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Ethical Decision-Making journals.sagepub.com/home/bas

Process: Assessing the

Relationship Between
Personal Values and
Cognitive Moral
Reasoning

James Weber1

Abstract
Focusing on millennials, individuals born between 1980 and 2000 and
representing the largest generational population in our history, this research
seeks to understand their ethical decision-making processes by exploring
the distinctive, yet interconnected, theories of personal values and cognitive
moral reasoning. Utilizing a decision-making framework introduced in
the 1990s, we discover that there is a statistically supported relationship
between a millennial’s personal value orientation and stage of cognitive
moral reasoning. Moreover, we discover a strong relationship between
three of the four value orientations and a corresponding stage of cognitive
moral reasoning. The theoretical and practical research implications of our
discovery about millennials’ decision making are discussed.

Keywords
cognitive moral reasoning, ethical decision making, personal values

1Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:
James Weber, Palumbo-Donahue School of Business, Duquesne University, 600 Forbes
Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15282, USA.
Email: [email protected]
2 Business & Society 00(0)

Exploding on to the business scene in the 21st century are millennials, indi-
viduals born between 1980 and 2000. They account for approximately 80
million people, exceeding the population of the baby boomers (born between
1946 and 1964) by 4 million. In 2016, there was a greater number of 26-year-
olds in the United States than any single group of individuals of a given age
(Ethics Resource Center, 2013).
Millennials are acknowledged as a powerful group in the workforce as
they become established leaders of business organizations, an influential
population of consumers, and a significant pool of investors. The sheer mag-
nitude of their potential, or increasingly actual, influence on business has
caused executives and policy makers to commit extensive resources to under-
stand, accommodate, and influence millennials. Goldman Sachs reports that
they have learned their lesson and accept that newly hired employees are not
as interested in staying with the firm for the long run. Rather, millennials are
seeking experience to catapult them into higher paying jobs with other firms
after a few years. According to a LinkedIn poll of a dozen of investment
banks surveyed in 2015, millennials stay an average of 17 months on the job,
compared with a 26-month average a decade earlier (Huang & Gellman,
2016).
Given the lifetime of experience with technology, millennials understand
the value of their talents and the role they can play in society. LinkedIn and
Oracle hired an army of millennial consultants, who charge as much as
US$20,000 an hour for their expertise, focusing on how to manage and mar-
ket to other millennials (Manjoo, 2016). Millennials also have exerted them-
selves into the media industry as an important target market. Verizon
Communications and Hearst teamed up to produce multiplatform online
video channels aimed at millennials from the heartland. In addition, Conde
Nast Entertainment created a demographic called cultured millennials, whose
members demonstrate a preference for artisan beer (Lyall, 2016).
While understood as the most educated and technology-savvy population
in the history of humankind (Philips, 2014), little is known about millennials
as moral actors in society and the ethical decision-making processes they
bring to their professional and personal lives. What lies at the core of the mil-
lennials’ thought processes leading to a reflective reasoning framework that
give rise to decisions and behavior? How do these cognitive processes—per-
sonal values and cognitive moral reasoning, for example—connect? If there
are linkages, how strong are they or under what circumstances do they occur?
Explorations focusing on the influence of antecedents of ethical decision
making abound in the business ethics literature (see O’Fallon & Butterfield,
2005, for a comprehensive review of this literature). Yet, this literature is
limited as it typically assesses individual, isolated elements of the complex,
Weber 3

multifaceted decision-making process. This research seeks to understand

ethical decision-making processes by exploring the independent, yet inter-
connected, theories of personal values and cognitive moral reasoning.
Scholars began to explore personal values in earnest in the 1950s
(Kluckhohn, 1951), and applied this decision theory to managers shortly
thereafter (Clare & Sanford, 1979; England, Dhingra, & Agarwal, 1974).
Cognitive moral reasoning also emerged as a critical element of ethical deci-
sion making with Kohlberg’s (1971) stage model and the assessment of indi-
viduals’ moral development (Freeman & Giebink, 1979; Lifton, 1985), which
was quickly applied to business managers (Derry, 1987, 1989). Attempts to
integrate these two fields of ethical decision making emerged from a deci-
sion-making framework introduced in the 1980s and 1990s (Emler, Renwick,
& Malone, 1983; Weber, 1993) and continued into the 2000s. This research
revisits and tests the findings of these prior investigations by assessing the
presence of relationships between these two independent, yet possibly related,
cognitive elements leading to decision making and behavior.
In sum, this research seeks to understand millennials’ ethical decision-
making processes by exploring the distinctive, yet interconnected, theories of
personal values and cognitive moral reasoning. Utilizing a decision-making
framework introduced in the 1990s, these recognized cognitive steps leading
to decision making and behavior are analyzed and compared for linkages in
constructing an ethical decision-making framework.

Personal Values
“A value is a conception, explicit or implicit, distinctive of an individual or
characteristic of a group, of the desirable, which influences the selection from
available modes, means, and ends of action” (Kluckhohn, 1951, p. 395). This
generally accepted definition of a value conveys what is important to us in
our professional and personal lives. A person may place greater importance
on a set of values (e.g., being courageous, living a life of prudence, or temper-
ance) versus other values (e.g., accumulation of wealth or fame, or preferring
to be alone rather than with friends or family).
A particular, singular value may be very important to one person but unim-
portant or less important to another person even if they belong to the same
family, are employed by the same business organization, or are members of
the same generation. Values are deeply personal and individualistic. For
example, Hanke and Vauclair (2016) built on the earlier work by Hornsey and
Wohl (2013) to investigate the role forgiveness plays across various cultures.
They surveyed 41,975 subjects in 30 countries to uncover many cultural influ-
ences on the role forgiveness plays in individual’s lives and interpersonal
4 Business & Society 00(0)

relations. Other scholars adopted a cross-generational perspective to explore

the role of values. Murphy, Mujtabab, Manyakb, Sungkhawanc, and
Greenwood (2010) explored generational differences in Thailand, and com-
pared their results with value preferences exhibited by Americans. Personal
values were also compared with organizational values to determine if they are
adequate descriptors of organization values (Tuulik, Õunapuu, Kuimet, &
Titov, 2016), or if there are discrepancies between individual and organiza-
tional values (Dylág, Jaworek, Karwowski, Kozusznik, & Marek, 2013).
To understand and ultimately measure one’s values, American social psy-
chologist Milton Rokeach developed two lists of 18 values—one list contains
terminal or end-states of existence values and the other list includes instru-
mental or modes of conduct values. The end-states or terminal values may be
“self-centered or society-centered, intrapersonal or interpersonal,” according
to Rokeach (1973, p. 8). The instrumental or modes of conduct values tend to
either “have an interpersonal focus which, when violated, arouse pangs of
conscience or feelings of guilt for wrongdoing”—that is, moral values. Other
values “have a personal rather than interpersonal focus . . . and their violation
leads to feelings of shame about personal inadequacy rather than guilt”—that
is, competency values (Rokeach, 1973, p. 8).
Rokeach posits that sometimes values are in conflict with other values
within one’s personal value orientation, so the decision maker is often forced
to choose between competing, but essentially important, values. He also con-
tends that rarely does a single value provide adequate motivation for a deci-
sion or action. Thus, the notion of a value orientation, or collection of values
rather than a single value, is operationally relevant and active in virtually all
decisions and behaviors.
Rokeach (1973) explained, “A value system is an enduring organization of
beliefs concerning preferable modes of conduct or end-states of existence
along a continuum of relative importance” (p. 5). From his two sets of values,
he envisions an intersection of the terminal values as having a Personal or
Social orientation, and the instrumental values as having a Competence or
Moral orientation. These two dimensions within each general value classifi-
cation lead to four value orientation combinations: Personal-Competence,
Social-Competence, Personal-Moral, and Social-Moral.
The notion of a managerial value orientation took a noticeable step for-
ward when Weber (1990a) explored managers’ value preferences for
Rokeach’s original 18 terminal and 18 instrumental values. In addition to
providing empirical support to cluster Rokeach’s original 36 values into one
of the four orientation groups, Weber analyzed the results from five prior
studies to weight the impact of each value associated with one of the value
orientations hypothetically proposed by Rokeach. Rather than considering
Weber 5

