Competitive Irrationality: The Influence of Moral Philosophy

Abstract: This study explores a phenomenon that has been shown to adversely affect managers’ decisions—competitive irrationality. Managers are irrationally competitive in their decisions when they focus on damaging the profits of competitors, rather than improving their own profit performance. Studies by Armstrong and Collopy (1996) and Griffith and Rust (1997) suggest that the phenomenon is common but not universal. We examine the question of why some individuals exhibit competitive irrationality when making decisions, while others do not by focusing on four aspects of moral philosophy—deontological orientation, cognitive moral development, idealism, and relativism. Results suggest that individuals high in deontological orientation, high in cognitive moral development, high in idealism, and low in relativism will be less competitively irrational than those who are not.

[1]  Kevin Gibson,et al.  The Moral Basis of Stakeholder Theory , 2000 .

[2]  Bernhard F. Frey,et al.  The Impact of Moral Intensity on Decision Making in a Business Context , 2000 .

[3]  Arthur Gross-Schaefer,et al.  Ethics Education in the Workplace: An Effective Tool to Combat Employee Theft , 2000 .

[4]  S. Hunt.  A General Theory of Competition: Resources, Competences, Productivity, Economic Growth , 1999 .

[5]  Antonio Argandoña.  Sharing Out in Alliances: Trust and Ethics , 1999 .

[6]  George R. Franke,et al.  Antecedents, consequences, and mediating effects of perceived moral intensity and personal moral philosophies , 1999 .

[7]  P. Bone,et al.  Moral Reflections in Marketing , 1998 .

[8]  D. Koehn.  Can and Should Businesses be Friends with One Another and with Their Stakeholders , 1998 .

[9]  G. Brenkert,et al.  Ethics in Advertising: The Good, the Bad, and the Church , 1998 .

[10]  Don Y. Lee,et al.  Information Control and Influence in Emergent Buying Centers , 1998 .

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

[12]  J. Hoffman,et al.  The Effect of Firm Profit versus Personal Economic Well Being on the Level of Ethical Responses Given by Managers , 1998 .

[13]  Shelby D. Hunt,et al.  Resource-Advantage Theory: A Snake Swallowing Its Tail or a General Theory of Competition? , 1997 .

[14]  N. Smith,et al.  Ethics and Target Marketing: The Role of Product Harm and Consumer Vulnerability , 1997 .

[15]  John B. Ford,et al.  Moral Judgment and Market Negotiations: A Comparison of Chinese and American Managers , 1997 .

[16]  Paul F. Williams,et al.  Reinforcing Ethical Decision Making Through Corporate Culture , 1997 .

[17]  R. Rust,et al.  The price of competitiveness in competitive pricing , 1997 .

[18]  Dawn S. Carlson,et al.  Perceptions of Ethics Across Situations: A View Through Three Different Lenses , 1997 .

[19]  Shelby D. Hunt,et al.  Resource-advantage theory and the wealth of nations: Developing the socio-economic research tradition , 1997 .

[20]  Mark T. Spence,et al.  The moderating effects of problem characteristics on experts' and novices' judgments , 1997 .

[21]  An empirical study of moral reasoning among managers in Singapore , 1996 .

[22]  C. Danehower,et al.  Cognitive moral development and attitudes toward women executives , 1996 .

[23]  Peter R. Dickson,et al.  The Static and Dynamic Mechanics of Competition: A Comment on Hunt and Morgan's Comparative Advantage Theory , 1996 .

[24]  C. E. Jordan,et al.  The Empirical Performance of Cognitive Moral Development in Predicting Behavioral Intent , 1996, Business Ethics Quarterly.

[25]  Robert M. Morgan,et al.  The Resource-Advantage Theory of Competition: Dynamics, Path Dependencies, and Evolutionary Dimensions , 1996 .

[26]  Fred L. Collopy,et al.  Competitor Orientation: Effects of Objectives and Information on Managerial Decisions and Profitability , 1996 .

[27]  Peter H. Reingen,et al.  Modeling Individual Preference Evolution and Choice in a Dynamic Group Setting , 1996 .

[28]  Kenneth L. Kraft,et al.  The perceived importance of ethics and social responsibility on organizational effectiveness: A survey of marketers , 1995 .

[29]  R. Venkatesh,et al.  Influence Strategies in Buying Centers , 1995 .

