Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx

Running head: METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1
METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE3
Salina Khadgi
Professor Creider
1st February 1, 2020
Methods used in cyber warfare
Thesis: There are diverse methods that various people or
nations, for a set of diverse reasons, can damage computers or
information networks.
I. Introduction
A. Types of cyber attacks
i. Espionage
ii. Sabotage
iii. Propaganda
iv. Economic disruption
v. Surprise Cyber Attack
B. Methods used in Cyber Attacks
vi. Denial-of-service (DoS)
vii. Phishing and spear phishing attacks
viii. SQL injection attack
ix. Drive-by attacks
x. Man-in-the-middle (MitM) attack
xi. Password attacks
xii. Malware attack
xiii. Eavesdropping attack
C. Motivators for cyber attacks
xiv. Military
xv. Civil
xvi. Private sector
xvii. Non-profit Research
II. Preparedness
III. Cyber counterintelligence

References
Andress, J., Winterfeld, S., Rogers, R., & Northcutt, S.
(2011). Cyber warfare: Techniques, tactics and tools for
security practitioners. Waltham, MA: Syngress.
It give an in depth description of the techniques that are used in
cyber warfare. Also the necessary tools that are required to fight
the cybercrimes.
In Chen, T. M., In Jarvis, L., & In Macdonald, S.
(2014). Cyberterrorism: Understanding, assessment, and
response.
The authors describe the aspect of terrorism and the
cybercrimes. Assist in understanding the aspect of cyber
warfare and the response that are put in place to deal with the
attack.
In Yager, R. R., In Reformat, M., & In Alajlan, N.
(2014). Intelligent methods for cyber warfare.
The methods that are used in the fight against the cyber warfare
Tavani, H. T. (2016). Ethics and technology: Controversies,
questions, and strategies for ethical computing.
It talks about the common issues, the model and conceptual
frameworks as regarding to cyber warfare. The computing
aspects and controversies that are about the cyber warfare.
THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL FORCES
ON INDIVIDUAL MORALITY:
JUDGMENT, MORAL APPROBATION, AND BEHAVIOR
Thomas M. Jones and Lori Verstegen Ryan
Abstract: To date, our understanding of ethical decision making
and

behavior in organizations has been concentrated in the area of
moral
judgment, largely because of the hundreds of studies done
involv-
ing cognitive moral development. This paper addresses the
problem
of our relative lack of understanding in other areas of human
moral-
ity by applying a recently developed construct—moral appro-
bation—to illuminate the link between moral judgment and
moral
action. This recent work is extended here by exploring the
effect that
organizations have on ethical behavior in terms of the moral
appro-
bation construct.
Our understanding of ethical decision making and behavior in
organizationshas been informed by two largely separate streams
of research. Formal
decision making models (e.g., Ferrell and Gresham, 1985; Hunt
and Vi tell, 1986;
Trevino, 1986; Jones, 1991) have dealt with the micro
organizational aspects
of such decision making and have relied heavily on social
psychology, particu-
larly social cognition, for their theoretical foundations. The
other strain of
research on ethics in organizations deals with macro
organizational issues—
e.g., organizational cultures, leadership, and institutional
features such as
codes of ethics—and has employed organization theory, in
various forms, in the
analysis (Victor and CuUen. 1988; Cohen, 1995). What has been
lacking thus

far is theory that specifically relates macro level phenomena to
micro level be-
havior. Put differently, we need theory that explains, in detail,
how an organi-
zation's moral signals are perceived and processed by
organization members,
along with how likely those signals are to affect members'
behavior. This paper
attempts to provide such theory, by way of application of
existing theory and
new theory development.
As Jones (1991) pointed out, most formal models of ethical
decision making
in organizations can be expressed in terms of some variant of
Rest's (1986)
sequential four component model. By way of review. Rest's
description of the
four steps is as follows:
©1998. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 8, Issue 3. tSSN
1052-150X. pp. 431 -445
432 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY
1) Recognition—The moral agent must first recognize the moral
issue. An
agent who does not recognize the moral aspects of an issue will
certainly
rely on "non-moral" criteria in making a decision.
2) Judgment—The agent must then engage in some form of
moral reason-
ing to arrive at a moral judgment. Moral reasoning has been

described by
Kohlberg (1976), whose moral development hierarchy has been
widely used
in both theoretical and empirical work.
3) Intent—The moral agent then must establish moral intent. In
so doing,
he/she places moral concerns ahead of other concerns and
decides to take
moral action.
4) Behavior—At this stage, the agent actually translates intent
into moral
behavior. He/she overcomes all impediments, internal and
external, and
carries out his/her intended moral action.
In this paper, we assume that organizational forces have an
impact on each of
the four steps. After referencing some very recent research that
has been done
on Step 1 oJF this sequence, we argue that organizational
factors profoundly af-
fect the link between moral judgment (Step 2) and moral
behavior (Step 4) by
describing the postulated psychological mechanisms.
Considering that Rest's model has been in existence for 12
years, remark-
ably little research has been done on components other than
moral judgment
(Step 2). Part of this concentration can be explained by the fact
that Kohlberg
developed an instrument for measuring cognitive moral
development (CMD),
thus saving scholars (himself, in particular) the burden of

developing a new
instrument for each study. Rest (1979) accelerated the use of
CMD as a variable
in empirical studies of ethical behavior by developing the
Defining Issues Test
(DIT), a forced-choice psychometric instrument that replicates
Kohlberg's time
consuming instrument with reasonable accuracy, but is simple
and quick to ad-
minister. As a result, hundreds of studies have been undertaken
using cognitive
moral development as a variable.
Some of this research has attempted to link CMD to actual
moral behavior
(Blasi, 1980; Thoma and Rest, 1986; Waterman, 1988). The
theory (either ex-
plicit or implicit) behind this research stream is that people who
have greater
cognitive skills in the moral realm will have stronger, more
intrinsic spurs to
moral action. Since their reasoning is more autonomous, their
behavior ought to
be more autonomous as well, leading them to carry out their
moral judgments
with greater frequency than their less sophisticated counterparts
(with lower
CMD scores). The somewhat surprising and disheartening
conclusion that can
be drawn from this research is that the link between these two
variables is not
particularly strong; cognitive moral development explains
relatively little of the
variance in moral behavior. We are left with a relatively modest
level of under-
standing of moral behavior.

Perhaps in response to this gap in understanding, some recent
work has fo-
cused on the first element in Rest's model: recognition of the
moral issue. Studies
THE EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL FORCES 433
by Trevifio and Weaver (1996), Butterfield, Trevino, and
Weaver (1996), and
Gautschi and Jones (1998) have exatnined various aspects of
moral awareness,
based on the sensible proposition that recognition of the moral
aspects of a de-
cision must occur before moral reasoning of any kind can take
place. Furthermore,
since the more advanced stages of Kohlberg's moral
development hierarchy
(Stages 3 through 6) are likely to lead to judgments that are
other than self-
interested, we might expect that recognition of moral issues and
the subsequent
engagement of moral decision making processes, as opposed to
non-moral pro-
cesses, will result in better behavior.
Moral Approbation
In a very recent paper, Jones and Ryan (1997) argue that a
construct called
moral approbation, the desire of moral agents to be seen as
moral by them-
selves or others, plays a critical role in moral decision making
and behavior.

The substantially condensed version of this argument that is
presented below
sets the stage for our explanation of how organizational factors
affect the moral-
ity of individual organization members.
The moral approbation construct has two facets—a desired level
of moral
approbation and an anticipated level of moral approbation. The
desired level of
moral approbation is derived from Jones and Ryan's (1997)
contention that hu-
man beings have a motive to be moral. This motive to be moral
can come from
many sources, including philosophy (Aristotle, 1934; Adam
Smith, 1759/1982),
religion (Frankena, 1968), biology (Hoffman, 1976; Kagan,
1984), socializa-
tion (Epstein, 1973) including impression management
(Schlenker, 1980; Reis,
1981; Tetlock, 1985), and cognitive development (Epstein,
1973; Blasi, 1984).
This motive to be moral will vary, perhaps substantially, among
human beings,
but will be present to some degree in virtually all people.
According to the theory,
one manifestation of this motive to be moral is desired moral
approbation, a
desire for moral approval from the agent's referent group
(Hyman, 1942/1980;
Williams, 1970). The identity of the referent group will also
vary from person to
person but will consist of those people to whom he/she looks for
moral example
or feedback. The referent group could be as narrowly defined as
the person him/

herself or as broadly as an entire society, depetiding on the
agent's psychology.
Anticipated moral approbation is highly contextual and depends
on the level
of moral responsibility that the agent anticipates will be
attributed to him/her by
his/her referent group based on his/her planned behavior.
Because the moral
approbation construct is best illustrated in complex moral
decision making situ-
ations, Jones and Ryan (1997) use the example of an individual
in an organization
contemplating his/her response to potential wrongdoing on the
part of the orga-
nization to outline this part of their argument. In such
situations, moral
responsibility is based on four characteristics of the decision
making context:
1) severity of consequences (more severe consequences confer
greater moral
responsibility on the agent);
2) moral certainty (situations involving unambiguously wrong
behavior con-
fer greater moral responsibility on the agent);
3) degree of complicity (greater involvement in the wrongdoing
confers
greater tnoral responsibility on the agent); and

4) extent of pressure to behave unethically (greater
organizational pressure to
go along with the wrongdoing reduces the moral responsibility
on the agent).
The moral responsibility of an agent would then be a positive
function of sever-
ity of consequences, moral certainty, and degree of complicity,
mitigated by
pressure to behave unethically.
Having made a moral judgment (Step 2 of Rest's model), the
agent contem-
plates a course of action: moral intent (Step 3). At the same
time he/she estimates
the level of moral responsibility likely to be attributed to
him/her based on the
four factors described above. The agent then compares the level
of moral appro-
bation that he/she anticipates from his/her referent group based
on his/her planned
behavior and compares it to the level he/she requires (desired
moral approba-
tion). If the behavior meets the agent's threshold of desired
moral approbation,
he/she follows through with the planned behavior. If not, he/she
modifies his/
her planned behavior until it meets the threshold. This process
is graphically
depicted in Figure 1 (Source: Jones & Ryan, 1997).
Figure 1
The Moral Approbatioii Model
1) Severity of