each value as having equal membership (or weight) in the value orientation,
Weber was able to assign greater weight to certain values that more closely
represented the value orientations discussed by Rokeach (see Appendix A).
These categorizations and the weights assigned to the values are discussed
later in this article.
Researchers discovered a link between an individual’s personal values and
decisions made (Allport, Vernon, & Lindzey, 1960; Beyer, 1981) as well as
actions taken (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Posner,
2010). Simply put, why people decide to act the way they do is often influ-
enced by their specific values.
Millennials are beginning to be assessed in terms of their values and the
impact of these beliefs on their behaviors. Carmichael (2016) refuted the
belief that millennials are not a hard-working generation more concerned
with “flex-time, beer carts, and nap rooms” by discovering that they see
themselves as “work martyrs” even more than prior generations (43% of the
millennials in the study compared with 29% of all survey participants).
Millennials overwhelmingly agreed with the following statements: “I feel
guilty for using my paid time off” and “No one else at my company can do
the work while I’m away” (Carmichael, 2016, p. 3).
Millennials exhibit positive social values when their value systems were
explored in a 2014 Millennials Impact Report (Johnson, 2015). Millennials
reportedly want to “make a difference” in the world, and want to align them-
selves with organizations that are making a positive impact on society
(Johnson, 2015, p. 4). While millennials recognize that technology has made
their life easier, few individuals from this generation manifested a poorer
work ethic when compared with members of previous generations. Millennials
seem to share many of the work-oriented values of past generations, accord-
ing to the research reported by Carmichael (2016) and Johnson (2015), but
constitute a complex and often-conflicted generation with various values and
beliefs.
When applied to business ethics, researchers found that certain personal
values create an ethical orientation that influences or promotes ethical behav-
ior or, conversely, leads to unethical behavior (Argandona, 2003) and are
connected to selected behavior in real-life situations (see Schwartz & Bardi,
2001, for a summary of previous literature). Turning to a business context,
Gehman, Treviño, and Garud (2013) advance the notion of values practices,
where values are recognized for their critical role in organizational perfor-
mance and add a normative dimension to behavior in business.
Therefore, we argue that insights into the millennial generation’s personal
value orientation can reveal an important dimension of their ethical decision-
making process leading to decisions and behaviors. This is the first step
6 Business & Society 00(0)

toward understanding the connective chain of multiple cognitive steps com-

prising an integrated ethical decision-making process.

Cognitive Moral Reasoning Theory

Scholars seeking to understand the decision-making process of individuals
also turn to cognitive moral development as a method to assess an individu-
al’s weighing and filtering of information leading to a decision (Rest, 1986;
Treviño, 1992). This exploration of cognitive moral reasoning typically uses
a well-established cognitive moral development and reasoning framework
developed by Kohlberg (1971).
Recently, scholars have focused on the role emotions or affective influ-
ences, rather than cognition, might play in the decision maker’s reasoning
process. Complementing the deliberative rationale process may be a ten-
dency to evoke an intuitive and emotional decision process. Weaver,
Reynolds, and Brown (2014) posited, “A rapidly growing body of social sci-
ence research has framed ethical thought and behavior as driven by intuition”
(p. 100). Work by Graham and colleagues (2011), Haidt (2001), and Reynolds
(2006) has “opened the door to reconsidering the substantive content of indi-
viduals’ automatic, intuitive responses regarding ethics” (Weaver et al., 2014,
p. 101).
Scholars recognize that persons are capable of, and often respond to, more
than the concerns of consequences emanating from a decision or evoke ethi-
cal principles to reach an ethically defensible decision. Many scholars toiling
in the social sciences, such as psychology, anthropology, evolutionary psy-
chology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics, acknowledge the role
of intuition or emotion, although this work is only slowly infiltrating organi-
zational behavior and other business fields of study (Ashkanasy, Humphrey,
& Huy, 2016; Phillips, Fletcher, Marks, & Hine, 2016).
While accepting the emerging focus on intuition and emotions, this inves-
tigation seeks to reinvestigate the linkage between personal value orienta-
tions and cognitive moral reasoning. Loyal to the original instruments used
by Weber (1993), a cognitive assessment of one’s moral reasoning is uti-
lized—Kohlberg’s (1971) Stages of Cognitive Moral Development Model.
Kohlberg’s model focuses on the reasons given by individuals to explain
why certain actions are perceived as morally just or preferable. Within the
stage model, Kohlberg identifies three separate levels of moral reasoning
with each level comprising two distinct stages—six stages in all. Empirically,
the most basic level of moral reasoning is the preconventional level, which
includes Stages 1 (Punishment and Obedience Reasoning) and 2 (Instrumental
Relativism Reasoning). At Stage 1, the reasoner focuses on the physical
Weber 7

consequences of an action to determine the goodness or badness of a decision

or action, and seeks to avoid punishment while exhibiting an unquestioning
deference to power for those in authority. While this stage of reasoning is
often found in children by moral developmental researchers, others have
observed Stage 1 reasoning in adults, as people seemingly cling to this notion
of self-preservation and avoidance of punishment (Weber & Gillespie, 1998).
Turning to Stage 2 of the preconventional level of cognitive moral reasoning,
the emphasis is on an interest in satisfying one’s own needs. A Stage 2 rea-
soner looks to fairness, reciprocity, and equal sharing but interpreted in a
physical or pragmatic way with an exclusive attention to the consequences
for the decision maker.
As the individual matures in his or her moral reasoning, the conventional
level of moral development emerges. In Kohlberg’s stage model, this level
includes Stages 3 (Good Boy/Nice Girl Reasoning) and 4 (Law and Order
Reasoning). At Stage 3, good behavior or right decision making is now
understood as that which pleases or helps others, so that the decision maker
is seen by others who are important as a good boy or nice girl. An advance-
ment of an individual’s cognitive moral reasoning is seen when looking at
Stage 4—Law and Order Reasoning. The decision maker assumes the role of
a generalized member of society, and reasoning relies on a conception of the
social system as a consistent set of codes and procedures that apply impar-
tially to all members of society. The focus broadens beyond the family or
work group to include all members of a society.
Finally, an individual can mature in his or her moral development to the
postconventional level of moral reasoning. This level includes Stages 5
(Social Contract Reasoning) and 6 (Universal Principle Reasoning). At Stage
5, the cognitive moral reasoning includes the understanding of right or moral
as a matter of personal values and opinions. Accompanying this focus at the
postconventional level is a Stage 6 orientation, where right or moral is defined
by decisions of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles
appealing to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency. A
Stage 6 reasoner demonstrates an “effort to define moral values and princi-
ples which have validity and application apart from the authority of the
groups or persons holding power and apart from the individual’s own identi-
fication with these groups” (Kohlberg, 1971, p. 88).
Since Kohlberg’s creation of his Stages of Moral Development Model,
there were various challenges from its critics to modify and improve his
framework. Kohlberg and his colleagues responded to these challenges to
better capture, analyze, and explain an individual’s cognitive moral reason-
ing. For example, a gender challenge initially launched by Gilligan (1982),
and later by others, argued that Kohlberg’s model discriminated against
8 Business & Society 00(0)

females, given that all of Kohlberg’s initial test subjects were males and, in
subsequent research, female subjects would be capped at Stage 3 of the
framework. This challenge was addressed by Kohlberg and his associates,
and adjustments were made to the stage scoring method. When Derry (1987,
1989) tested Gilligan’s challenge, she found no conclusive evidence discrim-
inating between female and male managers’ moral reasoning orientation.
Donleavy (2008) explored the Kohlberg–Gilligan controversy, and concluded
“ . . . what differences do exist [between an ethics of justice and an ethics of
care], within a business context, are far outweighed by the other explanatory
factors” (p. 816).
Krebs and Denton (2005) offered 11 propositions challenging
Kohlberg’s initial longitudinal study and the model’s structural consis-
tency and other measurement issues. Many of their objections are addressed
by Kohlberg and his associates in the rescoring of the stages. Other chal-
lenges are rendered inconsequential as these challenges tend to focus on
the weaknesses in Kohlberg’s initial longitudinal study of all male sub-
jects, which is avoided in this research, and the use of generalized moral
reasoning dilemmas, which are replaced in this study with business-con-
text dilemmas. Based on the decades of empirical research using Kohlberg’s
Stages of Moral Development Model applied in a business setting, we are
confident in using this theoretical framework to assess the cognitive moral
reasoning exhibited by millennials as a portion of their ethical decision-
making framework.

