Making “sense” of ethical decision making

Abstract A common management task in organizations is decision making, and some of the most important decisions made by business leaders are those that involve an ethical component. This study utilizes historiometric methods to explore the ethical decision making processes of business leaders in order to improve outcomes. We identify a series of cognitive biases and metacognitive strategies and explore their effects on leader ethical decision making using a sensemaking model. The impact of biases and strategies at each stage of the sensemaking model is used to identify ways business leaders can improve ethical decision making. Implications for using the sensemaking model in ethical decision making are discussed.