Developing a Multidimensional Scale for Ethical Decision Making

Developing a Multidimensional Scale for Ethical Decision MakingGian Luca CasaliReceived:23December 2010/Accepted:31May 2011/Published online:12June 2011ÓSpringer Science+Business Media B.V.2011Abstract This article reports on the development of the managerial ethical profile (MEP)scale.The MEP scale is a multilevel,self-reporting scale measuring the perceived influence that different dimensions of common ethical frameworks have on managerial decision making.The MEP scale measures on eight subscales:economic egoism,reputational egoism,act utilitarianism,rule utilitarianism,self-virtue of self,virtue of others,act deontology,and rule deontology.Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)was used to provide evidence of scale validity.Future research needs and the value of this measure for business ethics are discussed.Keywords Business ethics ÁEthical decision making ÁMoral philosophy ÁScale developmentAbbreviations AGFI Adjusted goodness of fit index CFA Confirmatory factor analysis CFI Confirmatory fit index CR Composite reliability DIT Defining issues test EPQ Ethics position questionnaire MEP Managerial ethical profile MES Multidimensional ethics scale MJT Managerial judgment test MVP Managerial values profileRMSEA Root mean square error of approximationIntroductionIncreasingly,in order to reduce the likelihood of unethical business practice,organisations,governments and manag-ers are seeking new ways to better understand what guides managerial ethical decision making.Recently,there have been high-profile examples of the catastrophic impact that unethical decisions taken by executives have had on stakeholders.The energy company,Enron Corp.,and the telecommunication company,WorldCom,are two promi-nent examples of how the wrongdoings of executives can not only end in bankruptcy for the company concerned,but can also,through a snowball effect,financially and emo-tionally devastate employees,investors,suppliers,cus-tomers,partners and governments.It has been both theoretically argued and empirically tested that an individual’s ethical beliefs or ideology influence their approach to ethical judgments and decision making (Barnett et al.1996,1998;Davis et al.1998;Forsyth 1980,1981;Whitcomb et al.1998).Arguably,knowing what influences managers in their decision-making process,more specifically,what ethical principles they attempt to satisfy when making business decisions,could help to diminish the likelihood of further corporate scandals.One possible positive contribution towards increasing ethical practice in organisations then would be a capacity to accurately assess these ethical factors that influence the ethical decision making capabilities of indi-vidual managers and to tailor educational and administra-tive needs accordingly.Measuring ethical decision making is not a new topic,and there are number of scales that have been used over the years to offer insights on this matter.For example,the defining issues test (DIT)by Rest (1979)has been used in many studies to measure stages of moral developmentG.L.Casali (&)School of Management,Queensland University of Technology (QUT),2George St.,Brisbane,QLD 4001,Australia e-mail:luca.casali@.auJ Bus Ethics (2011)104:485–497DOI 10.1007/s10551-011-0923-9(Shawver and Sennetti2009;Woodward et al.2007; Rogers and Smith2001;Paradice and Dejoie1991),while the ethics position questionnaire(EPQ)by Forsyth(1980, 1981,1985,1992)has also been used to ascertain ethical ideology(Davis et al.2001;Etter et al.2007).Similarly, the managerial judgment test(MJT)by Lind(1978),which has been administered to about15,000participants(Gross 1997),measures moral judgment(Moutatidou et al.2007; Comunian and Gielen2006),and the managerial values profile(MVP)by Sashkin et al.(1997)focuses on mea-suring individual ethical preferences(French and Casali 2008;Zgheib2005).Finally,the multidimensional ethics scale(MES)by Reidenbach and Robin(1988,1990)is used also to measure individual ethical preferences(Gupta 2010;Jung2009;Cohen et al.2005).All of these tools have areas of strength and they all have enhanced under-standing of ethical decision making;however,they also have a number offlaws.Theseflaws include the use of purposely created scenarios to prompt an ethical response, employ a forced-choice strategy,using mutually exclusive categories,using a non-value neutral categories between the different moral theories,limited use of moral theories as categories,and also the use of moral theories as a uni-dimensional category(see Table1).If theseflaws were eliminated,it would greatly contribute to our current knowledge of ethical decision making.Therefore,the aim of this article is to develop and val-idate the managerial ethical profile(MEP)scale,a new scale purposely developed to overcome some of theflaws that limit the current tools for ethical decision making. Literature Review of tools for Measuring Ethical Decision MakingA number of instruments or scales(see Table1)that measure ethical decision making have been identified in the literature by reviewing articles that have empirically tested this matter in order to profile ethical decision makers.All of the scales identified from the current literature investigate ethical decision making by using one or more of the following three approaches:1.Testing levels of moral development based on Kohl-berg’s stages