The effects of tawfik on ethical decision making process: the case of micro and small businesses in Malaysia

This paper examines the effects of tawfik or the will and ability to carry out something in ethical decision making process. Decision making requires art and science in the process to understand issues or problems, consequences of the decisions to the relevant stakeholders, methodology to execute the decisions, and evaluation on the decisions. The study interviewed 10 owners and decision makers of micro and small businesses in Malaysia to solicit their views pertaining to the effects on the will and ability (tawfik) in their decision making process. The informants were personally interviewed with note taking approach within 20-30 minutes duration at their business locations. Most of the informants stated that they used impromptu and rational approach in decision making process just to solve issues or problems at hand without taking into long term consequences of the decisions. The nature of small business requires them to make swift, quick and short term basis decision due to the intense pressure of competition. Sometimes they decided for 'short cut' instead of the long-winded and difficult actions. Some informants argued that sometimes they performed special prayers and making supplications for clueless and too difficult issues, problems and cases. As Muslims, they performed and steadfast with obligatory prayers and other recommended deeds. The informants realized the importance of obtaining tawfik from Allah not only in critical situations but also in all situations. The results of the study are very contextualized and contributed to the insights and understanding of the effects of tawfik in ethical decision making process within the context of selected micro and small businesses in Malaysia. The immediate implication to the theory is in the ethical decision making theory from the Islamic perspectives. In terms of practical implications, the findings of the study can be used as input for micro and small businesses to formulate guidelines in decision making process. The study recommends the future study should expand the number of informants and also to employ triangulation, a combination of interview, survey, and case study.

[1]  S. Waddock.  Wisdom and Responsible Leadership: Aesthetic Sensibility, Moral Imagination, and Systems Thinking , 2014 .

[2]  N. King,et al.  Interviews in Qualitative Research , 2010 .

[3]  Mark P. Sharfman,et al.  Does Decision Process Matter? A Study Of Strategic Decision-making Effectiveness , 1996 .

[4]  Brian G. Whitaker,et al.  The Antecedents of Moral Imagination in the Workplace: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective , 2013 .

[5]  T. Jones.  Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model , 1991 .

[6]  A. Fearne,et al.  Sustainable Development and the Consumer: Exploring the role of Carbon Labelling in Retail Supply Chains , 2015 .

[7]  M. Marshall.  Sampling for qualitative research. , 1996, Family practice.

[8]  L. Treviño.  Ethical Decision Making in Organizations: A Person-Situation Interactionist Model , 1986 .

[9]  R. L. Keeney,et al.  Decisions with Multiple Objectives: Preferences and Value Trade-Offs , 1977, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics.

[10]  Bernardo J. Carducci,et al.  Sensation seeking and financial risk taking in everyday money matters , 1991 .

[11]  James F. Johnson,et al.  Mental Models and Ethical Decision Making: The Mediating Role of Sensemaking , 2016 .

[12]  D. Stacey.  An Interprofessional Approach to Shared Decision Making: What it Means and Where Next , 2014 .

[13]  L. Treviño,et al.  Ethical Leaders and Their Followers: The Transmission of Moral Identity and Moral Attentiveness , 2016 .

[14]  Shelby D. Hunt,et al.  Marketing Researcher Ethical Sensitivity: Conceptualization, Measurement, and Exploratory Investigation , 1998 .

[15]  Kinsun Tam,et al.  CEO Gender, Ethical Leadership, and Accounting Conservatism , 2015 .

[16]  Thomas W. Dunfee,et al.  Toward A Unified Conception Of Business Ethics: Integrative Social Contracts Theory , 1994 .

[17]  Linda Klebe Trevino,et al.  Compliance and Values Oriented Ethics Programs , 1999 .

[18]  Ralph L. Keeney,et al.  Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decisionmaking , 1992 .

[19]  Brett R. Wilkinson,et al.  Professionalizing the Tax Accounting Profession: Fulfilling Public-Interest Reporting Responsibilities , 2014 .