Integration of Personal Values and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning
Although Rokeach’s theoretical work focusing on personal values and
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development Model are empirically validated
and stand-alone as powerful tools in assessing one’s cognitive decision pro-
cesses, the combination of the two well-established theories is examined by
scholars but only occasionally. The importance of considering both theories
is argued by Weber (1993), “although the contributions of these two theories
are significant, neither theory alone provides a comprehensive or complete
basis for an understanding or explanation of behavioral influences” (p. 435).
We support Weber’s contention that unless the two theories—personal values
and cognitive moral reasoning—are linked and empirically applied in an
assessment of an individual’s cognitive decision-making process, the assess-
ment is incomplete or stated positively—the assessment is stronger when the
two theories are combined.
Weber 9

Educators believe that personal values and cognitive moral reasoning are
connected and should be used in various pedagogical approaches. Kvalnes
(2014) posited that personal values affect the reasoning process when stu-
dents face opportunities for dishonest behavior. Sivanandan, Thurasingam,
and Cho (2013) drew a strong connection between personal values and cogni-
tive moral reasoning when business students face various ethical and legal
challenges. Finally, Holland (2013) acknowledged that cognitive moral rea-
soning and personal values must be fused when students encounter the social,
legal, professional, and ethical aspects of information processing in the busi-
ness environment.
Psychological investigations also reveal strong linkages between values
and cognition. Daniel, Dys, Buchmann, and Malti (2014) examined Swiss
children and their development of sympathy, moral emotions, and social jus-
tice values, and compared these influences with moral reasoning at ages 6, 9,
and 12 years. The integration of values and cognition in children’s morality
occurred from middle childhood to early adolescence. Confirmatory evi-
dence was discovered by Pennycook, Fugelsang, and Koehler (2015), reveal-
ing the individual’s willingness to engage in analytical reasoning overrode
their gut feelings. Pennycook and colleagues (2015) found that analytical
thinkers were more skeptical about religious, paranormal, and conspiratorial
concepts. A five-factor model of personality in ethical decision making was
constructed to clarify the influence of empathy and personal values on ethical
competency (Pohling, Bzdok, Eigenstetter, Stumpf, & Strobel, 2016).
Supportive evidence led the authors to recommend that human resource man-
agers consider the relation between values and ethical decision making when
making hiring decisions at their firms.
A strong interconnectivity between a personal value orientation and moral
reasoning did not emerge in the management and business ethics literature
until the mid-1980s. A review of the business ethics literature uncovers a
handful of studies that explicitly look at the interconnectivity between per-
sonal values and cognitive moral reasoning. Directly relevant to our explora-
tion of millennials’ values and moral reasoning are the findings from Emler
et al. (1983); Weber (1993); Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2006); Myyry,
Siponen, Pahnila, Vartiainen, and Vance (2009); and Lan, Gowing, Rieger,
McMahon, and King (2008, 2010).
Emler and colleagues (1983) investigated morally mature subjects—
adults—and considered a person’s general value orientation, rather than
assessing the value preference for a single or limited number of values. After
measuring adult moral reasoning using Rest’s Defining Issues Test, they
found that subjects previously classified as right-wingers, but were asked to
respond as political radicals, produced higher levels of moral reasoning.
10 Business & Society 00(0)

These increased levels of moral reasoning were characteristic of political

radicals or subjects previously classified as left-wingers in their study.
Weber (1993) provided 111 managers with the Rokeach Value Survey and
a cognitive moral reasoning instrument, the Moral Judgment Interview.
Weber reports statistical significance for the four combinations of a personal
value orientation and a corresponding stage of cognitive moral reasoning
(Personal-Competence orientation and Stage 3, Social-Competence orienta-
tion and Stage 4, Personal-Moral orientation and Stage 4, and Social-Moral
orientation and Stage 5). He concludes that only in assessing both personal
values and cognitive moral reasoning is an individual’s ethical decision-mak-
ing process best understood.
Abdolmohammadi and Baker (2006) examined relationships between
accounting students’ personal values and their moral reasoning. They hypoth-
esized that there is an inverse relationship between their importance attrib-
uted to conformity values and principled moral reasoning. After administering
the Rokeach Value Survey and the Defining Issues Test to 164 graduating
accounting students enrolled in the capstone courses at two Northeastern
U.S. universities, they discovered the inverse relationship as predicted.
In a study published in 2009, Myyry and colleagues explored the influence
of cognitive moral reasoning and personally held values regarding adherence
to information security rules. They found that subjects reasoning at the pre-
conventional level of moral reasoning more often exhibited a preference for
adopting an obedience to authority rationalization, and indicated that they
were more willing to comply with information security rules. Alternatively,
subjects who value “openness to change,” rather than conformity to authority,
were less likely to adhere to the strict information security rules, as expected
(Myyry et al., 2009, pp. 134-135). Myyry and colleagues deduce that there is
a relationship between one’s personal value preferences, such as respect for
authority and the observance to externally imposed rules, and the cognitive
moral reasoning stage applied to behavior when faced with respecting infor-
mation security protocol.
Two published studies by Lan et al. (2008, 2010) provide additional
insights into the relationships between personal values and cognitive moral
reasoning. In 2008, building on previous research, they concluded, “Our
results do provide preliminary evidence supporting our fourth hypothesis
that a relationship exists between personal values and levels of moral rea-
soning” (p. 134). Two years later, this group of researchers surveyed 108
MBA students at a Canadian university, and their findings show a statisti-
cally significant and positive association between the postconventional level
of moral reasoning, as measured by p scores, and values associated with
universalism. They suggest that their “findings provide further evidence that
Weber 11

value types affect the postconventional level of moral reasoning” (Lan et al.,
2010, p. 195).
With these scholarly investigations as a foundation, we offer the following
hypotheses as testable measures to understand the ethical decision-making
processes exhibited by our subjects, specifically their personal value orienta-
tions and stages of cognitive moral reasoning.

Hypotheses Development
Based on the initial explorations found in the six relevant studies profiled
above (Abdolmohammadi & Baker, 2006; Emler et al., 1983; Lan et al.,
2008, 2010; Myyry et al., 2009; Weber, 1993), there appears to be ample
evidence to suggest potential relationships between millennials’ personal
value orientations and stages of cognitive moral reasoning. Therefore, we
hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 1: There will be a significant (correlated) relationship between

the millennials’ personal value orientation and stage of cognitive moral
reasoning.

As discussed earlier, there are numerous subcategories of personal value ori-

entations and stages of cognitive moral reasoning that characterize the millenni-
als’ ethical decision-making processes, and may demonstrate an interrelationship.
Borrowing heavily from Weber’s (1993) theoretically grounded and empirically
tested relationships between personal value orientations and stage of cognitive
moral reasoning, we hypothesize that each of the four types of personal value
orientations based on Rokeach’s (1973) work is associated with a specific stage
of moral reasoning found in Kohlberg’s (1971) stage model. Each of these rela-
tionships is shown in Table 1. Therefore, each of the value orientations and
stages of moral reasoning is a potential classification for our sample.