of moral development(Rest1979;Lind 1978,1995).2.Testing individual preferences with respect to relativ-ism and idealism(Forsyth1980,1981,1985,1992).3.Testing individuals by categorising them according toethical principles:egoism,utilitarianism,social justice and individual rights perspectives(deontology)(Sash-kin et al.1997;Reidenbach and Robin1988,1990).Thefirst two scales,the DIT by Rest(1979)and the MJT by Lind(1978,1995),have been extensively used to investigate ethical decision making(Vitell and Ho1997). Both have been designed around Kohlberg’s(1969)theory of moral development;what differentiates them,however, is their approach to measuring cognitive moral develop-ment.The DIT focuses on measuring the extent to which an individual uses principled considerations in making moral decisions(stages5and6in cognitive moral devel-opment according to Kohlberg),or what is also known as ‘stage preference’.The MJT,on the other hand,determines how consistently an individual follows a particular princi-ple or what is known as‘stage consistency’(Ishida2006). Both tests use responses to ethical dilemmas to determine the respondents’stage of moral development(Ishida2006). However,they both exhibit two major weaknesses when applied to business decision making.First,respondents are asked to imagine themselves infictitious scenarios that were developed with the precise intent of stimulating a moral reaction.While offering some valuable insights,this might not fully represent what the respondent would nor-mally do in a similar real-life situation(Krebs and Denton 2005).Second,both tests are designed so that respondents mustfit into either one or another stage of moral devel-opment;the possibility that they might sit between these stages is excluded.Of the remaining three scales,Forsyth(1980)developed the EPQ to assess personal moral philosophy.It asksTable1Summary offive tools for measuring ethical decision makingTool Scenario-based ForcedchoiceMutually exclusivecategoriesNon-value-neutralMoraltheoriesMultidimensionalcategoriesDefining issues test(DIT)by Rest(1979)Yes No Yes Yes No No Managerial judgment test(MJT)by Lind(1978)Yes No Yes Yes No No Ethics position questionnaire(EPQ)by Forsyth(1980,1981,1985,1992)No No Yes No No NoManagerial value profile(MVP)by Sashkin et al.(1997)No Yes Yes No Yes NoMultidimensional ethics scale(MES)by Reidenbach and Robin(1988,1990)Yes No No No Yes No486G.L.Casaliindividuals to indicate their acceptance of items that vary in terms of relativism and idealism.The relativism scale, for example,includes such items as:‘‘different types of moralities cannot be compared as to‘rightness’’’and ‘‘what is ethical varies from one situation to another’’.The idealism scale,on the other hand,measures one’s per-spective on positive and negative consequences,with such items as:‘‘a person should make certain that their actions never intentionally harm another even to a small degree’’and if an action could harm an innocent other then it should not be done(Forsyth1980).Overall,high scorers on the idealism subscale of the EPQ more strongly endorse items that reflect a fundamental concern for the welfare of others, whereas those who receive high scores on the relativism subscale of the EPQ tend to espouse a personal moral philosophy based on the rejection of moral universals (Forsyth et al.1988).The MVP(Sashkin et al.1997)uses12forced-choice items to ascertain the values that guide an individual’s decision making.The scale comprises24items,eight for each of the three ethical frameworks used as guiding values in decision making:utilitarianism,individual rights (deontology)and social justice(Zgheib2005).The expected result for the MVP is a score varying from0to8 for each of the three ethical frameworks tested.The respondent’s‘profile’is designated as the ideology with the highest score.The last instrument for measuring ethical decision making is the MES,developed by Reidenbach and Robin(1988,1990).This scale summarisesfive ethical philosophies:justice,relativism,egoism,utilitarianism and deontology.The MES is a multi-item scale that asks respondents to indicate the extent to which they believe a given scenario is ethical,based on the different ethical criteria(Reidenbach and Robin1988,1990).By looking at Table1,it is possible to see that the most common profiling instruments for ethical decision making have a number offlaws,some of which belongs to all instruments and some specific to a few of them. Most of the instruments tend to concentrate on psycho-logical aspects rather than moral theories.Both the DIT and the MJT are based on the theory of moral cognitive development by the psychologist Kohlberg(1979),and the EPQ focuses on the dichotomy between relativism and idealism(two views of ethical principles).Only two out offive instruments reviewed in this article account for the possible influence of moral theories themselves rather than moral cognitive development:the MVP assesses utilitarianism,individual rights(deontology)and social justice;the MES measures justice,egoism,utilitarianism and deontology.However,none of the instruments take into account virtue ethics—an important moral theory that has been found capable of influencing ethical decision making.Of those studies that do take into account moral theories, none use a multidimensional approach to ethical frame-works;they all tend to treat ethical frameworks such as egoism,utilitarianism