Comeqaeoces
2) Moral
Ceriainty
3) Degree of
Coniplicity
4) Extent of
Agent's
Attribnted
Levd of Moral
Rctponstttiltty
D Moral ;^>probation
Anticipated
Bebavfor
Motive to be Mond
A n t i c ^ t e d
Moral
VS.
Meets
Confort
Tlu«sboid?
Biology
Socbilization

Cognitive Devetopmeirt/'
Jones and Ryan's (1997) indirect argument for the moral
approbation construct
consists of a demonstration that human beings make attributions
of responsibility as
the model predicts, followed by a detailed case that actual
behavior varies along the
same lines. The former set of aiguments explains why the
behavior documented in
the latter set of arguments occurs. In summary, the moral
approbation model repre-
sents an attempt to explain why the link between moral
judgment and moral behavior
is weaker than we might expect and one mechanism by which
organizational fac-
tors may play a significant role in actual moral action.
Moral Approbation and Organizational Influences
on Moral Behavior
The moral approbation construct will be applied here in an
effort to explain
the impact of organizational factors on the moral decision
making and behav-
ior of individual members. From this perspective, the
organization affects
individuals in two distinct ways. First, the organization itself
may affect the
choice and composition of the referent group for many members
of the organi-
zation. Second, the organization may affect the level of

responsibility that the
individual attributes to him/herself through its effect on the four
elements of
moral responsibility.
Organizations and Referent Groups
As the above-summarized theory suggests, human beings seek
approval from
their referent groups. Individuals who are highly autonomous in
moral matters
(analogous to Stages 5 and 6 of Kohlberg's moral development
hierarchy) will
regard self approval as the ultimate standard for moral action.
Many individu-
als, however, will require the approval of a broader group,
including, for example,
family members, close friends, church leaders, and teachers.
Because organiza-
tions play a major role in the lives of many people, acting not
only as their
principal source of income but also as a place where much of
their time is spent
and many of their friendships are formed, it is highly probable
that organiza-
tions will also be crucial determinants of at least part of their
members" referent
groups. Some individuals in organizations may have a few
organization mem-
bers among their referent groups, while others may adopt the
organization
itself—its values and its culture—as a referent group. While
this assertion re-
garding the link between referent group formation and
organizations may seem
intuitively obvious, a detailed, theory-based argument will aid

our understand-
ing of this phenomenon.
Theoretical support for organizational influences on referent
group choice can
be derived from Bandura's classic works on social learning
(1977; 1986). Bandura
(1977) argues that social learning takes place through two
primary mechanisms—
response consequences and modeling. Learning by response
consequences is what
might be called learning by direct experience. Individuals
respond to situational
stimuli in various ways as they conduct their lives and receive
differential feed-
back—some positive, some negative—to their responses. They
learn to behave so
as to avoid the negative consequences and promote the positive
consequences. In
organizations, individuals tend to engage in behaviors that
prompt organizational
rewards and eschew those that result in punishment.
This form of direct learning serves an informative function, a
motivational func-
tion, and a reinforcing function (Bandura, 1977). As
information, response
consequences cause the individual to create hypotheses about
which responses are
well suited to which situations. Bandura is clear in his rejection
of the view that

this process in merely mechanistic; cognition plays a role in the
interpretation not
only of the nature of the consequences but also of the
relationship between the
response and the consequences. Response consequences also
serve a motiva-
tional function. Because human beings can anticipate events in
their lives, the
expected consequences of certain responses can motivate them
to behave in cer-
tain ways. A reinforcing function is also claimed for response
consequences.
Reinforcement makes the message as to the propriety of certain,
behaviors clearer
and stronger. Organizations with consistent reward/punishment
frameworks will
reinforce certain behaviors through this mechanism.
As Bandura (1977) points out, learning would be both slow and
risky if indi-
viduals learned only by direct experience; their own experiences
would not be
extensive enough to allow learning at a significant pace and
their mistakes could
result in hazardous situations. Much social learning, therefore,
takes place
through modeling. Here the individual learns by observing the
behavior of oth-
ers and noting the consequences that ensue. The process is
largely informative
(as above), taking place through symbolic representations of the
observed be-
havior which inform the choice of responses thought to be
appropriate.
Modeling has four component processes—attentional, retention,

motor re-
production, and motivational. Attentional processes are
selective in nature, which
refers to the fact that people tend to model their behavior on
that which a) they
observe most frequently and b) seems to be most effective. Not
surprisingly,
many human beings model their behavior on that which is most
often exhibited
in the organizations where they work, and they are more likely
to model the
behavior that is rewarded by the organization.
Observation alone often is not enough to assure that individuals
will remem-
ber modeled behavior. Repeated exposure to behavior often
results in
representational systems—image-based or verbal—that produce
retrievable
"memory codes" that guide behavior, thus serving as retention
systems for the
learned responses (Bandura, 1977: 26). Organizations are often
the source of
not only repeated exposure to certain types of behavior, but also
the images and
verbal representations that simplify the development of such
memory codes.
Through motor reproduction processes, individuals "learn by
doing." They
develop and refine their responses along the lines of the
modeled behavior. Fi-
nally, observational learning also serves a motivational
function. Individuals
learn by observing behavior in others and favoring that which
has functional

value—i.e., that which has been rewarded. They are motivated
to model their
behavior on this favored behavior because they hope to secure
similar rewards.
In short, organizations may be an important factor in an
individual member's
choice of referent group. Some individuals, of course, will be
self-referent on
moral matters, depending on only their own moral standards for
moral approba-
tion. For many people, however, the referent group will include
family members,
close friends, church leaders, and/or teachers and some are
likely to include
other organization members, groups within the organization, or,
in the extreme
case, the organization itself as part of their source of moral
approbation.
The conclusion that organizations influence the choice of
referent group for
individual members should not be surprising. Many human
beings spend a great
deal of time in organizational settings and depend on
organizations for their
livelihood. Thus, through reward and punishment systems,
authority structures,
formal and informal rules, and organizational cultures,
organizations create the
environments though which individuals "enact" much of their

lives. Social
learning is the process through which the dimensions of that
enactment are
created. Thus do organizations enter the referent groups of at
least some of
their members.
Organizational Influences on Attributions of Moral
Responsibility
Organizational forces are also likely to influence attributions of
moral responsi-
bility, an important determinant of moral approbation. The
moral agent makes such
attributions based on the four factors included in the model:
severity of consequences,
moral certainty, degree of complicity, and extent of pressure to
behave unethically
(as represented in our example). This subsection describes the
effect of organ-
izational forces on these four components of moral
responsibility.
Severity of Consequences. At first glance, severity of
consequences would
seem to be set by the circutnstances that define the immediate
situation and
hence immutable by organizational forces. Jones (1991) has
described magni-
tude of consequences, a related concept, as an element in the
determination of
issue contingency. However, the critical determinant in the
moral approbation
model is the moral agent's perception of severity of
consequences, a perception
that the organization may influence through such mechanisms as

schemata
and euphemism.
Gioia (1992) discusses the importance of schemata—cognitive
frameworks
for making sense out of complex phenomena—on ethical
decision making in
organizations. By influencing an individual's choice o f a
schema, the organiza-
tion can influence the range of choices the individual feels that
he/she has.
Viewing an issue with a moral component (such as the potential
recall of Ford
Pintos because they tended to burst into flame in certain types
of rear end colli-
sions—Gioia's situation) as an economic (cost-benefit) problem,
a legal problem,
or a customer complaint problem will dictate different solution
sets than will
viewing the same circumstances as threats to the lives and
health of dozens of
human beings. Thus does schema formation affect moral
decision making. More
specifically, such schema use could affect an individual's
attributions regarding
severity of consequences. An economic problem involving cost
and benefits to
the company (e.g., costs of litigation, harm to reputation for
safety, costs of
fixing the automobile itself to reduce the risk) will often be
couched solely in

terms of a common metric—^money—which substantially
attenuates the perceived
severity of consequences of the situation. Moral responsibility
and thus the
agent's attributed level of moral approbation will be reduced
accordingly, per-
mitting him/her to act less aggressively to address the
anticipated wrongdoing,
in essence reducing the probability of moral action.
Organizations also frequently use euphemisms to mask or
attenuate the se-
verity of certain actions. The quintessential offender in terms of
euphemisms is
probably the military. Reporting battlefield deaths in terms of
"body counts,"
for example, as the Army did during the Viet Nam War, tends to
trivialize the
fact that for each number in a body count, another human being
lost his (or, less
likely, her) life. The severity of consequences component of
attributions of re-
sponsibility would be lessened by the use of such euphemisms.
Through these techniques and others, then, the organization can,
intention-
ally ornot, shape individual members' perceptions of the
severity of consequences
associated with organizational actions. As the severity of
consequences is per-
ceived to increase, attributions of responsibility also rise, along
with the actor's
behavioral response.
Moral Certainty. Organizations can also serve to reduce or
enhance the level

of moral certainty attached to a moral issue. Because
organizational decision
making is highly complex (Stephens and Lewin, 1992) and
organizations are
often hierarchical, individuals at lower levels often do not have
all the facts that
are deemed necessary to fully understand a situation demanding
action. When
moral issues are at stake—organizational wrongdoing, for
example—lower level
individuals may reason (perhaps correctly) that, although the
problem seems
evident enough from their perspective, if they had the vantage
point of a higher
level person, with the attendant information, they would see that
only a minor
problem (or no problem) existed. This phenomenon of isolation
from "the big
picture" is exacerbated by the tendency of some organizations to
structure work
relationships so that group members have little contact with
members of other
work groups. Any attempt to verify information or "compare
notes" on moral
problems is impeded by this type of structure. The perspective
on moral situa-
tions in organizations described above reduces the amount of
moral certainty
that an individual member factors into his/her assessment of
moral responsibil-
ity. The behavioral response necessary to achieve his/her
desired level of moral
approbation declines accordingly.
Moral certainty can also be affected by the culture of the
organization. In some

corporations, for example, the company "ethic" is that the firm's
stockholders
are the only appropriate beneficiaries of the fruits of their
investments. Other
"stakeholders" are of concern only for instrumental reasons;
their claims have
no intrinsic worth. This is a normative position, of course, and
is not necessarily
"true" on its face; normative arguments that stakeholders have
legitimate intrin-
sic claims on the firm have also been advanced. Nonetheless,
firms that adopt
this stockholder hegemony posture create a normative standard
that may
compete with "common morality" in the minds of some
individuals in the com-
pany. At some point, these individuals may perceive moral
ambiguity where
before they saw moral certainty. Reduced attributions of moral
responsi-
bility follow.
Organizationally adopted euphemisms also play a role in
increasing moral
ambiguity. Morally neutral terms like "administrative
gratuities" have been
applied to corporate bribes, presumably to reduce the likelihood
that they will
be recognized as being morally improper and cause moral
qualms on the part of
company employees.

