career research paper on professional ethics

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6 Professional Ethics: Origins, Applications, and Developments

Hugh Gunz, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sally Gunz is Professor of Business Law and Professional Ethics in the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Waterloo, Canada. Her primary research interests centre around the legal and ethical responsibilities of professionals and, increasingly, how professionals make ethical decisions, and what factors impact those decisions. She has studied professionals in both employed and private practice settings. She is the author of The New Corporate Counsel (Carswell: 1991) and several academic studies relating to in-house lawyers, lawyers in private practice, accountants and actuaries. She is a past-President of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the former director of the Centre for Accounting Ethics.

Ronit Dinovitzer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where she is cross appointed to the Institute for Management and Innovation. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, where she is Co-Director of the Research Group on Legal Diversity, and she is an Affiliated Faculty in Harvard’s Program on the Legal Profession. As a sociologist of the professions her research focuses on the social organization of lawyers, the role of labor markets, and the effects of culture on professional work. Recent projects include the “After the JD” study, the first national longitudinal study of law graduates in the US, the “Law and Beyond” Study, the first national study of law graduates in Canada, and a Canadian study on Ethics, the Professional Service Firm and Corporate Governance (with Hugh and Sally Gunz).

• Published: 05 October 2015
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This chapter introduces professional ethics as a specific example of applied or practical ethics. The authors provide a short review of the literature on theoretical and applied ethics in order to give context for the subsequent discussion. They examine three foundational concepts of professional ethics: codes adopted by professional bodies, professional autonomy, and the contested role of gatekeeper. Next, the authors consider ethical pressures experienced by professionals in the non-professional organization (NPO), and then the Professional Service Firm (PSF). Here the authors compare the pressure exerted by employer and clients and examine how so-called “client capture” can become a complex phenomenon when both client and professional are corporate entities. Finally, the chapter considers the challenges for the study of ethics in the PSF highlighted by this account.

6.1 Introduction

The professions and ethics have had an ambiguous relationship with each other since professions were acknowledged as an identifiable occupational group ( Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933 ). In this chapter we shall review the arguments and evidence surrounding professions and ethics, with particular reference to Professional Service Firms (PSFs). Research on ethics in the professions highlights a long-standing tension between formal and popular understandings of professionals. On the one hand, what we shall describe below as the classical model of the professions is premised on the concept of ethical codes of behavior that are used to reassure the professions’ clients that the arcane (to the layperson) arts of professionals are exercised in the public interest ( Carr-Saunders and Wilson 1933 ; Smigel 1964 ). On the other hand, there is abundant evidence that the public views the concept of the ethical behavior of professionals and their professional bodies with great skepticism; take for example the large body of lawyer jokes that focus on lawyers’ unethical behavior ( Galanter 2005 ). Professionals, in this latter view, are seen as no different from any other occupation, subject to the same self-serving pressures as anyone else, and as likely as anyone else to give in to them ( Heinz and Laumann 1982 ; Leicht and Fennell 2001 ). Of course ethical failures are, for the layperson, easier to identify than other failures in professional practice because professional work typically depends on a lengthy education and a certification process. So while it may be hard to know whether, for example, a lawyer has drafted a contract competently, it may be easier to observe that a lawyer has failed to inform a client adequately of risk, breached confidentiality inappropriately, acted in a conflict of interest, or lacked independence.

The ethical behavior of professionals demands even more attention when the scale of the problem is larger, as in the case of major economic failures or crises. Questions are asked about the behavior of the management of the organizations that play key roles in these crises ( Langevoort 2012 ). This was the case, for example, following the 2008 financial crisis when the financial service industries of the Western economies were held up to close scrutiny. But executives do not develop final versions of formal business agreements, nor do they prepare reports mandated by authorities. Any examination of corporate misbehavior inevitably turns to the role of the professionals and asks: “where were the accountants [or lawyers, or actuaries]?” ( Langevoort 2012 ). The audit opinion may only be provided by an accountant. Lawyers draft securities compliance documents. The actuary certifies the adequacy of pension funds to cover future liabilities. Managers in these situations are unable to undertake any significant action, proper or improper, without the work of the professional advisor who is mandated by law, or has the requisite skill set, to document the action. The focus thus turns to the ethical role of the professional when asked to facilitate actions that are illegal, border-line illegal (“gray”), or simply questionable in the sense that no laws are being broken, but the actions transgress the profession’s ethical code. The discipline of ethics, and applied ethics in particular, asks the questions that go beyond the bounds of what the law might prescribe.

It is useful to expand upon the distinction between legal and ethical obligations. Professionals at times act with willful negligence or actual fraud, actions that may have criminal or civil consequences. 1 The auditor for Madoff was charged with (and subsequently pleaded guilty to) securities fraud for his failure to apply any due diligence to the audits he provided ( US Securities and Exchange Commission 2009 ). While these events undoubtedly raise ethical questions, they are primarily concerned with the factors that might lead a highly skilled professional to turn, quite simply, “bad.” We focus here on the more subtle questions of unethical behavior; behavior where professionals comply with the technical constraints of the law, but for reasons that are not immediately obvious, ignore their broader ethical responsibilities.

As a first step in our analysis of ethics as applied to the PSF we turn to the literature on theoretical and applied ethics for some basic concepts, in order to trace the origins of the area of applied ethics known as professional ethics. We then consider three practical aspects of professional ethics: ethical codes, the significance of professional autonomy to the ability of the professional to behave in accord with ethical codes, and the controversial role of professional as gatekeeper. Next, we examine the ethical pressures faced by professionals first in the context of non-professional organizations, and then in professional service organizations. Finally, we consider the implications of these observations for future research on professional ethics.