and deontology as unidimensional(a single box).The vast majority of instruments(with the exception of the MES)use mutually exclusive categories,a feature that limits the capacity to capture possible cross-overs between the different categories.As people do not necessarilyfit into only one category,or draw from only one framework to make ethical decisions in all situations, this limitation could reduce the importance of thefindings and the ability to use them to profile managers based on their actual ethical preferences.Reviewing the specificflaws for each of the instruments, the DIT,MJT and MES use scenarios purposely developed to provoke an ethical response.The MVP uses12forced-choice items and respondents have to choose one statement over the other and it assumes that people will clearly belong to one of the three specified value systems(Sashkin et al.1997).There is,therefore,a lack of precision.By forcing respondents to choose between two competing items,their answers might not be realistic.They may have wanted to pick one of the other items also.Furthermore,the instrument does not measure the intensity of ethical pref-erence—there is no way to know how strong or weak their choices were.In other words,this instrument does not measure the degree of importance that each respondent attaches to each of the24items.The MES is the only instrument that measures the degree of influence of dif-ferent ethical frameworks and at the same time,allows respondents to score across the different factors.However, even this tool does not address virtue ethics as a category in ethical decision making or consider that moral theories are themselves multidimensional.It is clear,therefore,that the current tools available to measure ethical decision making are less than optimal for profiling managerial ethical decision making and a more complex,but at the same time holistic,approach to managerial ethical decision making is overdue.The shortcomings identified in the current ethical deci-sion making profiling tools provide a clue to possible improvements to profiling ethical decision making,par-ticularly by improving the multidimensionality of the eth-ical frameworks influencing ethical decision making.Many of the current generation of managers have been introduced to these various major forms of moral theory,albeit not to the depth that would satisfy a dedicated philosopher,in their business ethics training.Even where this is not so,it is arguable that the various major ethical theories,such as egoism,utilitarianism,virtue ethics and deontology,reflect high-level systemisation of approaches already intuitively taken in everyday decision making(Jamieson1991, p.479).Given that moral theories will to some degreeMEP Scale for Ethical Decision Making487influence decision making in the workplace,the MEP scale attempts to measure the degree of that influence in a way that overcomes the shortcomings of previous studies, which have given little attention to the multidimensionality of these ethical frameworks.Specifically,the present study has developed a self-reporting instrument(questionnaire)that can,by measuring the degree of influence of different ethical principles, generate a profile of each manager’s ethical decision-making style.Such an instrument can form the basis of self-assessment or be used to identify strengths and weaknesses in the decision-making capabilities of man-agement teams in both small and large organisations. Theoretical Assumptions for the MEP ScaleThefirst task in developing this new scale is to identify a number of theoretical assumptions that can be used as pillars of the MEP questionnaire.Assumption1Managerial ethical decision making incorporates a number of ethical criteria,articulated in day-to-day business practice terms,that reflect the various major schools of moral philosophy.The initial development stage of the MEP scale con-verted the different norms,values and definitions of the four major schools of moral philosophy into items to be included in the new scale as a practical list of multiple criteria for managerial decision making.Assumption2Each ethical criterion of the MEP scale will hold the same value,and the different profiles that arise from the analysis of the data will not be viewed as more or less ethical than each other.In philosophical circles,the relative merits of the vari-ous moral theories,including the four major schools of moral philosophy(ethical egoism,utilitarianism,deontol-ogy and virtue ethics)are vigorously contested,with var-ious authors arguing that one system or another is more rationally grounded than the others.A number of scholars have argued for a pluralist approach—each respective theory is suited to solving different moral dilemmas in differing situations and therefore each school for moral philosophy is morally acceptable(Hinman2003).Postov (2007)also views ethical pluralism as a meta-ethical stance that recognises competing moral views or schools of moral philosophy as morally valid.At the outset,a difficulty confronting the development the MEP scale was how to construct a questionnaire that did not embed the kind of hierarchical assumptions about these various systems that have,for example,dogged the Kohlbergian approach. Kohlberg’s(1969)theory,for example,established a hierarchy from egoism at the lowest level to deontology at the highest,with context-based decision making seen as