IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i13p5350-d379362.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Moral Competence of Spanish Councilors

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Herrero García

    (Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain)

  • Miguel Ángel Carbonero

    (Grupo de Investigación de Excelencia GR179 Psicología de la Educación, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Valladolid, 47002 Valladolid, Spain)

  • Luis Jorge Martín Antón

    (Grupo de Investigación de Excelencia GR179 Psicología de la Educación, Departamento de Psicología, Universidad de Valladolid, 47002 Valladolid, Spain)

Abstract

The citizenship’s distrust of politicians clashes with the absence of research of politicians’ moral competence, which is a challenge to positive psychology. The objective of this work, approved by the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces, is to measure, for the first time, the moral competence of Spanish councilors and to explore its relationship with different independent variables. A sample of 625 councilors from all the territories of the country completed a questionnaire that includes the Moral Competence Test Moral Competence Test. Estimation parameters and hypothesis contrast methods were used for the statistical analysis of the obtained data. The results indicate that most of the Spanish councilors in the sample have low moral competence, which does not depend on any of the variables contemplated in the study. Councilors with high moral competence represent only 3.7%, with a profile corresponding more closely to that of people under 45 years of age, with university training, professionally linked to the private services sector, and dedicated exclusively to politics in a Town Hall.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Herrero García & Miguel Ángel Carbonero & Luis Jorge Martín Antón, 2020. "The Moral Competence of Spanish Councilors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-19, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:13:p:5350-:d:379362
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/13/5350/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/13/5350/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sen Sendjaya & Andre Pekerti & Charmine Härtel & Giles Hirst & Ivan Butarbutar, 2016. "Are Authentic Leaders Always Moral? The Role of Machiavellianism in the Relationship Between Authentic Leadership and Morality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 125-139, January.
    2. Carlo M. Cipolla, 1996. "Las leyes fundamentales de la estupidez humana," Revista Cuadernos de Economia, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, FCE, CID, December.
    3. Peter K. Hatemi & Charles Crabtree & Kevin B. Smith, 2019. "Ideology Justifies Morality: Political Beliefs Predict Moral Foundations," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(4), pages 788-806, October.
    4. Tae-Yeol Kim & Minsoo Kim, 2013. "Leaders’ Moral Competence and Employee Outcomes: The Effects of Psychological Empowerment and Person–Supervisor Fit," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 112(1), pages 155-166, January.
    5. Rafael Morales-Sánchez & Carmen Cabello-Medina, 2013. "The Role of Four Universal Moral Competencies in Ethical Decision-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 717-734, September.
    6. Katrin Hummel & Dieter Pfaff & Katja Rost, 2018. "Does Economics and Business Education Wash Away Moral Judgment Competence?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 559-577, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Oliver Laasch & Dirk C. Moosmayer & Elena P. Antonacopoulou, 2023. "The Interdisciplinary Responsible Management Competence Framework: An Integrative Review of Ethics, Responsibility, and Sustainability Competences," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 187(4), pages 733-757, November.
    2. Gwarlann Kerviler & Nico Heuvinck & Elodie Gentina, 2022. "“Make an Effort and Show Me the Love!” Effects of Indexical and Iconic Authenticity on Perceived Brand Ethicality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 89-110, August.
    3. Joseph A Crawford & Sarah Dawkins & Angela Martin & Gemma Lewis, 2020. "Putting the leader back into authentic leadership: Reconceptualising and rethinking leaders," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(1), pages 114-133, February.
    4. Marlena A. Bednarska, 2016. "Complementary Person-Environment Fit as a Predictor of Job Pursuit Intentions in the Service Industry," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 10(1), March.
    5. Michelle Xue Zheng & Yingjie Yuan & Marius Dijke & David Cremer & Alain Van Hiel, 2020. "The Interactive Effect of a Leader’s Sense of Uniqueness and Sense of Belongingness on Followers’ Perceptions of Leader Authenticity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 515-533, July.
    6. Bo Shao & Pablo Cardona & Isabel Ng & Raymond N. C. Trau, 2017. "Are prosocially motivated employees more committed to their organization? The roles of supervisors’ prosocial motivation and perceived corporate social responsibility," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 951-974, December.
    7. Lamberto Zollo & Massimiliano Matteo Pellegrini & Cristiano Ciappei, 2017. "What Sparks Ethical Decision Making? The Interplay Between Moral Intuition and Moral Reasoning: Lessons from the Scholastic Doctrine," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 145(4), pages 681-700, November.
    8. Ulrike Reisach, 2016. "The creation of meaning and critical ethical reflection in operational research," EURO Journal on Decision Processes, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 4(1), pages 5-32, June.
    9. Swiatkiewicz Olgierd & Perło Dariusz & Perło Dorota, 2015. "What Kinds of Skills are Expected by Portuguese and Polish Employers?," Journal of Intercultural Management, Sciendo, vol. 7(1), pages 5-21, January.
    10. S. Weaver & Pam Ellen & Lars Mathiassen, 2015. "Contextualist Inquiry into Organizational Citizenship: Promoting Recycling Across Heterogeneous Organizational Actors," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 413-428, June.
    11. Tessa Recendes & Federico Aime & Aaron D. Hill & Oleg V. Petrenko, 2022. "Bargaining your way to success: The effect of Machiavellian chief executive officers on firm costs," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(10), pages 2012-2041, October.
    12. Maria Clara Figueiredo Dalla Costa Ames & Mauricio C. Serafim & Felipe Flôres Martins, 2022. "Analysis of Scales and Measures of Moral Virtues: A Systematic Review," RAC - Revista de Administração Contemporânea (Journal of Contemporary Administration), ANPAD - Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Administração, vol. 26(6), pages 190379-1903.
    13. Lucas, David S. & Park, U. David, 2023. "The nature and origins of social venture mission: An exploratory study of political ideology and moral foundations," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(2).
    14. Gicu-Valentin Dogaru, 2020. "Authentic Leadership, Requirement for Trade Unions in Education," Book chapters-LUMEN Proceedings, in: Marcin Waldemar STANIEWSKI & Valentina VASILE & Adriana Grigorescu (ed.), International Conference Innovative Business Management & Global Entrepreneurship (IBMAGE 2020), edition 1, volume 14, chapter 7, pages 82-96, Editura Lumen.
    15. Potdar, Balkrushna & Guthrie, John & Gnoth, Juergen & Garry, Tony, 2018. "The role of psychological ownership in shoplifting prevention: An exploratory study," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 253-265.
    16. Michael Zakharin & Timothy C Bates, 2021. "Remapping the foundations of morality: Well-fitting structural model of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(10), pages 1-26, October.
    17. Orfa Posada-Arias & Jesenia Avendaño-Ramírez & Jose Arias-Pérez, 2018. "Intellectual Capital Management and University Research Group Performance: Mediating Effects of Machiavellianism and Organisational Narcissism," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 17(04), pages 1-23, December.
    18. Cherise Small & Charlene Lew, 2021. "Mindfulness, Moral Reasoning and Responsibility: Towards Virtue in Ethical Decision-Making," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 103-117, February.
    19. Goran Calic & Rene Arseneault & Maryam Ghasemaghaei, 2023. "The Dark Side of Machiavellian Rhetoric: Signaling in Reward-Based Crowdfunding Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 182(3), pages 875-896, January.
    20. Steven Steyl, 2020. "Aristotelian Practical Wisdom in Business Ethics: Two Neglected Components," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(3), pages 417-428, May.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:13:p:5350-:d:379362. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.