6.2 Theoretical and Applied Ethics

The study of ethical theory is largely beyond the scope of this chapter. It would be disrespectful to perhaps the most ancient of intellectual disciplines to summarize millennia of thought in a matter of two to three pages. Nonetheless, it is important to place current debates within the framework of ethical theory so that we may then understand how ethics in the PSF relates to the broader context of ethical thought.

To begin, we distinguish between two fields of ethics: metaethics and normative ethics. Metaethics examines the nature of ethics, asking questions such as what is it actually to be good? In contrast, normative ethical theories are about how people ought to act. Another description of metaethics helps clarify the distinction:

the range of issues, puzzles and questions that fall within metaethics’ purview are consistently abstract. They reflect the fact that metaethics involves an attempt to step back from particular substantive debates within morality to ask about the views, assumptions, and commitments that are shared by those who engage in the debate. By and large, the metaethical issues that emerge as a result of this process of stepping back can be addressed without taking a particular stand on substantive moral issues that started the process. In fact, metaethics has seemed to many to offer a crucial neutral background against which competing moral views need to be seen if they are to be assessed properly. ( Sayre-McCord 2012 )

The three best-known normative ethics theories are virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism ( Chappell 2012 ; Moore 1903 ; Rawls 1971 ). Virtue ethics has ancient roots in Western culture going back to Plato and Aristotle and focuses upon moral character (virtues). Virtues are entrenched in a person’s character. Most people do not possess perfect virtues (e.g., courage, honesty) but tend towards them. The study of virtue ethics declined in comparison to the other forms of normative ethics from the nineteenth century until the 1950s ( Hursthouse 2013 ). While all three theories remain important to the study of professional ethics (see Cheffers and Pakaluk 2005 ), virtue ethics became a particularly popular basis for examining professional ethical obligations from at least the 1980s (e.g., Libby and Thorne 2004 ).

Deontology emphasizes duties or rules and owes much of its origins to the works of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). In its most general sense it describes morally good behavior in terms of compliance with good moral norms. Again, very generally, deontological theories can be divided between those that are (a) agent-centered (the norms or rules which relate to each individual agent) or (b) victim- or patient-centered (theories presuming individuals’ rights) ( Alexander and Moore 2013 ).

If deontology assesses moral choices by compliance with prior established norms, consequentialist theories evaluate them in terms of, as the name suggests, outcomes or consequences of action ( Simnott-Armstrong 2013 ). Indeed, it is argued that the consequences or outcomes are the only measure by which the morality of choices should be assessed. While there are various forms of consequentialism, the classic presentation takes the form of utilitarianism as derived from the work of Jeremy Bentham and John Stewart Mill. Generally, utilitarianism talks in terms of assessing choices by what yields the greater good or pleasure over bad or pain (“the greatest good for the greatest number”).

A summary of the three approaches can be expressed in this manner:

[Virtue ethics] may, initially, be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach which emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that which emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian [one consequentialist approach] will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, a deontologist to the fact that, in doing so the agent will be acting in accordance with a moral rule such as “Do unto others as you would be done by” and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent. ( Hursthouse 2013 )

Within the practical context of professional ethics, take the example of a lawyer who is assessing whether she should step down from an engagement because she believes that the client is not making adequate public disclosure of what she considers to be a material event even though the issue is not clear-cut (a “gray” area). A virtue ethics approach might have the lawyer assess her choice in terms of the qualities of her self-perception as a “good” lawyer. A deontological approach might seek guidance from general principles for the profession such as refusing to be associated with misleading reports. A utilitarian approach could include an assessment of the outcomes or consequences of staying versus stepping down as lawyer: for example, might greater good be derived from having a cautious lawyer remain in place should more serious challenges arise?

This short discussion introduces the complexity of normative theory. We now turn to applied ethics, or, as it is increasingly becoming known, practical ethics. As we noted above, this approach allows us to examine the practical ethical issues that face professionals and members of PSFs in particular. We have so far used the term “applied ethics” as if it is a subset of normative ethics, although this is subject to debate. Those opposed to its use do so because it implies that this is a sub-discipline that literally applies existing theoretical principles to practical circumstances ( LaFollette 2003 ). “[P]‌hilosophical principles cannot be applied in any straightforward way to particular problems and policies. In the face of concrete dilemmas, we need to revise philosophical principles as much as we rely on them for justification” ( Thompson 2007 ). For pure convenience here we use the more common expression “applied ethics” but we will return to the discussion of the relationship to ethical theory shortly. We first consider the modern origins of applied ethics.

While many philosophers, ancient and modern, have applied ethical thought to practical problems, applied ethics as a distinct field of inquiry owes its modern roots to the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Put formally, “[a]‌pplied ethics is a general field of study that includes all systematic efforts to understand and to resolve moral problems that arise in some domain of practical life” ( Winkler 2012 : 174). Alternatively, applied ethics addresses everyday problems in real-life contexts. It has grown as a field of study around particular areas of interest. While early work in applied ethics dealt with issues such as the Vietnam War or abortion, today, medical/bioethics, business and professional ethics, and environmental ethics are the largest categories of applied ethics. Yet the many monographs or journals about applied (or practical) ethics demonstrate a lengthy collection of social problems or contexts to which ethicists turn their attention.

As applied ethics evolved so too did the debate about its connection to ethical theory. Initially it was popular to reject traditional theory ( Winkler 2012 ), which is perhaps not surprising given the modern origins of applied ethics in a time of social turbulence. Increasingly, however, it became an accepted position that it would be improbable that a generalized normative theory could provide the basis for more applied discussion ( Winkler and Coombs 1993 ). Instead, LaFollette (2003) talks of its theoretical basis in a different manner: how thinking about practical issues leads to reflection that “reveals the connections between particular cases, isolates the contrasts between competing theoretical perspectives, and [makes us become] aware of tensions between what we were taught and what experience and reflection reveal. These require us to step back from our preconceptions to examine an issue more abstractly” ( LaFollette 2003 : 8). Included among the examples he gives are those of corporate responsibility and whistle blowing, evaluation of which also require thinking about the “moral status of corporations” ( LaFollette 2003 : 8). In the context of the professions, medical and bioethics have attracted the most attention. In accounting or law, issues of independence and conflict of interest have also generated considerable debate.

