The present research in ethical decision-making draws from the fields of moral philosophy, social psychology, and organizational theory with the intention of establishing links among social/organizational influences, individual cognitive elements of moral behavior, individual difference characteristics, and the intention to act ethically. Ethical decision-making, by investigating the moral judgment (evaluation) and moral intent components of an ethical decision-making model, was examined. This augments existing research concerning inconsistencies between the ethical behavior of an individual and the individual's level of moral development, which in the workplace are hypothesized to be related to organizational factors. Research questions developed from this groundwork, as well as research on moral ideology and organizational justice, were formulated to examine how moral ideology, moral evaluation, and organizational justice work together to explain moral intent. Moral evaluation explained 55% of the variance in moral intent after controlling for moral ideology and organizational justice. For a subset of the data, three organizational justice variables explained a very modest proportion of the variance in moral evaluation after controlling for two moral ideology variables. Implications for future research and considerations for practice are presented. / Ph. D.

Syfte Syftet med denna studie är att analysera skillnader i betydelse mellan komponenterna: etisk bedömning, etisk avsikt och etisk plikt i förhållande till uppfattad betydelse av ett etiskt problem i den etiska beslutsprocessen.  Metod En analys av tidigare forskning genomfördes för att skapa en teoretisk referensram samt få en god översikt över forskningsområdet. En kvantitativ metod användes därefter för att samla in empiriskt material. Detta gjordes med hjälp av en enkät som bestod av scenarion som respondenterna fick ta ställning till. Den empiriska informationen analyserades i SPSS, där utfördes deskriptiv statistik, korrelationsanalys, faktoranalys samt regressionsanalys. Resultaten presenterades, diskuterades och utmynnade i en slutsats samt förslag till fortsatt forskning.  Slutsats De slutsatser som kan dras utifrån studien är att den etiska bedömningen har störst påverkan på den uppfattade betydelsen. Det kan även konstateras att den etiska avsikten samt den etiska plikten inte har någon signifikant påverkan på den upplevda betydelsen när ett etiskt dilemma ses som mindre allvarligt.  Uppsatsens bidrag Studien bidrar till en ökad förståelse för fastighetsmäklares attityder gentemot etiska dilemman, samt att den etiska beslutsprocessen är mer komplex än vad som tidigare presenterats. Vi belyser även hur säljchefer kan påverka sina anställda till ett mer etiskt agerande genom att uppföra etiska koder samt arbeta för ett gott etiskt klimat. / Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyse the differences in importance between the components: ethical judgement, moral intent and moral obligation relative to the perceived importance of an ethical issue in the ethical decision making process.  Method An analysis of previous studies was made in order to create a theoretical framework and to obtain an overview of the field of research. A quantitative method was used to collect the empirical data. This was made by using a survey where the respondents had to take a stand to ethical dilemmas presented with vignettes. The empirical data was analysed in SPSS, where descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, factor analysis and regression analysis were created. The results were presented, discussed and lead to a conclusion and suggestions for future research.  Conclusion The conclusions that can be drawn from the study are that ethical judgement has the biggest impact on the perceived importance of an ethical issue. It is also possible to establish that the moral intent and moral obligation does not have a significant influence on the perceived importance when an ethical dilemma is perceived as less important.  Contribution The study contributes to a deeper understanding of real estate agents’ attitudes towards ethical dilemmas. It also shows that the ethical decision making process is more complex than earlier presented. We also highlight how sales managers can influence their employees to a more ethical approach by setting ethical codes and work for a good ethical climate.