Publications

A summary of the major themes discussed in the fifth class of The Moral Leader (EC curriculum). View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Moral Sensibility; Business Education

October 2003 (Revised April 2006)
Background Note

Moral Reasoning: A Practical Guide for Leaders

We encounter moral or ethical challenges in our professional lives, in our close relationships, and as members of the broader communities that we are part of. This methodology demonstrates how moral reasoning works and how it can be integrated into a problem-solving... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Moral Sensibility; Management Systems; Problems and Challenges; Civil Society or Community

Educators

April 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Background Note

Moral Decision-Making: Reason, Emotion & Luck

By: Michael A. Wheeler and Julianna Pillemer

This extensive note synthesizes current psychological and neuroscientific research on how people make decisions with moral implications. Research summaries and scenarios illustrate critical issues. View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Moral Sensibility; Leadership; Science; Emotions

Educators

August 22, 1998
Article

The New Moral Contract

By: Sumantra Ghoshal and Christopher Bartlett

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Contracts

2007
Text Book

The Moral Leader: Challenges, Tools, and Insights

Successful leaders—at any level and in any arena—are inevitably presented with moral and ethical choices. This unique and innovative textbook is designed to encourage students and managers to confront those fundamental moral challenges, to develop skills in moral... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Decision Choices and Conditions; Judgments; Moral Sensibility; Leadership

February 2007
Case

Bolivia and Evo Morales

By: Rafael M. Di Tella, Laura Alfaro and Ezequiel Reficco

Keywords: Development Economics; Developing Countries and Economies; Economy; Policy; Bolivia

Educators

Summer 2016
Article

Motivated Bayesians: Feeling Moral While Acting Egoistically

By: Francesca Gino, Michael I. Norton and Roberto A. Weber

A growing body of research yields ample evidence that individuals’ behavior often reflects an apparent concern for moral considerations. Using a broad definition of morality—to include varied non-egoistic motivations such as fairness, honesty, and efficiency as... View Details

Keywords: Behavior; Ethics

2007
Text Book

Teaching the Moral Leader: A Literature-Based Leadership Course

This book is a comprehensive, practical manual to help instructors integrate moral leadership in their own courses, drawing from the experience and resources of the Harvard Business School course "The Moral Leader," an MBA elective taken by thousands of HBS students... View Details

Keywords: Competency and Skills; Curriculum and Courses; Moral Sensibility; Body of Literature; Books; Leadership; Personal Development and Career

2014
Article

Time, Money, and Morality

By: F. Gino and C. Mogilner

Money, a resource that absorbs much daily attention, seems to be present in much unethical behavior thereby suggesting that money itself may corrupt. This research examines a way to offset such potentially deleterious effects—by focusing on time, a resource that tends... View Details

Keywords: Money; Ethics

April 2015
Article

Self-serving Justifications: Doing Wrong and Feeling Moral

By: Shaul Shalvi, F. Gino, Rachel Barkan and Shahar Ayal

Unethical behavior by "ordinary" people poses significant societal and personal challenges. We present a novel framework centered on the role of self-serving justification to build upon and advance the rapidly expanding research on intentional unethical behavior of... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Moral Sensibility

March 2023
Article

Developing Moral Muscle in a Literature-based Business Ethics Course

By: Inge M. Brokerhof, Sandra J. Sucher, P. Matthijs Bal, Frank Hakemulder, Paul G. W. Jansen and Omar N. Solinger

Moral subjectivity (e.g., reflexivity, perspective-taking) is a necessary condition for moral development. However, widely used approaches to business ethics education, rooted in conceptualizations of ethical development as objective and quantifiable, often neglect... View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility; Business Education; Growth and Development; Teaching

2019
Working Paper

Moral Mind Reading: Meta-Perceptive and Motive-Judgment Accuracy Across Moral Motives

By: J. Lees, L. Young and A. Waytz

Research Summary

Moral Reasoning & Experimental Political Philosophy

In this work, we demonstrate a new and morally significant effect on judgment and decision-making. This research is inspired by the work of John Rawls, widely regarded as the most important political philosopher of the 20th Century. Here we apply the central... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Fairness; Distributive Justice

Aug 2018
Conference Presentation

Moral Prospection: How Simulating a Moral Future Can Facilitate An Immoral Present

By: J. Lees

October 2022
Article

When Does Moral Engagement Risk Triggering a Hypocrite Penalty?

By: Jillian J. Jordan and Roseanna Sommers

Society suffers when people stay silent on moral issues. Yet people who engage morally may appear hypocritical if they behave imperfectly themselves. Research reveals that hypocrites can—but do not always—trigger a “hypocrisy penalty,” whereby they are evaluated... View Details

Keywords: Hypocrite; Dishonesty; Social Issues; Moral Sensibility; Public Opinion; Perception

18 Nov 2002
Research & Ideas

Where Morals and Profits Meet: The Corporate Value Shift

Harvard Business School professor Lynn S. Paine's new book, Value Shift, argues that companies can't consider themselves amoral or apart from society anymore—that the relationship between companies and society at large necessitates bringing a View Details

Keywords: by Carla Tishler

28 Jun 2022
Book

The Moral Enterprise: How Two Companies Profit with Purpose

How can government and business work together in this fractious political moment, when finding solutions to pressing problems like inequality and climate change are more urgent than ever? Rebecca Henderson, Harvard University’s John and Natty McArthur University... View Details

Keywords: by Avery Forman

February 2007 (Revised March 2007)
Module Note

Blessed Assurance: The Challenge of a Moral Dilemma

A summary of the major themes discussed in the third class of The Moral Leader (EC curriculum). View Details

Keywords: Moral Sensibility

September–October 2022
Article

Seeking Purity, Avoiding Pollution: Strategies for Moral Career Building

By: Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan

This study builds theory on how people construct moral careers. Analyzing interviews with 102 journalists, we show how people build moral careers by seeking jobs that allow them to fulfill both the institution’s moral obligations and their own material aims. We... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Moral Sensibility

2018
Conference Presentation

From Pixels to Moral Judgment: Extracting Morally Relevant Information in Minds and Machines

By: J. De Freitas, A. Hafri, G. A. Alvarez and D. L. K. Yamins