Ethical decisions: what past good deeds do not guarantee
A team known for its integrity may assume that an exception requires less scrutiny when it is the one requesting it. The managerial question is specific: how can past good decisions be prevented from serving as justification for a present exception?
What the literature establishes
Benoît Monin and Dale T. Miller (2001, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) showed experimentally that an opportunity to establish a non-discriminatory position could make it easier to express a subsequent judgement that might appear discriminatory. These findings concern social judgement, not exceptions to corporate compliance requirements. They nevertheless establish that a prior demonstration of impartiality does not necessarily protect the next judgement.
When the past changes how the present is interpreted
Anna C. Merritt, Daniel A. Effron and Benoît Monin (2010, Social and Personality Psychology Compass) distinguish two mechanisms of moral licensing in their literature review. Good deeds can be treated as credits that permit a lapse, or as credentials that make an ambiguous act appear less questionable to the decision-maker. In the latter case, the problem is not necessarily consciously permitting wrongdoing, but no longer applying the same scrutiny to the situation.
The premature conclusion
It would be excessive to conclude that recognising integrity encourages misconduct. These studies describe a conditional possibility, not an inevitable deterioration after every good deed. The managerial task is to prevent a favourable reputation from replacing an examination of the facts, not to treat that reputation as inherently suspicious. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not allow us to assume
The experiments cited measure neither the frequency nor the magnitude of this phenomenon in Geneva-based businesses. The review brings together varied situations without providing a rate directly applicable to an investment committee or a purchasing decision. A justification based on past merits is therefore something to examine, not a diagnosis of wrongdoing or proof of bias.
A practical check in Genève
As part of SHR’s decision-making programme, an exercise suitable for Geneva is to review upcoming requests for exceptions: client acceptance in private banking, procurement in an international organisation, supplier selection in luxury watchmaking or counterparty decisions in commodities trading. For each case, record the criterion concerned, the current evidence supporting the exception and any references to past merits, then ask a second reader whether the justification remains sufficient without those references. The proposed measure is the proportion of reviewed cases whose justification needs to be supplemented after this second reading. This record checks the documentary basis of decisions; it does not, on its own, measure moral licensing. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Geneva, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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