Another feature of corporate life that perpetuates moral
ambiguity is the ten-
dency of individuals and groups within the firm to avoid moral
dialogue (Bird
and Waters, 1989). Meeting topics in corporations tend to be
couched in busi-
ness terms—meeting goals, controlling costs, dividing up sales
territories, setting
quotas, etc.—rather than focusing on ethical questions. Moral
issues are osten-
sibly thought of as peripheral to the main topic and "a waste of
time" by many
meeting attendees. This lack of "moral talk" greatly impedes the
chance that
anything approaching a judgment-affirming consensus will be
reached. The iso-
lation of individuals in organizations with respect to moral
matters will tend to
perpetuate, if not promote, moral ambiguity.
The recent tendency of some organizations to create cross-
functional work
teams with access to information from multiple sources makes it
clear that orga-
nizations' effect on moral certainty can also be positive. Such
teams can reduce
the isolation felt by organization members in traditional
hierarchies and pro-
mote cross functional dialogue, reducing the probability that an
individual agent
will feel that he/she lacks enough information to make a moral
judgment with a
high degree of certainty. Research by Asch (1951; 1955; 1956)
supports our
case that reinforcement from others strengthens an individual's

resolve to act in
accordance with internally derived judgments. Milgram's (1974)
obedience to
authority experiments also support this conclusion. Under
experimental condi-
tions in which the subjects were given support for their
reluctance to administer
higher shock levels, they tended to substantially reduce the
maximum shock
level administered. In addition, far fewer subjects administered
the full regimen
of shocks under this condition.
Codes of ethics are another means that organizations use to
increase moral
certainty. Where moral ambiguity might otherwise exist, a clear
statement of
policy in a code of conduct can reduce it considerably. Many
corporations have
recently hired ombudspersons to handle, among other matters,
ethical ques-
tions from employees. Discussions with these ombudspersons
may serve to re-
duce moral ambiguity for organization members. The ethics
training offered
to employees of some firms could serve the same purpose.
Further, although
some organizational cultures may increase moral ambiguity, as
discussed above.
others may decrease it. If an organizational culture includes
such (implicit) poli-

cies as "always make sure the customer is satisfied," many
moral ambiguities—
how to treat an out-of-warranty product failure, for example—
will be reduced
or eliminated.
In sum, organizations have the ability to both reduce and
enhance moral cer-
tainty and hence affect attributions of responsibility by
individual agents. The
probability of moral behavior is thereby reduced or increased as
well.
Degree of Complicity. Perhaps the greatest impact that
organizations have
on attributions of moral responsibility involves the degree of
complicity that
individual agents feel with respect to an ethical act. The very
nature of organi-
zations tends to diffuse responsibility. Stone (1975) documents
the difficulty
that legal mechanisms have in dealing with wrongdoing in
corporations. Corpo-
rate decisions are often made using a variety of inputs from
various units of the
firm. In few instances is any single individual or even single
unit fully respon-
sible for a corporate decision. In many cases, responsibility is
highly diffuse.
Organizations that are highly bureaucratized exacerbate this
problem; individual
employees and work units are both specialized and
compartmentalized in terms
of decision making responsibility. The existence of such
specialization can lead
individuals to use it as an excuse to attempt to limit their

responsibility as well.
In the classic historical account of ethical wrongdoing entitled
"The Aircraft
Brake Scandal," a character named Gretzinger says:
After all, we're just drawing some curves, and what happens to
them after they
leave here— ŵell, we're not responsible for that. (Vandivier,
1972: 49)
He makes this comment despite his knowledge that the data on
which the curves
are based had been falsified. Diffusion of responsibility of this
magnitude would
mean that no individual would bear responsibility for any
corporate decision.
Feelings of powerlessness with respect to high level decisions
are made worse
by limitations on information flows. Restricted information
flows are epitomized
by the military's historical "need to know" criterion for
exchanging information
on the job: if a co-worker doesn't need to know a certain fact or
have certain
data to do his/her job, he or she should not have access to it.
Smith and Carroll (1984) point out that diffusion of
responsibility can be
quite deliberate. One common rationale for avoiding
responsibility for moral
decisions is that individuals at low levels of the organization
don't have the
positional authority to act on the moral aspects of corporate
decisions and, be-
cause of their low status and commensurate (relatively) low

pay, have no desire
to do so anyway. "Let the people making the high salaries tackle
the difficult
ethical questions" seems to be a widely held view among
occupants of lower
echelon corporate positions, according to Smith and Carroll.
Such factors as organization structure and information flow,
then, can be
used to affect the degree of complicity organization members
include in their
determinations of attributions of responsibility. Their behavior
will be modi-
fied accordingly.
Extent of Pressure to Comply. Organizations can also be the
source of pres-
sure to comply with decisions that are ethically questionable. In
our example
problem, an individual contemplating his/her response to
organizational wrong-
doing, the agent must take into account the fact that individuals
within the
organization often will not be anxious to have their wrongdoing
exposed. If
these individuals are in positions of authority, they can bring
direct pressure to
bear on the agent. This pressure can take the form of direct
threats—termina-
tion, denied promotions, salary stagnation, undesirable
transfers, etc.—or subtler
forms such as reminders that performance reviews are based on

a broad range of
factors including being a "team player." Other organizational
factors that create
pressure to comply include performance standards that focus on
ends—quotas,
cost cutting targets, profit levels, etc.—and ignore limits to the
means by which
these goals are met. In the Pinto fires case, top Ford executives,
including Lee
Iaccoca, were aware of the exploding gas tank problem, but
dealt with it by
reminding lower level managers that cost targets, weight limits,
and production
schedules must be met. Implicit in this mandate was the fact
that a "fix" to the
gas tank problem would involve added cost, added weight, and
production sched-
ule delays. Ford executives did not have to say "don't fix the
problem," directly;
their intent was clear (Dowie, 1977). In his revealing book.
Moral Mazes, Rob-
ert Jackall (1988) stresses that corporate executives rarely order
a subordinate
to do something unethical, let alone illegal, directly, they
simply stress the fac-
ets of a decision that are important—ends, not means.
In addition, the compensation packages for many corporate
personnel often de-
pend on performance measures that may be negatively affected
by revelations of
company wrongdoing. Status factors within the general business
atmosphere also
create organizational pressures to succeed in economic terms,
nol moral terms. As
Stone (1975) points out, in business, prestige generally accrues

to those who achieve
economic success—^profitability—not ethical purity;
reputations may be more ex-
tensively harmed by weak financial performance than by
(Ethical breaches. In addition,
peer pressure within organizations can weigh heavily on
individuals who consider
reporting organizational wrongdoing. In an examination of
"peer reporting," Trevino
and Victor (1992) found that, although individuals who engaged
in this practice
were considered to be highly ethical, they were also considered
to be unlikable. A
potential peer reporter must weigh his/her moral .standards
against his/her desire
to be liked by other group members.
Finally, in organizations, as in life in general, there is a
tendency to punish
the messenger who delivers bad news, often without regard to
the ultimate ben-
efit that the news may cause. Individuals within organizations
are often aware
of this tendency and are understandably reluctant to be the
bearer of bad news,
a role they must play if organizational wrongdoing is to be
avoided. Organiza-
tional pressures to comply can also be designed to promote
ethical rather than
unethical behavior. Codes of ethics, for example, can specify
penalties for cer-
tain kinds of unethical conduct. Top managers can make it clear
that ethical
means must be employed in the pursuit of organizational ends;
moral limits can

be set. Indeed, organizations can strive to develop cultures in
which ethical con-
cerns are on the same plane as other organizational goals; they
can use their
influence on individuals for good as well as for evil.
Through direct pressure or such indirect means as quotas or
compensation
packages, organizations can affect the strength of the
extenuating circumstances
an organization member believes may attenuate his/her moral
responsibility. As
pressure increases, attributions of responsibility are reduced, as
is the likeli-
hood of moral behavior.
In conclusion, this section has pointed out some of the
numerous ways that
organizations can affect the attributions of responsibility that
individual
members make with regard to the ethical issues they face.
Attributed moral
responsibility increases with perceived increases in severity of
consequences,
moral certainty, and degree of complicity, and decreases in
extent of pressure to
comply. Each of these factors can be affected by organization
forces. Thus the
organization can play a major role in moral approbation and,
hence, in the prob-
ability that an individual moral agent will act on a moral
judgment. If attributed

moral responsibility is high, moral judgment and moral action
are more likely to
be closely linked than if moral responsibility is low.
Organizations can affect
moral behavior, both for better and for worse.
Conclusions
In this paper, we have addressed a facet of ethical decision
making and be-
havior that has been given insufficient attention in the literature
thus far—the
link between ethical judgment and behavior. To date, although
we know a great
deal about moral reasoning, largely because of the work of
Kohlberg (1976) and
Rest (1986) on cognitive moral development, we know very
little about why
moral development is so weakly linked to actual moral
behavior. Drawing on
the recent work of Jones and Ryan (1997), we suggest that the
moral approba-
tion construct constitutes a viable theoretical connection
between moral judgment
and moral action. Human beings require moral approval from
their referent
groups—themselves or others—and organizations can play a
major role in the
gaining of that approval. First, organizations or subgroups of
their members can
be part of the individual's referent group. Second,
organizational forces can
affect the factors that individuals employ in determining the
level of their
moral responsibility, a key determinant of the moral
approbation that they ex-

pect to receive.
This paper focuses directly on the means by which
organizations affect indi-
vidual decision making and behavior and, as such, suggests
several possibilities
for empirical research. Other areas for research also are implied
by the moral
approbation construct. For example, we strongly suspect that
desired moral ap-
probation will vary significantly among individuals; that is,
moral approbation
is likely to be an individual difference variable useful for
studies of morality in
human beings. The sources of individual differences are likely
to be varied, but
philosophy, religion, socialization, biology, and cognitive
development are po-
tential determinants.
In short, the addition of moral approbation to the mix of
variables currently
under scrutiny should help us to better understand both
individual morality and
the effects of organizational forces on that morality. More
colloquially, this pa-
per make us better able to understand why "good people do bad
things" in
organizational settings.
Bibliography

