A Study On The Effects Of Construal Level And Risk-sensitivity In Ethical Decision-making

The complex, dynamic and multiple interest-oriented situations of management lead decision makers to be trapped in ethical dilemmas. Faced with decision-making dilemmas, managers with competence and integrity will make unethical behavior which damages the interests of both self and others. Due to the limitation of cognition and situation, decision makers with good sense of ethics ultimately produce unethical decisions. This phenomenon can't be explained well by existed theories so that it attracts widespread attention in the academic and social business community. Therefore, individuals' decisions in ethical dilemmas become the focus of organization behavior science and psychology.Most researchers investigate the factors of ethical decision-making from three aspects below: individual factors, organizational factors and moral intensity. However, few studies discussed the overall analysis of personal and situational factors and internal mechanism in ethical decision-making from the perspective of cognition and risk-sensitivity. Based on the risk-sensitivity theory, this paper explores the previous studies of relationship between construal level theory and ethical decision-making, and designs multi-scenario experiments to construct the model of the mechanism of construal level on ethical decision-making, which is fully mediated by risk-sensitivity and moderated by cognitive moral development. Results indicate that individual difference in construal level may impact decision-making under ethical dilemmas. High construal-level individuals are likely to behave ethically. Risk-sensitivity can fully mediate the relationship between construal level and ethical decision-making. High construal-level individuals undertake a higher risk tolerance for long-distance(future), which will result in ethical behavior. On the other hand, low construal-level Individuals may focus on the short-term outcomes and tend to make conservative?self-interested and unethical decision. Meanwhile, cognitive moral development can moderate the relationship between construal level and risk-sensitivity and influence ethical decision-making significantly.Finally,the article discusses the theoretical significance and practical application value. Exploring the influencing factors and mechanism of ethical decision-making based on the risk-sensitivity theory provides a new interpretation model in ethical decision-making, which is of a great theoretical significance. Understanding the influencing factors and internal mechanism of ethical decision-making contributes to the utilize in the management practice and encourage individuals to make better decisions, self-control and conflict resolution, thus promote behavior with positive social evaluations.