Essays on Ethics in Supply Chain Management
Abstract
Ethical concerns in business practice have received considerable attention in recent years. However,
limited research has examined the role of ethical decision-making in supply chain management.
My first essay examines the ethical decision-making process where the magnitude of unethical
behavior in a specific supply management decision is determined. Diverging from the prior
research that focuses on identifying factors that influence ethical behaviors, my study proposes a
theoretical framework that incorporates a multitude of mechanisms that affect the actual magnitude
of unethical behavior. Utilizing this framework and an experimental study which rests on data
from the US, China, and Italy, I provide a more granular examination of how individuals behave
differentially when an unethical decision in the context of supply management would lead to disparate
consequences. I then examine how firms can effectively reduce the magnitude of employee’s
unethical behavior in supply management by adopting appropriate incentive structures.
In my second essay, I extend my investigation of ethical decision-making and examine the
dynamics between consecutive decisions that invoke ethical considerations in supply chain management.
Instead of taking a static perspective and focusing on individual instances of ethical
decision-making, I investigate an individual’s ethical decision-making behaviors in the long term
via a stochastic process methodology. Three aspects of the ethical decision-making process are
examined in this study via a longitudinal experimental design over a 10 week period: the overall
tendency of an individual engaging in ethical/unethical behaviors, the consistency and inconsistency
in his/her behavioral patterns, and his/her vulnerability against ethical failures. My results
suggest that ethics education achieved through frequent communication of ethical standards can
effectively induce not only an ethical but also a consistent behavioral pattern in a supply chain
manager’s decision-making process.
Finally, I provide an overall discussion of the important findings in my essays as well as their
theoretical and practical implications. I then discuss a common theme that emerges from my
studies where individuals tend to adopt different mentalities in ethical decision-making process.
Based on this finding, I outline an approach that potentially identifies managerial levers that can
effectively promote ethical practice in supply chain management.
Citation
Jia, Xingzhi (2019). Essays on Ethics in Supply Chain Management. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A & M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /184952.