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Abstract
Problem: Innumerable investigations about the psychological determinants and cultural dimensions of moral reasoning have provided significant insights about Western decisionmaking and contributed to Western organizational behavioral theory. However, inquiry about these same constructs in non-Western Southeast Asian trading partner countries has not provided comparable insights. Purpose: The present study remedies that by comparing predominant cultural dimensions and moral reasoning in populations in Thailand and the United States. Method: The Defining Issues Test measurement of moral reasoning (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999) and the Value Survey Module (VSM) 2013 (Hofstede & Minkov, 2013) were translated for the first time into Thai, pilot tested, and used to gather cultural and moral reasoning data in Thailand and the United States. Findings: Findings indicate that there are both significant psychological and cultural differences between the two nations that affect moral reasoning. Predominant status-quo moral reasoning predominates in Thailand, while a polarity between self-interest moral reasoning and higher-level abstract idealistic moral reasoning predominates in the United States. Potential cultural influences on these moral reasoning tendencies are discussed.
Key terms: cultural values, culture, decision-making theory, moral reasoning, Thailand.
Introduction
Research investigations of determinants of moral reasoning based on Kohlbergian cognitive theory (Kohlberg, 1969, 1981) are numerous in Western society (Trevino, den Nieuwenboer, & Kish-Gepharthave, 2014) and have provided significant insights into ethical decision-making theory in Western organizations. The construct of moral reasoning in the Kohlbergian context can be defined primarily as an individual's assessment of the issues of right and wrong in a social situation as embodied in judgments about justice, individual responsibility, and outward behavior (Kohlberg & Candee, 1984). Kohlberg's (1969) theory of moral development is based on six sequential stages of cognitive reasoning that an individual advances through in developing higher order moral judgment. The Defining Issues Test (DIT) measurement of moral reasoning is based on neo-Kohlbergian ideas advanced by James Rest and colleagues (Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999), but Rest (1979) advanced the notion that the developmental level used by an individual in moral reasoning is context dependent. In different situational contexts an individual may use a higher or lower level, or schemata (versus Kohlberg's stages), of moral reasoning to judge the ethical issues in a particular situation.
Since Western societies engage in complex...