We have been working on this book for the last two decades—though we didn’t know this for much of the time. In 1991, Ann entered the doctoral program at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and spent much of her time there doing some of the early research that brought psychology into the realm of business ethics. Central to this work was Ann’s collaboration with David Messick, who arrived at about the same time, as the first Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Ethics at Kellogg. Their work examined ethical fading, or the tendency for otherwise ethical people to make unethical decisions because the ethical implications have faded from their decisions. Max connected with Ann and Dave on some of this research, but was largely an observer and fan of this work.
In 2000, Max joined the Harvard University faculty and started conducting research with new colleagues Mahzarin Banaji and Dolly Chugh on what we called bounded ethicality, or the systematic ways in which people engage in unethical behavior without their own awareness. The ideas that resulted from this collaboration, together with those from Dave and Ann’s collaboration, proliferate throughout this book.
At about the same time, Enron collapsed, and organizations and business schools were pushed to do something about the erosion of ethics in society. Consequently, the field of business ethics started to shift in ways that are described throughout our book. One core shift was the development of the field of behavioral ethics, which focuses on the psychology of how real people act in ethical contexts. Interest in behavioral ethics has grown exponentially over the past decade, and this burst of interest prompted us to combine our view of behavioral ethics in this book.
Our work on ethics has been affected by our interactions and collaborations with many scholars. Some of these scholars include Modupe Akinola, Mahzarin Banaji, Iris Bohnet, Art Brief, Daylian Cain, Eugene Caruso, Suzanne Chan-Serafin, Dolly Chugh, Luke Coffman, John Darley, David de Cremer, Tina Diekmann, Nick Epley, Francesca Gino, Josh Greene, Jennifer Jordan, Karim Kassam, Rod Kramer, Marijke Leliveld, George Loewenstein, Kathleen McGinn, David Messick, Katy Milkman, Celia Moore, Don Moore, Charles Naquin, Maggie Neale, Greg North-craft, Neeru Paharia, Madan Pillutla, Todd Rogers, Lisa Shu, Kristin Smith-Crowe, Phil Tetlock, Chia-Jung Tsay, Elizabeth Umphress, Erik van Dijk, Kimberly Wade-Benzoni, and other coauthors and friends whom we will be embarrassed for forgetting later.
The quality and presentation of the ideas in this book was dramatically affected by a number of people. Art Brief, Dolly Chugh, Kristina Diekmann, Francesca Gino, Josh Greene, Dave Messick, Madan Pillutla, Todd Rogers, and Kristin Smith-Crowe read and provided insightful feedback on an earlier draft of the manuscript. The book is far better as a result. We also benefited from fantastic editorial help. Katie Shonk, Max’s longtime research assistant, coauthor, and editor, made each and every sentence better, as she always does (if you like the writing, get a copy of Katie’s new novel, Happy Now?). Her help was invaluable. Sarah Oliver-Johnson provided the wonderful illustrations of the trolley and footbridge problems. Ranjan Ahuja proofread, error-checked, and generally fixed what needed to be fixed. Our editors at Princeton University Press, Eric Schwartz, Beth Clevenger, and Janie Chan, provided excellent guidance throughout and added great value. Finally, we thank our families—Max’s wife, Marla; Ann’s husband, Dante; her children, Dante, Lina, and Michel; and her dad, Don—for their support as we wrote the book.