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Moral crusade
Advocates of environmentally aware business practices often say that the companies which prosper in future will be those that pay attention to "green" issues.
Similar attitudes exist in relation to business practices; the idea that, in the long-term, ethically sound companies and their leaders will be the ultimate winners. The wide-ranging recent reports of morally dubious and even illegal practices, not least in the world of high finance, have rocked the confidence of the public and investors. They have also added strength to the voice of those who want to see moral re-armament in the business world, and who believe it is possible.
There are many calls for business ethics to be more closely scrutinized and this requires a better understanding of managers' perspectives on ethics. This belief is at the heart of the study by Angelidis and Ibrahim into ways that emotional intelligence can affect ethical judgment.
Emotional intelligence (EI, although the term "social intelligence" amounts to the same thing) is a largely instinctive ability to relate to people and understand the way they see the world, even if their perspective differs entirely. Logic suggests that might well make emotionally intelligent people more capable of ethical judgments. But it does not automatically follow, and the links between EI and ethics require proper analysis.
Data on ethics
EI itself has been the subject of much research during the last decade. Time magazine in 1995 even suggested that "emotional intelligence may be the best predictor of success in life, redefining what it means to be smart."
Data were collected for a study on business ethics from more than 300 managers who were enrolled in executive MBA programs in the USA. A wide range of statements were put to them relating to their emotional intelligence and they responded on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The study was based on a model presented in 1992 by Donelson Forsyth in which respondents were classified into one of four groups according to their levels of idealism and relativism.
In the current research, median scores for idealism and relativism were calculated to provide cut-off points, and those within a narrow range close to those figures were disregarded. Respondents with higher EI scores took...