Aristotle. 1934. Nicomachean ethics. Trans, by H, Rackham.
Revised ed. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Asch, S. E. 1951. Effects of group pressure upon the
modification and distortion of
judgments. In H. S. Guetzkow (ed.). Groups, leadership and
men: 177-190. Pitts-
burgh, PA: Carnegie Press.
. 1955. Opinions and social pressure. Scientific American, 193:
31-35.
1956. Studies of independence and conformity: A minority of
one against
a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70(9), No.
416: 1-70.
Bandura, A. 1977. Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice-Hall.
1986, Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Bird, F. B. and Waters, J. A. 1989. The moral muteness of
managers. California
Management Review. 321(1): 73-88.
Blasi, A. 1980. Bridging moral cognition and action; A critical
review of the litera-
ture. Psychological Bulletin, 88; 1-45.
1984. Moral identity: Its role in moral functioning. In W. M.
Kurtines and
J. L. Gewirtz (eds.). Morality, moral behavior, and moral

development: 128-139.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Butterfield, K. D., Trevino. L. K., and Weaver. G. R. 1996.
Moral awareness in organi-
zations: A socialization perspective. Paper presented at the
Academy of Management
annual meeting, Cincinnati.
Cohen, D. V. 1995. Creating ethical work climates: A
socioeconomic perspective.
Journal of Socio-Economics, 24(2): 317-343.
Dowie, M. 1977. How Ford put two million firetraps on wheels.
Business & Society
jRevj'ew, 23(3); 46-55.
Epstein, S. 1973. The self-concept revisited: Or a theory ofa
theory. American Psy-
chologist, 28(5): 404-416.
Ferrell, O.C. and Gresham. L. G.. 1985. A contingency
framework for understand-
ing ethical decision making in marketing. Journal of Marketing,
49(3): 87-96.
Frankena, W. F. 1968. Relations of morality and religion. In J,
F. Childress and J.
Macquarrie (eds.), Westminster dictionary of Christian ethics:
400-403. Phila-
delphia, PA: Westminster Press.
Gautschi, F. H. and Jones. T. M. (1998). Enhancing the ability
of business students
to recognize ethical issues: An empirical assessment of the
effectiveness of a

course in business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 17: 205-
216.
Gioia, D . A . I 992. Pinto fires and personal ethics: A script
analysis of missed oppor-
tunities. Journal of Business Ethics, 11: 379-389.
Hoffman, M. L. 1976. Empathy, role taking, guilt, and
development of altruistic
motives. In T. Lickona (ed.). Moral development and behavior:
124-143. New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Hunt, S. D. and Vitell, S. 1986. A general theory of marketing
ethics. Journal of
Macromarketing, 6(1): 5-16.
Hyman, H. H. 1942/1980. The psychology of status. New York:
New York Times
Company.
Jackall, R. 1988. Moral mazes. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Jones, T. M. 1991. Ethical decision making by individuals in
organizations: An is-
SM&-coniing&nimo<&. Academy of Management Review,
16(2): 366-395.
Jones, T. M., and Ryan, L. V. (1997). The link between ethical
judgment and action in
organizations: A moral approbation approach. Organization

Science, 8(6): 663-680.
Kagan, J. 1984. The nature ofthe child. New York: Basic Books.
Kohlberg, L. 1976. Moral stages and moralization: The
cognitive-development ap-
proach. In T. Lickona (ed.). Moral development and behavior:
Theory, research
and social issues: 31-53. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Milgram, S. 1974. Obedience to authority. New York, Harper &
Row.
Reis, H. T. 1981. Self-presentation and distributive justice. In J.
T. Tedeschi (ed.).
Impression management theory and social psychological theory:
269-291. New
York: Academic Press.
Rest, J R. 1979. Development in judging moral issues.
Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
1986. Moral development: Advances in research and theory.
New York:
Praeger.
Schlenker, B. R. 1980. Impression management: The self-
concept, social identity,
and interpersonal relations. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Smith, A. 1759/1982. The theory of moral sentiments.
Indianapolis, IN: Liberty
Classics.
Smith, H. R., and Carroll, A. B. 1984. Organizational ethics: A

stacked deck. Jour-
nal of Business Ethics, 3: 95-100.
Stephens, C. U., and Lewin, A. Y. 1992. A cross-level model of
the determinants of
ethical choice in organizations. In D. Ludwig and K. Paul
(eds.). Contemporary is-
sues in the business environment.
Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press.
Stone, C. D. 1975. Where the law ends. New York, Harper &
Row.
Tetlock, P. E. 1985. Toward an intuitive politician model of
attribution processes. In
B. R. Schlenker (ed.). The self and social life: 203-234. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Thoma, S, J. and Rest, J. R. 1986. Moral judgment, behavior,
decision making, and
attitudes. In J. R. Rest (ed.). Moral development: Advances in
research and theory:
133-175. New York: Praeger.
Trevino, L. K. 1986. Ethical decision making in organizations:
A person-situation
interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, I I :
601-617.
Trevino, L. K., and Victor, B. 1992. Peer reporting of unethical
behavior: A social
context perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 35(1):
38-64.

Treviiio, L. K., and Weaver, G. R. 1996. Barriers to and
facilitators of moral percep-
tion: The case of competitive intelligence practitioners. Paper
presented at the
annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Cincinnati.
Vandivier, K. 1972. The aircraft brake scandal. Harper's
Magazine, April: 45-52.
Victor, B. and Cullen, J. B. 1988. The organizational bases of
ethical work climates.
Administrative Science Quarterly. 33: 101-125.
Waterman, A. S. 1988, On the uses of psychological theory and
research in the pro-
cess of ethical inquiry. Psychological Bulletin, 103(3): 283-298.
Williams, M, A. 1970. Reference groups: A review and
commentary. Sociological
Quarterly, 11:545-554,
Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics:
A Script Analysis of Missed Opportunities Dennis A. Cioia
ABSTRACT. This article details the personal involvement of
the author in the early stages of the infamous Pinto fire case.
The paper first presents an insider account of the context
and decision environment within which he failed to initiate

an early recall of defective vehicles. A cognitive script
analysis of the personal experience is then offered as an
explanation of factors that led to a decision that now is
commonly seen as a definitive study in unethical corporate
behavior. IThe main analytical thesis is that script schemas
that were guiding cognition and action at the time pre.-
cluded consideration of issues in ethical terms because the
scripts did not include ethical dimensions.
In the summer of 1972 I made one of those impor-
tant tran.sitions in life, the significance of vifhich
becomes obvious only in retrospect. I left academe
with a BS in Engineering Science and an MBA to
enter the world of big business. I joined Ford Motor
Company at World Headquarters in Dearborn
Michigan, fulfilling a long-standing dream to work
in the heart of the auto industry. I felt confident that
I was in the right place at the right time to make a
Dennis A. Gioia is Associate Professor of Organizational
Behavior
in the Department of Management and Organization, The
Smeal College ofBusiness Administration, Pennsylvania State
University. Professor Cioia's primary research and writing focus
of the nature and uses of complex cognitive processes by
organiza-
tion members and the ways that these processes affect
sensemak-
ing, communication, influence and organizational change. His

most recent research interests have to do with the less rational,
more intuitive, emotional, and political aspects of
organizational
life — those fascinating arenas where people in organizations
tend
to subvert management scholars' heartfelt attempts to have them
behave more rationally. Prior to this ivory tower career, he
worked
in the real world as an engineering aide for Boeing Aerospace at
Kennedy Space Center and as vehicle recall coordinator for
Ford
Motor Company in Dearbom, Michigan.
difference. My initial job title was "Problem Analyst"
— a catchall label that superficially described what I
would be thinking about and doing in the coming
years. On some deeper level, however, the ride
paradoxically came to connote the many crirical
things that I would not be thinking about and acring
upon.
By that summer of 1972 I was very full of myself.
I had met my hfe's goals to that point with some
notable success. I had virtually everything I wanted,
including a strongly-held value system that had led
me to question many of the perspectives and prac-
rices I observed in the world around me. Not the
least of these was a profound distaste for the
Vietnam war, a distaste that had found me parrici-

paring in various demonstrarions against its conduct
and speaking as a part of a collecrive voice on the
moral and ethical failure of a democraric govern-
ment that would attempt to jusdfy it. I also found
myself in MBA classes railing against the conducr of
businesses of the era, whose acrions struck me as
ranging from inconsiderate to indifferent to simply
unethical. To me the typical stance of business
seemed to be one of disdain for, rather than respon-
sibility toward, the society of which they were
prominent members. I wanted something to change.
Accordingly, I culrivated my social awareness; I held
my principles high; I espoused my intenrion to help
a troubled world; and I wore my hair long. By any
measure I was a prototypical "Child of the '60s."
Therefore, it struck quire a few of my friends in
the MBA program as rather strange that I was in the
program at all. ("If you are so disappointed in
business, why study business?"). Subsequently, they
were practically dumbstruck when I accepted the job
offer from Ford, apparendy one of the great pur-
veyors of the very acrions I reviled. I countered that
it was an ideal strategy, arguing that I would have a
Journal ofBusiness Ethia 11: 379-389, 1992.
© 1992 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the
Netherlands.
380 Dennis A. Gioia
greater chance of influencing social change in busi-
ness if I worked behind the scenes on the inside,
rather than as a strident voice on the outside. It was

clear to me that somebody needed to prod these
staid companies into socially responsible acrion. I
certainly aimed to do my part. Besides, I liked cars.
Into the fray: setting the personal stage
Predictably enough, I found myself on the fast track
at Ford, parriciparing in a "tournament" type of
socializarion (Van Maanen, 1978), engaged in a
competirion for recognirion with other MBA's who
had recently joined the company. And I quickly
became caught up in the game. The company itself
was dynamic; the environment of business, especially
the auto industry, was intriguing; the job was
challenging and the pay was great. The psychic
rewards of working and succeeding in a major
corporarion proved unexpectedly seducrive. I really
became involved in the job.
Market forces (internarional comperirion) and
government regularion (vehicle safety and emissions)
were affecring the auto industry in disruprive ways
that only later would be common to the wider
business and social arena. They also produced an
industry and a company that felt buffeted, belea-
guered, and threatened by the changes. The threats
were mostly external, of course, and led to a strong
feeling of we-vs-them, where we (Ford members)
needed to defend ourselves against them (all the
outside parries and voices demanding that we change
our ways). Even at this rime, an intriguing quesrion
for me was whether I was a "we" or a "them." It was
becoming apparent to me that my perspecrive was
changing. I had long since cut my hair.
By the summer of 1973 I was pitched into the

