Intra-firm transfer of best practices in moral reasoning: a conceptual framework

• Published in: Business ethics (Oxford, England) Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 15 - 33
• Main Authors: Kulkarni, Subodh, Ramamoorthy, Nagarajan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-01-2014
• Subjects: Best practice; Business ethics; Corporate culture; Firm theory; Information sharing; Knowledge transfer; Leader-member exchange; Morality; Morals; Personnel management; Strategic management; Studies
• ISSN: 0962-8770; 2694-6416; 1467-8608; 2694-6424
• DOI: 10.1111/beer.12035

In this paper, we develop a conceptual framework of the intra‐firm transfer of best practices in moral reasoning by integrating three streams of literature: internal knowledge transfer in strategic management, moral reasoning and epistemology in philosophy and business ethics, and leader–member exchange in human resource management. We propose that characteristics of moral reasoning (nature of moral knowledge, tacitness of moral reasoning and causal ambiguity), source characteristics (moral development of leaders), target characteristics (integrity capacity and moral development of subordinates), leader–member exchange and internal ethical climate influence the transfer of best practices in moral reasoning.