CEV model (Kaptein 1998) in particular, and the theory of moral agency (Bandura 1991), to bring a more diverse and multidimensional theoretical viewpoint to the current literature on the interdependence of organisational virtues and individual ethical behaviour (Craft 2013;Ferrero and Sison 2014). Drawing on Bandura (1991), we will now show the threefold relationship between corporate ethical virtues and moral agency.
In the first place, middle managers observe the behaviour of upper management, peers and employees and generate their own perceptions of what kind of moral behaviour is desired. Organisational virtues, and the ethical role modelling of upper management (Kaptein 1998) in particular, can thus generate standards for behaviour which middle managers adopt and internalise through the learning process (Bandura 2001). In addition to congruency, the virtues of transparency and discussability are also necessary in this context (MacIntyre 1999). Secondly, alignment between the individual's and the organisation's moral standards clearly strengthens the self-efficacy beliefs of middle managers (Bandura 1991) if there is collective support for adherence to those standards (e.g. sufficient clarity, transparency, sanctionability) and thus the reinforcement of ethical behaviour (Bandura 1991). Thirdly, low organisational virtues may encourage the selective activation of moral self-regulation. Here this means, as we have shown, that when virtues such as transparency are low, managers may feel encouraged to ignore ethical problems and turn to morally disengaged reasoning (Martin et al. 2014).
Finally, since both virtue ethics and the theory of moral agency (Solomon 1992;Weaver 2006) address the contextual nature of morality, this article also contributes by demonstrating how different virtues become important to moral agency in practical everyday ethical problems. The article has also answered Kaptein's (2008) call and contributed to the model of corporate ethical virtues by examining one particular level in the hierarchy, that is, middle managers, and also by examining the actual (un)ethical conduct of managers, not just their intentions. From the methodological point of view, this article has substantially widened the perspective of the corporate ethical virtues model by reporting qualitative research. It has offered a rich view of the connection between corporate virtues and moral agency in the context of real, lived ethical problems.

Practical Implications
A few recommendations can be made here for management development and improvement of the exercise of moral agency in organisations. First of all, as upper-level managers act as important role models for middle managers, they need to communicate their moral standards publicly and avoid speaking euphemistically when dealing with ethical problems (Moberg 2006;Martin et al. 2014). Public moral leadership and adequate control over employees' behaviour are also fundamental to the exercise of moral agency at all levels of an organisation (MacIntyre 1999;Moberg 2006;Weaver 2006). In addition, feedback on one's perceived moral character (not just performance or competence) from both upper management and employees is necessary to support middle-level managers' capacity for moral self-regulation (Weaver 2006;Moberg 2006). We agree with Kaptein (2011) and Moberg (2006) that not only should management behave ethically, but employees should experience their behaviour as ethical.
From the point of view of recruitment, organisations should try to gather information about the moral character and behaviour of applicants instead of focusing purely on evaluations of their performance or competence (Moberg 2006). Since, as shown also in this study, people can shape and improve the nature of their social systems, such as the prevailing ethical culture (Bandura 2001), a virtuous organisational culture can be better sustained by recruiting virtuous moral agents.

Research Limitations and Further Research
This research has produced novel and rich evidence regarding the significance of corporate virtues for middle managers' exercise of moral agency, but it has some limitations. We acknowledge that by conducting qualitative research with a sample of 20 middle managers, we could make only limited interpretations of the connections between corporate virtues and the exercise of moral agency. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon, other managerial levels' and employees' perspectives should also be included in the sample. Moreover, analysing differences between men and women might also offer interesting avenues for further research.
Consistently with Alvesson (2002, p. 14), who argues that all management takes place within a certain culture, including not only the organisational culture but also societal-level and industrial-level cultures, we acknowledge that the higher education context may have its own, unique cultural characteristics. This could be further studied by comparing our findings with results from other environments, for example from the service industry or even other educational organisations. There is also room here for cross-cultural comparison; the same study could be carried out in the higher education sector in other countries.
It is our belief that prior research on ethical organisational culture has not paid adequate attention to organisations in which highly skilled employees have considerable power to shape the ethical tone of their organisation. So far, empirical research has concentrated on the dominant role of managers and supervisors in the ethical culture of organisations (e.g. Huhtala et al. 2013b), while neglecting employees as professionals who can behave as determined, effective and active moral agents (Moberg 2006). Furthermore, as pointed out by Weaver (2006), less salient features of the institution might also have an impact on managers' moral agency. We found evidence in several interviews that industry networks (the teachers' union, in this study) might reinforce particular beliefs about what practices are acceptable in the field. This can lead to reification of those beliefs, and managers in the field then experience them as given (Weaver 2006). However, since our focus was on detecting the significance of organisational virtues for moral agency, this result requires more investigation in future studies.

