I am the David E. Gallo Professor of Business Ethics at the University of Notre Dame.
My current research interests focus on the psychology of ethical decision making and the ethical infrastructures within organizations, examining why employees, leaders and students behave unethically, despite their best intentions to behave to the contrary.
Ethical Systems Interview (December 2015)
My Approach to Ethical Systems:
My research interests stem from a motivation to understand why efforts designed to improve ethical behavior in the workplace continue to over promise and under deliver. Drawing on the burgeoning field of behavioral ethics, which examines how and why people behave the way they do in the face of ethical dilemmas, we find that ethical blind spots offer a potential explanation.
These blind spots—including ethical fading, inflated predictions and recollections of our actual behavior, ethical illusions, and distorted rationalizations—allow our unethical behavior to exist without conscious awareness. My colleagues and I are investigating organizational mechanisms to overcome these blind spots, including understanding how culture and informal systems, business frames, compliance frames, meditative thinking and revelation of unethical behavior affect the decision to engage in unethical behavior.
My Ethical Systems Research page: Decision Making
My Major Relevant Publications:
Press Clippings
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The Street, The Bull and The Crisis: A survey of the US and UK financial services industry, May 2015, Labaton Sucharow.
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Stumbling Into Bad Behavior, April 20, 2011, The New York Times.
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Launching Into Unethical Behavior: Lessons from the Challenger Disaster, June 1, 2011 Freakonomics.com.
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A Lesson for Warren Buffet about Ethical Blind Spots, May 31, 2011, Harvard Business Review.
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Behavioral Ethics for Compliance Professionals: A Conversation with Ann Tenbrunsel, National Society of Compliance Professionals, 2013.
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On Wall Street a Culture of Greed Won’t Let Go, July 15, 2013. The New York Times.
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Let’s All Feel Superior, November 14, 2011, The New York Times.
Academic Articles
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Tenbrunsel, A.E., Diekmann, K.A., Wade-Benzoni, K.A., and Bazerman, M.H. (2010). The ethical mirage: A temporal explanation as to why we aren’t as ethical as we think we are. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30, 153-173.
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Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Smith-Crowe, K. (2008). Ethical decision making: Where we’ve been and where we’re going. Academy of Management Annals, 2, 545-607.
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Tenbrunsel, A.E. & Messick, D.M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research, 17, 223-236.
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Tenbrunsel, A.E. (1998). Misrepresentation and expectations of misrepresentation in an ethical dilemma: The role of incentives and temptation. Academy of Management Journal, 41: 330-339.