[30]  S. Hunt,et al.  The Comparative Advantage Theory of Competition , 1995 .

[31]  L. Chonko.  Ethical decision making in marketing , 1995 .

[32]  John Fraedrich,et al.  Assessing the application of cognitive moral development theory to business ethics , 1994 .

[33]  Donald R. Lehmann,et al.  Understanding managers' strategic decision-making process , 1994 .

[34]  R. Dharmaraj,et al.  Machiavellianism in Indian management , 1994 .

[35]  D. Wyld,et al.  A Partial Test of the Synthesis Integrated Model of Ethical Decision Making: Cognitive Moral Development and Managerial Moral Deliberation , 1994 .

[36]  S. Vitell,et al.  Marketing norms: The influence of personal moral philosophies and organizational ethical culture , 1993 .

[37]  Jeff M. Allen,et al.  Assessing some determinant effects of ethical consulting behavior: The case of personal and professional values , 1993 .

[38]  Thomas Gilovich,et al.  Does Studying Economics Inhibit Cooperation , 1993 .

[39]  Arturo Z. Vasquez-Parraga,et al.  Organizational Consequences, Marketing Ethics, and Salesforce Supervision: , 1993 .

[40]  D. Robin.  Ethical Marketing Decisions: The Higher Road , 1993 .

[41]  Stephen B. Castleberry,et al.  The ethical framework of advertising and marketing research practitioners: A moral development perspective , 1993 .

[42]  D. Forsyth.  Judging the morality of business practices: The influence of personal moral philosophies , 1992 .

[43]  L. Treviño.  Moral reasoning and business ethics: Implications for research, education, and management , 1992 .

[44]  Jerry R. Goolsby,et al.  Cognitive Moral Development and Marketing , 1992 .

[45]  Peter R. Dickson,et al.  Toward a General Theory of Competitive Rationality , 1992 .

[46]  G. A. Baker,et al.  EFFECTS OF DECISION MOTIVE AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE LEVEL ON STRATEGIC DECISION PROCESSES , 1992 .

[47]  Peter R. Dickson,et al.  The effect of perceived personal consequences on participation and influence in organizational buying , 1991 .

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

[49]  G. Oakes,et al.  The sales process and the paradoxes of trust , 1990 .

[50]  Stuart A. Youngblood,et al.  Bad apples in bad barrels: A causal analysis of ethical decision-making behavior. , 1990 .

[51]  Shelby D. Hunt,et al.  Commentary on an empirical investigation of a general theory of marketing ethics , 1990 .

[52]  Jef I. Richards.  A “New and Improved” View of Puffery , 1990 .

[53]  O. C. Ferrell,et al.  A Synthesis of Ethical Decision Models for Marketing , 1989 .

[54]  R. Hite,et al.  Supervising Unethical Salesforce Behavior , 1989 .

[55]  Steve H. Barr,et al.  Managerial selection decision models: examination of configural cue processing , 1989 .

[56]  Dale F. Duhan,et al.  Gray Markets and the Legal Status of Parallel Importation , 1988 .

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

[58]  S. Hunt,et al.  A General Theory of Marketing Ethics , 1986 .

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

[60]  Alan J. Dubinsky,et al.  Correlates of salespeople's ethical conflict: An exploratory investigation , 1984 .

[61]  Lawrence B. Chonko,et al.  Ethical Problems of Marketing Researchers , 1984 .

[62]  D. Hambrick,et al.  Upper Echelons: The Organization as a Reflection of Its Top Managers , 1984 .

[63]  L. Kohlberg.  The Psychology Of Moral Development , 1984 .

[64]  T. Dunn,et al.  The Moral Development of the Law Student: Theory and Data on Legal Education. , 1981 .

[65]  George W. Bohrnstedt,et al.  Level of Measurement , 1980 .

[66]  D. Forsyth.  A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. , 1980 .

[67]  Mark L. Davison,et al.  Psychometric Properties of the Defining Issues Test , 1979 .

[68]  M. C. Jensen,et al.  Harvard Business School; SSRN; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI); Harvard University - Accounting & Control Unit , 1976 .

[69]  R. Cyert,et al.  Theory of the Firm , 1966 .

[70]  D. Marlowe,et al.  A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. , 1960, Journal of consulting psychology.