IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v138y2017icp28-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A social-cognitive approach to understanding gender differences in negotiator ethics: The role of moral identity

Author

Listed:
  • Kennedy, Jessica A.
  • Kray, Laura J.
  • Ku, Gillian

Abstract

To date, gender differences in ethics have received little theoretical attention. We utilize a social-cognitive framework to explain why these differences emerge and when women engage in less unethical negotiating behavior than do men. We propose that, relative to men’s, women’s stronger moral identities suppress unethical negotiating behavior. Study 1 establishes a gender difference in moral identity strength through a meta-analysis of over 19,000 people. Study 2 observes gender differences in two aspects of negotiator ethics – moral disengagement and opportunism. Study 3 establishes moral identity strength as an antecedent to negotiator ethics. Finally, Studies 4 and 5 explore financial incentives as a situational moderator. Because financial incentives temporarily decrease the salience of moral identity, they could mitigate gender differences in negotiator ethics, leading women to act more like men. Across both studies, financial incentives impacted women’s (but not men’s) unethical negotiating behavior. Our findings help to explain why and when gender differences in ethics emerge.

Suggested Citation

  • Kennedy, Jessica A. & Kray, Laura J. & Ku, Gillian, 2017. "A social-cognitive approach to understanding gender differences in negotiator ethics: The role of moral identity," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 28-44.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:138:y:2017:i:c:p:28-44
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.11.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074959781630749X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.11.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kray, Laura J. & Kennedy, Jessica A. & Van Zant, Alex B., 2014. "Not competent enough to know the difference? Gender stereotypes about women’s ease of being misled predict negotiator deception," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 125(2), pages 61-72.
    2. Kay, Aaron C. & Wheeler, S. Christian & Bargh, John A. & Ross, Lee, 2004. "Material priming: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational construal and competitive behavioral choice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 83-96, September.
    3. Curhan, Jared R. & Neale, Margaret A. & Ross, Lee & Rosencranz-Engelmann, Jesse, 2008. "Relational accommodation in negotiation: Effects of egalitarianism and gender on economic efficiency and relational capital," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 192-205, November.
    4. Bandura, Albert, 1991. "Social cognitive theory of self-regulation," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 248-287, December.
    5. Tinsley, Catherine H. & Howell, Taeya M. & Amanatullah, Emily T., 2015. "Who should bring home the bacon? How deterministic views of gender constrain spousal wage preferences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 37-48.
    6. Sean Valentine & Terri Rittenburg, 2007. "The Ethical Decision Making of Men and Women Executives in International Business Situations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 71(2), pages 125-134, March.
    7. Renée B. Adams & Patricia Funk, 2012. "Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Does Gender Matter?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 219-235, February.
    8. McFerran, Brent & Aquino, Karl & Duffy, Michelle, 2010. "How Personality and Moral Identity Relate to Individuals’ Ethical Ideology," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 35-56, January.
    9. Barbara S. Lawrence, 1997. "Perspective---The Black Box of Organizational Demography," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 8(1), pages 1-22, February.
    10. Kouchaki, Maryam & Smith-Crowe, Kristin & Brief, Arthur P. & Sousa, Carlos, 2013. "Seeing green: Mere exposure to money triggers a business decision frame and unethical outcomes," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 121(1), pages 53-61.
    11. Dreber, Anna & Johannesson, Magnus, 2008. "Gender differences in deception," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 197-199, April.
    12. Bowles, Hannah Riley & Babcock, Linda & McGinn, Kathleen L., 2005. "Constraints and Triggers: Situational Mechanics of Gender in Negotiation," Working Paper Series rwp05-051, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    13. Victoria Brescoll & Eric Luis Uhlmann & George E. Newman, 2013. "The effects of system-justifying motives on endorsement of essentialist explanations for gender differences," Post-Print hal-00982467, HAL.
