Parenthood & leader’s ethical decision-making: a qualitative study

• Autor(a) principal: Bengui, Priscilla Si-Yasmen Paiva
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21767
• topic: Ethical decision-making; Fatherhood; Motherhood; Parenthood; Leadership; Tomada de decisão ética; Paternidade; Maternidade; Liderança

Many ethical scandals in the business world have shown how ethical misconduct can negatively affect the company and have further urged improved business ethics and greater corporate social responsibility. Leaders play an essential role in the ethical conduct of an organization. Therefore, it is crucial to further study leaders’ ethics and decision-making regarding ethical infused situations. Previous research provides a profound collection of empirical studies that study leaders’ ethical decision-making approach. However, authors have failed to include other social roles in their studies. This study aims to advance knowledge in ethical decision-making by integrating two roles: the role of being a parent and the role of being a leader. This qualitative study aims to capture parent leaders’ experiences on parenthood and its effect on their ethical decision-making approach in the context of work. For this purpose, 22 semi-structured interviews with parent leaders have been conducted. With the help of the thematic analysis, four themes and 11 sub-themes have been identified. The findings showed that parent leaders show higher empathy for other parents which increases the moral intensity. Regarding their ethical decision-making, their moral awareness is mainly affected by their parental role when confronted with other parents’ problematic situations. For any other ethical infused situations in the context of work, leaders tend to compartmentalize their parental role from their leadership role to act on their role effectively. Implications of this study urges theory and businesses to consider the whole self of an individual.