less ethical than that done from a more universal view-point.The present study seeks to avoid these hierarchical assumptions;because the MEP scale is profiling decisions made in organisations,and an organisation principally exists to fulfil its organisational mission,the teleological approach,of which ethical egoism is one expression,for example,will naturally tend to be more deeply embedded in managerial decision making.Also,as it is the task of the MEP scale to measure the relative influence of the various moral frameworks on an individual manager’s decision making,it would be detrimental to make a priori assump-tions about the relative worth of these differing ethical styles.As the purpose of the study is to measure the actual differences in these factors,the various moral schools and the criteria have been equally weighted in the test instrument.Assumption3Each school of moral philosophy is multidimensional.A school of moral philosophy is not conceptually uni-fied;each school has different dimensions and therefore, managers could be influenced by one particular dimension of a given school but not by others.For the purpose of this study,two dimensions for each school of moral philosophy have been chosen.Ethical egoism is the school of moral philosophy or eth-ical framework that judges the ethicality of an action based on outcomes that maximise the interests of an individual.It is ethical egoism,rather than psychological egoism,because the ethical egoist argues that everyone,not just oneself, should act out of self-interest.In the business context,this ethical egoism may be expressed in two ways:by maxi-mising economic outcomes or by maximising reputational outcomes.One dimension would promote the best outcomes for the individual agent(me or,by extension,my organisa-tion)in terms of economic interests by fulfilling economic criteria such as profit and reduced costs.The other dimen-sion would be focused on reputational interests protecting and enhancing the status or reputation of one’s organisation. For example,Schnietz and Epstein(2005)found that‘‘a reputation for social responsibility protectedfirms from stock declines associated with crisis,even when controlling for possible trade and industry effects’’(p.327).If this is the case,then ethical egoism would not necessarily preclude corporate social responsibility.For managers,ego focus can be individual or organisational because,psychologically, individuals can identify their organisation as an extension of themselves.They can identify with the organisation so strongly that they would act in a way to protect its reputation, in their own interest,perhaps even at the expense of potential profit.488G.L.CasaliThe ethical framework of utilitarianism is also conse-quentialist but focuses on creating the greatest overall good for the greatest number of people when considering the consequences of any actions.Within this school,there are two main dimensions:act utilitarianism and rule utilitari-anism(Frankena1973;Rallapalli et al.1998;Veatch1998; Hinman2003;Casali2007).Act utilitarianism encom-passes the idea that in order to create the greatest overall good it is fundamental to evaluate each proposed action as to whether it will create the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people(stakeholders).Rule utilitarianism,on the other hand,does not focus on discrete actions but proposes that one ought to follow those rules that would benefit the majority.While utilitarian frameworks assess the external effects of actions,the virtue ethics framework is focused internally on the individual,either on individual character traits(self virtue)that promote personal well-being or living well with others and caring for others(other virtues).This latter dimension within the school of virtue ethics would include a contextual morality,which many feminists defend(Gil-ligan1982),including an ethics of care or responsibility.Deontological ethics focus not so much on either actions or character traits but prima facie rights and duties (Frankena1973;Rallapalli et al.1998;Veatch1998; Hinman2003;Casali2007).Rule deontology,the main form of deontological ethics,focuses on fulfilling universal duties,such as the golden rule,or acting according to universal principles(for example,justice,not harming others,doing good and respecting autonomy)that would apply to all agents in all situations(Frankena1973;Casali 2007).According to act deontology,however,the rightness of an act is not determined by the ruthless application of a moral principle,but by determining more intuitively what universal duties are demanded in the particular situation (Frankena1973;Casali2007).MethodThe items for the MEP questionnaire were developed using a two-step process(DeVellis2003).Thefirst step involved reviewing the current literature on business ethics,ethics, philosophy and religion as an initial source of information for the development of the items.The second step was to identify and consult with academic colleagues who had both a PhD and an extensive research record in the above fields as experts for validation of items and possible adjustments.A total of34statements were developed and then refined to28statements through comparison with the literature.A content validity test of these28items was performed by interviewing14experts in the area of moral philosophy,business ethics and religion.The experts were asked to check the