    14. George A. Akerlof, 1970. "The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 84(3), pages 488-500.
    15. Sandy D. Jap & Erin Anderson, 2003. "Safeguarding Interorganizational Performance and Continuity Under Ex Post Opportunism," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(12), pages 1684-1701, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Guzmán & Cristian Pinto-Gutiérrez & María-Andrea Trujillo, 2021. "Signaling Value through Gender Diversity: Evidence from Initial Coin Offerings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-19, January.
    2. Ulf Schaefer & Onno Bouwmeester, 2021. "Reconceptualizing Moral Disengagement as a Process: Transcending Overly Liberal and Overly Conservative Practice in the Field," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 525-543, September.
    3. Datta, Sudip & Doan, Trang & Iskandar-Datta, Mai, 2022. "Top executives’ gender and analysts' earnings forecasts," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    4. Kray, Laura J. & Kennedy, Jessica A. & Rosenblum, Michael, 2022. "Who do they think they are?: A social-cognitive account of gender differences in social sexual identity and behavior at work," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    5. Kouchaki, Maryam & Kray, Laura J., 2018. "“I won't let you down:” Personal ethical lapses arising from women’s advocating for others," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 147-157.
    6. Zhao, Hongdan & Zhao, Siyong & Chen, Yuanhua & Yu, Xiaoyu, 2023. "Bystanders’ reactions to leader knowledge hiding: The roles of moral disengagement and moral identity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    7. Gabi Eissa & Scott W. Lester, 2022. "A Moral Disengagement Investigation of How and When Supervisor Psychological Entitlement Instigates Abusive Supervision," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(2), pages 675-694, October.
    8. Jason R. Pierce & Leigh Thompson, 2022. "Feeling Competitiveness or Empathy Towards Negotiation Counterparts Mitigates Sex Differences in Lying," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 178(1), pages 71-87, June.
    9. Alexander Newman & Huong Le & Andrea North-Samardzic & Michael Cohen, 2020. "Moral Disengagement at Work: A Review and Research Agenda," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 167(3), pages 535-570, December.
    10. Jasper Brinkerink, 2023. "When Shooting for the Stars Becomes Aiming for Asterisks: P-Hacking in Family Business Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(2), pages 304-343, March.
    11. Servaes, Henri & Lins, Karl & Roth, Lukas & Tamayo, Ane, 2020. "Gender, Culture, and Firm Value: Evidence from the Harvey Weinstein Scandal and the #MeToo Movement," CEPR Discussion Papers 14703, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Qiu, Judy & Kesebir, Selin & Günaydin, Gül & Selçuk, Emre & Wasti, S. Arzu, 2022. "Gender differences in interpersonal trust: Disclosure behavior, benevolence sensitivity and workplace implications," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    13. David Gligor & Christopher Newman & Saim Kashmiri, 2021. "Does your skin color matter in buyer–seller negotiations? The implications of being a Black salesperson," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(5), pages 969-993, September.
    14. Kennedy, Jessica A. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2018. "Building trust by tearing others down: When accusing others of unethical behavior engenders trust," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 111-128.
    15. Nohe, Christoph & Hüffmeier, Joachim & Bürkner, Paul & Mazei, Jens & Sondern, Dominik & Runte, Antonia & Sieber, Franziska & Hertel, Guido, 2022. "Unethical choice in negotiations: A meta-analysis on gender differences and their moderators," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    16. Joseph P. Gaspar & Maurice E. Schweitzer, 2021. "Confident and Cunning: Negotiator Self-Efficacy Promotes Deception in Negotiations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 139-155, June.
    17. Uzma Khan & Ajay Kalra, 2022. "It’s Good to Be Different: How Diversity Impacts Judgments of Moral Behavior [Nonprofits Are Seen as Warm and For-Profits as Competent: Firm Stereotypes Matter]," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 49(2), pages 177-201.
    18. Andiappan, Meena & Dufour, Lucas, 2021. "The evolution of unethical behavior engagement amongst longshoremen in France: A 70-year perspective," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 49-67.
    19. Ke Michael Mai & Aleksander P. J. Ellis & David T. Welsh, 2020. "How Perpetrator Gender Influences Reactions to Premeditated Versus Impulsive Unethical Behavior: A Role Congruity Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 489-503, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nohe, Christoph & Hüffmeier, Joachim & Bürkner, Paul & Mazei, Jens & Sondern, Dominik & Runte, Antonia & Sieber, Franziska & Hertel, Guido, 2022. "Unethical choice in negotiations: A meta-analysis on gender differences and their moderators," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    2. Kirsten Burkhardt & Pascal Nguyen & Evelyne Poincelot, 2020. "Agents of change: Women in top management and corporate environmental performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(4), pages 1591-1604, July.
    3. David A. Matsa & Amalia R. Miller, 2014. "Workforce Reductions at Women-Owned Businesses in the United States," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 422-452, April.
    4. Valerio Capraro, 2018. "Gender differences in lying in sender-receiver games: A meta-analysis," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 13(4), pages 345-355, July.
    5. Badru, Bazeet O. & Ahmad-Zaluki, Nurwati A. & Wan-Hussin, Wan Nordin, 2017. "Board characteristics and the amount of capital raised in the Malaysian IPO market," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 42, pages 37-55.
    6. Daniel Leunbach & Truls Erikson & Max Rapp-Ricciardi, 2020. "Muddling through Akerlofian and Knightian uncertainty: The role of sociobehavioral integration, positive affective tone, and polychronicity," Journal of International Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 145-164, June.
    7. Steven C. Deller & Tessa Conroy & Philip Watson, 2017. "Women business owners: a source of stability during the great recession?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(56), pages 5686-5697, December.
    8. Sascha Behnk & Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2018. "Punishing liars—How monitoring affects honesty and trust," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-30, October.
    9. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Siniver, Erez & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "Roll a die and tell a lie – What affects honesty?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 107(PA), pages 153-172.
    10. Arbel, Yuval & Bar-El, Ronen & Siniver, Erez & Tobol, Yossef, 2014. "The Effect of Behavioral Codes and Gender on Honesty," IZA Discussion Papers 7946, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Liz Wang & Lisa Calvano, 2015. "Is Business Ethics Education Effective? An Analysis of Gender, Personal Ethical Perspectives, and Moral Judgment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(4), pages 591-602, February.
    12. Shirako, Aiwa & Kilduff, Gavin J. & Kray, Laura J., 2015. "Is there a place for sympathy in negotiation? Finding strength in weakness," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 95-109.
    13. Behnk, Sascha & Barreda-Tarrazona, Iván & García-Gallego, Aurora, 2014. "The role of ex post transparency in information transmission—An experiment," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 45-64.
    14. Davydov, Denis & Garanina, Tatiana & Weill, Laurent, 2022. "Managing bank liquidity hoarding during uncertain times: The role of board gender diversity," BOFIT Discussion Papers 11/2022, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    15. Liu, Chelsea, 2018. "Are women greener? Corporate gender diversity and environmental violations," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 118-142.
    16. Mishra, Debi P., 2013. "Firms’ strategic response to service uncertainty: An empirical signaling study," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 187-197.
    17. Sascha Behnk & Iván Barreda-Tarrazona & Aurora García-Gallego, 2017. "An experimental test of reporting systems for deception," Working Papers 2017/11, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
    18. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-474, June.
    19. Church, Bryan K. & Kuang, Xi (Jason) & Liu, Yuebing (Sarah), 2019. "The effects of measurement basis and slack benefits on honesty in budget reporting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 74-84.
    20. Kerim Peren Arin & Juan A. Lacomba & Francisco Lagos & Deni Mazrekaj & Marcel Thum, 2021. "Misperceptions and Fake News during the Covid-19 Pandemic," CESifo Working Paper Series 9066, CESifo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:138:y:2017:i:c:p:28-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.