Two insights of psychology on which we would like to draw are that people react to law in more complex ways than rational-choice models assume and that good people sometimes do bad things. With that starting point, this article provides a behavioral perspective on some of the factors that...

We focus on understanding how employees perceive and interpret ethics codes. Research on ethics codes suggests that they may play an important role in the overall attempt to curb unethical behavior. Codes are viewed as an important form of organizational discourse, which is crafted, implemented,...

The morality of killing in war, which has been the subject of debate among philosophers and legal scholars, focuses on two main approaches: the “traditional” and the “revisionist.” The traditional approach argues for symmetry: soldiers of both sides are liable to be killed, whether or...

Most companies use codes of conduct, ethical training and regular communication to assure employees know about rules to follow to avoid misconduct. This paper focuses on the type of language used in codes of conduct, and shows that impersonal language (“employees/members”) and personal,...

Law and economics scholarship suggests that, in appropriate cases, the law can improve people’s behavior by changing their preferences. For instance, the law can curb discriminatory hiring practices by providing employers with information that might change their preferences towards...

Even “good people”—those who think of themselves as being ethical— may engage in corrupt actions. In fact, the situations that seem least problematic can sometimes cause good people to behave immorally. Behavioral ethics research has demonstrated that various unconscious and...

The field of behavioural ethics seeks to clarify how people behave when confronted with ethicaldilemmas. It has identified and analysed numerous mechanisms by which people may engage inunethical and illegal behaviour without fully recognizing its implications. In the field of employment law,...