Agents or stewards? Linking managerial behavior and moral development

Citation

Martynov, A. (2010), "Agents or stewards? Linking managerial behavior and moral development", Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 24 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dlo.2010.08124cad.005

Agents or stewards? Linking managerial behavior and moral development

Article Type: Abstracts From: Development and Learning in Organizations, Volume 24, Issue 3

Martynov A.Journal of Business Ethics (The Netherlands), December (I) 2009, Vol. 90, No. 2, Start page: 239, No. of pages: 11

Connecta managerial behavior on the “agent-steward” scale to managerial moral development and motivation. I introduce agent- and steward-like behavior: the former is self-serving while the latter is others-serving. I suggest that managerial moral development and motivation may be two of the factors that may predict the tendency of managers to behave in a self-serving way (like agents) or to serve the interests of the organization (like stewards). Managers at low levels of moral development are more likely to behave like agents, while managers at higher levels of moral development are more likely to behave like stewards. I also argue that managers at the highest level of moral development may serve the interests of people other than the firm’s owners and thereby transfer wealth from the firm’s owners to third parties. Moral motivation is likely to be a factor that moderates the proposed relationships. Finally, I develop propositions that address the role of material incentives in controlling behavior of managers at different levels of moral development.Article type: Research paperISSN: 0167-4544Reference: 39AC974

Keywords: Interest alignment, Moral development, Moral motivation, Steward-like behavior