ETHICAL DECISION-MAKING - A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

The authors review the empirical literature in order to assess which v ariables are postulated as influencing ethical beliefs and decision ma king. The variables are divided into those unique to the individual de cision maker and those considered situational in nature. Variables rel ated to an individual decision maker examined in this review are natio nality, religion, sex, age, education, employment, and personality. Si tuation specific variables examined in this review are referent groups , rewards and sanctions, codes of conduct, type of ethical conflict, o rganization effects, industry, and business competitiveness. The revie w identifies the variables that have been empirically tested in an eff ort to uncover what is known and what we need to know about the variab les that are hypothesized as determinants of ethical decision behavior .