Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-r5zm4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-27T01:27:05.939Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Moral Manager: Communicative Ethics and the Exxon Valdez Disaster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Michael G. Bowen  and
F. Clark Power
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For many, the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill has become a symbol of unethical corporate behavior. Had Exxon’s managers not callously pursued their own interests at the expense of the environment and other parties, the accident would not have happened. In this paper, we (1) present a short case study of the Valdez incident; (2) argue that many analyses of the case either ignore or fail to give sufficient weight to the uncertainties managers often face when they make decisions; and (3) propose a framework for moral management grounded in principles of communicative ethics, moral dialogue, and in the non-traditional ideas of many current management and behavioral decision theorists. From this view, the moral manager is not expected to know the “correct” answer to every ethical issue, but rather to participate responsibly in an open dialogue with other interested parties.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 97 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrews, K. R. 1989. Ethics or Practice. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Apel, K. 1980. Towards a Transformation of Philosophy, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Argyris, C. 1990. Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Argyris, C. 1991. “Teaching Smart People How to Learn,” Harvard Business Review, May-June: 99–109.Google Scholar
Baxter, G. D. & Rarick, C. A. 1987. “Education for the Moral Development of Managers: Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development and Integrative Education.” Journal of Business Ethics, 6: 243–248.Google Scholar
Bazerman, M. H. 1990. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (Second edition). NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, M. W. & Gibbs, J. C. 1983. “Measuring the Developmental Features of Moral Discussion.” Merril Palmer Quarterly, 26: 341–57.Google Scholar
Bok, S. 1979. Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. NY: Random House.Google Scholar
Bowen, M. G. 1987. “The Escalation Phenomenon Reconsidered: Decision Dilemmas or Decision Errors?” Academy of Management Review, 12: 52–66.Google Scholar
Cadbury, A. 1987. “Ethical Managers Make Their Own Rules,” Harvard Business Review, September-October: 69–73.Google Scholar
Colby, A. & Kohlberg, L. 1987. The Measurement of Moral Judgment, Vol I: Theoretical Foundations and Research Validation. NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, A. 1990. In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez: The Devastating Impact of the Alaska Oil Spill. San Francisco: Sierra Club Book Publishers.Google Scholar
Dawes, R. M. 1988. Rational Choice in an Uncertain World. NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers.Google Scholar
Deetz, S. 1983. “Keeping the Conversation Going/’ Communication, 3: 263–88.Google Scholar
Deming, W. E. 1986. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, MA: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Engineering Study.Google Scholar
Drucker, P. F. 1981. “What is Business Ethics?” The Public Interest, 63: 18–56.Google Scholar
Funder, D. C. 1987. “Errors and Mistakes: Evaluating the Accuracy of Social Judgment,” Psychological Bulletin, 101: 75–90.Google Scholar
Greenwald, A. G. 1980. “The Totalitarian Ego: Fabrication and Revision of Personal History,” American Psychologist, 35: 603–18.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1979. Communication and the Evolution of Society. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1984. Theory of Communicative Action. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1990. Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hey, J. 1983. “Whither Uncertainty?” Economic Journal, Conference Papers: Selected Papers from the Annual Conference of the Royal Economic Society and the Association of University Teachers of Economics Guildford, Surrey 1982, 130–139, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Janis, I. L. 1972. Victims of Groupthink. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Jungermann, H. 1983. “Two Camps on Rationality.” In Scholz, R. W. (Ed.), Decision Making Under Uncertainty, 63–86. NY: North Holland.Google Scholar