thick of the battle. I became Ford's Field Recall
Coordinator — not a posirion that was parricularly
high in the hierarchy, but one that wielded influence
for beyond its level. I was in charge of the opera-
rional coordinarion of all of the recall campaigns
currently underway and also in charge of tracking
incoming informarion to idenrify developing prob-
lems. Therefore, I was in a posirion to make inirial
recommendarions about possible future recalls. The
most crirical type of recalls were labeled "safety
campaigns" — those that dealt vwth the possibility of
customer injury or death. These ranged from
straight-forward occurrences such as brake failure
and wheels falling off vehicles, to more exoric and
faintly humorous failure modes such as detaching
axles that announced their presence by spinning
forward and slamming into the starded driver's door
and speed control units that locked on, and refused
to disengage, as the care accelerated wildly while the
spooked driver furilely tried to shut it off. Safety
recall campaigns, however, also encompassed the
more sobering possibility of on-board gasoline fires
and explosions....
The Pinto case: setting the corporate stage
In 1970 Ford introduced the Pinto, a small car that
was intended to compete with the then current
challenge from European cars and the ominous
presence on the horizon of Japanese manufacturers.
The Pinto was brought from inceprion to produc-
rion in the record rime of approximately 25 months
(compared to the industry average of 43 months), a
rime frame that suggested the necessity for doing
things expediently. In addirion to the time pressure,

the engineering and development teams were re-
quired to adhere to the producrion "limits of 2 000"
for the diminurive car: it was not to exceed either
$2 000 in cost or 2000 pounds in weight. Any
decisions that threatened these targets or the riming
of the car's introducrion were discouraged. Under
normal condirions design, styling, product plarming,
engineering, etc., were completed prior to produc-
rion tooling. Because of the foreshortened rime
frame, however, some of these usually sequenrial
processes were executed in parallel.
As a consequence, tooling was already well under
way (thus "freezing" the basic design) when rourine
crash tesring revealed that the Pinto's fuel tank often
ruptured when struck from the rear at a relarively
low speed (31 mph in crash tests). Reports (revealed
much later) showed that the fuel tank failures were
the result of some rather marginal design features.
The tank was posirioned between the rear bumper
and the rear axle ( a standard industry pracrice for
the rime). During impact, however, several studs
protruding from the rear of the axle housing would
puncture holes in the tank; the fuel filler neck also
was likely to rip away. Spilled gasoline then could be
Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics 381
ignited by sparks. Ford had in fact crash-tested 11
vehicles; 8 of these cars suffered potenrially cata-
strophic gas tank ruptures. The only 3 cars that
survived intact had each been modified in some way
to protect the tank.

These crash tests, however, were conducted under
the guidelines of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety
Standard 301 which had been proposed in 1968 and
strenuously opposed by the auto industry. FMVSS
301 was not actually adopted until 1976; thus, at the
rime of tlie tests. Ford was not in violarion of the
law. There were several possibiliries for fixing the
problem, including the oprion of redesigning the
tank and its locarion, which would have produced
tank integrity in a high-speed crash. That solurion,
however, was not only rime consuming and expen-
sive, but also usurped trunk space, which was seen as
a crirical comperirive sales factor. One of the pro-
ducrion modificarions to the tank, however, would
have cost only $11 to install, but given the right
margins and restricrions of the "limits of 2 000,"
there was reluctance to make even this relarively
minor change. There were other reasons for not
approving the change, as well, including a wide-
spread industry belief that all small cars were
inherently unsafe solely because of their size and
weight. Another more prominent reason was a
corporate belief that "safety doesn't sell." This obser-
varion was attributed to Lee Iacocca and stemmed
from Ford's earlier attempt to make safety a sales
theme, an attempt that failed rather dismally in the
marketplace.
Perhaps the most controversial reason for reject-
ing the producrion change to the gas tank, however,
was Ford's use of cost-benefit analysis to jusrify the
decision. The Narional Highway Traffic Safety Asso-
ciarion (NHTSA, a federal agency) had approved the
use of cost-benefit analysis as an appropriate means
for establishing automorive safety design standards.
The controversial aspect in making such calcularions

v̂ ras that they required the assignment of some
specific value for a human life. In 1970, that value
was deemed to be approximately $200 000 as a "cost
to society" for each fatality. Ford used NHTSA's
figures in esrimaring the costs and benefits of
altering the tank producrion design. An internal
memo, later revealed in court, indicates the follow-
ing tabularions concerning potenrial fires (Dowie,
1977):
Costs: $137000000
(Estimated as the costs of a production fix to all similarly
designed cars and trucks with the gas tank aft of the axle
(12 500 000 vehicles X $11/vehicle))
Benefits: $49530000
(Estimated as the savings from preventing (180 projected
deaths x $200 000/ death) + (180 projected burn injuries
X $67 000/injury) + (2 100 burned cars X $700/car))
The cost-benefit decision was then construed as
straightforward: No producrion fix would be under-
taken. The philosophical and ethical implicarions of
assigning a financial value for human life or dis-
figurement do not seem to have been a major
considerarion in reaching this decision.
Pintos and personal experience
When I took over the Recall Coordinator's job in
1973 I inherited the oversight of about 100 acrive
recall campaigns, more than half of which were
safety-related. These ranged from minimal in size
(replacing front wheels that were likely to break on
12 heavy trucks) to maximal (repairing the power

steering pump on millions of cars). In addition, there
were quite a number of safety problems that were
under considerarion as candidates for addirion to the
recall list. (Actually, "problem" was a word whose
public use was forbidden by the legal office at the
rime, even in service bullerins, because it suggested
corporate admission of culpability. "Condirion" was
the sancrioned catchword.) In addirion to these
potenrial recall candidates, there were many files
containing field reports of alleged component failure
(another forbidden word) that had led to accidents,
and in some cases, passenger injury. Beyond these
exisring files, I began to construct my own files of
incoming safety problems.
One of these new files concerned reports of Pintos
"lighring up" (in the words of a field representarive)
in rear-end accidents. There were actually very few
reports, perhaps because component failure was not
inirially assumed. These cars simply were consumed
by fire after apparently very low speed accidents.
Was there a problem? Not as far as I was concerned.
My cue for labelir^ a case as a problem either
required high frequencies of occurrence or directly-
traceable causes. I had litde rime for specularive
382 Dennis A. Gioia
contemplarion on potenrial problems that did not fit
a pattern that suggested known courses of acrion
leading to possible recall. I do, however, remember
being disquieted by a field report accompanied by
graphic, detailed photos of the remains of a burned-
out Pinto in which several people had died. Al-

though that report became part of my file, I did not
flag it as any special case.
It is difficult to convey the overwhelming com-
plexity and pace of the job of keeping track of so
many acrive or potenrial recall campaigns. It remains
the busiest, most informarion-filled job I have ever
held or would want to hold. Each case required a
myriad of informarion-gathering and execurion
stages. I disrinctly remember that the informarion-
processing demands led me to confuse the facts of
one problem case with another on several occasions
because the tell-tale signs of recall candidate cases
were so similar. I thought of myself as a fireman — a
fireman who perfectly fit the descriprion by one of
my colleagues: "In this office everything is a crisis.
You only have rime to put out the big fires and spit
on the little ones." By those standards the Pinto
problem was disrinctly a little one.
It is also important to convey the muring of
emorion involved in the Recall Coordinator's job. I
remember contemplaring the fact that my job
literally involved life-and-death matters. I was some-
rimes responsible for finding and fixing cars NOW,
because somebody's life might depend on it. I took it
very seriously. Early in thejob, I somerimes woke up
at night wondering whether I had covered all the
bases. Had I left some unknown person at risk
because I had not thought of something? That soon
faded, however, and of necessity the considerarion of
people's lives became a fairly removed, dispassionate
process. To do the job "well" there was little room
for emorion. Allowing it to surface was potenrially
paralyzing and prevented rarional decisions about
which cases to recommend for recall. On moral

grounds I knew I could recommend most of the
vehicles on my safety tracking list for recall (and risk
earning the label of a "bleeding heart"). On pracrical
grounds, I recognized that people implicitly accept
risks in cars. We could not recall all cars with
potential problems and stay in business. I learned to
be responsive to those cases that suggested an immi-
nent, dangerous problem.
I should also note, that the country was in the
midst of its first, and worst, oil crisis at this rime.
The effects of the crisis had cast a pall over Ford and
the rest of the automobile industry. Ford's product
line, with the perhaps notable exceprion of the Pinto
and Maverick small cars, was not well-suited to
dealing with the crisis. Layoffs were imminent for
many people. Recalling the Pinto in this context
would have damaged one of the few trump cards the
company had (although, quite frankly, I do not
remember overtly thinking about that issue).
Pinto reports conrinued to trickle in, but at such a
slow rate that they really did not capture parricular
attenrion relarive to other, more pressing safety
problems. However, I later saw a crumpled, burned
car at a Ford depot where alleged problem com-
ponents and vehicles were delivered for inspecrion
and analysis (a place known as the "Chamber of
Horrors" by some of the people who worked there).
The revulsion on seeing this incinerated hulk was
immediate and profound. Soon afterwards, and
despite the fact that the file was very sparse, I recom-
mended the Pinto case for preliminary department-
level review concerning possible recall. After the
usual round of discussion about criteria and jusrifi-

