1. Ethical decision making in entrepreneurial start-ups
Jerzy Cieślik

2. Research gap Business ethics Entrepreneurship Research gap
Ethical decision-making (EDM) established field of business ethics research. Advanced stage of both empirical and conceptual analysis. Several theoretical models developed with the recent attempt to integrate theoretical constructs in a holistic I-EDM model (Schwartz, 2016). Research focusing primarily on large organizations.
Research on ethical issues in the operations of smaller firms still underdeveloped but increasing attention of scholars in recent years.
Research gap
Research on EDM in smaller firms, including start-ups very limited.
New venture creation – core area of entrepreneurship research. Includes decision-making process. Primarily empirically oriented with increased interest in theoretical models. Theoretical models not integrated, yet.

3. Schwartz, 2016

4. Organizational context of the liability of newness
Liability of newness in the ethical decision – making model
Organizational context of the liability of newness
Lack of moral awareness
New roles to be learned, lack of established organizational routines, internal relations of strangers
Dominating strangers in external relations, vulnerability, lack of trust, unstable ties
Concentration of mounting problems and hardships, non-survival risk P1 P4
Start – up ethical flaw
Ethical climate in established organization P3 P6
Moral intensity P2
Imprinting P5
Start – up phase
Established business

5. Lack of moral awareness (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008)
moral disengagement
ethical fading
ethical blindness
non-moral framing
moral myopia

6. Moral intensity (Jones, 1991)
Moral issues confronted by decision makers vary in their intensity.
This in turn affects whether the issue is recognized, and
Whether the individual feels the need to make moral judgement on the issue, and if so
Whether actions taken are consistent with the moral judgement.
Six dimensions of moral intensity:
Magnitude of consequences
Social consensus
Probability of effect
Temporal immediacy
Proximity
Concentration of effects

7. The start-up ethical flaw (Cieślik, 2011)
Unethical practices that originate during business formation phase, newly established firms are particularly vulnerable to ethical misconduct.
Struggle to survive „justifies” making ethical concessions
Due to lack of experience young entrepreneurs are unable to assess long-term consequences of their actions
Ethical decisions taken under pressure and in haste.
Perception of transitive nature of certain unethical practices adopted during the start-up phase

8. Organizational imprinting (Stinchcombe,1965; Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013)
„A process whereby, during a brief period of susceptibility, a focal entity develops characteristics that reflect prominent features of the environment, and these characteristics continue to persist despite significant environmental changes in subsequent periods” (Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013)
Essential features of organizational imprinting:
the existence of a temporally restricted sensitive period characterized by high susceptibility to environmental influence;
the powerful impact of the environment during the sensitive period such that the focal entity comes to reflect elements of the environment at that time; and
the persistence of the characteristics developed during the sensitive period even in the face of subsequent environmental changes (Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013)
LoN context reflects all three essential features of organizational imprinting

9. Questions & Comments