The Effect of Pressure Groups and the Moral Intensity on School Administrators’ Unethical Behavior: An Evaluation According to Teachers’ Opinions

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to determine the effect of pressure groups and moral intensity on school administrators' unethical behaviors according to teachers' opinions. The study group of the research, which is causal comparative research, consists of 313 teachers. The research data have been collected by adapting the Openness to Violation of Ethical Decision (OVED) scale. In the research, descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA with repeated measures and two-way ANOVA for factorial design have been applied. In the research, it has been found out that the school administrators’ possibility of behaving unethically varies according to the moral intensity and pressure groups. As the moral intensity decreases, it can be stated that the school administrators’ possibility of behaving unethically increases when the demand comes from bureaucratic and political pressure groups. The school administrators’ possibility of performing an unethical act with both low and high moral intensity shows a meaningful difference according to the pressure group and the level of relationship between the teacher and the administrator. School administrators’ possibility of performing an unethical act with high moral intensity shows a meaningful difference according to teacher’s gender. At the end of the study, some suggestions have been made by considering the limitations and results of the research.

Keywords

• ethical decision making
• moral intensity
• pressure group
• school administrator
• unethical behaviour