Personal-Competence Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 3
Most personal values research discovers the Personal-Competence value ori-
entation as the most common orientation among managers and business stu-
dents (Weber, 2015). There is little to dissuade us from expecting a similar
result, given our sample of millennial business students. Therefore, it is para-
mount to understand the relationship between this personal value orientation
and stage of cognitive moral reasoning as it is likely that this values-reason-
ing combination characterizes a majority of the millennials in this study.
12 Business & Society 00(0)

Table 1.  The Hypothesized Relationships Between Millennials’ Personal Value

Orientations and Stages of Cognitive Moral Reasoning.

Terminal value Terminal value

orientation—Personal orientation—Social
Instrumental value Stage 3—Good boy/nice Stage 4—Law and order
orientation—Competence girl reasoning reasoning
Instrumental value Stage 4—Law and order Stage 5—Social contract
orientation—Moral reasoning reasoning

Subjects associated with this personal value orientation place greater

importance on values aligned with themselves. Millennials’ tendency to take
selfies, create and use hashtags (#), share nearly all of their life’s moments
online, and live with their parents longer than their parents did seem to reflect
this self-centered value orientation (Suddath, 2014; Warbreck, 2015). Many
of our millennial business student subjects may tend to be more concerned
about their personal development, their emerging business career, and the
impact of events in their lives upon themselves—rather than a focus on oth-
ers. It is likely that most millennials in our sample, generally still single and
experiencing their collegiate years, may tend to care more about themselves,
and focus on what is happening in their lives rather than on others in their
community or in society.
Recent studies describe many individuals of this generation as having a
competency or results-oriented purpose in their lives and are generally mate-
rialistic. There is little concern for others shown in the lesser importance
attributed to empathy, charitable donations, and a strong civic orientation by
many millennials (Twenge, 2010; Twenge, Campbell, & Freeman, 2012). As
discussed earlier, millennials tend to stay at a job for a shorter period than
previous generations (Huang & Gellman, 2016). Millennials also exhibit
higher levels of narcissism leading to a stronger pursuit of personal gratifica-
tion or egoism than individuals do at their age in the past. This generation
believes that locating a job will be far easier than it was for previous genera-
tions, and they will secure a job with a substantially higher salary (Westerman,
Bergman, Bergman, & Daly, 2012).
The emphasis on personal, rather than social, values and on competence,
rather than moral, values may be perceived as troubling to some as this orien-
tation is also more closely associated with lower stages of cognitive moral
reasoning. Most scholars, such as Elm and Nichols (1993), argue that adult
subjects typically reason at Stage 3. We believe that the value orientation
allied with a personal and competence focus is more closely aligned with a
Weber 13

Stage 3 level of cognitive moral reasoning. Although the focus may be on the
decision maker—personal—there is an adult emphasis toward enhancing
one’s reputation among their immediate peer group, whether this be at home,
at school, or in the workplace. At this stage, the reasoning focus is conven-
tional—a focus on the immediate group—and consequential—a focus on
seeking positive outcomes for the referent group, family, peers, colleagues,
and coworkers. Therefore, we argue that most of the millennials responding
to our instruments will likely demonstrate a Personal-Competence value ori-
entation and reasoning at Stage 3 of Kohlberg’s stages of cognitive moral
development model.

Hypothesis 2: Millennials who exhibit a Personal-Competence value ori-

entation will tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 3—Good
boy/nice girl Reasoning.

Social-Competence Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 4
Focusing on the next values-reasoning combination, we see a slight change in
the values orientation—toward a concern for others (or social value orienta-
tion) but the retention of the importance given to competence values. Some
millennials may be more explicit in manifesting their social connectivity, as
seen by some observers of this generation (Johnson, 2015), and therefore
demonstrate this attention to, or inclusion of, others in their value preference
responses. The context of this social interest may be due to a greater involve-
ment with others during their college years through academic major organi-
zations, belonging to professional or business fraternities or sororities, or a
myriad of other collective associations. At this time, many millennial busi-
ness students begin their careers as employees in a small or family-run busi-
ness and have their first business internship experience that might broaden
their perceptions toward a business department.
Turning to the competence orientation, studies discover that some millen-
nials work well in teams, want to have a significant impact on their organiza-
tions, favor open and frequent communication with their supervisors, and
are at ease with communication technologies (Myers & Sadaghiani, 2010).
They observe fewer boundaries, and are more open and transparent. Some
millennials more freely discuss work activity in private and public, often
through social media channels. This openness contributes to a perception of
tolerance of what others might consider unacceptable behavior (Freestone &
Mitchell, 2004).
14 Business & Society 00(0)

While still holding on to a competence value preference, this change in

value orientation to a social, rather than personal, perspective might also be
accompanied by what some would consider as moral development—the broad-
ening of cognitive moral reasoning to the conventional level of moral reason-
ing, specifically to Stage 4. Millennials may be more concerned about how
others perceive them, similar for the Personal-Competence and Stage 3 predic-
tion earlier, but some expand the attention to a broader focus group, such as the
entire business organization, university, or those in society. This change in
moral reasoning reflects a development to Stage 4, where the individual seeks
to emphasize the law and order orientation or a concern for social harmony and
order. Therefore, it is possible that some millennial business students in our
sample exhibit a Social-Competence values orientation and a corresponding
cognitive moral reasoning level of Stage 4—the law and order reasoning stage.

Hypothesis 3: Millennials who exhibit a Social-Competence value orien-

tation will tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 4—Law and
Order Reasoning.

Personal-Moral Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 4
The next possible values orientation integrates a personal, rather than
social, value preference but introduces a new value orientation—impor-
tance given to moral, rather than competence, values. As noted earlier,
most millennials may exhibit a personal value orientation that is associated
with materialism and narcissism, but this may seem to be in clear contra-
diction to a value orientation that emphasizes a concern for moral values.
However, this notion may be more complex than simple selfishness, as
initially suspected.
Weber (1993) encountered this apparent conflict and turned to the Janus-
head notion of decision making. Based on the Roman god, Janus, the god of
gates and entryways, Weber adapted Brady’s (1985) notion of how conflicting
perspectives may be able to coexist. Weber (1993) speculated that “a personal-
moral manager may be oriented toward utilizing values or reasoning latent
from the past, yet look to the future for values or reasoning that are emergent as
important guides for decision making” (p. 446). While a personal value orienta-
tion may be indicative of a childish development perspective, it is possible that
there is a forward-looking value orientation that attempts to embrace what is
more ethically and morally accepted as a values focus.
When combining these two value orientations—personal and moral—
there may be a corresponding linkage to the conventional level of cognitive
Weber 15

moral reasoning when the apparent conflict is resolved. The personal value
orientation aligns with lower stages of cognitive moral reasoning, as we dis-
cussed earlier, due to the emphasis on the individual decision maker and a
concern for seeking attention from those in authority. We posited that a per-
sonal value orientation may be aligned with the cognitive moral reasoning
Stage 3—the good boy/nice girl reasoning.
Yet, the moral value orientation may be more closely related to higher
stages of moral reasoning. An emphasis on the postconventional level, or
Stage 5, of cognitive moral reasoning and the reliance upon universal ethical
principles would support the moral value orientation. Therefore, the personal-
moral value orientation may be aligned with Stages 3 and 5, reflecting both
lower and higher stages of cognitive moral reasoning. However, theoretical
foundations of cognitive moral reasoning and empirical findings based on
this theory do not support the occurrence of simultaneous reasoning at such
disparate stages (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987; Weber, 1993).
Where does this place the Janus-headed individual reasoner? Weber
(1993) suggested that one possible resolution is to hypothesize that an indi-
vidual with a personal-moral value orientation would reason at Stage 4 (p.
446). This places the individual within reach of Stage 5 cognitive moral rea-
soning, recognizing the moral value orientation and desire to apply universal
ethical principles, but not too distant from Stage 3 reasoning, supported by
the personal value orientation and a concern for earning approval from those
in authority or those who the decision maker holds in importance. As noncon-
secutive stages of reasoning would violate one of the tenets of Kohlberg’s
stages of cognitive moral development model and be counter to empirical
research, this compromise of a Stage 4 association with a personal-moral
value orientation seems reasonable. Therefore, the combination of a personal-
moral value orientation appears to be more interrelated than initially imag-
ined and associated with the properties of Stage 4 conventional level of
cognitive moral reasoning. Therefore, we hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 4: Millennials who exhibit a Personal-Moral value orientation

will tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 4—Law and Order
Reasoning.