Professional ethics is one form of applied ethics. Within the scope of professional ethics is the further application of ethics in the context of the PSF. The organizational context of the professional matters, of course, because it sets up a particular type of relationship between professionals and those with whom they interact, with resulting implications for their ethical behavior.

6.3 Professional Ethics: Codes, Autonomy, and Gatekeepers

Professional ethics—“the ethics of the professionals who are members of a given profession” ( Airaksinen 2012 : 616)—is a form of applied or practical ethics. In Thompson’s (2007) view, “[p]‌ractical ethics tries to relate professional rules and clinical experience to the broader social context in which professionals practice, and to the deeper moral assumptions on which professions depend.” Further, professional ethics must be considered not only in terms of individual professional–client/patient relationships but also the institution in which decisions are made: “the moral life that dwells among the structures of society” (ibid.). The discussion of professional ethics that follows is centered on three key interrelated concepts: codes, autonomy, and gatekeepers. As the discussion will show, codes are an expression of the profession’s own values; autonomy underlies many of the assumptions regarding ethics in practice; and the role of gatekeeper challenges the extent of the ethical responsibility.

Koehn (1994) provides a helpful starting point to this discussion by focusing on the notion of the trust that users of professional services are required to place in the individual members of the profession:

We should not forget that professions represent the only mechanism we have for collectively providing ourselves with the goods of health, legal justice, and spiritual peace. If professionals are not trustworthy, whom should we trust? This question must be confronted. We cannot simply hope that the sick, the accused or the injured, and the spiritually needy will provide adequately for themselves. Clients grant, or at least permit, professionals access to something of value (e.g., their bodies) precisely because they are unable to secure or promote a desired state of affairs (e.g., a return to health) by themselves or are better able to do so with assistance. Given that the critics are not proposing any alternative source of help, we will be left without recourse if we cease to believe that professionals merit trust under some conditions. ( Koehn 1994 : 5–6)

This is a familiar description. Suddaby and Muzio (Chapter 2 , this volume) introduce the historic significance of ethics both to how the term “profession” is defined and to the role of professions in society. In seeking a definition of profession that captures its unique qualities vis-à-vis occupations in general, the trait or attribute approach—identifying the unique characteristics of a profession—typically included some sense of a higher calling or unique talent and identified the code of ethics as a common feature across professions ( Greenwood 1957 ). The social bargain (Suddaby and Muzio, Chapter 2 , this volume) implicit in professions being given monopoly power over their activities, as often happens for professions in Anglo-Saxon societies, typically results in obligations being imposed on them to act in the manner described above by Koehn: “The rationale behind such an arrangement is that if it is a good bargain, then both society and those in the occupation will benefit from it; society, by obtaining expert service in these learned occupations, and the practitioners by gaining status, control, and some protection against political scrutiny” ( Barker 1992 : 92).

6.3.1 Codes of Ethics

Codes may be interpreted as the means by which the professions themselves define their ideal of professional conduct (or, to return to the earlier metaphor, their “contractual obligations”). It is not that codes equate to professional ethics, but rather that they help explain the common agreement amongst members of professions as to their collective standards of appropriate behavior ( Adler and Kwon 2013 ). If codes reflect the agreed values, from an individual perspective they should ideally encourage self-reflection: “The ethic of the professional is to be found in the dialectical interaction between the conscience of the individual professional and the collective conclusions of the profession as a whole, and the formulations of the ‘Professional Code,’ always provisional and continually being revised, are the medium of that dialectical process” ( Newton 1982 : 40). This is the ideal.

The ethics literature addresses the issues of codes and economic self-interest. For example, “[p]‌rofessional associations serve many functions, but they always look after their power base.” ( Airaksinen 2012 : 617). Codes are certainly the means by which the self-interest of the professions is maintained and boundaries are established against “imposters” ( Fisher et al. 2001 ), a particularly important perspective when considering professions in terms of their power in society ( Newton 1982 ). Barker challenges this position by focusing on the “ethical ideal of service to society” as a means of “curb[ing] their selfish impulses” ( Barker 1992 : 89) and defends this position in normative terms. This is the position to which members of the profession ought to aspire, and that they do not is a matter for self-discipline within the profession and not a reason to throw away such an ethical ideal ( Barker 1992 ). Indeed he goes further by arguing that such an aspiration is a way of understanding professions themselves. Similarly:

At the heart of the career concept is a certain attitude toward work which is peculiarly professional. A career is essentially a calling, a life devoted to “good works.” Professional work is never viewed solely as a means to an end; it is the end itself. ( Greenwood 1957 : 53)

While trait approaches have, for many years, had their critics (e.g., Cogan 1953 ), there remains intact the notion that there is an ethical ideal to which we expect professionals to aspire.

Further, codes are, of course, there to be enforced and there is mixed evidence as to how this process enhances overall ethical standards. Enforcement of ethical obligations is most often in terms of violations of relatively technical provisions in the code (e.g., failure to maintain competence, committing a criminal act, or bringing the profession into disrepute) or neglect of clients ( Levin and Mather 2012 ) and seldom in terms of violations of the more aspirational goals such as placing client or public interest ahead of that of the individual professional. Large firm lawyers often escape disciplinary sanctions ( Wilkins 1992 ). Rarely, if ever, is there serious examination by the professions of the more subtle ethical issues that will be the focus later in this chapter. It turns out that it takes particularly egregious behavior for a case to be made, such as that against David Duncan of the accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.

