“It’s Just Business”: Understanding How Business Frames Differ from Ethical Frames and the Effect on Unethical Behavior

Unfortunately, business is often associated with unethical behavior. While research has offered a number of explanations for why business might encourage unethical behavior, we argue that how a person frames a situation may provide important insight. Drawing on the decision frame literature, the goal of the current research is to identify the differences in cognitive processing associated with two decision frames dominant in the business ethics literature—business and ethical—and, with that knowledge, examine ways to mitigate the detrimental influence of frame on unethical behavior. We first demonstrate the causal link between frame and misrepresentation (Study 1), and then identify several differences in cognitive processing—cost–benefit analyses, concern for others, and construal level—that distinguish business and ethical frames, and investigate their effects on misrepresentation (Study 2). In our final set of studies (Studies 3a–c), we demonstrate that the influence of these frames on misrepresentation can be altered by manipulating these cognitive processes, both mitigating and exacerbating a decision maker’s engagement in misrepresentation. We conclude by summarizing our findings and their potential impact on unethical behavior more broadly.