Social-Moral Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral Reasoning

at Stage 5
Finally, the fourth possible values-reasoning combination—a social-moral
value orientation—includes many of the elements discussed previously
associated with the social value orientation and a concern for moral values.
16 Business & Society 00(0)

Although millennials were characterized earlier as materialistic and narcis-

sistic (Twenge, 2010), it is likely that a minority will exhibit a value prefer-
ence for social, rather than personal, and moral, rather than competence,
values through a desire to have meaningful impact on their world (Johnson,
2015).
As discussed earlier, these millennial business students may exhibit a
greater importance for social values due to their heightened involvement
with others during their college years. They are beginning their careers as
employees or interns, all of which may broaden their reasoning focus.
Their focus may extend beyond organizational boundaries to include the
complex multiorganizational system found in society—where business,
government, and society need to coordinate to coexist. Their attention to
the natural environment and the pressing issue of sustainability, a priority
among some millennials (Nielsen Global Survey, 2015), reflects this
broader understanding of the context of an ethical decision-making
process.
In combination, as evident from this personal value orientation, some mil-
lennial business students may embrace a concern for adhering to ethical stan-
dards, such as being forgiving, helpful, and honest (all values found in the
moral value orientation in the Rokeach Value Survey). There is an acceptance
of ethical principles or a professional code for this generation. They are more
ethnically and racially diverse and tolerant than prior generations, and are
found to be more willing to report wrongdoing to someone outside the orga-
nization (Ethics Resource Center, 2013).
The coupling of the greater preference for social values, along with
the latest attention to moral values, may result in a heightened level of
cognitive moral reasoning than associated with the previous personal
value orientations. At this advanced cognitive stage of moral develop-
ment, an individual goes beyond an emphasis on society, and concen-
trates on the bonds of a social contract between individuals or groups and
the application of universal ethical principles. Therefore, as these indi-
viduals embrace a social and moral, rather than personal and compe-
tence, value orientation, the decision maker may function at the
postconventional level of cognitive moral reasoning. Therefore, we
hypothesize as follows:

Hypothesis 5: Millennials who exhibit a Social-Moral value orientation

will tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 5—Social Contracts
Reasoning.
Weber 17

Method
Sample
The sample consists of 208 junior and senior undergraduate business students
at a private university in the eastern region of the United States. All of the
subjects were born between 1981 and 2000, thus members of the biological,
age-based millennial generation. The average age of our sample is 21 years,
with 122 females (59%) and 86 males (41%). Although the regional- and
educational-limiting characteristics of this sample are noted later in this arti-
cle, this work does represent an initial effort in analyzing future business
leaders’ ethical decision-making processes to understand this generation and
what they may bring to the business workplace in the future.

Instruments
The Rokeach Value Survey was used to assess the importance individuals
assign to 18 terminal (personal or social end-states of existence) values and
18 instrumental (competence or moral modes of conduct) values. The
Rokeach Value Survey is widely accepted in values research (Vauclair,
Hanke, Fischer, & Fontaine, 2011) and, specifically, in assessing business
students’ values (McCarthy, 1997).
However, an important modification to the original Rokeach Value Survey
characterizing recent research is used here: Respondents are asked to rate,
rather than rank, their value preferences. Previous research found that by ask-
ing subjects to rate (rather than rank) values on a traditional Likert-type scale
enables subjects to consider fewer items at once, and makes the resulting
importance given to each value more plausible and reliable (Miethe, 1985).
The rating system allows individuals to appraise different values as being
equally important to them, and permits for the possibility that a given value
item will be negatively valued.
Weber (1990a) provided an important progression in the data analysis by
introducing quantitative-based membership or weights for each of the 36 val-
ues based on five prior works (Weber’s initial classification is shown in
Appendix A). For example, Weber found that A Comfortable Life and Inner
Harmony are consistently associated with, or grouped through factor analysis
to, a personal value orientation by all five of the prior investigations. Thus,
each of these values receives the maximum weight of 5, and are assigned to
the personal value orientation. Salvation, however, is found to be associated
with the personal value orientation in only four of the five prior studies and
once with the social value orientation; thus, Weber not only gives this value
18 Business & Society 00(0)

a more mid-range weight of 3 (based on 4 − 1) but also assigns this value to

the personal value orientation.
Based on the individual’s importance ratings of each value, in combina-
tion with the membership weights assigned to each value, value orientation
scores are compiled. If a subject exhibits higher importance for the personal,
rather than social, values and for the competence, rather than moral, values,
then the subject is assigned a personal-competence value orientation.
The Adapted Moral Judgment Interview (AMJI) is adapted from the Moral
Judgment Interview designed by Lawrence Kohlberg and his associates at the
Harvard School of Education. The AMJI seeks to “elicit a subject’s (1) own
construction of moral reasoning, (2) moral frame of reference or assumptions
about right and wrong, and (3) the way these beliefs and assumptions are
used to make and justify moral decisions” (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987, p. 61).
Questions are explicitly prescriptive to draw out normative judgments about
what one should do, rather than descriptive or predictive judgments about
what one would do.
The creators of the AMJI, along with Kohlberg and his associates, are
more interested in how the individual processes information leading to a
moral decision than the specific action or what the individual might do when
faced with the dilemma. Therefore, the AMJI approach attempts to elicit the
stage of moral reasoning predominantly formulated by the individual in
response to a series of open-ended, probe questions presented at the end of
each moral dilemma. The open-ended format embodied in the follow-up,
probe questions induces from the individual his own sense of right or wrong,
as opposed to the recognition of what is socially prescribed as acceptable.
The result is a predominant stage score for each individual. That is, an assess-
ment of which stage of reasoning is primarily used to resolve the presented
dilemma.
The initial Moral Judgment Interview approach encountered some serious
research challenges. Many of these issues were addressed in an adaptation of
the AMJI (Weber, 1991). Elm and Weber (1994) explained that the Standard
Issue Scoring method and manual, the third generation of a Kohlbergian scor-
ing instrument and used in this study, “provides the scorer with clear distinc-
tions between moral stages and presents an abundance of additional examples
of moral reasoning rationales representing each stage” (p. 343). Therefore,
the current version available to scholars when studying individual moral rea-
soning—the AMJI—appears to be an accurate and unbiased assessment of
the subject’s moral reasoning process.
There are two ethical dilemmas presented in the AMJI with seven follow-
up, open-ended questions for the subject to formulate their moral reasoning
responses. These responses are coded using the Standard Issue Scoring
Weber 19

method and manual (Colby & Kohlberg, 1987; Weber, 1991). A randomly
selected sample of 21 surveys (10% of the total 208 surveys) was given to
two experienced Kohlbergian scholars for a blind, interrater reliability check.
One expert agreed with 20 of the 21 initial assessments of the predominant
stage of cognitive moral reasoning, whereas the other expert agreed with 18
of the 21 initial assessments. In all four cases where there was a discrepancy,
the difference was a single stage (3 times the experts coded the survey as
predominantly Stage 3, where the initial coding was Stage 4; and once the
expert coded the survey as predominantly Stage 3, when the initial coding
was Stage 2). The interrater reliability check was confirmed at a 90.4% rate
for complete agreement and 100% for a within one-stage agreement, well
within the acceptable standards for this test (Derry, 1987). From these
responses, a predominant cognitive moral reasoning stage score for each sub-
ject is determined. The complete instrument is shown in Appendix B.

