Publications

24 May 2004
Research & Ideas

Becoming an Ethical Negotiator

The book What's Fair: Ethics of Negotiators is a rich collection of pointers from professional dealmakers, attorneys, academic specialists, and, not least, ethicists. Michael Wheeler, an HBS professor and editor of Negotiation Journal,... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

05 May 2011
What Do You Think?

How Ethical Can We Be?

pursues." Joe Schmid commented that "the 'highest behavior' any leader can expect from those they lead is the 'lowest behavior' they demonstrate." To the extent that fairness and ethical View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

17 Jul 2009
Research Event

Business Summit: Ethics in Globalization

Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and GovernmentMichael Oxley, Of Counsel, Baker HostetlerDaniel Vasella, Chairman & CEO, Novartis Drawing upon learnings from their work and experiences, the panelists and moderator exchanged views with the audience on the View Details

Keywords: Re: Rafael M. Di Tella

30 Jul 2018
Research & Ideas

Why Ethical People Become Unethical Negotiators

Bazerman, the Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, argues that good people with strong ethical values, like these traders, can behave in shady ways without consciously realizing they are doing so. “I’ll bet there were... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

2022
Book

Business Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know

By: J.S. Nelson and Lynn A. Stout

An authoritative and practical guide to business ethics, written in an accessible question-and-answer format. In today's turbulent business climate, business ethics are more important than ever. Surveys of employees show that misconduct is on the rise. Cover stories... View Details

Keywords: Business Ethics; Organizational Behavior; Ethics; Governance Controls; Lawfulness

March 2013 (Revised March 2015)
Case

iMatari

By: Joseph L. Badaracco and Matthew Preble

In late 2012, recent Harvard Business School graduate Hannah Lopez is given the opportunity to lead entry into a new market for Plámo, a company that created startup companies in Europe and emerging markets based upon existing successful business models. She had only... View Details

Keywords: Ethical Behavior; Ethical Judgment; Entrepreneurship; Imitation; Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Values and Beliefs; Europe; Middle East

Educators

January 2014
Article

Self-reported Ethical Risk Taking Tendencies Predict Actual Dishonesty

By: Liora Zimerman, Shaul Shalvi and Yoella Bereby-Meyer

Are people honest about the extent to which they engage in unethical behaviors? We report an experiment examining the relation between self-reported risky unethical tendencies and actual dishonest behavior. Participants’ self-reported risk taking tendencies were... View Details

Keywords: DOSPERT; Risk Taking; Honesty; Lying; Dishonesty; Unethical Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Cognition and Thinking

September 2016
Article

Bounded Awareness: Implications for Ethical Decision Making

By: Max Bazerman and Ovul Sezer

In many of the business scandals of the new millennium, the perpetrators were surrounded by people who could have recognized the misbehavior, yet failed to notice it. To explain such inaction, management scholars have been developing the area of behavioral ethics and... View Details

Keywords: Ethics

2007
Working Paper

The Ethical Mirage: A Temporal Explanation as to Why We Aren't as Ethical as We Think We Are

By: Ann E. Tenbrunsel, Kristina A. Diekmann, Kimberly A. Wade-Benzoni and Max H. Bazerman

This paper explores the biased perceptions that people hold of their own ethicality. We argue that the temporal trichotomy of prediction, action and evaluation is central to these misperceptions: People predict that they will behave more ethically than they actually... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Ethics; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perception; Prejudice and Bias

16 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

Adam Smith, Behavioral Economist?

from one of Smith's earlier works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that caught the attention of Harvard Business School professor Nava Ashraf and coauthors Colin Camerer and George Loewenstein. In "Adam Smith, Behavioral... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen

15 May 2015
News

Ethical Negotiation: Not an Oxymoron

January 2023 (Revised November 2023)
Technical Note

Ethical Analysis: Honesty and Self-Interest

By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Christopher Diak

Information asymmetry is pervasive in business and can often confer great advantage. This note distinguishes forms of deceptive behavior in the face of information asymmetry and aims to help students analyze their impermissibility. View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Analysis; Balance and Stability

Educators

21 Apr 2011
News

Stumbling Into Bad Behavior

Article

Moral Traps: When Self-serving Attributions Backfire in Prosocial Behavior

By: Stephanie C. Lin, Julian Zlatev and Dale T. Miller

Two assumptions guide the current research. First, people's desire to see themselves as moral disposes them to make attributions that enhance or protect their moral self-image: When approached with a prosocial request, people are inclined to attribute their own... View Details

Keywords: Morality; Attributions; Decision Making; Prosocial Behavior; Moral Sensibility; Behavior; Perception

May 1999
Background Note

Note on Behavioral Pricing

By: John T. Gourville

The note introduces the behavioral or psychological aspects of consumer price acceptance. Begins by reviewing the traditional economic approach to product pricing and consumer price acceptance--namely, that consumers should be willing to purchase anytime a product's... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Decisions; Fairness; Price; Marketing Strategy; Behavior; Perspective; Public Opinion

Educators

2010
Article

The Ethical Mirage: A Temporal Explanation as to Why We Are Not as Ethical as We Think We Are

By: A. E. Tenbrunsel, K. Diekmann, K A. Wade-Benzoni and Max Bazerman

This paper explores the biased perceptions that people hold of their own ethicality. We argue that the temporal trichotomy of prediction, action and recollection is central to these misperceptions: People predict that they will behave more ethically than they actually... View Details

Keywords: Forecasting and Prediction; Values and Beliefs; Framework; Research; Behavior; Cognition and Thinking; Perception; Prejudice and Bias

26 Sep 2013
Conference Presentation

Next Generation Approaches to Managing Business Conduct

By: Lynn S. Paine

Keywords: Ethical Decision Making; Ethical Behavior; Business Ethics; Decision Making; Ethics

April 2011
Article

Ethical Breakdowns: Good People often Let Bad Things Happen. Why?

By: Max H. Bazerman and Ann E. Tenbrunsel

Companies are spending a great deal of time and money to install codes of ethics, ethics training, compliance programs, and in-house watchdogs. If these efforts worked, the money would be well spent. But unethical behavior appears to be on the rise. The authors observe... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Moral Sensibility; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Governance; Leadership; Behavior; Conflict of Interests