This approach to enforcement is not a new phenomenon. Abel (1989 : Chapter 7 ) examines a broad range of research on the way that the American legal profession regulates itself. He demonstrates that the profession has proven itself over the years to be reluctant to take complaints against its members seriously. First, lawyers themselves demonstrate remarkably poor understanding of their profession’s ethical code. For example, Abel (2008 : 349) recounts the case of a lawyer who did not have a written retainer agreement with his client, even though written agreements are part of the rules of professional conduct. The lawyer in question retained a client’s tax refund as payment for his services. While the lawyer was indeed entitled to substantial fees he was ultimately suspended. Had he only understood the rules and implemented a retainer agreement, he would have received his fees and avoided suspension. Second, “[d]‌isciplinary procedures still dismiss more than 90% of complaints with little or no investigation. There is reason to believe that this expresses the solicitude practicing lawyers feel for each other” ( Abel 1989 : 147). Abel also finds prosecution uneven across types of practitioners. For example, complaints against inexperienced solo practitioners were significantly more likely than others to be prosecuted ( Arnold and Hagan 1992 ). The lawyers and judges dealing with these cases were “extremely solicitous of excuses for misbehavior” ( Abel 1989 : 148), and those who were convicted were typically dealt with leniently. Finally, of the very small proportion of those who were actually disbarred, most were subsequently readmitted either to the bar that sanctioned them or to another one ( Abel 1989 ). A similar pattern is found within accounting. Fisher et al. (2001) identify instances of enforcement apparently solely in defense of the private interests of the (accounting) profession and not the more expected interests of both the profession and the public interest.

A discussion of codes of ethics must also reference their relationship with the fiduciary, a key quality of all professions (Suddaby and Muzio, Chapter 2 , this volume) The legal concept of the fiduciary in common law jurisdictions, “[t]‌he relationship of one person to another, where the former is bound to exercise rights and powers in good faith for the benefit of the latter” ( Osborn 1964 ), imposes broad responsibilities that might also generally be described as ethical and which exist over and above the strictly contractual (in civil law jurisdictions equivalent provisions for specific contexts may be found in the Code). Generally, fiduciary duties cannot be avoided and arise in all cases where a member of a specific profession is acting in that capacity in exchanges with others. The duties require the professional to put client interests ahead of their own; they must avoid conflicts of interest, avoid abuse of power, not use confidential information for personal advancement, etc. In practical terms, this is perhaps the closest example of the law imposing ethical responsibilities on the professional (Suddaby and Muzio, Chapter 2 , this volume) and in interpreting the requisite standards to which individual professions must adhere in order to fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities, courts are most commonly influenced by the rules of the profession itself as expressed in its particular code of ethics (e.g., Hodgkinson v. Simms , 1994).

The purpose of this discussion is not to equate fiduciary duties with the ethical responsibilities of the professional; at best there is a partial overlap. Nor is it to suggest that a trait approach allows for an adequate definition of profession or professional ethics. It does not, and its critics abound ( Abbott 1988 ; Macdonald 1995 ). As Koehn (1994) suggests, such an approach is purely descriptive and avoids examination of what the norms of a profession should be:

We must also bear in mind that it is a normative matter to assert that a profession has no inner meaning but rather consists of the sum total of what a majority of its members happen to be doing at a certain time. Taken at its extreme, this position will yield mind-boggling claims of the sort that Adolf Eichmann’s lawyer offered in defense of that war criminal’s actions: Eichmann was innocent of the killings by gas because gassing “was indeed a medical matter, since it was prepared by physicians; it was a matter of killing, and killing too, is a medical matter.” Unless one is willing to say that doctors and mass murderers belong to the same profession and are equally good and worthy of respect, our practice of holding persons responsible for their actions will eventually force us to confront the question with which I propose to begin: what do professionals do, and what, if anything, legitimates their practice? ( Koehn 1994 : 7)

The purpose of the above accounts is instead to raise questions about the appropriateness of the self-regulating nature of professions—that is, professional bodies being assigned the role of protecting clients through enforcement of codes and justifying the trust placed in professionals. Functionalist accounts of the professions argue that such rights are justified because of the need to ensure that clients receive uniformly high levels of service ( Sutton 2001 ). The Weberian view, by contrast, regards professions as occupations that are particularly successful at fending off competition, and sees ethical codes as part of their armory intended to demonstrate to the world that their professional monopoly is being operated in the interests of the clients ( Sutton 2001 ). As Sutton (2001) points out, the evidence that we briefly reviewed above supports the Weberian view; if it were otherwise, then one would expect a great deal more interest in the professions in dealing with transgressors. From this perspective, ethical codes allow a profession to show, so long as nobody inquires too closely into how things happen in practice, that it has a well-constructed code of behavior designed to ensure that its practitioners act in the interests of their clients and the broader public, and that if they do not the profession will protect the client (public).

6.3.2 Autonomy

The self-regulating nature of professions and the enforcement of their ethical codes is in fact one instance of the expression of the broader concept of autonomy (see Empson and Langley, Chapter 8 , this volume) as it relates to professions and professional ethics. Within self-regulating professions, the expression “autonomous” implies that the individual or firm practice their art in a manner that is independent of both self-interest and partisan client interest. It also references the fact that the state (the regulator) has delegated jurisdiction over the rules of practice and the conditions of membership of the profession to the professional body. In order to determine why such a condition may be deemed to be necessary we must return to the notions of service and trust discussed earlier.

