18.04.2018 im Rahmen des Workshops "Research in Ethics & Accounting"

On Experimental Philosophy and Ethics, Prof. Dr. Lütge (TU München)

Academic philosophy has experienced a major upheaval during the last decade. Philosophers, psychologists, and economists have begun to challenge the traditional stance that philosophy is an undertaking best pursued from the safety of the armchair. Instead, they took the gloves off and brought philosophical questions to the experimental laboratory. Recently, especially the empirical study of human moral reasoning, i.e., „Experimental Ethics“, has come into focus. This lecture will explore the historical and systematic background of experimental ethics as well as some of the chances and opportunities that experimental philosophy and experimental ethics hold.

abstract Luetge.docx (12,4 KB)  vom 04.04.2018

30.05.2018 im Rahmen des Workshops "Research in Ethics & Accounting"

Lying about Luck versus Lying about Performance (Dr. Agne Kajackaite)

I compare lying behavior in a real-effort task in which participants have control over outcomes and a task in which outcomes are determined by pure luck. Participants lie significantly more in the random-draw task than in the real-effort task, leading to the conclusion lying about luck is intrinsically less costly than lying about performance.

13.06.2018 im Rahmen des Workshops "Research in Ethics & Accounting"

Leading by example - How image concerns guide leaders to reduce dishonesty in groups (Jun.-Prof. Dr.Rainer Michael Rilke)

We experimentally study how different reporting hierarchies influence dishonesty in teams. Subjects report the outcome of a private die-roll to their group. Group members get payoffs, only if all three reports are identical. We vary the reporting hierarchies, i.e., whether all subjects report simultaneously, as in flat hierarchies, or sequentially, as in steep hierarchies where one person, the leader, is asked to report first. We observe the honest leader effect, as the levels of dishonesty are highest in simultaneous reporting hierarchies without a leader. Additional treatments investigate into the driving forces of honest leader effect, show that the fact that leaders behavior is exposed to the group triggers image concerns, which in turn lead to more ethical outcomes. Our study offers a new view on the effect of hierarchies on ethical outcomes. Existing studies that focused mainly on the effect of leadership on group behavior, we shift the focus on how leadership roles influence first-mover’s behavior itself.