DATA POINT
The Limits of Justice:
Do Personality and
Closeness Have an
Impact on the
Decisions We Make?
By Marla Fowler, M.S., and Cristina Wildermuth, Ed.D., SPHR
HR professionals share their opinions about how personality traits impact ethical decision-making. Specifically,
how accommodation, a person’s tendency to serve and agree with others, and closeness, the proximity he or
she feels toward the people involved in a situation, affect the ultimate decision made.
I
magine the following scenario :
As an HR manager, one of your
responsibilities is to set up and support
a mandatory monthly meeting for all 200
associates in your organization. Just as
the meeting begins, you step out to grab
a pile of handouts on the copier. As you
return, you see an associate walking in the
opposite direction. You remind her about
the meeting. She explains: “I’m sorry, but
something personal and very important
has come up. I’ll need to take an early
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lunch to solve a problem at home.” Then
she walks out.
You are very concerned. First, you
know that this associate has already
missed two meetings this year. Associates
who do not attend two of the meetings in
a given year lose eligibility for a critical
yearly bonus, typically worth more
than a month’s pay. This penalty has
already been imposed once this year.
You know, however, that this meeting
will be particularly crowded. You may
safely assume that no one will miss your
co-worker today. What would you do, and
what would influence your decision?
We included a similar scenario in a
pilot study we recently conducted with
the help of members of Linked:HR, a large
online global community of more than
800,000 HR professionals on LinkedIn.
In that survey, we included three
possibilities, which we randomly assigned
to study participants.
www.HRCI.org