Ethics Blind Spots in Organizations: How Systematic Errors in Person Perception Undermine Moral Agency

Abstract

Moral agency in work organizations is vulnerable to systematic patterns of person perception. Employing cognitive structuralism and drawing upon cases of corporate wrongdoing, it is argued that common perceptual frames create ethics blind spots that undermine moral agency. By focusing on the possibility of others’ moral transgressions, employees overlook virtuous acts and morally admirable propensities. Their frame makes them especially critical of the morality of organizational officials. Exacerbating this tendency are the blind spots evident among officials who disregard the need to communicate their moral priorities and who pay little attention to the moral actions of their subordinates. Since perceptual frames are shaped in part by volition, ethics blind spots can be corrected by a self-improvement regimen.