TY - JOUR

T1 - An advanced measure of moral sensitivity in business

AU - Schmocker, David

AU - Tanner, Carmen

AU - Katsarov, Johannes

AU - Christen, Markus

PY - 2020/9/1

Y1 - 2020/9/1

N2 - Moral sensitivity, understood as an individual's capability of identifying and ascribing importance to moral issues when they arise, is often considered a key competence in professional life and a precondition of ethical behavior. With a focus on business settings, this article presents a new measure to assess individual's sensitivity to moral and business values. The measure was developed using a vignette-based domain-specific approach and validated in two studies. In Study 1, we compared our instrument and various convergent and divergent scales to obtain the first evidence of the construct validity of the instrument. Study 2 provides evidence of criterion validity by comparing the sensitivity to moral and business-related issues between a sample of business managers/bankers and employees of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The results demonstrate that business managers/bankers reveal lower scores of moral sensitivity than employees of NGOs. Further directions for moral sensitivity research and limitations are discussed.

AB - Moral sensitivity, understood as an individual's capability of identifying and ascribing importance to moral issues when they arise, is often considered a key competence in professional life and a precondition of ethical behavior. With a focus on business settings, this article presents a new measure to assess individual's sensitivity to moral and business values. The measure was developed using a vignette-based domain-specific approach and validated in two studies. In Study 1, we compared our instrument and various convergent and divergent scales to obtain the first evidence of the construct validity of the instrument. Study 2 provides evidence of criterion validity by comparing the sensitivity to moral and business-related issues between a sample of business managers/bankers and employees of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The results demonstrate that business managers/bankers reveal lower scores of moral sensitivity than employees of NGOs. Further directions for moral sensitivity research and limitations are discussed.

KW - Assessment

KW - Ethics training

KW - Moral blindness

KW - Moral intelligence

KW - Moral sensitivity

KW - Management studies

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075917233&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/3244750a-5ef3-3dbe-9157-03195601a041/

U2 - 10.1027/1015-5759/a000564

DO - 10.1027/1015-5759/a000564

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85075917233

VL - 36

SP - 864

EP - 873

JO - European Journal of Psychological Assessment

JF - European Journal of Psychological Assessment

SN - 1015-5759

IS - 5

ER -