<p> The purpose of this historical case study was to explore how individual moral identity can influence leadership ethics in decision making. By focusing this case study on former U.S. Presidents Kennedy and Nixon, this study examined how moral identity influences of education, family, peers, and religion from childhood through college could affect ethical decision making. Using NVivo<sup> ®</sup> 10, data analysis determined emergent themes from the four key moral identity influences for both study subjects. Analysis of each emergent theme established positive or negative moral identity development. For this study, positive moral identity demonstrated a close alignment with a concern for the welfare of others; whereas, negative moral identity development demonstrated alignment with concern for oneself. Results showed that President Kennedy demonstrated greater moral identity development because of education and family influences than President Nixon. Closer analysis of moral identity core themes revealed that President Kennedy possessed a higher number of high moral identity core themes to support ethical decisions made during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Conversely, President Nixon possessed a higher number of low moral identity core themes to support unethical decisions during Watergate. Study results contributed to the literature by showing how moral identity can affect ethical and unethical decision making. Suggested recommendations showed the need for further qualitative studies of leader moral identity as well as the need to establish reliable testing mechanisms to determine and measure individual moral identity.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PROQUEST/oai:pqdtoai.proquest.com:3583978 |
| Date | 16 September 2014 |
| Creators | Nunn, Sandra |
| Publisher | University of Phoenix |
| Source Sets | ProQuest.com |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
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