Ethical Decision Making and Behavior - Q3

Imagine you are a jet fighter pilot following a hijacked plane that is heading toward a crowded football stadium. Shooting it down would kill the passengers on board but save thousands of lives on the ground. What would you do? Would your judgment change if the prime minister ordered you to act—or if your own family were among the passengers?

This seminar, Ethical Decision Making and Behavior, examines such dilemmas and explores how people make moral choices in business and everyday life. You will learn both why people act unethically and how ethical behavior can be promoted.

On a theoretical level, the course provides an economic-psychological approach to understanding ethical decision-making by integrating insights from economics, psychology, and sociology. We focus on several determinants of ethical behavior and discuss how cognitive, motivational, and institutional factors can distort ethical judgment.

On a practical level, the seminar applies these concepts through experimental research in Behavioral Ethics. You will:

• Study two experimental papers on one specific determinant of ethical behavior.
• Design and conduct your own classroom experiment based on these papers.
• Present your topic, your experiment, and real-world applications to business and everyday life.

This combination of theory and practice will help you better understand ethical decision-making—and how to influence it responsibly as a future leader.

By the end of the course, you will advance your knowledge in different ways:

• Understand key psychological and sociological determinants of ethical decision-making.
• Learn to analyze experimental research papers and assess their theoretical contributions.
• Develop the ability to design and conduct experiments that reveal ethical behavior in action.
• Strengthen your critical thinking about how to encourage ethical behavior in organizations.
• Improve your presentation and communication skills in a scientific and applied context.
• Sharpen your leadership perspective by recognizing ethical challenges and decision biases.