appropriateness of assigning these28 items to the eight dimensions of the major ethical theories. Four items were found inappropriate for inclusion in any of the dimensions by the majority of the experts and were therefore eliminated from the scale,leaving24items in the final survey(see Appendix1).The scale items were mea-sured on afive-point scale ranging from‘extremely important’(=1)to‘not important at all’(=5).There were no reverse-coded statements in the scale.The questionnaire was distributed to2,473managers from the health care industry in Australia,and441usable responses were returned giving a response rate of17%.The collected responses(n=441)were analysed for their scale proper-ties using a CFA using the Amos TM7.0structural equation modelling software.CFA seeks to determine if the number of factors and the loadings of measured variables(indica-tors)conform to what is expected on the basis of a priori theory.Indicator variables are also selected on the basis of a priori theory,and factor analysis is used to see if they load as predicted on the expected number of factors.The researcher’s a priori expectation is that each factor(the number and labels of which may be specified a priori)is associated with a specific subset of indicator variables.A minimum requirement of CFA is that the number of factors in the model be hypothesised beforehand,but also which variables will load on which factors will also be posited. For the purpose of this study,eight factors are considered: economic egoism,reputational egoism,rule utilitarianism, act utilitarianism,virtue of self,virtue of others,act deontology and rule deontology(see Table2).In devel-oping the MEP scale,this study has used CFA as the main strategy to assess the psychometric properties of the scale. CFA is used to test theory,and this study has created the eight ethical subscales construct to be tested.Research SampleThe MEP scale wasfinalised and converted into an online instrument linked to an e-mail message sent to the mem-bers of a professional association of health care managers in Australia with2,473members.As a result of this study, 441usable questionnaires were returned,which is equal to a response rate of18%.Of the sample,244(55.3%)were female and197(44.7%)were male.The mean age was44 (SD=0.921).Almost half of the people in the sample were middle managers(43.8%),16.1%were senior man-agers,15%corporate governance,13.2%supervisors and 12%consultants.79.4%had undertaken postgraduate studies of some kind and20.6%had an undergraduate degree.The majority of respondents in the sample(62.1%) worked for the government,28.3%for the private sector and9.5%for religious organisations.In terms of workMEP Scale for Ethical Decision Making489experience,30.8%of the sample had3years or less of experience,49%had more than three but not more than 10years of experience and20%had more than11years experience.The largest group of respondents were admin-istrative staff,268(60.8%),118(26.8%)were medical staff (doctors and nurses),and55(12.4%)were allied health staff.ResultsConstruct validity was assessed by identifying the concepts underlying respondents’scores on this scale.The scale was factor analysed to determine if the scale had a meaningful component ing the data collected from the sample(n=441),six models(see Table3)were tested using AMOS TM7.0SEM software.The item loading(see Table2)varied between0.4and0.9,which is an accept-able result(McDonald1999).Thefit of the model was assessed using indices such as:v2, relativefit analysis,root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA),confirmatoryfit index(CFI)and adjusted good-ness offit index(AGFI).The v2statistic assesses absolutefit of the model to the data,and a non-significant v2supports the perfectfit of the model.Two recognised limitations of the v2 statistic are its sensitivity to sample size and its assumption of the correct model.Therefore,no restrictive model with positive degrees of freedom is able tofit real data,and such models will often be rejected by a formal significance test with a sufficiently large sample.The relativefit of a proposed model can be assessed by using different goodness-of-fit indices.For example,as the ratio of v2to degrees of freedom (v2/df)(Hoelter1983)decreases and approaches zero,thefit of the model improves.In particular,the values of3.00or lessTable2MEP scale item loadings:Model A(eight-factor model)Factors/items Loading AVE CREconomic egoism1.Providing the highest economic return(profit)for the organisation0.572.Minimising costs for the organisation0.800.550.723.Optimising resources of the district/hospital/unit/dept0.67Reputational egoism1.Protecting the reputation of the organisation0.740.690.652.Being in line with the organisational mission0.65Rule utilitarianism1.Not harming the clients/patients0.412.Respecting organisational rules and regulations that have been createdfor the greatest benefit for all stakeholders0.610.510.41 Act utilitarianism1.Creating the greatest overall benefit for the local community0.920.850.842.Creating the greatest overall benefit for the wider community0.79Virtue of self1.Being most in line with your core personal values0.830.870.862.Being most in line with the person you want to be0.91Virtue of others1.Respecting dignity of those affected by the decision0.782.Being able to empathise with clients0.753.Acting openly when making decision0.660.690.864.Making‘care