For each profession, there exists a broader social responsibility that again varies by context. These responsibilities are a condition of their regulated authority to practice and, using the contractual analogy, the quid pro quo for the monopoly rights provided by self-regulation. For example, in the case of the auditor, the values imposed are expressed as objectivity and independence: “The principle of objectivity imposes the obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conflicts of interest. Independence precludes relationships that may appear to impair a member’s objectivity in rendering attestation services” ( American Institute of Certified Public Accountants 2014 ). For the actuary, although most rules of conduct relate directly to the protection of the client, there is also a residual obligation to society: “An actuary shall perform professional services with integrity, skill and care. He [ sic ] shall fulfil his professional responsibility to his client or employer and shall not act against the public interest” ( GCAAPCE 2014 ). For lawyers, there is some version of the following rule that imposes overriding responsibility not to the client but to society: the lawyer must maintain “respect for the rule of law and the fair administration of justice” ( CCBE 2013 ) even where to do so runs counter to the interests of their own client (duty as “officer of the court” or as “minister of justice”).

The notion of the autonomous professional in practical terms is derived from the traditional model of the self-employed professional or the professional in the PSF who might maintain independence through a large portfolio of clients. No one individual client could then be significant enough to compromise the duty of the professional to wider social (professional) obligations. This, of course, is not always a safe assumption for much of professional practice, for example that of corporate law, and we return to it in section 6.4 . Before doing so, we examine the third of the three concepts underpinning professional ethics: the role of the professional as gatekeeper.

6.3.3 Gatekeepers

The legal profession uses the term “gatekeeper” in a sense that is somewhat different from that found in the organizational literature. Coffee (2006 : 2) defines it as “an agent who acts as a reputational intermediary to assure investors as to the quality of the ‘signal’ sent by the corporate issuer. The reputational intermediary does so by lending or ‘pledging’ its reputational capital to the corporation, thus enabling investors or the market to rely on the corporation’s own disclosures or assurances where they otherwise might not.” Coffee is writing post-Enron and the language of this definition clearly fits that of the auditor in particular.

In terms of the ethical duties of professionals, the issue implied by imposing a gatekeeper duty is whether ethical responsibilities extend to intervention when the client is perceived to be acting improperly. From the perspective of users of such services—for example, those who might rely on the audit assurance for investment decisions—it is often assumed that this is the case. If professionals are not responsible for preventing their clients from embarking on a harmful course of action, why are they there? The response from professions has been largely a reluctance to extend responsibility to this territory. The audit profession, for example, once talked of an expectations gap, a divergence between the expectations of the profession and the public as to the responsibility, say, to identify management fraud (e.g., McEnroe and Martens 2001 ). This “gap” is to be narrowed, not by extending the auditor’s responsibility but by better educating the public and lowering its expectations.

In fairness to accountants, these issues were overshadowed by ever-present threats of litigation. Further, the corporate failures of the turn of the century led in the USA to significantly increased responsibilities imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The legal profession has resisted the notion of gatekeeper vigorously. For example, they successfully defended against an extension of responsibility in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that would have required what is known as a “noisy withdrawal” where they were unable to prevent a client from engaging in significant violations of the law; that is, they would have been required not only to resign from the engagement but also report the events to regulators as auditors in the USA are obliged to do ( Kim 2011 ). Kim (2011) explores the arguments against the lawyer-gatekeeper and carefully documents the solid resistance from the profession to such an approach:

Official comments in the SEC administrative rulemaking process complained that the proposed rules could “eviscerate the attorney’s traditional role as advocate, confidant and advisor” and “risk destroying the trust and confidence many issuers have up to now placed in their legal counsel.” They worried that the proposals would “drive a wedge between client and the counsel who advised it on a matter” and decried that “the Commission would be using the attorney as the Commission’s eyes and ears to build a case against the client.” Lawyers maintained that by “requiring attorneys to police and pass judgment on their clients,” lawyers for corporations would slide down the slippery slope from trusted counselor to policeman. ( Kim 2011 : 132–133)

Kim concludes, however, that it is in the best interests both of the profession and public for lawyers to assume such a role.

Coffee (2006 : 3–4) notes that “one problem overshadows all others”: even where the professionals are acting as gatekeeper, they are also paid by the entity that hires them. And the term “pay’’ can be used broadly to include any form of economic dependency. The securities lawyer who allows a generous interpretation of a corporate event being below the threshold for disclosure may be influenced not only by the fees for this particular service but also the promise of a continued revenue stream to come. The logical response to this concern is to return to the concept of autonomy ( Adler and Kwon 2013 : 935–936). It is an ethical obligation to retain independence from client pressure, economic self-interest, or firm revenue demands, and it is that that allows the public to retain trust that the professional will act in its best interests rather than their own.

We have hinted at more than one point in this chapter that there are exigencies in professional practice which affect the way in which professionals interpret their ethical responsibilities. We now examine this issue in greater depth, beginning with situations in which it has been posited that professionals are under inherent stress because of their structural position ( Gunz and Gunz 1994b ), namely where they are employees of non-professional organizations. This section will lay an important foundation for the following discussion of the role of professionals within PSFs.

6.4 The Autonomous Professional in Non-Professional Organizations

If the ideal of the autonomous professional evolved from the notion of the wise counselor operating unfettered by messy commercial pressures, it is one we would be hard pressed to find in today’s society. A very high proportion of professionals are employed in non-professional organizations (NPOs: business or public corporations that are not PSFs; Leicht and Fennell 1997 ). Discussion of employed professionals provides a useful context for introducing influences that affect the way in which ethical matters are handled by professionals, influences that can also, as we show later, be identified in the PSF. More importantly, it may well be that as PSFs have become larger and more bureaucratic, there is more in common between the world of employed professionals in the NPO and that of their counterparts in the PSF than was traditionally assumed.

