caa a22 4500 388074590 CHVBK 20180307125157.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199907 xx s 000 0 eng 10.2307/3857514 doi S1052150X00004541 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.2307/3857514 Snell Robin S. Obedience to Authority and Ethical Dilemmas in Hong Kong Companies [Elektronische Daten] [Robin S. Snell] This paper reports a phenomenological sub-study of a larger project investigating the way Hong Kong Chinese staff tackled their own ethical dilemmas at work. A special analysis was conducted of eight dilemma cases arising from a request by a boss or superior authority to do something regarded as ethically wrong. In reports of most such cases, staff expressed feelings of contractual or interpersonally based obligation to obey. They sought to save face and preserve harmony in their relationship with authority by choosing between "little potato” obedience, token obedience, and undercover disobedience. Only where no such obligation existed was face in relation to authority unimportant, and open disobedience chosen. In Kohlbergian terms, ethical reasoning at the conventional stages (three and four) predominated in dilemmas of obedience. Findings imply that if corruption were to originate at the top, codes of conduct recently introduced into Hong Kong may be of limited effect in stalling it. Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1999 Business Ethics Quarterly Cambridge University Press 9/3(1999-07), 507-526 1052-150X 9:3<507 1999 9 BEQ https://doi.org/10.2307/3857514 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.2307/3857514 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Snell Robin S. NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Business Ethics Quarterly Cambridge University Press 9/3(1999-07), 507-526 1052-150X 9:3<507 1999 9 BEQ CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge