Faculty Publications

Epistemology, Moral Philosophy And Optimism: A Comparative Analysis Between Managers And Their Subordinates

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book/Conference Title

Business and Society Review

Volume

124

Issue

1

First Page

5

Last Page

42

Abstract

The process of making ethical judgments is much more complex than studying only personal moral philosophy variables (idealism and relativism). The renewed interest in epistemic values (virtue and vice epistemology) in contemporary philosophy has shown significant relevance to understanding ethical behavior and such values may be better predictors than studying only idealism and relativism. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine employees’ personal moral philosophies, optimism, epistemic values, and various organizational unethical practices as compared to their managers. We used Rawwas’ items of epistemology in this study. The sample consisted of 262 managers and employees. The results revealed that managers were more sensitive to organizational unethical practices, scored less on epistemic vices, less on absolutism, and more on exceptionalism than employees were. However, there was no difference between managers and employees related to moderate and minor unethical organizational practices, situationism, subjectivism, optimism, and epistemic virtues. We provided discussion of the results and implications.

Department

Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship

Original Publication Date

3-1-2019

DOI of published version

10.1111/basr.12161

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa

Language

en

Link to Full Text

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