Deconstructing Entrepreneurial Ethical Decisions: Dual-Process Theory, Moral Intensity, and the Ethical Slippery Slope

Keywords: cognition, ethics, entrepreneurship, lean-startup, stakeholders

Abstract: Entrepreneurs face the potential for great success and financial gain with the realization that most new ventures fail. Those possibilities put pressure on entrepreneurs to quickly develop and commercialize their products, sometimes at all costs. That pressure has the potential to make entrepreneurs take steps down the slippery slope toward unethical behavior. We examine how the process of thinking may affect such missteps in a vignette experiment. We integrate literature on cognition, ethical intuition, and ethical decision-making to theorize and test how and under what conditions does cognitive processing affect entrepreneurs’ ethical decision-making. In doing so we contribute to the literature on entrepreneurial cognition and ethics and expose areas of future research.