Between a rock and a hard place : middle managers' ethical decision making and behaviour in the organisational context
Julkaistu sarjassa
Jyväskylä studies in business and economicsTekijät
Päivämäärä
2018Oppiaine
JohtaminenThis study increases knowledge and understanding of middle managers’ ethical
decision-making and behaviour within the context of Finnish higher education. The
aim of the research is to develop a new framework for ethical decision-making and
behaviour by combining prior theories and empirical knowledge. This dissertation
consists of an introductory essay and three articles. The main argument of this research
is that through organisations’ socialisation processes, middle managers adopt socially
defined managerial roles, which affect their ethical decision-making and ethical
conduct. We can say that especially the ethical organisational culture is significant for
middle managers’ understanding of ethical accountability and for their actual ability to
behave ethically when facing ethical problems. Another key argument of this research
is that middle managers, as effective moral agents, can change and develop the existing
organisational culture.
This research draws on the phenomenological research tradition and it was conducted by using the critical incident technique (CIT). The data consists of interviews
collected in four knowledge organisations, all of them institutions of higher education
in Finland.
The empirical findings of this dissertation suggest that ethical problems that require managerial decision-making are of an everyday nature in the knowledge organisations studied here, and that middle managers handle the problems in various ways,
often on the basis of what they think is expected from them in their middle management position. In addition to meeting the role expectations held by upper management, middle managers also try to meet the expectations of their highly skilled staff
members when making decisions. Moreover, managers themselves can act as influential decision-makers who set an example of ethical behaviour for others to follow. This
result underlines the importance of open and honest dialogue between all managerial
levels, and especially between managers and employees in knowledge organisations,
concerning what is expected in terms of ethical decision-making and ethical behaviour.
In this introductory essay, a new theoretical framework for ethical decision-
making and behaviour is developed. What is called the appropriate agency framework
for ethical decision-making combines the theories of logic of appropriateness and moral agency and takes into account the dimensions of the ethical culture of organisations.
The framework demonstrates how situational elements, the centrality of moral identity,
and organisational rules together influence ethical behaviour, and how reflection and
learning affect this process.
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Muu nimeke
Middle managers' ethical decision making and behaviour in the organisational contextJulkaisija
University of JyväskyläISBN
978-951-39-7382-7ISSN Hae Julkaisufoorumista
1457-1986Julkaisuun sisältyy osajulkaisuja
- Artikkeli I: Hiekkataipale, M-M. & Lämsä, A-M. 2016. The ethical problems of middle managers and their perceived organisational consequences. Transformations in Business & Economics 15(3), 80-96.
- Artikkeli II: Hiekkataipale, M-M. & Lämsä, A-M. 2017. What should a manager like me do in a situation like this? Strategies for handling ethical problems from the viewpoint of the logic of appropriateness. Journal of Business Ethics 145(3), 457-459. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-015-2911-y.
- Artikkeli III: Hiekkataipale, M-M. & Lämsä, A-M. 2017. (A)moral agents in organisations? The significance of ethical organisational culture for middle managers’ exercise of moral agency in ethical problems. Journal of Business Ethics. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3511-9.
Asiasanat
ethical decision-making ethical culture of organisations ethical problems middle manager higher education logic of appropriateness moral agency moral identity qualitative research Fenomenologinen tutkimus keskijohto johtaminen esimiehet eettisyys päätöksenteko käyttäytyminen organisaatiot korkea-asteen koulutus sosialisaatio roolit organisaatiokulttuuri vastuullisuus tilivelvollisuus toimijuus identiteetti Suomi väitöskirjat
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