carion for recall, everyone voted against recom-
mending recall — including me. It did not fit the
pattern of recallable standards; the evidence was not
overwhelming that the car was defecrive in some
way, so the case was actually fairly straightforward. It
was a good business decision, even if people might
be dying. (We did not then know about the pre-
producrion crash test data that suggested a high rate
of tank failures in "normal" accidents (cf, Perrow,
1984) or an abnormal failure mode.)
Later, the existence of the crash test data did
become known within Ford, which suggested that
the Pinto might actually have a recallable problem.
This information led to a reconsiderarion of the case
within our office. The data, however, prompted a
comparison of the Pinto's survivability in a rear end
accident with that of other comperitors' small cars.
These comparisons revealed that although many cars
in this subcompact class suffered appalling deforma-
rion in relarively low speed collisions, the Pinto was
merely the worst of a bad lot. Furthermore, the gap
between the Pinto and the comperirion was not
dramaric in terms of the speed at which fuel tank
rupture was likely to occur. On that basis it would
be difficult to jusrify the recall of cars that were
Pinto Fires and Personal Ethia 383
comparable with others on the market. In the face of
even more compelling evidence that people were
probably going to die in this car, I again included
myself in a group of decision makers who voted not
to recommend recall to the higher levels of the

organizarion.
Coda to the corporate case
Subsequent to my departure from Ford in 1975,
reports of Pinto fires escalated, attracring increasing
media attenrion, almost all of it crirical of Ford.
Anderson and Whitten (1976) revealed the internal
memos concerning the gas tank problem and ques-
rioned how the few dollars saved per car could be
jusrified when human lives were at stake. Shordy
thereafter, a scathing arricle by Dowie (1977) at-
tacked not only the Pinto's design, but also accused
Ford of gross negligence, stonewalling, and unethical
corporate conduct by alleging that Ford knowingly
sold "firetraps" after willfully calcularing the cost of
lives against profits (see also Gatewood and Carroll,
1983). Dowie's provocarive quote specularing on
"how long the Ford Motor Company would con-
rinue to market lethal cars were Henry Ford II and
Lee Iacocca serving 20 year terms in Leavenworth
for consumer homicide" (1977, p. 32) was parricu-
larly effecrive in focusing attenrion on the case.
Public senriment edged toward labehng Ford as
socially deviant because management was seen as
knowing that the car was defecrive, choosing profit
over lives, resisring demands to fix the car, and
apparently showing no public remorse (Swigert and
Farrell, 1980-81).
Shordy after Dowie's (1977) expose, NHTSA
iniriated its own invesrigarion. Then, early in 1978 a
jury awarded a Pinto burn vicrim $125 million in
punirive damages (later reduced to $6.6 million , a
judgment upheld on an appeal that prompted the
judge to assert that "Ford's insriturional mentality

was shown to be one of callous indifference to public
safety" (quoted in Cullen etal, 1987, p. 164)). A siege
atmosphere emerged at Ford. Insiders characterized
the mounring media campaign as "hysterical" and "a
crusade against us" (personal communicarions). The
crisis deepened. In the summer of 1978 NHTSA
issued a formal determinarion that the Pinto was
defecrive. Ford then launched a reluctant recall of all
1971—1976 cars (those built for the 1977 model year
were equipped with a producrion fix prompted by
the adoprion of the FMVSS 301 gas tank standard).
Ford hoped that the issue would then recede, but
worse was yet to come.
The culminarion of the case and the demise of the
Pinto itself began in Indiana on August 10, 1978,
when three teenage girls died in a fire triggered after
their 1973 Pinto was hit from behind by a van. A
grand jury took the unheard of step of indicring
Ford on charges of reckless homicide (Cullen et al,
1987). Because of the precedent-setring possibiliries
for all manufacturing industries. Ford assembled a
formidable legal team headed by Watergate prose-
cutor James Neal to defend itself at the trial. The
trial was a media event; it was the first rime that a
corporarion was tried for alleged criminal behavior.
After a protracted, acrimonious courtroom battle
that included vivid clashes among the opposing
attorneys, surprise witnesses, etc., the jury ulrimately
found in favor of Ford. Ford had dodged a bullet in
the form of a consequenrial legal precedent, but
because of the negarive publicity of the case and the
charges of corporate crime and ethical deviance, the
conduct of manufacturing businesses was altered,
probably forever. As a relarively minor footnote to

the case. Ford ceased producrion of the Pinto.
Coda to the personal case
In the intervening years since my early involvement
with the Pinto fire case, I have given repeated
considerarion to my role in it. Although most of the
ethically quesrionable acrions that have been cited in
the press are associated with Ford's intenrional
stonewalling after it was clear that the Pinto was
defecrive (see Cullen et al, 1986; Dowie, 1977;
Gatewood and Carroll, 1983) — and thus postdate
my involvement with the case and the company — I
still nonetheless wonder about my own culpability.
Why didn't I see the gravity of the problem and its
ethical overtones? What happened to the value
system I carried with me into Ford? Should I have
acted differendy, given what I knew then? The
experience with myself has somerimes not been
pleasant. Somehow, it seems I should have done
something different that might have made a differ-
ence.
384 Dennis A. Gioia
As a consequence of this line of thinking and
feeling, some years ago I decided to construct a
"living case" out of my experience vwth the Pinto fire
problem for use in my MBA classes. The written case
descriprion contains many of the facts detailed
above; the analyrical task of the class is to ask
appropriate quesrions of me as a figure in the case to
reveal the central issues involved. It is somewhat of a

trying experience to get through these classes. After
getring to know me for most of the semester, and
then finding out that I did not vote to recommend
recall, students are often incredulous, even angry at
me for apparently not having lived what I have been
teaching. To be fair and even-handed here, many
students understand my acrions in the context of the
rimes and the atritudes prevalent then. Others,
however, are very disappointed that I appear to have
failed during a rime of trial. Consequendy, I am
accused of being a charlatan and otherwise vilified
by those who maintain that ethical and moral prin-
ciples should have prevailed in this case no matter
what the mirigating circumstances. Those are the
ones that hurt.
Those are also the ones, however, that keep the
case and its lessons alive in my mind and cause me to
have an on-going dialogue with myself about it. It is
fascinaring to me that for several years after I first
conducted the living case with myself as the focus, I
remained convinced that I had made the "right"
decision in not recommending recall of the cars. In
Hght of the rimes and the evidence available, I
thought I had pursued a reasonable course of acrion.
More recently, however, I have come to think that I
really should have done everything I could to get
those cars off the road.
In retrospect I know that in the context of the
rimes my acrions were legal (they were all well
within the framework of the law); they probably also
were ethical according to most prevailing definirions
(they were in accord with accepted professional
standards and codes of conduct); the major concern
for me is whether they were moral (in the sense of

adhering to some higher standards of inner con-
science and convicrion about the "right" acrions to
take). This simple typology implies that I had passed
at least two hurdles on a personal conrinuum that
ranged from more rigorous, but arguably less signifi-
cant criteria, to less rigorous, but more personally.
organizarionally, and perhaps societally significant
standards:
Legal Ethical Moral
It is that last criterion that remains troublesome.
Perhaps these reflecrions are all just personal
revisionist history. After all, I am srill stuck in my
cognirive structures, as everyone is. I do not think
these concerns are all retrospecrive reconstrucrion,
however. Another telling piece of informarion is this:
The enrire rime I was dealing with the Pinto fire
problem, I owned a Pinto (!). I even sold it to my
sister. What does that say?
What happened here?
I, of course, have some thoughts about my experi-
ence with this damningly visible case. At the risk of
breaking some of the accepted rules of scholarly
analysis, rather than engaging in the usual compre-
hensive, dense, arms-length cririque, I would instead
like to offer a rather selecrive and subjecrive focus on
certain characterisrics of human informarion pro-
cessing relevant to this kind of situarion, of which I
was my own unwitring vicrim. I make no claim that
my analysis necessarily "explains more variance"
than other possible explanarions. I do think that this

selecrive view is enlightening in that it offers an
alternarive explanarion for some ethically quesrion-
able acrions in business.
The subjecrive stance adopted in the analysis is
intenrional also. This case obviously stems from a
series of personal experiences, accounts, and intro-
specrions. The analyrical style is intended to be
consistent with the self-based case example; there-
fore, it appears to be less "formal" than the typical
objecrivist mode of explanarion. I suspect that my
chosen focus will be fairly non-obvious to the reader
familiar with the ethical literature (as it typically
is to the ethical actor). Although this analysis might
be judged as somewhat self-serving, I nonetheless
believe that it provides an informarive explanarion
for some of the ethical foibles we see enacted around
us.
To me, there are two major issues to address.
First, how could my value system apparently have
flip-flopped in the relarively short space of 1—2
years? Secondly, how could I have failed to take
acrion on a retrospecrively obvious safety problem
when I was in the perfect posirion to do so? To
begin, I would like to consider several possible
explanarions for my thoughts and acrions (or lack
thereof) during the early stages of the Pinto fire case.
One explanarion is that I was simply revealed as a
phony when the chips were down; that my previous

values were not strongly inculcated; that I was all
bluster, not parricularly ethical, and as a result acted
expediendy when confronted with a reality test of
those values. In other words, I turned traitor to my
own expressed values. Another explanarion is that I
was simply inrimidated; in the face of strong pres-
sure to heel to company preferences, I folded — put
ethical concerns aside, or at least traded them for a
monumental guilt trip and did what anybody would
do to keep a good job. A third explanarion is that I
was following a strictly utilitarian set of decision
criteria (Valasquez et al, 1983) and, predictably
enough, opted for a personal form of Ford's own
cost-benefit analysis, with similar disappoinring re-
sults. Another explanarion might suggest that the
interacrion of my stage of moral development
(Kohlberg, 1969) and the culture and decision
environment at Ford led me to think about and act
upon an etldcal dilemma in a fashion that reflected a
lower level of actual moral development than I
espoused for myself (Trevino, 1986 and this issue).
Yet another explanarion is that I was co-opted;
rather than working from the inside to change a
lumbering system as I had intended, the tables were
turned and the system beat me at my own game.
More charitably, perhaps, it is possible that I simply
was a good person making bad ethical choices
because of the corporate milieu (Gellerman, 1986).
I doubt that this list is exhausrive. I am quite sure
that cynics could match my own MBA students'
labels, which in the worst case include phrases like
"moral failure" and "doubly reprehensible because
you were in a posirion to make a difference." I
believe, however, on the basis of a number of years
of work on social cognirion in organizarions that a