for the sick’paramount in determining decision alternatives0.58Act deontology1.Giving the opportunity to all affected parties or their representativesto have input into the decision making process0.630.812.Treating others as you want others to treat you0.760.680.883.Treat people as ends not as means0.66Rule deontology1.Ensuring that confidentiality is maintained at all times0.732.Maintaining a fair process at all times0.840.783.Ensuring that the organisation‘duty of care’is maintained at all times0.76490G.L.Casaliindicate an adequatefit(Byrne1989).Accordingly,otherfit indices must be used for judging modelfit.The RMSEA represents closeness offit,and values approximating0.06 and0demonstrate a close or exactfit of the model(Kline 2005).In addition,a CFI C0.9suggests an acceptablefit and [0.95a goodfit(Kline2005).As suggested by Kline(2005,p.180),afirst step in testing for discriminant validity of a model structure with multiple latent factors is to reject the possibility that a single factor structure(baseline model)fit the data well.The baseline model in this article(Table3,Model B)demon-strated a poorfit of the data:v2(178)=459.59,p\0.001; CFI=0.919,RMSEA=0.060,SRMR=0.0601.The second step towards validating the fact that the eight-factor structurefits the data better is to reject the model that sup-ports the thesis that the schools of moral philosophy are unidimensional and,therefore,a four-factor structure (Table3,Model C)demonstrates only a marginal adequate fit of the data(v2(176)=441.03,p\0.001;CFI=0.924, RMSEA=0.059,SRMR=0.0557).Also,seven latent factors have been tested against the eight-factor model structure(the model supported by this article)by combining highly correlated subscales,but they all resulted in a poorfit(see Table3).However,the eight-factor structure (Table3,Model A),supported in this study,had an acceptablefit:CFI=0.933,RMSEA=0.057,SRMR= 0.0467,even though the v2was significant:v2(161)= 191.60,p[0.001.Moreover,the a priori eight-factor structurefits the data significantly better than any of the alternative models(see Table3).A v2difference test was calculated on the differ-ential results from the eight-factor structure and all the other models including the baseline model,and,due to the fact that all the results were significant(\0.001),this indicates that the eight-factor structurefits the data better than any other competing models.This result provides evidence of cross-validation for the new MEP scale.Even though the eight-factor structurefits the data better than any of the other models tested in this article,some issues were identified with regards to the internal consis-tency of some of the eight latent factors.The rule utili-tarianism factor shows relatively low item loading(0.41 and0.61)and also a low composite reliability(CR)score of0.41.Another factor that will need some improvement is reputational egoism due to the factor loadings of0.74and 0.65,and a CR score of0.65.The fact that rule utilitari-anism shares a rather high percentage of variance(0.754 shown in Table4)with reputational egoism indicates a need to further develop these items in order to increase their discriminant capacity and to develop new items to strengthen the other factors as well.General DiscussionTable3shows results from the CFA on a number of dif-ferent models in order to ascertain that the eight-factor structure modelfits the data better than any other model.The purpose of this study has been to develop a psycho-metrically sound instrument that measures the ethical prin-ciples affecting managerial decision making.The results from this study support the initial argument that schools of moral philosophy are multidimensional,and that using them as a single factor(category)does notfit well with reality,as shown in Table3(Model C).Even though some results in Table4suggest that strong correlations exist between some of the ethical subscales(above0.7),the results of CFA suggest that the bestfit was the eight-factor structure model. One example is the strong correlation between virtue ethics and deontology,a situation that can be explained by the fact that both schools of moral philosophy follow a non-conse-quentialist approach to ethics.In other words,managers would not take into consideration the outcomes of an action, but they would rather follow clearly articulated ethicalTable3Results of confirmatory factor analysisModel CFI SRMR RMSEA v2df v2/dfK v2K df p ValueModel A(a priori eight-factor structure)0.9330.04670.057393.75161 2.44Model B:baseline(one-factor structure)0.9190.06010.060459.59178 2.5865.84170 Model C(four-factor structure)0.9240.05570.059441.03176 2.5047.28150 Model D1(seven-factor structure(deontology combined)0.9210.04910.061444.01168 2.6450.2670 Model D2(seven-factor structure(virtue ethics combined)0.8800.05390.075586.80168 3.49193.0570 Model D3(seven-factor structure)(virtue of others and actdeontology combined)0.9220.04920.061439.54168 2.6245.7970Notes.Deontology act deontology and rule deontology,Virtue Ethics virtue of others and virtue of self,CFI comparativefit index,RMSEA root mean square error of approximation,SRMR standardised root-mean-square residual.The CFI range from0(poorfit)to1(perfectfit);values of 0.95or higher are indicative of a good modelfit.RMSEA values lower than0.08are considered to reflect adequatefit,values\0.05to0.06 indicate goodfit.SRMR value\0.08MEP Scale for Ethical Decision Making491。