Environmental Ethics across Borders: The United States versus Ecuador

"First feed the face, and then tell right from wrong Even noblemen may act like sinners, Unless they've had their customary dinners" The Threepenny Opera Bertold Brecht Industrial development over the past 200 years has resulted in immeasurable wealth and prosperity for mankind but at the expense of the earth's ecosystems. Corporations today have the knowledge, resources, and power to bring about enormous positive changes in the earth's ecosystems (Shrivastava 1995). In order to unleash the vast potential of corporations to resolve ecological problems, managers of these corporations must have an understanding of how their employees view trade-offs between firm profitability and ecological preservation. They must also have an understanding of how their employees view trade-offs between their own personal economic well being and ecological preservation. Gaining such an understanding is no easy task given the potential differences in the dynamics of decisions that are made to increase firm profits as opposed to those that are made to secure one's own economic well being. Gaining such an understanding is even more complex for international firms which employ individuals from several different cultures. Findings from several studies that have examined situational influences, such as enhancement of firm profitability versus one's own economic well being, as either independent variables (Rest 1986, Hunt/Vitell 1986) or as moderating variables (Trevino 1986, Dubinsky/Loken 1989), have suggested that an individual will respond in a similar ethical pattern regardless of the circumstance. This position is somewhat supported by Kohlberg's work (Kohlberg 1981, 1984) which postulated that individuals operate from a specific ethical level without regard to the importance of the ethical dimensions. However recently, this position of ethical certainty has been questioned. Ferrell and Gresham (1985) first noted that the consensus regarding what is appropriate ethical conduct will likely vary as the issue changes. Weber (1990) found evidence that corporate managers utilize differing modes of ethical reasoning for differing ethical issues. Finally, Jones (1991, p. 372) concluded that "human beings may respond differentially to moral issues in such a way that is systematically related to characteristics of the issue itself. " Jones (1991, p. 373) termed this ethical difference "moral intensity" and theorized that moral intensity has "a significant effect on ethical decision making and behavior at all stages of the process and if empirical support is developed, then all previous models would be affected. " As a result of this disparity in the previous research, and in order to augment our understanding of the apparent ethical conflicts that exist for the managers placed in situations where their own economic well being is at stake, Hoffman, Couch, and Lamont (in press) examined the effect of strategic situation (enhancement of firm profitability vs. personal economic well being) on ethical decision making. Results from the Hoffman et al. study indicated that managers will vary their level of ethical response when faced with a situation where their own economic well being is at stake. Although the Hoffman et al. study contributed to our understanding of this issue, the study did not examine ethical dilemmas involving ecological issues, nor did the study examine the effect of national cultural background on an individual's ethical perspective. The current study builds on the work of Hoffman et al. by examining if certain strategic situations (enhancement of firm profits versus personal economic well being) cause decision makers from different cultures to act more or less ethically when an environmental issue is at stake. The cultural focus of this study is on North and South American cultures. These regions were selected because of the increasing level of trade between nations from these two continents and because of the large cultural disparities between the two regions. …