Keeble, J. 1991. Out of the Channel: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in Prince William Sound. NY: Harper-Collins Publishers.Google Scholar
Keller, P. W. 1981. “Interpersonal Dissent and the Ethics of Dialogue,” Communication, 6: 287–303.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, L. 1984. Essays on Moral Development, Vol. II: The Psychology of Moral Development. NY: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Kruglanski, A. W. & Ajzen, I. 1983. “Bias and Error in Human Judgment,” European Journal of Social Psychology, 13: 1–44.Google Scholar
Lapsley, D., Enright, R. & Serlin, R. 1991. “Moral and Social Education,” In Worrel, J. and Danner, F. (Eds.) The Adolescent as Decision-Maker: Applications to Development and Education. San Diego: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Larwood, L. & Whitaker, W. 1977. “Managerial Myopia: Self-serving Biases in Organizational Planning,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 62: 194–198.Google Scholar
Lopes, L. L. 1981. “Notes, Comments, and New Findings: Decision Making in the Short Run,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, 7: 377–385.Google Scholar
Lord, C., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. 1979. “Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37: 2098–2109.Google Scholar
McCarthy, T. A. 1978. The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mosher, R. (Ed.) 1980. Moral Education: A First Generation of Research and Development. NY: Praeger.Google Scholar
Nisbett, R. & Ross, L. 1980. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Pauchant, T. C. & Mitroff, I. I. 1992. Transforming the Crisis-Prone Organization: Preventing Individual, Organizational, and Environmental Tragedies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Payne, S. L. 1991. “A Proposal for Corporate Ethical Reform: The Ethical Dialogue Group,” Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 10: 67–88.Google Scholar
Payne, S. L. & Giacalone, R. A. 1990. “Social Psychological Approaches to the Perception of Ethical Dilemmas,” Human Relations, 43: 7: 649–665.Google Scholar
Penn, W. Y. Jr. 1990. “Teaching Ethics: A Direct Approach,” Journal of Moral Education, 19: 2: 124–138.Google Scholar
Perrow, C. 1984. Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies. NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Peters, T. 1987. Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Managerial Revolution. NY: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Power, F. C., Higgins, A. & Kohlberg, L. 1989. Lawrence Kohlberg Approach to Moral Education. Irvington, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ross, L. & Lepper, M. R. 1980. “The Perseverance of Beliefs: Empirical and Normative Considerations,” In Schweder, R. A. & Fiske, D. (Eds.), New Directions for Methodology of Behavioral Science, 17–36. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Senge, P. M. 1990. The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization. NY: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Schaefli, A., Rest, J. R., & Thoma, S. 1985. “Does Moral Education Improve Moral Judgment? A Meta-Analysis of Intervention Studies Using the Defining Issues Test,” Review of Educational Research, 55(3): 319–352.Google Scholar
Starbuck, W. H., Greve, A., & Hedberg, B. L. T. (1978) “Responding to Crises,” Journal of Business Administration, 9: 2: 111–137.Google Scholar
Starbuck, W. H. & Milliken, F. J. 1988. “Challenger: Fine-Tuning the Odds Until Something Breaks,” Journal of Management Studies, 25: 319–340.Google Scholar
Vlek, C., Kiss, I., Majone, G., & Toda, M. 1984. “What Constitutes a ‘Good Decision’?” Acta Psychologica, 56: 5–27.Google Scholar
Waterman, R. H. 1987. The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the Competitive Edge. NY: Bantam Books.Google Scholar
Weber, J. 1990. “Managers’ Moral Reasoning: Assessing Their Responses to Moral Dilemmas,” Human Relations, 43: 687–702.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing, (2nd edition). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Williams, O. F. & Murphy, P. E. 1992. “The Ethics of Virtue: A Moral Theory for Business,” In Williams, O. F. & Houck, J. W. (Eds.) A Virtuous Life in Business: Stories of Courage and Integrity in the Corporate World, 9–27. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.Google Scholar
Wood, R. E. & Mitchell, T. E. 1981. “Manager Behavior in Social Context: The Impact of Impression Management on Attributions of Disciplinary Actions,” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 28: 356–378.Google Scholar
Yagoda, B. 1990. “Cleaning Up a Dirty Image,” Business Month, April, 48–51.Google Scholar