viable explanarion is one that is not quite so melo-
dramaric. It is an explanarion that rests on a recogni-
rion that even the best-intenrioned organizarion
members organize informarion into cognirive struc-
tures or schemas that serve as (fallible) mental
templates for handling incoming informarion and as
guides for acring upon it. Of the many schemas that
have been hypothesized to exist, the one that is most
relevant to my experience at Ford is the norion of a
script (Abelson, 1976, 1981).
My central thesis is this: My oum schematized
(scripted) knowledge influenced me to perceive recall issues
in terms of the prevailing decision environment and to
unconsciously overlook key features of the Pinto case, mainly
because they did not Jit an existing script. Although the
outcomes of the case carry retrospectively obvious ethical
overtones, the schemas driving my perceptions and actions
precluded consideration of the issues in ethical terms because
the scripts did not include ethical dimensions.
Script schemas
A schema is a cognirive framework that people use to
impose structure upon informarion, situarions, and
expectarions to facilitate understanding (Gioia and
Poole, 1984; Taylor and Crocker, 1981). Schemas
derive from considerarion of prior experience or
vicarious learning that results in the formarion of
"organized" knowledge — knowledge that, once
formed, precludes the necessity for further acrive
cognirion. As a consequence, such structured knowl-
edge allows virtually effortless interpretarion of
informarion and events (cf.. Canter and Mischel,
1979). A script is a specialized type of schema that

retains knowledge of acrions appropriate for specific
situarions and contexts (Abelson, 1976, 1981). One of
the most important characterisrics of scripts is that
they simultaneously provide a cognirive framework
for understanding informarion and events as well as a
guide to appropriate behavior to deal with the situa-
rion faced. They thus serve as linkages between
cognirion and acrion (Gioia and Manz, 1985).
The structuring of knowledge in scripted form is
a fundamental human informarion processing tend-
ency that in many ways results in a relarively closed
cognirive system that influences both perceprion and
acrion. Scripts, like all schemas, operate on the basis
of prototypes, which are abstract representarions that
contain the main features or characterisrics of a
386 Dennis A. Gioia
given knowledge category (e.g., "safety problems").
Protoscripts (Gioia and Poole, 1984) serve as tem-
plates against which incoming informarion can be
assessed. A pattern in current informarion that
generally matches the template associated with a
given script signals that acrive thought and analysis is
not required. Under these condirions the entire
exisring script can be called forth and enacted
automarically and unconsciously, usually without
adjustment for subtle differences in information
patterns that might be important.
Given the complexity of the organizarional world,
it is obvious that the schemarizing or scripring of
knowledge implies a great informarion processing

advantage — a decision maker need not acrively
think about each new presentarion of informarion,
situarions, or problems; the mode of handling such
problems has already been worked out in advance
and remanded to a working stock of knowledge held
in individual (or organizarional) memory. Scripted
knowledge saves a significant amount of mental
work, a savings that in fact prevents the cognirive
paralysis that would inevitably come from trying to
treat each specific instance of a class of problems as
a unique case that requires contemplarion. Scripted
decision making is thus efficient decision making
but not necessarily good decision making (Gioia and
Poole, 1984).
Of course, every advantage comes with its own set
of built-in disadvantages. There is a price to pay for
scripted knowledge. On the one hand, exisring
scripts lead people to selecrively perceive informa-
rion that is consistent with a script and thus to
ignore anomalous informarion. Conversely, if there
is missing informarion, the gaps in knowledge are
filled with expected features suppHed by the script
(Bower et al, 1979; Graesser et al, 1980). In some
cases, a pattern that matches an exisring script,
except for some key differences, can be "tagged" as a
disrincrive case (Graesser et al, 1979) and thus be
made more memorable. In the worst case scenario,
however, a situarion that does not fit the characteris-
rics of the scripted perspecrive for handling problem
cases often is simply not noriced. Scripts thus offer a
viable explanarion for why experienced decision
makers (perhaps especially experienced decision mak-
ers) tend to overlook what others would construe as
obvious factors in making a decision.

Given the relarively rare occurrence of truly novel
informarion, the nature of script processing imphes
that it is a default mode of organizarional cognirion.
That is, instead of spending the predominance of
their mental energy thinking in some acrive fashion,
decision makers might better be characterized as
typically not thinking, i.e., dealing with informarion
in a mode that is akin to "cruising on automaric
pilot" (cf, Gioia, 1986). The scripted view casts
decision makers as needing some sort of prod in the
form of novel or unexpected informarion to kick
them into a thinking mode — a prod that often does
not come because of the wealth of similar data that
they must process. Therefore, instead of focusing
what people pay attenrion to, it might be more
enlightening to focus on what they do not pay
attenrion to.
Pinto problem perception and scripts
It is illustrative to consider my situarion in handling
the early stages of the Pinto fire case in light of script
theory. When I was dealing with the first trickling-
in of field reports that might have suggested a
significant problem with the Pinto, the reports were
essenrially similar to many others that I was dealing
with (and dismissing) all the rime. The sort of infor-
marion they contained, which did not convey en-
ough prototypical features to capture my attenrion,
never got past my screening script. I had seen this
type of informarion pattern before (hundreds of
rimes!); I was making this kind of decision automari-
cally every day. I had trained myself to respond to
prototypical cues, and these didn't fit the relevant
prototype for crisis cases. (Yes, the Pinto reports fit a

prototype — but it was a prototype for "normal
accidents" that did not deviate significandy from
expected problems). The frequency of the reports
relarive to other, more serious problems (i.e., those
that displayed more characterisric features of safety
problems) also did not pass my scripted criteria for
singling out the Pinto case. Consequently, I looked
right past them.
Overlooking uncharacterisric cues also was exac-
erbated by the nature of the job. The overwhelming
informarion overload that characterized the role as
well as its hecric pace actually forced a greater
reliance on scripted responses. It was impossible to
handle thejob requirements without relying on some
sort of automaric way of assessing whether a case
deserved acrive attenrion. There was so much to do
and so much informarion to attend to that the only
way to deal with it was by means of schemaric
processing. In fact, the one anomaly in the case that
might have cued me to gravity of the problem (the
field report accompanied by graphic photographs)
still did not disringuish the problem as one that was
disrincrive enough to snap me out of my standard
response mode and tag it as a failure that deserved
closer monitoring.
Even the presence of an emorional component
that might have short-circuited standard script pro-
cessing instead became part of the script itself.
Months of squelching the disturbing emorions asso-

ciated with serious safety problems soon made
muffled emorions a standard (and not very salient)
component of the script for handling any safety
problem. This observarion, that emorion was muted
by experience, and therefore de-emphasized in the
script, differs from Fiske's (1982) widely accepted
posirion that emorion is ried to the top of a schema
(i.e., is the most salient and inirially-tapped aspect of
schemaric processing). On the basis of my experi-
ence, I would argue that for organizarion members
trained to control emorions to perform the job role
(cf., Pitre, 1990), emorion is either not a part of the
internalized script, or at best becomes a difficult-to-
access part of any script for job performance.
The one instance of emorion penetraring the
operaring script was the revulsion that swept over
me at the sight of the burned vehicle at the return
depot. That event was so strong that it prompted me
to put the case up for preliminary considerarion (in
theorerical terms, it prompted me cognirively to
"tag" the Pinto case as a potenrially disrincrive one). I
soon "came to my senses," however, when rarional
considerarion of the problem characterisrics sug-
gested that they did not meet the scripted criteria
that were consensually shared among members of
the Field Recall Office. At the preliminary review
other members of the decision team, enacring their
own scripts in the absence of my emorional experi-
ence, wondered why I had even brought the case up.
To me this meering demonstrated that even when
controlled analyric informarion processing occurred,
it was nonetheless based on prior schematizarion of
informarion. In other words, even when informarion
processing was not automarically executed, it srill

depended upon schemas (cf., Gioia, 1986). As a result
of the social construcrion of the situarion, I ended up
agreeing vwth my colleagues and voring not to recall.
The remaining major issue to be dealt vnth, of
course, concerns the apparent shift in my values. In a
period of less than two years I appeared to change
my stripes and adopt the cultural values of the
organizarion. How did that apparent shift occur?
Again, scripts are relevant. I would argue that my
pre-Ford values for changing corporate America
were bona fide. I had internalized values for doing
what was right as I then understood "rightness" in
grand terms. They key is, however, that I had not
internalized a script for enacring those values in any
specific context outside my limited experience. The
insider's view at Ford, of course, provided me with a
specific and immediate context for developing such
a script. Scripts are formed from salient experience
and there was no more salient experience in my
relarively young life than joining a major corpora-
rion and moving quickly into a posirion of clear and
present responsibility. The strongest possible param-
eters for script formarion were all there, not only
because of the job role specificarions, but also from
the corporate culture. Organizarional culture, in one
very powerful sense, amounts to a coUecrion of
scripts writ large. Did I sell out? No. Were my
cognirive structures altered by salient experience?
Without quesrion. Scripts for understanding and
acrion were formed and reformed in a relarively
short rime in a way that not only altered perceprions
of issues but also the likely acrions associated with
those altered perceprions.
I might characterize the differing cognirive struc-

tures as "outsider" versus "insider" scripts. I view
them also as "idealist" versus "realist" scripts. I might
further note that the outsider/idealist script was one
that was more individually-based than the insider/
realist script, which was more collecrive and subject
to the influence of the corporate milieu and culture.
Personal idenrity as captured in the revised script
became much more corporate than individual. Given
that scripts are socially constructed and recon-
structed cognirive structures, it is understandable
that their content and process would be much more
responsive to the corporate culture, because of its
saliency and immediacy.
The recall coordinator's job was serious business.
The scripts associated with it influenced me much
388 Dennis A. Gioia
more than I influenced it. Before I went to Ford I
would have argued strongly that Ford had an ethical
obligarion to recall. After I left Ford I now argue and
teach that Ford had an ethical obligarion to recall.
But, while I was there, I perceived no strong obligarion
to recall and I remember no strong ethical overtones
to the case whatsoever. It was a very straightforward
decision, driven by dominant scripts for the rime,
place, and context.
Whither ethics and scripts?
Most models of ethical decision making in organiza-
tions implicitly assume that people recognize and
think about a moral or ethical dilemma when they