Results
To assess the hypotheses linking the personal value orientation to a corre-
sponding stage of cognitive moral reasoning, a cross-tabulation table was
created (see Table 2). The assessment of the data in the cross-tabulation table
is based on an if–then relationship. For example, if the subject’s personal
value orientation is X, then the subject likely reasons at Stage Y. A chi-square
test is traditionally used to assess the statistical relationships within the con-
tingency table of the data distribution. As the expected frequencies—or dis-
tribution—is unknown in this exploration, a chi-square test of association is
used, rather than the more common chi-square goodness-of-fit test (Glass &
Hopkins, 1984). The chi-square test of association helps us determine if the
distribution of the subjects’ personal value orientation and stage of cognitive
moral reasoning are independent or dependent upon each other. The mathe-
matical properties and equation underlying the test of association are shown
in Equation 1: The Mathematical Properties and Equation Underlying the
Chi-square Test of Association.

r c
( Oi, j − Ei, j )2 .
χ2 = ∑∑
i =1 j =1
Ei , j

In addition, to assess each of the additional hypothesized relationships

discussed above, we rely on Sharpe’s (2015) work, where he suggests a num-
ber of approaches available to scholars after discovering a statistically sig-
nificant chi-square test result: calculating residuals, comparing cells,
20 Business & Society 00(0)

Table 2.  Cross-Tabulation of Millennials’ Personal Value Orientations and Stages

of Cognitive Moral Reasoning.

Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Row totals

Personal-Competence 24 (23.5%) 48 (47.1%) 29 (28.4%) 1 (1.0%) 102
orientation
Social-Competence 1 (6.7%) 5 (33.3%) 9 (60.0%) 0 (0.0%) 15
orientation
Personal-Moral 10 (17.2%) 19 (32.8%) 23 (39.7%) 6 (10.3%) 58
orientation
Social-Moral 4 (12.1%) 16 (48.5%) 9 (27.3%) 4 (12.1%) 33
orientation
Column totals 39 88 70 11 208

Note. Bold values indicate hypothesized relationship; χ2 = 20.6624; p = .014.

ransacking, or partitioning. The first approach—calculating residuals, where

the observed frequencies are compared with the expected distribution—is
used if a significant chi-square test result is discovered to analyze further our
data, specifically the hypotheses identified above.
In observing the data distribution in Table 2, there are some important
discoveries. The millennial business students exhibit the same predominant
personal value orientation found when investigating managers—a majority
of millennials belonging to the Personal-Competence value orientation
(49%)—similar to managers in the 2010s (37.1%) and in the 1980s (53.5%;
see Weber, 2015). The other personal value orientations exhibited by millen-
nials are similar to the distribution found among managers in the 1980s:
Personal-Moral (27.9%, compared with managers in the 2010s = 29.4%),
Social-Moral (15.9%, compared with managers in the 2010s = 21.8%), and
Social-Competence (7.2%, compared with managers in the 2010s = 11.7%).
It appears that the millennials in our sample, who are embarking on their
professional business careers, are similar in their personal value orientation
to managers already immersed in their professional business careers.
It is also revealing that our millennials collectively demonstrate Stages 3
and 4 cognitive moral reasoning (42.3% and 33.7%, respectively). This is
consistent with data reported on managerial cognitive moral reasoning dating
back to Weber’s initial study where managers reasoned at Stages 3 and 4
(45.9% and 40.5%, respectively; see Weber, 1990b). There appears to be little
variation among the moral reasoning used by millennials in this study and the
cognitive moral reasoning exhibited by managers nearly three decades ago.
Turning to the hypothesized relationships linking personal value orienta-
tion and stage of cognitive moral reasoning, the responses provided by the
Weber 21

millennials in this study are assessed using the chi-square test of association,
and show a significant dependent relationship between the two variables (N
= 208; χ2 = 20.6624; p = .014). Therefore, we have overall support for the
hypothesized expectation that millennials’ personal value orientation is
related to their stage of cognitive moral reasoning.
We next explore the additional hypotheses that link specific personal
value orientations to particular stages of cognitive moral reasoning. We
adopted the first (of four) approach suggested by Sharpe—calculating
residuals. Delucchi (1993) recommended that the researcher identify
those cells with the largest residuals—the difference between the observed
frequencies and the expected distribution. A positive residual identifies
where the observed frequency is larger than the expected; a negative
residual reflects the reverse relationship. The larger the residual, the
greater the contribution of the cell to the magnitude of the chi-square
value. Variations among the residuals are affected by the overall size of
the population pool and the expected distribution within that sample. In
our sample, the sample populations range from 102 millennials (personal-
competence value orientation) to only 15 millennials (the social-compe-
tence value orientation). As stated by Agresti (2007),

A cell-by-cell comparison of observed and estimated expected frequencies

helps us to better understand the nature of the evidence . . . [and cells with large
residuals] show a greater discrepancy . . . than we would expect if the variables
were truly independent. (p. 38)

The calculated residuals for this sample are shown in Table 3.

Personal-Competence Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 3
As seen in Table 2, the greatest concentration of millennials demonstrating
a Personal-Competence value orientation predominantly reason at Stage 3
(47.1%)—as predicted in Hypothesis 2. This relationship also exhibits the
largest residual—+5—for this relationship, as shown in Table 3. With more
than double the subjects grouped into this personal value orientation–cogni-
tive moral reasoning relationship (47.1% vs. 23.5% and 28.4% for Stages 2
and 4), there appears to be strong support for the hypothesis linking a
Personal-Competence value orientation with Stage 3 cognitive moral rea-
soning, consistent with what Weber (1993) found when exploring this rela-
tionship for business managers.
22 Business & Society 00(0)

Table 3.  Calculating Residuals—Observed and Expected Distributions.

Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4 Stage 5 Row totals

Personal- 24 − 19 = +5 48 − 43 = +5 29 − 34 = −5 1 − 5 = −4 102
Competence
orientation
Social-Competence 1 − 3 = −2 5 − 6 = −1 9 − 5 = +4 0 − 1 = −1 15
orientation
Personal-Moral 10 − 11 = −1 19 − 25 = −6 23 − 20 = +3 6 − 3 = +3 58
orientation
Social-Moral 4 − 6 = −2 16 − 14 = +2 9 − 11 = −2 4 − 2 = +2 33
orientation
Column totals 39 88 70 11 208

Note. Observed frequency less expected distribution = residual. Bold values indicate hypothesized
relationship.

Social-Competence Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 4
Despite fewer millennials sorted into the Social-Competence value orienta-
tion than any other personal value orientation (15 of 208), Table 2 indicates
that more millennials assigned to the Social-Competence value orientation
reason at Stage 4 (60%)—as predicted in Hypothesis 3—more than any other
combination for this type of personal value orientation and stage of cognitive
moral reasoning. The residual for this relationship—+4—shown in Table 3,
is the only positive residual for the Social-Competence value orientation.
Therefore, in agreement with Weber’s (1993) predictions for managers, mil-
lennials exhibiting a Social-Competence value orientation tend to reason at
Stage 4 cognitive moral reasoning.

Personal-Moral Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral

Reasoning at Stage 4
The Personal-Moral value orientation rendered the second highest value ori-
entation membership for the millennials in our sample (58 of 208). And, as
predicted in Hypothesis 4, most of these subjects also predominantly demon-
strate Stage 4 cognitive moral reasoning (39.7%), more than any other stage
of cognitive moral reasoning for this personal value orientation (17.2%,
32.8%, and 10.3% for Stages 2, 3, and 5, respectively), as shown in Table 2.
This relationship’s residual—+3—is the highest residual, as shown in Table
3. The strong relationship between a Personal-Moral value orientation and
Stage 4 cognitive moral reasoning is consistent with Weber’s (1993) findings
for managers, and provides support for Hypothesis 4.
Weber 23

Social-Moral Value Orientation and Cognitive Moral Reasoning

at Stage 5
Nearly 16% of the millennials showed a value orientation of Social-Moral
(33 of 208). However, most of these subjects predominantly demonstrate
cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 3 (16 subjects, compared with nine sub-
jects at Stage 4 and four subjects at the predicted Stage 5), as shown in Table
2. The residuals for this personal value orientation are quite low (either +2 or
−2, as shown in Table 3), with the predicted relationship—a Social-Moral
value orientation and Stage 5 cognitive moral reasoning—exhibiting a +2
residual. Hypothesis 5 is the only hypothesis of the four predicted relation-
ships that failed to demonstrate a strong relationship in our post-chi-square
data analysis, and did not match Weber’s (1993) findings for his managerial
population.

