| Course | EDO 820 Ethical Issues in Leading Organizations |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 2 |
| Paper type | Doctoral moral psychology analysis |
| Length | About 1,013 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Doctor of Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for EDO 820 Module 2
How a Restricted Grant Became a Loan in One Leader's Mind: The Moral Psychology of an Ethical Failure
Student Name
Doctor of Education Program, Aspen University
EDO 820: Ethical Issues in Leading Organizations
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
How a Restricted Grant Became a Loan in One Leader's Mind: The Moral Psychology of an Ethical Failure
Module 1 established that the chief executive of Kinloch Family Services, an invented Ohio nonprofit, believed he was right to move $1.9 million of restricted grant funds into payroll. This paper asks how that belief formed. It reconstructs the decision and applies four lines of research on the moral psychology of ethical choice. Kinloch, its people and every figure are invented, and the reconstruction draws on the case's board minutes and interviews as described in the course.
Reconstructing the Decision
On a Thursday, the state announced that Medicaid payments would be delayed for up to twelve weeks. On Friday, the finance director presented cash projections showing payroll could not be met in two weeks. Over the weekend, the chief executive reviewed the accounts himself and noticed the $1.9 million youth housing grant, received in March and not yet spent. On Monday morning he directed the transfer, telling the finance director that it was temporary and that it should be recorded as a loan from the restricted fund. He called the board chair a week later. He did not call the bank, which had offered a line of credit the previous year, or the foundation.
Person and Situation
Treviño (1986) proposed an interactionist model of ethical decision making in organizations. A person's stage of cognitive moral development, drawn from Kohlberg's theory, determines how the person thinks about right and wrong, from obedience and self-interest through conformity to group expectations and duties, to principled reasoning. That reasoning interacts with individual moderators, such as ego strength and locus of control, and with situational moderators, such as the immediate job context, the organization's culture and the characteristics of the work, to produce behavior.
The chief executive's reasoning, as he explained it, centered on his duties to employees and clients, a conventional orientation that weighs obligations within one's own group heavily. His strong internal locus of control, a quality that had made him successful, led him to believe he could and should solve the crisis himself. And the situation, a sudden crisis, a deadline and an organizational culture in which his judgment was rarely questioned, removed the pauses that might have brought others' views in.
The Intensity of Each Harm
Jones (1991) added the characteristics of the moral issue itself. He proposed that an issue's moral intensity, made up of the magnitude of its consequences, how widely people agree the act is wrong, how likely the harm is, how soon it would arrive, the proximity of those affected and the concentration of the effect, influences whether people recognize a moral issue and how they reason about it.
Jones's model explains why the grant did not register as a serious moral issue. The harms of diversion were distant, uncertain and diffuse; the harms of missed payroll were near, certain and concentrated on people he knew.
| Dimension | Missed payroll | Diverted grant |
|---|---|---|
| Magnitude | Large: 900 employees and families | Seemed modest: money would be returned |
| Probability | Near certain | Seemed low: the state would pay |
| Temporal immediacy | Two weeks away | Months away, if ever |
| Proximity | Employees he saw every day | A foundation officer in another city, youths not yet housed |
| Concentration | Concentrated on identifiable people | Diffuse |
| Social consensus | Everyone agrees missing payroll is harmful | Many staff saw the transfer as justified |
Intuition First
Haidt (2001) challenged the assumption that moral judgment is mainly a product of reasoning. In his social intuitionist model, moral judgments typically arise quickly and automatically from intuitions, and reasoning usually comes afterward, constructed to justify the judgment already made, much as a lawyer argues for a client. Reasoning can change judgments, particularly through other people's arguments, but this happens less often than people believe.
The chief executive's account fits. He described knowing at once, on seeing the unspent grant, that it was the answer. The arguments he later gave the board, that rules on restricted funds were written for ordinary times and that any responsible leader would act, read as reasons assembled for a conclusion reached in a moment. No one argued the other side to him before he acted.
The Ethics Fades
Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004) described ethical fading, a process of self-deception in which the ethical aspects of a decision fade from view, leaving it to be seen as a business or technical decision. They identified enablers: euphemistic language that disguises what is being done, gradual steps that make each small deviation seem like the last, errors in perceiving causes and a self-image as a moral person that resists recognizing one's own wrongdoing.
The word loan did that work. A transfer of restricted funds to an unrelated purpose without the funder's consent became, in the records and in the chief executive's own description, an internal loan, a routine financial step. Once named that way, the decision no longer looked like breaking a promise. His view of himself as a leader devoted to his staff made it harder still to see the act as a violation.