Validity and Reliability
Issues of reliability and validity are important also in qualitative research, since the descriptions produced by the researcher should-in some controllable way-correspond to social reality (Peräkylä 1997). In order to assess the trustworthiness of our research, we turn to Lincoln and Guba's (1985) well-known (Marshall and Rossman 1999;Cho and Trent 2014) four-step criteria for evaluating the reliability and validity of qualitative research.
The first criterion concerns the credibility of the research. According to this criterion, the subject of the inquiry must be described carefully (Lincoln and Guba 1985). In addition, the research findings should be sent to the participants to ensure that the interpretations made by the researchers are accurate (Cho and Trent 2014). In this case, we have described the research sample and the respondents' background as precisely as possible. However, we have been careful to protect the anonymity of the respondents, since ethical problems are often considered to be sensitive issues (see also Campbell and Cowton 2015). Moreover, the different categories of ethical problems were shared with the practitioners in discussion sessions which each lasted one and a half hours. The research process and five categories of ethical problems were introduced in detail to two groups of 30 lower-and upper-level middle managers in two of the higher education institutions in which the data were gathered. In addition, one session with five managers was arranged to discuss particularly the interpretations of the significance of ethical organisational culture for moral agency. In these sessions, the managers discussed the problems and validated the findings as consistent with their experiences.
The second criterion, that is, transferability, means the extent to which the research findings are transferable from one context to another (Lincoln and Guba 1985;Marshall and Rossman 1999;Cho and Trent 2014). In this study, we have shown carefully how the data collection was carried out and how the analysis was guided by the theoretical concepts and models. We have also addressed the limitations of our approach. This means that conditions have largely been met for a similar study to be carried out in another context.
The third criterion is dependability. This suggests that peer researchers should be able to follow the decision trail used by the researcher (Cho and Trent 2014). In our study, the final analysis was first made by one of the researchers and then confirmed by the other. Finally, the fourth criterion, confirmability, captures the traditional concept of objectivity (Marshall and Rossman 1999). In this study, the interviews were recorded and transcribed word for word. Moreover, the data that were collected are in retrievable form and are available for further investigation, as also suggested by Marshall and Rossman (1999). The interviews were conducted in Finnish, but the excerpts presented in this article were translated by a native English speaker in order to ensure as close a correspondence as possible with the original text. The quotations make it possible for readers to further evaluate the confirmability of the research.

Conclusion
This research lends support to a body of prior research on the socialising effect of organisational culture on individuals' (un)ethical behaviour in organisations. Our study shows that a low level of corporate ethical virtues may limit middle managers' capacity to exercise moral agency by increasing moral conflicts, ethical strain, cynicism, lack of self-belief and, finally, morally disengaged reasoning. On the other hand, experiences of learning, a sense of selfsatisfaction and self-efficacy were seen to be connected to sufficient virtues. The results of this study suggest, further, that organisational virtues influence the moral agency of middle managers in three dimensions: through the internalisation of social standards, through the reinforcement of (A)moral Agents in Organisations? The Significance of Ethical Organisation Culture for… their personal moral standards and through facilitation of the selective activation of moral self-regulation. In addition, they suggest that moral agency evolves through practice and in interaction with others. We conclude that a virtuous ethical culture can create the potential for the effective moral agency of middle managers when they are faced with ethical problems.