[20]  Robert C. Ford,et al.  Ethical decision making: A review of the empirical literature , 1994 .

[21]  L. Treviño,et al.  Moral disengagement in ethical decision making: a study of antecedents and outcomes. , 2008, The Journal of applied psychology.

[22]  Janne O. Y. Chung,et al.  The Effect of Friendly Persuasion and Gender on Tax Comliance Behavior , 2003 .

[23]  Rafik I. Beekun,et al.  Islamic Business Ethics , 1997 .

[24]  Raj V. Mahto,et al.  Satisfaction with Past Financial Performance, Risk Taking, and Future Performance Expectations in the Family Business , 2015 .

[25]  S. K. Basu,et al.  Risk and hazard analysis of machines through reliability–based condition monitoring , 2014 .

[26]  A. Rasheed,et al.  Rational decision‐making and firm performance: the moderating role of the environment , 1997 .

[27]  K. Charmaz,et al.  Constructing Grounded Theory , 2014 .

[28]  Sang Yong Kim,et al.  A Study of Marketing Ethics in Korea: What Do Koreans Care About? , 2003 .

[29]  Scott Sonenshein,et al.  On the role of experience in ethical decision making at work , 2015 .

[30]  Mohamed Aslam Haneef,et al.  Islam, The Islamic Worldview and Islamic Economics , 1997 .

[31]  Ronald K. Mitchell,et al.  Toward a Theory of Stakeholder Identification and Salience: Defining the Principle of who and What Really Counts , 1997 .

[32]  Paul Sullivan,et al.  Qualitative data analysis: Using a dialogical approach , 2011, QMiP Bulletin.

[33]  James R. Rest.  Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory , 1986 .

[34]  Robin C. Purshouse,et al.  Multi-objective Optimisation for Social Cost Benefit Analysis: An Allegory , 2013, EMO.

[35]  M. Barratt,et al.  Hidden Populations, Online Purposive Sampling, and External Validity , 2015 .

[36]  Kenneth D. Butterfield,et al.  Moral Awareness in Business Organizations: Influences of Issue-Related and Social Context Factors , 2000 .

[37]  Ann E. Tenbrunsel,et al.  13 Ethical Decision Making: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going , 2008 .

[38]  Evangelos Triantaphyllou,et al.  Multi-Criteria Decision Making Methods , 2000 .

[39]  H. Rubin,et al.  Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data , 1995 .

[40]  James R. Rest,et al.  The College Experience and Moral Development , 2014 .

[41]  Kenneth D. Butterfield,et al.  A Review of The Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: 1996–2003 , 2005 .

[42]  Diana C. Robertson,et al.  A Typology of Situational Factors: Impact on Salesperson Decision-Making about Ethical Issues , 2003 .

[43]  Daniel F. Jennings,et al.  Ethics and Performance: A Simulation Analysis of Team Decision Making , 1997 .

[44]  Craig V. VanSandt.  The Relationship Between Ethical Work Climate and Moral Awareness , 2003 .

[45]  Metin Celik,et al.  A Hybrid Decision-Making Approach to Measure Effectiveness of Safety Management System Implementations On-Board Ships , 2014 .

[46]  Gary M. Fleischman,et al.  Ethical Reasoning in an Equitable Relief Innocent Spouse Context , 2003 .

[47]  Theodor J. Stewart,et al.  Multiple criteria decision analysis - an integrated approach , 2001 .

[48]  James Weber,et al.  Influencing Ethical Development: Exposing Students to the AICPA Code of Conduct , 1997 .

[49]  Thomas L. Saaty,et al.  DECISION MAKING WITH THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS , 2008 .

[50]  L. Noval.  On the misguided pursuit of happiness and ethical decision making: The roles of focalism and the impact bias in unethical and selfish behavior , 2016 .

[51]  R. Lord,et al.  Examining the moral grey zone: The role of moral disengagement, authenticity, and situational strength in predicting unethical managerial behavior , 2016 .

[52]  Daniel J. Brass,et al.  Relationships and Unethical Behavior: A Social Network Perspective , 1998 .