Decision Making in SMEs: Insights from Business Ethics and Entrepreneurship

Decision Making in SMEs: Insights from Business Ethics and Entrepreneurship

Gizem Öksüzoğlu-Güven
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4731-2.ch015
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Abstract

This chapter explores theories and concepts of ethical decision making in SMEs and how individuality of entrepreneurs affects their organisations. In order to investigate the entrepreneurial ethical decision-making process, the chapter crossbreeds the concepts of greed and power, cognitive moral development, ethical ideologies, and individual psychological characteristics as determinant of ethical decision making. Through discussion of relevant models, the chapter presents arguments on determinants of individual ethical decision making as well as external factors that influence the decision-making process. In doing so, it aims to provide a distinctive perspective on understanding decision making in SMEs through forming a bridge between individual moral psychology and entrepreneurial decision making. This understanding enables us to have an alternative reasoning when examining employment-related issues.
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Background

Rooting from ‘ēthos’; original meaning of ethics is character traits (Blackburn, 2005). Today, ethics has a deeper meaning; it evaluates human conduct and how human beings essentially supposed to behave, particularly to each other (Honderich, 2005). We can say that business ethics deals with the moral issues that emerge when we apply the concept of ethics to the business environment and practices.

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