Conclusions and Limitations

The data in this sample provide statistically significant support for Hypothesis
1. We proposed that there would be a significant (correlated) relationship
between millennials’ personal value orientations and stages of cognitive
moral reasoning. In addition, support was found for three of the four addi-
tional hypotheses (2-4). Millennials who exhibit a Personal-Competence
value orientation tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 3—Good
Boy/Nice Girl Reasoning. Those who exhibit a Social-Competence value ori-
entation tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 4—Law and Order
Reasoning. Finally, subjects who exhibit a Personal-Moral value orientation
tend to exhibit cognitive moral reasoning at Stage 4—Law and Order
Reasoning. We conclude from the analysis that there does appear to be a
strong relationship between millennials’ personal value orientation and their
predominant stage of cognitive moral reasoning, confirming earlier work
reported by Weber (1993).
This research helps us understand the integrated ethical decision-making
process for a generation that is assuming leadership roles in business orga-
nizations and a greater presence as consumers and investors in the global
marketplace. Future scholars may wish to test these relationships further, but
this work bestows greater confidence in studies that previously assess only
personal value orientations or only stages of cognitive moral reasoning.
Given the preponderance of literature supporting the relationship between
moral reasoning and moral behavior (Brabeck, 1984; Green & Weber, 1997;
and more recently, Pohling et al., 2016; Swann et al., 2014), values-only
research may be more connected with moral action than previously thought
or confirmed.
24 Business & Society 00(0)

This exploration provides additional insights into the emerging role mil-
lennials may play as employees in the business workplace, as consumers in
the marketplace, and as investors in the financial markets. The confirmation
of the consistency of millennials’ personal value orientations and stages of
cognitive moral reasoning with previous explorations using managers as sub-
jects may give comfort to businesses seeking to understand how to accom-
modate or appeal to new millennial employees, consumers, or investors.
This discovery confirms other research exploring millennials and their
work habits. Hansen and Leuty (2012) explored generational differences in
work values, and conclude that the measured differences across baby boom-
ers (typically senior managers in businesses today), generation X, and mil-
lennials (our subjects) are quite small, and perceptions of work provide a
stronger explanatory power than age differences. An earlier summary of gen-
erational work values research acknowledges that differences are not always
found (Parry & Urwin, 2011), so perhaps there is more similarity across gen-
erations than differences when it comes to personal values, moral reasoning,
and workplace practices. Therefore, much of the managerial research that
evaluates behavior may be applicable to the newest generation of managers,
customers, and investors—millennials.
Alternatively, some variations may exist, and millennials may offer new
perspectives or practices within their ethical decision-making processes, as
employers are discovering. Firms are challenged to match the millennials’
ethics with their own organizational ethical culture. Are firms able to create a
culture or working environment that is attractive to this new generation of
employees? Perhaps if a firm emphasizes its concern for social impact or
fosters sustainable business practices, millennials with similar interests might
be willing to join and stay longer with that firm. There is a clear incentive for
firms to retain their valuable investments—new millennial employees. An
understanding of millennials’ personal value orientations, cognitive moral
reasoning, and the linkage between the two decision-making criteria may be
helpful for the firm. Will other firms be able to capitalize on their prior efforts
at organizational loyalty to motivate employee retention? It is plausible that
the millennials’ perception of “organizational flight” (Derry & Jago, 2015)
can be countered through incentives offered by businesses, given the millen-
nials’ personal value orientation.
Perhaps a lesson can be learned from the results found when scholars
administered the Motivators Assessment to more than 4,000 millennials.
Elton and Gostick (2017) found that millennials’ preference for “changing
the world” or “making a difference” might cause them to stay longer at a
business than previously thought or observed. If a firm is able to provide
opportunities for millennial employees to believe they are making a
Weber 25

difference in the world—appealing to the 16% in our sample who expressed

a social-moral personal value orientation or the nearly 40% who demon-
strated moral reasoning at Stages 4 or 5—these millennial employees may be
more loyal to the firm.
Other adjustments, in attracting millennial customers or investors, as
noted earlier in this article, may be necessary, but an understanding of millen-
nials’ values and decision processes should be invaluable. Millennials often
espouse a #YOLO (you-only-live-once) approach, seen in their lack of a seri-
ous investment strategy while in their 20s and 30s. Yet, this lack of attention
to retirement savings in their emerging professional careers is hardly new
when understanding previous generations’ investment patterns (Butt, 2016).
The predominance of millennials exhibiting a personal value orientation
(77%, compared with a social value orientation) may necessitate investment
firms to attempt once again to incentivize investment commitments among
young people who are starting out their careers and seem to be more intent on
personal consumption in the here-and-now rather than saving for the future.
Practically, the results reported here suggest that administering the
Rokeach Value Survey to prospective employees, new hires, potential cus-
tomers, or future investors (which is far easier than administering and inter-
preting the data from a moral reasoning instrument, such as the AMJI) may
offer valuable insights into the millennials’ decision-making process. These
insights could provide important information to business decision makers in
organizational hiring, job placement, task assignment, or promotion or termi-
nation decisions. It may also contribute to developing strategies for product
development, channel distribution selection, investment portfolio develop-
ment, and a host of other business choices.
Targeting specifically new or upwardly mobile employees, for example,
the organization could infuse their employee ethics training program with an
attention to a desired value orientation and/or stage of moral reasoning to
promote ethical decision making and behavior (Treviño, 1990). Finally, it
may enhance organizational ethical decision making to combine entry-level
employees, who are predominantly millennials, with similar value orienta-
tions or predominant stages of moral reasoning into the same workgroups.
Alternatively, firms may choose to select employees with different value ori-
entations or predominant stages of moral reasoning into various workgroups
dependent upon the intentions and necessary makeup of the group and its
decision-making responsibilities.
In addition to the practical implications, this research contributes to the
scholarly community in a number of ways: Rather than exploring only one
dimension of an individual’s decision-making process, as scholars envisioned
when constructing and advancing the theoretical foundations of personal values
26 Business & Society 00(0)

research (Rokeach, 1968, 1973; Schwartz, 1992) or the landmark theoretical

foundations of cognitive moral reasoning (Kohlberg, 1971; Rest, 1986), our
exploration interrelates two distinct fields of research. As claimed by Weber
(1993), “The resulting association [between value orientation and cognitive
moral reasoning] has various theoretical, research and practical implications”
(p. 455).
Our discoveries allow future scholars to consider an independent, yet
related, cognitive framework in understanding ethical decision making—per-
sonal value orientations (as general guiding principles) and stages of cogni-
tive moral reasoning (how one weighs and filters information). Importantly,
values and cognitive moral development are not isolated intellectual ele-
ments, independently related to decision making and behavior. Rather, they
are interconnected in the individual’s integrated ethical decision-making
process.
This work also suggests that prior research exploring only personal values
(Argandona, 2003; Holland, 2013) or only cognitive moral reasoning
(Johnson, Hogan, Zonderman, Callens, & Rogolsky, 1981; Sivanandan et al.,
2013) needs to be accepted with caution. These works describe only a partial
understanding of the integrated ethical decision-making process used by mil-
lennial business students or any other group of decision makers. Positively,
this work provides empirical analysis and support for the conceptual explora-
tions undertaken by some scholars (Abdolmohammadi & Baker, 2006; Emler
et al., 1983; Lan et al., 2008, 2010; Myyry et al., 2009; Weber, 1993) who
envision a relationship between personal values and cognitive moral reason-
ing. The hypothesized connections espoused and discovered by these schol-
ars are confirmed in this research.
There are a few limitations embedded in this research: First, the sample is
a convenience sample of millennials currently enrolled as undergraduates in
a business administration degree program in the eastern region of the United
States. Subsequent research needs to broaden this analysis to include subjects
outside of a business school program and in other regions of the United
States, or other countries, to discover if there are any biases embedded in this
research due to our sampling, or if these results are applicable to a broader
group of millennials or other subjects.
Second, two well-respected and commonly used instruments are
applied in this exploration: the Rokeach Value Survey (Rokeach, 1968,
1973) and the Kohlberg-based AMJI (Weber, 1991). However, some
scholars prefer to administer other instruments to measure personal value
orientations, such as Schwartz’s (1992) Theory of Basic Human Values,
and stages of cognitive moral reasoning, such as Rest’s (1986) Defining
Issues Test.
Weber 27

