Journal of Business & Economic Policy

Leadership, Decision-Making, and Ethical Behavior
Dr. Emmett Emery, Sr.

Abstract
Ethical principles applied in organizations can broaden individual and corporate priorities beyond profit and shareholder enrichment. Ethical factors may influence leaders to make sound decisions to protect the organization for unethical behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine if a correlation exists between the independent variables leadership and decision-making, and the dependent variable ethical behavior. Drucker’s theory of management served as the theoretical framework. Data collection involved 2 survey instruments, the Authentic Leadership Questionnaire and the Moral Potency Questionnaire from 98 participants from retail businesses in the southwestern United States. The model as a whole was able to significantly predict ethical behavior (F (2, 95) = 12.79, p<.01), R2 = .21. However, none of the individual predictors was significant. The existence of multicollinearity between 2-predictor variables offers a plausible explanation for this phenomenon. Therefore, these results should be viewed with caution.

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