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Immoral Entrenchment: How Crisis Reverses the Ethical Effects of Moral Intensity

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Abstract

Moral intensity theory is used to explain how characteristics of moral issues affect ethical decision-making. According to moral intensity theory, individuals and firms will make more ethical decisions when moral intensity is present, such as greater negative consequences, including harm to customers. However, evidence suggests this does not always happen in crisis situations. For example, Fisher Price waited until 30 babies died before recalling its Rock’n Play Sleeper in 2019. In this article, the concept of immoral entrenchment is introduced to address how crises affect the expected firm responses to morally intense ethical issues. Immoral entrenchment suggests that firms experience threat-rigidity responses to crises that lead to collective moral disengagement. Immoral entrenchment results in firms’ denial of responsibility and unethical behavior, instead of ethical behavior, in the face of highly negative consequences. The study in this article tests immoral entrenchment in the context of the speed to recall 843 consumer products. Supplemental qualitative evidence illustrates the collective moral disengagement dimension of immoral entrenchment. Contributing to the literature on ethics and crisis, the findings demonstrate that crises can generate immoral entrenchment in firms, which reverses the expected ethical response of those firms to issues with high moral intensity.

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Acknowledgements

I thank the Section Editor, David Wasieleski, and the three reviewers for their valuable feedback. I am also grateful for the comments on earlier versions of the article provided by the facutly and PhD students at The University of Texas at Dallas, especially Toyah Miller, Mike Peng, Haemin Dennis Park, and Emily Choi.

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  1. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, 108 John Pappajohn Business Building, Iowa City, IA, 52242-1994, USA

    Miranda J. Welbourne Eleazar

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Welbourne Eleazar, M.J. Immoral Entrenchment: How Crisis Reverses the Ethical Effects of Moral Intensity. J Bus Ethics 180, 71–89 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04859-4

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