Morality and moral reasoning in the banking industry: An ethical and cognitive moral development examination.

摘要

This dissertation examined certain key characteristics of the banking employee that may make him/her a more ethical and moral decision-maker based on Kohlberg's Cognitive Moral Development theory. The Cognitive Moral Development theory is widely recognized as a reliable way to assess the moral maturity level of an individual. Kohlberg (1969) argued that there are three phases of two stages each, or six stages overall, of moral maturity for every individual, the highest stage being the person who makes moral decisions based on reasoning from universal and objective ethical principles. It is of critical importance to place the individual in the particular pertinent stage and then to examine the characteristics of that individual.; This study, in particular, attempted to answer the salient question: Can ethics courses and/or training help develop a more moral employee in the banking industry? The answer to this key question led to answers to other related ethical issues in the banking industry. To facilitate this examination, the Defining Issues Test (DIT) was used. James R. Rest was the developer of this testing format, which ascertains the level of moral maturity on the Kohlbergian scale. The DIT was used to assess the ethical maturity level of the banking employees.; The study thus focused on determining whether or not banking employees who had taken ethics courses and/or training possess higher moral maturity and thus may make for more moral decision-makers, or whether ethics courses and/or training make no difference to the banking employees' moral maturity levels, and consequently have no influence in their moral decision-making. The study, also, explored any relationships among moral maturity and age, gender, and the educational level of the banking employees.; The practical methodology used for the answering of the primary question was the distribution of the DIT survey instrument given to approximately 300 banking employees in South Florida. The DIT survey instrument is one traditional instrument, reliable and validated, for obtaining objective research results, and thus is widely respected as a measuring instrument.; The findings in this research work showed that banking employees in the South Florida area who have taken ethics courses and/or training do not significantly increase their levels of moral development as well as banking employees who have not taken ethical courses and/or training. The results are similar when the relationships among moral development and education, chronological age and gender among banking employees are surveyed.