Suddaby and Muzio (Chapter 2 , this volume) discuss the literature on organizational professional conflict from the perspective of the theory of professions (see also Kirkpatrick and Noordegraaf, Chapter 5 , this volume). There are, however, also important ethical concerns. If, as many researchers have found, there is little evidence amongst professionals of perceived organizational professional conflict ( Adler and Aranya 1984 ; Bamber and Iyer 2002 ; Benson 1973 ; Davies 1983 ; Gunz and Gunz 1994a ; Shafer 2002 ; Wallace 1993 ), what are the inferences that should be drawn about professional ethical decision-making? Several possible explanations suggest themselves ( Gunz and Gunz 1994b ): (1) managers in NPOs may side-step professionals when considering difficult ethical issues; (2) the professional simply does not recognize an ethical conflict when presented with it; or (3) professionals may find a means of resolving issues without great effort thereby, for them, downgrading the intensity of the dilemma ( Zohar 2005 ).

The first option—that managers may routinely avoid involving employed professionals when something occurs about which they know the professionals will raise a problem—is beyond the scope of this chapter. The second and third options imply that the issue either lacks, for the professional, the necessary salience or vividness for it to be recognized as an ethical dilemma ( Jones 1991 ; Rest 1986 ), or, if it is, the judgment process invoked ( May and Pauli 2002 ) does not give the professional great difficulty. Why might these be the case; what might they tell us about how the professional resolves ethical dilemmas?

The proletarianization literature on professionals ( Bourgeault et al. 2011 ; Derber 1982 ; Murphy 1990 ; Oppenheimer 1973 ), based on the precept that “professionals have become subject to new forms of control that are eroding their status as professionals” ( Wallace 1995 : 229), provides a useful entry point. Wallace (1995) shows that professionals’ organizational commitment—an indication of the extent to which this proletarianization might be taking effect—“is highly dependent on perceived opportunities for career advancements and the criteria used in the distribution of rewards” ( Wallace 1995 : 228). The key here is that organizational commitment may in fact have implications for ethical decision-making. Evidence supporting this interpretation comes from a study of Canadian corporate lawyers ( Gunz and Gunz 2007 ), which showed that the more salient an organizational identity was to these counsel, the more likely it was that they would adopt an approach to an ethical dilemma in a manner consistent with that of a non-professional employee, as opposed to that of a lawyer (for a discussion of professional identity conflict see Alvesson et al., Chapter 18 , this volume).

The NPO literature, then, provides evidence to suggest that the orientation of professionals to the organization in which they practice, and consequentially their approach to handling ethical dilemmas, is contingent on the way that the organization rewards and promotes them. PSFs are, of course, different from NPOs in the sense that their dominant cultures tend more to the professional ( Faulconbridge and Muzio 2008 ). But they, too, are subject to strong commercial pressures, and we address the implications for ethical decision-making in such organizations next.

6.5 Professional Ethics in Professional Service Firms

PSFs have, as has been widely observed, increasingly become large bureaucracies, and many authors have commented on the impact of this trend on the manner in which their members practice ( Brock 2006 ; Malhotra and Morris 2009 ; Muzio and Faulconbridge 2013 ). It could be argued that the professional ethos of the PSF ( Faulconbridge and Muzio 2008 ) will be more supportive of an approach to professional ethics aligned with that prescribed by the profession itself. Indeed there is evidence that lawyers working in law firms feel a greater commitment to their profession than do solo practitioners, perhaps because the latter are under greater pressure to run their businesses ( Wallace and Kay 2008 ). Yet many writers have pointed to the commercial pressures faced by professionals ( Brint 1994 ; Hanlon 1998 ; Malhotra and Morris 2009 ; Rittenberg and Covaleski 2001 ). More specifically, recent work on client capture ( Leicht and Fennell 2001 ) suggests that professionals working in PSFs can be subject to pressures that do have implications for ethical decision-making.

The greater the (usually economic) power of clients over professionals, the greater the potential challenge to professional autonomy. Professionals find it harder to defend their ethical position when being pressed by their client to act expediently. Furthermore the shift to expert ( Brint 1994 ) or commercialistic ( Hanlon 1998 ) professionalism implies that professionals with such orientations are more likely to be in sympathy with the client’s aims ( Dinovitzer et al. 2014a ). In the 1990s the key professional services (audit in particular) in the major accounting firms were subsumed to the interests of business interests (e.g., consulting). The argument was made (e.g., Boyd 2004 ; Wyart 2004 ) that as a consequence individuals were not always able or willing to defend their professional values when faced with the enormous economic power of the client and firm. Arguably, that trend continues today at least in some of the very large international professional partnerships. By way of illustration, take the following example from the “About Us” page of one of the largest law firms in the world:

Baker and McKenzie defined the global law firm in the 20th century, and we are redefining it to meet the challenges of the global economy in the 21st … Ours is a passionately collaborative community of 60 nationalities. We have the deep roots and knowledge of the language and culture of business required to address the nuances of local markets worldwide. And our culture of friendship and broad scope of practice enable us to navigate complexity across issues, practices and borders with ease. ( Baker and McKenzie 2015 )

Much as with the major international accounting firms at least in the 1990s, the average reader would be hard pressed to catch that these highly skilled members of a “passionately collaborative community” are actually professionals, let alone autonomous professionals, and indeed lawyers. On the “Our People” page is found: “Every day our more than 4,000 lawyers, economists, tax advisors and other professionals share insights and best practices across borders and practices” ( Baker and McKenzie 2015 ), a practice world far removed from that in which the traditional professional ideal evolved.

Baker and McKenzie appears to have chosen to define itself at one extreme of the range of business-focused law firms. However, all major commercial law practices share common characteristics with major accounting firms: they are large, they have complex bureaucratic structures, their focus is upon the needs of commerce, and individuals usually succeed or fail on their individual ability to generate revenue. So while a partnership’s legal structure retains the focus on the individual for performance measurement purposes, the individual must be influenced by both the structure of the firm and others within it and in a manner not envisaged in Brint’s (1994) model of social trustee professionalism.

