ABSTRACT
For a long time, organizational theory focused on rational decision-making processes, and on “how organizations systemize, rationalize, routinize, and bureaucratize human action in an attempt to strip away or control emotion that might interfere with rationality” (Dutton, Worline, Frost, & Lilius, 2006, p. 61). However, as pointed out by Tenbrunsel and Smith-Crowe (2008), emotions are critical for ethical decision making because they help to “draw our attention to moral issues and highlight the moral imperative in situations” (p. 575) (see also Damasio, 1994; Gaudine & Thorne, 2001). Pavlovich and Krahnke (2012) present the emotion of empathy in particular as crucial for organizational functioning and decision making because it fosters connectedness between organizational members and creates cooperative relationships and ethicality.
