A Critical Evaluation of the Ethical Elements in Managerial Training that Impact Ethical Intentions in Decision-making in the Chinese Automotive Industry

Xiao, Libin (2017) A Critical Evaluation of the Ethical Elements in Managerial Training that Impact Ethical Intentions in Decision-making in the Chinese Automotive Industry. Doctoral thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

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Abstract

he Chinese Automotive Industry (CAI), along with a dominance of joint ventures, has demonstrated unprecedented challenges for managers to uphold ethical intentions (EI) in their decision-making to be able to address ethical issues with internal altruistic motives, whilst prioritising moral values in complex situations. Managerial training has proven effective in the cultivation of ethical decision-making; yet in the CAI, ethical elements in training tend to be coercive and fragmented, with limited awareness of the concept of EI identified. There also appears to be a lack of ethics from the West and a lack of rationalised knowledge to facilitate effective and ethical training. Moreover, the current literature neglects moral values and dimension concepts in terms of managerial training and limits to the intellectual context in engineering ethics education. Consequently, this work critically evaluated ethical elements in managerial training that would be non-coercive, systematic, and aligned to the moral values in the CAI and its engineering ethics education feature. The research implemented an adapted exploratory sequential multi-phase mixed-research method design with facilitation mechanisms to evaluate this multi-disciplinary and ethics-sensitive subject. The phases run included: 1) Scoping review with an initial assessment of ethical issues and elements in training related to EI in the CAI; 2) A focused theoretical conceptualising narrowing-down process followed by dual perspective quantitative surveys for managers and trainers; 3) Further clarification for inconsistencies in the form of communication. Results indicated high responses to the four ethical elements that were compatibly interwoven for managerial EI in the CAI. In order of importance, they were: Ethical Principles for Engineers (EPE), Communism, Confucianism and Western normative ethics (WNE). Management level had no noticeable influence on EI, but a correlation with EI was identified from managers’ perspectives, thereby impacting their ethical awareness, judgment, intentions and training. Evaluations of trainers’ responses indicated a more functional and ideological ethical engagement. Contributions were made on innovations in theoretical conceptualisation by upholding the concept of EI and in methodological adaptation for rigorous research. Under the key approaches and conceptual themes, this work innovatively examined ethics and diagnosed moral values in the CAI, resulting in contributions on four non-coercive ethical elements, particularly the neglected WNE in its dimension and rationalised knowledge of EPE for its transformative impacts from Chinese moral learning. Pedagogical contributions were suggested to improve training internally, by importing the concept of EI and embedding the four elements, accompanied by ethics-sensitive mechanisms with ED processes and industry-led vignettes. These contributions will inform future related research in the fields of humanities and ethics.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Chinese automotive industry, Ethical intentions, Managerial training
Divisions: Theses and Dissertations > Doctoral Theses
Depositing User: Users 10 not found.
Date Deposited: 06 Feb 2020 11:24
Last Modified: 06 May 2020 10:38
URI: https://repository.uwtsd.ac.uk/id/eprint/1197

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