are confronted with one (cf., Kohlberg, 1969 and
Trevino's review in this issue). I call this seemingly
fundamental assumprion into quesrion. The unex-
plored ethical issue for me is the arguably prevalent
case where organizarional representarives are not .
aware that they are dealing with a problem that
might have ethical overtones. If the case involves a
familiar class of problems or issues, it is likely to be
handled via exisring cognirive structures or scripts —
scripts that typically include no ethical component in their
cognitive content.
Although we might hope that people in charge of
important decisions like vehicle safety recalls might
engage in acrive, logical analysis and consider the
subtleries in the many different situarions they face,
the context of the decisions and their necessary
reliance on schemaric processing tends to preclude
such considerarion (cf, Gioia, 1989). Accounring for
the subtleries of ethical considerarion in work situa-
rions that are typically handled by schema-based
processing is very difficult indeed. Scripts are built
out of situarions that are normal, not those that are
abnormal, ill-structured, or unusual (which often
can characterize ethical domains). The ambiguiries
associated with most ethical dilemmas imply that
such situarions demand a "custom" decision, which
means that the inclusion of an ethical dimension as a
component of an evolving script is not easy to
accomplish.
How might ethical considerarions be internalized
as part of the script for understanding and acrion? It
is easier to say what will not be likely to work than
what will. Clearly, mere menrion of ethics in policy

or training manuals will not do the job. Even ex-
hortarions to be concerned with ethics in decision
making are seldom likely to migrate into the script.
Just as clearly, codes of ethics typically will not work.
They are too often cast at a level of generality that
can not be associated with any specific script. Fur-
thermore, for all pracrical purposes, codes of ethics
often are stated in a way that makes them "context-
free," which makes them virtually impossible to
associate with acrive scripts, which always are con-
text-bound.
Tacrics for script development that have more
potenrial involve learning or training that con-
centrates on exposure to informarion or models that
explicitly display a focus on ethical considerarions.
This implies that ethics be included in job descrip-
rions, management development training, mentor-
ing, etc. Tacrics for script revision involve learning or
training that concentrate on "script-breaking" exam-
ples. Organizarion members must be exposed either
to vicarious or personal experiences that interrupt
tacit knowledge of "appropriate" acrion so that script
revision can be iniriated. Training scenarios, and
especially role playing, that portray expected se-
quences that are then interrupted to call explicit
attenrion to ethical issues can be tagged by the
perceiver as requiring attenrion. This tacric amounts
to installing a decision node in the revised scripts
that tells the actor "Now think" (Abelson, 1981).
Only by means of similar script-breaking strategies
can exisring cognitive structures be modified to
accommodate the necessary cycles of automaric and
controlled processing (cf., Louis and Sutton, 1991).
The upshot of the scripted view of organizarional

understanding and behavior is both an encourage-
ment and an indictment of people facing situarions
laced with ethical overtones. It is encouraging
because it suggests that organizarional decision
makers are not necessarily lacking in ethical stand-
ards; they are simply fallible informarion processors
who fail to norice the ethical implicarions of a usual
way of handling issues. It is an indictment because
ethical dimensions are not usually a central feature
of the cognirive structures that drive decision mak-
ing. Obviously, they should be, but it will take
substanrial concentrarion on the ethical dimension
of the corporate culture, as well as overt attempts to
emphasize ethics in educarion, training, and decision
making before typical organizarional scripts are
likely to be modified to include the crucial ethical
component.
References
Abelson, R P.: 1976, 'Script Processing in Attitude Forma-
tion and Decision-Making', in J. S. Carroll and J. W.
Payne (eds.). Cognition and Social Behavior (Erlbaum,
Hillsdale, NJ), pp. 33-45.
Abelson, R, P.: 1981, 'Psychological Status of the Script
Concept', American Psychologist 36, pp. 715—729.
Anderson, J. and Whitten, L: 1976, 'Auto Maker Shuns Safer
Gas Tank', Washington Post pecember 30), p. B-7.

Bower, G. H., Black, J. B. and Turner, T. J.: 1979, 'Scripts in
Memory for Text', Cognitive Psychology 11, pp. 177—220.
Cantor, N. and Mischel, W.: 1979, 'Prototypes in Person
Perception', in L. Berkowitz (ed.). Advances in Experimental
Social Psychology 12 (Academic Press, New York), pp.
3-51.
Cullen, F. T., Maakestad, W. J. and Cavender, G.: 1987,
Corporate Crime Under Attack (Anderson Publishing Co.,
Chicago).
Dowie, M.: 1977, 'How Ford Put Two Million Firetraps on
Wheels', Business and Society Review 23, pp. 46—55.
Fiske, S. T.: 1982, 'Schema-Triggered Affect: Applications to
Sodal Perception', in M. S. Clark and S. T. Fiske (eds.).
Affect and Cognition (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ), pp. 55—78.
Gatewood, E. and Carroll, A. B.: 1983, 'The Anatomy of
Corporate Social Response: The Rely, Firestone 500, and
Pinto Cases', Business Horizons, pp. 9—16.
Gellerman, S: 1986, 'Why "Good" Managers Make Bad
Ethical Choices', Harvard Business Review (fuly—August),
pp. 85-90.
Gioia, D. A.: 1989, 'Self-Serving Bias as a Self-Sensemaking
Strategy', in P. Rosenfeld, and R Giacalone (eds.). Impres-
sion Management in the Organization (LEA, Hillsdale, NJ),
pp. 219-234.
Gioia, D. A.: 1986, 'Symbols, Scripts, and Sensemaking:
Creating Meaning in the Organizational Experience', in
H. P. Sims, Jr. and D. A. Gioia (eds.). The Thinking
Organization: Dynamics of Organizational Social Cognition

0ossey-Bass, San Francisco), pp. 49—74.
Gioia, D. A. and Manz, C. C: 1985, 'Linking Cognition and
Behavior: A Script Processing Interpretation of Vicarious
Learning', Academy of Management Review 10, pp. 527—
539.
Gioia, D. A. and Poole, P. P.: 1984, 'Scripts in Organizational
Behavior', Academy of Management Review 9, pp. 449—459.
Graesser, A. C. , Gordon, S. G. and Sav̂ fyer, J. D.: 1979,
'Recognition Memory for Typical and Atypical Actions
in Scripted Activities: Test of Script Pointer and Tag
Hypothesis', yoMTOfl/ of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
18, pp. 319-332.
Graesser, A. C, Woll, S. B., Kowalski, D.J. and Smith, D. A.:
1980, 'Memory for Typical and Atypical Actions in
Scripted Activities', Joumal of Experimental Psychology 6,
pp. 503-515.
Kohlberg, L: 1969, 'Stage and. Sequence: The Cognitive-
Development Approach to Socialization', in D. A. Goslin
(ed.). Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research (Rand-
McNally, Chicago), pp. 347-480.
Louis, M. R and Sutton, R I.: 1991, 'Switching Cognitive
Gears: From Habits of Mind to Active Thinking', Human
Relations 44, pp. 55—76.
Perrow, C: 1984, Normal Accidents (Basic Books, New York).
Pitre, E.: 1990, 'Emotional Control', working paper, the
Pennsylvania State University.
Swigert, V. L. and Farrell, R A.: 1980-81, 'Corporate

Homicide: Definitional Processes in the Creation of
Deviance', Law and Society Review 15, pp. 170—183.
Taylor, S. E. and Crocker, J.: 1981, 'Schematic Bases of Social
Information Processing', in E. T. Higgins, C. P. Herman,
and M. P. Zanna (eds.). Social Cognition 1 (Erlbaum, Hills-
dale, NJ), pp. 89-134.
Trevino, L.: 1986, 'Ethical Decision Making in Organiza-
tions: A Person-Situation Interactionist Model', Academy
of Management Review 11, pp. 601—617.
Trevino, L: 1992, 'Moral Reasoning and Business Ethics:
Implications for Research, Education and Manag'ement',
Journal of Business Ethics 11,445—459.
Valasquez, M., Moberg, D. J. and Cavanaugh, G. F.: 1983,
'Organizational Statesmanship and Dirty Politics: Ethical
Guidelines for the Organizational Politician', Organiza-
tional Dynamics (Autumn), pp. 65—80.
Van Maanen, J.: 1978, 'People Processing: Strategies of
Organizadonal Socialization', Organizational Dynamia
(Summer), pp. 19—36.
Pennsylvania State University,
Smeal College ofBusiness Administration,
University Park, PA 16802,
USA.

THE ROLE OF CONSTRUCTION, INTUITION,
AND JUSTIFICATION IN RESPONDING TO
ETHICAL ISSUES AT WORK: THE
SENSEMAKING-INTUITION MODEL
SCOTT SONENSHEIN
Rice University
Proponents of a popular view of how individuals respond to
ethical issues at work
claim that individuals use deliberate and extensive moral
reasoning under conditions
that ignore equivocality and uncertainty. I discuss the
limitations of these “rationalist
approaches” and reconsider their empirical support using an
alternative explanation
from social psychological and sensemaking perspectives. I then
introduce a new
theoretical model composed of issue construction, intuitive
judgment, and post hoc
explanation and justification. I discuss the implications for
management theory,
methods, and practice.
Several prominent theories claim that individ-
uals use deliberate and extensive moral reason-
ing to respond to ethical issues, such as weigh-
ing evidence and applying abstract moral
principles. These “rationalist approaches” have
flourished, in part, because of their cumulative
research agenda and the absence of well-
developed alternative theoretical perspectives
(Randall & Gibson, 1990). Despite their popular-
ity and usefulness, it is important to evaluate

these approaches to understand their limita-
tions. I question several assumptions of ratio-
nalist approaches and answer scholars’ calls to
develop alternative theoretical views (O’Fallon
& Butterfield, 2005). I present a model based on
social psychological and sensemaking perspec-
tives—something I call the “sensemaking-
intuition model” (SIM).
I argue that individuals engage in sensemak-
ing under conditions of equivocality and uncer-
tainty (Weick, 1979, 1995). Individuals’ expecta-
tions and motivations affect this process such
that they vary in how they construct ethical is-
sues. Individuals then make intuitive judgments
about their constructions of ethical issues. This
view challenges the privileged status of moral
reasoning in rationalist models by claiming that
responses to ethical issues are not always
based on deliberate and extensive moral rea-
soning. Although in previous research scholars
have found partial support for rationalist ap-
proaches, I reconsider these findings in light of
an alternative explanation using social psycho-
logical and sensemaking perspectives.
I first briefly review rationalist approaches
and then discuss the limitations of this view. I
then outline the alternative assumptions of my
approach and describe the key components of
the SIM: issue construction, intuitive judgment,
and explanation and justification. I conclude by
detailing the implications of this research for
theory, methods, and practice.

Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx

Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx

Similar to Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx (20)

More from jeanettehully

More from jeanettehully (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Running head METHODS USED IN CYBER WARFARE1METHODS USED IN CYB.docx