How do these pressures towards a commercial approach manifest themselves in the ethical behavior of professionals? At the core of the issue of ethics in PSFs is that of the power of the client. Professionals working in NPOs can be used as a limiting case, in which the power of the client, as the professional’s employer, is perhaps at its greatest. Leicht and Fennell (2001) introduce the label “client capture” in the PSF to describe this:

some professional groups have faced a situation whereby the consumers (clients) or new ways of performing work (technologies) will undermine professional prerogatives and status. We refer to these trends under the heading of professions “captured” by clients or technologies. Under client capture the consumers of professional work gain the ability to control the activities, timing, and costs of professional work. In effect the “consumer becomes sovereign” much as consumers search for (and price) other consumer goods and services. ( Leicht and Fennell 2001 : 105–106)

Evidence for client capture comes from the accounting profession. Macey and his co-authors have persuasively argued that client capture is more commonly found among accounting firms than, for example, legal firms because, although a large firm may have many clients, often individual partners have only one, giving that client great power over the partner in question ( Macey and Sale 2003 ). Furthermore, the size of client firm makes a difference as well. In a sample of large US firms it was shown that the larger the client firm, the more likely it was to restate its financial results (an indication of accounting error), suggesting that larger firms have greater power to persuade their auditors to approve erroneous or misleading financial statements ( Eisenberg and Macey 2004 ). Similar evidence comes from the actuarial profession ( Armstrong et al. 2012 ).

Client capture and its consequent impact on ethical decision-making is complex ( Dinovitzer et al. 2014b ). In its most obvious form it is the direct demand of a client exerting economic power over the professional; arguably the case of Enron pressuring David Duncan, its auditor. It may, however, also be indirect and more subtle. Dinovitzer et al. (2014b) point out that commercial law typically involves a relationship not between two individuals, professional and client, but between two organizations, meaning that client capture may be a far more complex phenomenon than a simple matter of one actor exerting influence over another. Indirect client capture might occur when a powerful member of the PSF (perhaps the partner responsible for the client relationship) imposes pressure on the individual professional to please the client in contravention to their own beliefs. It is also well documented ( Gunz and Gunz 2008 ) that others in the firm with an economic interest in the client may exert pressure in defense of their own economic interests. The professional may have no direct client contact at all—they may, for example, be brought in solely for a specific task (finance or tax expertise)—but the pressure to compromise integrity and satisfy the client may occur through peers. Finally and not uncommonly is what has been described as “misdirected” client capture ( Dinovitzer et al. 2014b ). As noted above, the actual client to which a professional owes their ethical responsibility is, most often, a person in law only; it is a corporation. The professional interacts with, is hired by, paid, and pressured by, a human manager ( Coffee 2006 ). The potential then exists for the professional to meet the desires of that manager at the expense of their ethical responsibilities to the actual client (the corporation). A particularly egregious example of this effect was described by the Enron bankruptcy examiner, referencing the actions of those in the outside law firms. As he noted, Enron’s outside counsel were given instructions from certain Enron officers that “if carried out, constituted a breach of a legal duty to Enron (such as a breach of fiduciary duty) or a violation of law (such as inadequate disclosure)” ( Batson 2003 : 28).

The organizational complexity of PSFs not only leads to varied forms of client capture, it is also related to the ways in which lawyers construct their own identities that in turn impact the manner in which ethical dilemmas might be resolved. As we have seen in the previous section, much of this work has been conducted in the context of the NPO, although recently there have been extensions to the PSF (e.g., Dinovitzer et al. 2014a ). The Dinovitzer et al. study found evidence not only of distinct identities, but also some evidence of the impact of certain of those identities on the way ethical dilemmas are resolved. For example, lawyers whose identity was more strongly influenced by the law than by their personal experience and who showed little tendency to regard themselves as members of a collectivity (even though they were partners in large law firms) were found to be more likely to bend to the pressure of a client manager, even when to do so compromised an ethical responsibility to elevate an issue within the true client (the corporation and not the manager; that is, the misdirected client capture referenced above).

Understanding ethics within the PSF thus requires attention, first and foremost, to the organizational context of the professional. While at first glance professionals in the PSF are thought to be technically independent of their client, as our discussion shows, this independence is fraught with commercial and collegial pressures. The issues raised earlier—of codes, gatekeeping, and autonomy—take on a particular valence when analyzed within the PSF, and demonstrate that scholars must take into account the exigencies in professional practice in order to understand the ethical responsibilities of professionals.

6.6 Conclusions

The study of ethics in the PSF is today largely empirical. While there is an extensive and continuing literature on professional ethics in general and a lively debate about the normative elements of professional ethics in particular, for the most part these are based on a generic understanding of the professional—for example a lawyer, an actuary, or an accountant who is understood to perform certain highly skilled tasks—without consideration of the context in which their art is practiced. For example, Martin (2000 : 4) talks of the dominant perspective as focusing upon “the moral requirements attached to a profession and imposed on all its members, together with the ethical dilemmas created when the requirements conflict or are too vague to provide guidance.”

Yet this ignores the very real pressures experienced by professionals in PSFs resulting from phenomena such as the client capture we describe above and the overriding commercial pressures and increasingly competitive environment faced by PSFs more generally that are responsible for much of these pressures. It is, in other words, naïve to assume that professionals are able to maintain a level of autonomy that places them above the temptations of the commercial world, particularly since PSFs themselves are increasingly—and probably always were—deeply embedded in and an integral part of that world. Autonomy is encroached on from many directions: from the client, who may want the professional to act in a way convenient to them but not in accord with the ethical standards of the profession; and from colleagues and senior management in the firm who also have an interest, for their own reasons, in the same client. The complexity of relationships between PSFs and their large corporate clients can mean that professionals fail to recognize who the real client is (the client corporation), potentially leading to a form of goal displacement in which the professionals’ actions are focused on the needs of their contact within the client firm rather than the interests of the actual client, sometimes with disastrous results ( vide Enron).

