Choice or Perception: How Affect Influences Ethical Choices Among Salespeople

Abstract

Sales representatives often face situations that require making spontaneous decisions that can affect their competitive advantage, relationships with clients, and the bottom line. To foster ethical decisions, sales management must understand the situational and personal influences that shape the representative’s decisions. This paper describes an experiment that identifies contextual and personal influences on ethical decision making. Findings suggest that a person who is in a positive (versus neutral) affect state will be less likely to be effected by heuristic biases and more likely to choose an ethical option (over a questionable alternative). Further, the dollar value at risk and the probability for success play a role in the ethical decision making under certain conditions.