It is possible that the instruments used in this study, developed decades

ago, do not accurately capture some of the unique nuances found in millenni-
als’ decision-making processes, yet this only conjectures. It is also important
to note that the increasing role of emotions as an influencer of cognitive deci-
sion making may be considered in future research. However, loyal to the
cognitive emphasis found in the original work upon which this research is
based, the Kohlbergian-based instrumentation relying on cognition was used
here. It may be informative to utilize different measures to establish or ques-
tion the interconnectivity between personal values and stages of cognitive
moral reasoning. Nonetheless, this is an initial exploration of individuals’
integrated ethical decision-making processes, and the selected sample and
instruments used are helpful in achieving this research goal.

Appendix A
Weights Assigned to Each Value in the Rokeach Value Survey
Based on the results from Weber (1990a), each value in the Rokeach Value
Survey is associated with one of the four value orientations, with the mem-
bership weight assigned to a specific value orientation:

Terminal values (end-states of existence)

Personal value orientation:
•• A Comfortable Life (a prosperous life) = 5
•• An Exciting Life (a stimulating, active life) = 4
•• A Sense of Accomplishment (lasting contribution) = 4
•• Family Security (taking care of loved ones) = 1
•• Freedom (independence, free choice) = 1
•• Happiness (contentedness) = 4
•• Inner Harmony (freedom from inner conflicts) = 5
•• Mature Love (sexual and spiritual intimacy) = 4
•• Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely life) = 5
•• Salvation (saved, eternal life) = 3
•• Self-Respect (self-esteem) = 5
•• Social Recognition (respect, admiration) = 3
•• True Friendship (close companionship) = 5
•• Wisdom (a mature understanding of life) = 4

Social value orientation:

•• A World at Peace (free of war and conflict) = 5
•• A World of Beauty (beauty of nature and the arts) = 3
28 Business & Society 00(0)

•• Equality (equal opportunity for all) = 5

•• National Security (protection from attack) = 5

Instrumental values (modes of conduct)

Competence value orientation:
•• Ambitious (hard-working, aspiring) = 5
•• Broadminded (open-minded) = 2
•• Capable (competent, effective) = 5
•• Imaginative (daring, creative) = 5
•• Independence (self-reliant, self-sufficient) = 5
•• Intellectual (intelligent, reflective) = 5
•• Logical (consistent, rational) = 5
•• Responsible (dependable, reliable) = 4

Moral value orientation:

•• Cheerful (light-hearted, joyful) = 4
•• Clean (neat, tidy) = 3
•• Courageous (standing up for your beliefs) = 2
•• Forgiving (willing to pardon others) = 5
•• Helpful (working for the welfare of others) = 5
•• Honest (sincere, truthful) = 2
•• Loving (affectionate, tender) = 5
•• Obedient (dutiful, respectful) = 1
•• Polite (courteous, well mannered) = 3

Neither value orientation: Self-controlled (restrained, self-disciplined)

Appendix B
The Adapted Moral Judgment Interview (AMJI)
(Source: Weber, 1991, pp. 314-317)

Instructions.  The Moral Judgment Interview consists of two stories that we

believe present some challenging issues. Some of you might choose one
solution to the stories; others of you may choose another. We are primarily
interested in the explanations or reasons you give for your decisions. Try to
justify and explain your statements as fully as possible. Very short answers
are of no help to us so be sure to elaborate fully. Use the backside of the
paper provided to complete your answers if necessary. Keep in mind that
Weber 29

we are more interested in your answers to the “why” questions than to the
“what” questions. Even if you give a long description of what you think is
right or what you think should be done, it is of no help if you do not explain
why you think it is right or why you think it should be done. Answer each
question the best you can. Please do not compare an answer to prior answers.
OK, please begin the Moral Judgment Interview by reading the first story
on the next page.

Evelyn.  Evelyn worked for an automotive steel casting company. She

was part of a small group asked to investigate the cause of an operating
problem that had developed in the wheel castings of a new luxury automo-
bile and to make recommendations for its improvement. The problem did
not directly create an unsafe condition, but it did lead to irritating sounds.
The Vice President of Engineering told the group that he was certain that
the problem was due to tensile stress in the castings. Evelyn and a lab tech-
nician conducted tests, and found conclusive evidence that the problem was
not tensile stress. As Evelyn began work on other possible explanations
of the problem, she was told that the problem had been solved. A report
prepared by Evelyn’s boss strongly supported the tensile stress hypothesis.
All of the data points from Evelyn’s experiments have been changed to
fit the curves, and some of the points that were far from where the theory
would predict have been omitted. The report “proved” that tensile stress
was responsible for the problem.

1. Should Evelyn contradict her boss’s report? _________ (Yes or No)

Why, or why not?
2. Should the potential conflict with Evelyn’s boss have any impact on
Evelyn’s actions? Why, or why not?
3. If the lab technician working on the project issued the report support-
ing the tensile stress hypothesis, should Evelyn contradict the report?
4. Is it important that people do everything they can to have the truth
known? Explain.
5. Suppose the problem with the brake involved more than irritating
sounds. Would it make a difference if the brake problem caused
uneven brake applications and skids that could lead to possible human
injury?
6. The data in the boss’s report are false. Does it make it morally wrong
if Evelyn fails to contradict the report?
7. Should people do everything they can to work within the corporate
organization and support their superiors?
30 Business & Society 00(0)

Roger.  Roger worked for a small auditing firm and conducted an annual
audit of a machinery manufacturer. During the audit, he discovered that the
firm had received a large loan from the local savings and loan association. It
is illegal for a savings and loan association to make a loan to a manufactur-
ing firm; law to mortgages based upon residential real estate restricts them.
Roger took his working papers and a xerox copy of the ledger showing the
loan to his boss, the partner in charge of the auditing office. His boss listened
to Roger, and then told Roger, “I will take care of this privately. We simply
cannot afford to lose a client of this status. You put the papers you have
through the shredder.”

1. Should Roger shred his papers? _________ (Yes or No) Why, or why
not?
2. Does the illegality of the loan and Roger’s duty as an auditor make a
difference in Roger’s decision to shred his papers?
3. If Roger had been advised by one of his peers to shred his papers,
should Roger shred his papers?
4. Is it important for people to do everything they can to follow their
conscience? Explain.
5. Shredding papers is against the AICPA Code and covers up an ille-
gally made loan. Is Roger also morally wrong if he shreds his papers?
6. What if Roger’s career was threatened if he refused to shred his
papers?
7. Should people do everything they can to further their own careers?

Acknowledgments
The author is appreciative of the statistical analysis support offered by Dr. Amy
Phelps at Duquesne University.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article: The author is appreciative of the financial support
provided by a grant from the A. J. and Sigismunda Palumbo Charitable Trust in 2015.

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Author Biography
James Weber (PhD, University of Pittsburgh) is professor of business ethics and
management, and executive director of the Institute for Ethics in Business at the
Palumbo-Donahue School of Business at Duquesne University. Along with Dr. David
Wasieleski, he is the coeditor of BAS 360, an annual book series sponsored by the
International Association for Business and Society, published by Emerald Group
Publishing. His research interests include the assessment of values, moral reasoning,
and ethical behavior on both the individual and organizational levels. He has pub-
lished in numerous academic journals such as Business & Society, Human Relations,
Journal of Business Ethics, and Organization Science. He is the coauthor of 15th edi-
tion of Business and Society: Stakeholders, Ethics, Public Policy, published by
McGraw-Hill Education, Inc.