Implications
The mechanisms suggest practices that could catch such errors before they become acts. First, any proposed exception to a binding rule should be argued against by at least one person before it is taken, giving reasoning a chance to correct intuition, as Haidt suggests. Second, decisions should be described in plain terms, such as using restricted grant money for payroll without the funder's consent, to resist ethical fading. Third, leaders should deliberately list the people harmed on both sides and consider the distant ones as concretely as the near ones, correcting the imbalance in moral intensity.
Conclusion
The chief executive's decision was not the act of a man indifferent to ethics. Treviño shows how his reasoning, personality and situation combined, Jones shows why the harm he caused felt smaller than the harm he prevented, Haidt shows why his judgment came before his reasons and Tenbrunsel and Messick show how a single word let the ethics fade. These ordinary processes explain how a well-intentioned leader can believe a rule does not apply to him.
References
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108(4), 814-834. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.108.4.814
Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366-395. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1991.4278958
Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 223-236. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:SORE.0000027411.35832.53
Treviño, L. K. (1986). Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 601-617. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1986.4306235
EDO 820 Module 2 instructions, in plain terms
The second module of EDO 820 covers the moral psychology of leaders, and the assignment typically asks for an account, built on research, of how a leader came to make an ethically questionable decision. Your Module 2 classroom instructions take priority; the case is invented. Reconstruct the decision step by step. Apply at least two models of ethical decision making. Consider individual, situational and issue-related influences. Examine how the leader may have reasoned, or rationalized, toward the decision. Draw implications for how leaders can recognize and correct their own errors, listing the research in APA 7 style.
How this EDO 820 Module 2 example is built
The reconstruction follows the chief executive from the state's announcement of the payment delay through a weekend of cash projections to the Monday transfer and the request to the finance director. Treviño (Academy of Management Review) frames his reasoning as conventional, attentive to duties to employees, and shows how situational pressure and his strong sense of control interacted with it. Jones (Academy of Management Review) explains the imbalance in moral intensity: harm to 900 employees was large, near and certain, while harm to the youth housing program and the funder seemed small, distant and unlikely. Haidt (Psychological Review) explains why his first intuition, protect the payroll, came before any reasoning about the grant. Tenbrunsel and Messick (Social Justice Research) explain how calling the transfer a loan faded its ethical meaning. Implications include a rule to seek a dissenting view before any exception and a practice of naming decisions plainly.
Where the marks sit in the EDO 820 Module 2 rubric
Moral psychology papers earn credit when models are applied step by step to a real decision and explain it better than common sense would. This example reconstructs the decision in sequence, then shows where each model's mechanism operated: person and situation, issue intensity, intuition and self-deception. It does not reduce the case to bad character, which fits the course's interest in why well-intentioned leaders fail. Jones's dimensions are applied concretely to both sets of stakeholders, revealing the imbalance that tilted the decision. The implications follow from the mechanisms, which shows the writer can move from explanation to practice.
EDO 820 Module 2 help: mistakes that cost marks
Papers on the moral psychology of leaders often conclude that the leader lacked integrity, which explains little. Use models that show how ordinary psychological processes produce unethical choices. Another weakness is applying a model in general terms; trace its mechanisms through the actual steps of the decision. Consider both sides of the issue, since moral intensity may be high for one group and low for another. Look for the language the leader used, which can reveal how the decision was framed. Finally, draw implications that a leader could act on in the moment, not only after an audit.
Write yours, or have the desk draft it
This paper is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Aspen University document. Read it for the moves, then write your own to the instructions in your classroom. If you want one built to your exact prompt and rubric, the first custom sample is free and arrives in 24 to 48 hours.
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EDO 820 Module 2 questions, answered
What does EDO 820 Module 2 usually ask for?
Aspen's EDO 820 covers the moral psychology of leaders in this module, so explaining with research how a leader came to make an ethically questionable decision is typical. Check your Module 2 prompt.
What is moral intensity?
Jones's term for how strongly an issue engages moral concern, shaped by factors such as the size, probability, nearness and concentration of its consequences.
Do people reason their way to moral judgments?
Haidt argued that moral judgments usually come from quick intuitions, with reasoning constructed afterward to support them.
Where can I find a free EDO 820 Module 2 sample paper?
Above, at no charge, is a full analysis of how four psychological processes led a made-up agency head to treat a restricted grant as a payroll loan.
What is ethical fading?
Tenbrunsel and Messick's term for self-deception that removes the ethical aspects of a decision from view, often through euphemistic language.