Indeed the tensions between what users expect of professionals and what professionals are willing and able to deliver have threatened, and may continue to threaten, the continued existence of professions if the extent of the ethical lapses that result destroy the trust of the public in the profession in question. This was the case with accountants in 2002. More importantly, a continued drip of ethical failures will feed a popular cynicism about the worth of professionals. What then are the challenges for the study of ethics in the PSF?

First, it is evident that in order to understand the ethical pressures at work on professionals in PSFs we need to know more about the PSFs themselves. Are some professions more vulnerable than others to pressures like the various forms of client capture that we describe above? How might variation in the organizational form and governance of PSFs (Leblebici and Sherer, Chapter 9 , this volume) affect the relationship between the professionals and their client? To what extent is professionals’ ethical judgment protected, in the sense that they feel able to act strictly in accord with their profession’s code, by the professional culture ( Faulconbridge and Muzio 2008 ), or lack thereof, of the firm? How might different kinds of careers affect ethical judgment (see Cohen, Chapter 16 , this volume)? For example, something as simple as increased evidence of lateral moves by professionals ( Henderson 2014 ) may well have a profound impact on ethical decision-making, because newcomers to the firm may well be more concerned about the need to establish themselves with their colleagues and thus be more vulnerable to phenomena such as client capture. The classic perspectives on the influence of the firm as guardian of ethical mores ( Smigel 1964 ) may be moot if we no longer assume that the individual professional is committed to the PSF itself but is instead more focused on personal career advancement and job (in)security (e.g. Clay and Seeger 2012 ; Galanter and Henderson 2008 ). Such changes might impact all aspects of the firm and increase competitive pressures between and within PSFs, which in turn can increase ethical pressures ( Dinovitzer et al. 2014a ).

Further, the focus of the study of ethics in the PSF has been mostly limited in its context to large firms and, in particular, large accounting and law firms (but see Levin and Mather 2012 ). However, the largest proportions of lawyers in the USA, for example, practice in small firms or as sole practitioners ( Harvard Law School 2007 ), and it is known that ethical challenges are not only just as rife there but may be more difficult to resolve than in larger firms that have conflicts or opinion committees to provide an internal check against unethical behavior ( Gunz et al. 2002 ; Levin and Mather 2012 ). In addition, this discussion has largely been confined to the legal and accounting professions, especially the former, which reflects the attention these two have received in the literature. There is plenty of scope for extending this work to other professions, for example engineering, the actuarial profession, or indeed the investment advising industry, the work of all of which can destroy the lives of their clients, sometimes literally.

Cross-cultural ethical issues form yet another area into which this work could be extended. As PSFs increasingly operate internationally either as firms themselves or through the offshoring of aspects of professional work (Boussebaa and Morgan, Chapter 4 , this volume), a broad range of critical ethical issues arise. For example, is there common agreement as to ethical obligations between countries in which firms operate? What is the effectiveness of international ethical codes, and should they exist? Ought clients in one jurisdiction be made aware that their work is being conducted in quite a different jurisdiction? These raise complex ethical issues and there is little evidence of any rigorous approach to date as to how they should be addressed.

There is, evidently, a large and rich potential for scholarly work devoted to ethics in the PSF. One important caution should be noted: empirical ethical work is difficult, which no doubt explains why there is such a dearth of existing work in this field. Traditional social science methodologies such as those of self-report or direct observation are problematic for many reasons. Ethical problems are comparatively rare events, making observational studies largely impractical: the researcher has no way of knowing when such an event may happen, and therefore has little, if any, chance of being there to observe it. Retrospective studies are complicated by issues of confidentiality: it is not easy to persuade people to tell you about things they have done which might, if revealed, get them into trouble. Self-report hypothetical studies are affected by social desirability bias, and instead of providing a “true” answer (that might indicate an lapse in ethical judgment for example), respondents will instead provide one which is socially acceptable ( King and Bruner 2000 ); and so on.

Ethical issues are (fortunately) rare for professionals, and even when encountered, probably fall into the category described by Zohar (2005) as low intensity, in other words the minor, everyday issues that involve minor ethical judgments which do not, on the whole, have the potential to land a transgressor in court or before a professional disciplinary tribunal. But every so often ethical lapses become large enough that they hit society hard, and the more we can understand the pressures leading to these lapses, the greater our chance of preventing their recurrence. This research, in other words, may be difficult, but its potential payoff makes it exceedingly worthwhile.

The terminology here is kept deliberately generic: descriptive rather than necessarily legally precise—while the authors work in a common law jurisdiction, the same issues apply to all legal systems.

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Research on Professional Responsibility and Ethics in Accounting: Volume 23

Table of contents

Understanding professional skepticism through an ethics lens: a research note.

This chapter examines the relationship between four variables indicating ethical disposition – ethical sensitivity, ethical reasoning, concern for others, and egocentrism – and trait professional skepticism (PS) ( Hurtt, 2010 ) among 119 first-year auditors. While there has been research addressing the link between ethical dispositional factors and state PS in auditors (e.g., Shaub & Lawrence, 1996 ), there is a lack of research into the link between ethical dispositional factors and trait PS ( Hurtt, 2010 ). The results indicate that trait PS is higher in first-year auditors with higher levels of ethical reasoning, concern for others, and egocentrism. More ethically sensitive auditors do not demonstrate higher levels of trait PS, however. The results provide evidence that auditors’ ethical dispositions influence their ability to have the mindset necessary to carry out the investor protection role that requires adequate PS.

CSR Performance: Governance Insights from Dual-Class Firms

The authors’ examination of corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores in dual-class firms provides a window on firms’ CSR performance when insulated from external pressure. Dual-class ownership confers greater voting rights on a superior class of shares held by insiders; consequently, managers of dual-class firms are insulated from external pressure from inferior class shareholders and, potentially, from society. The authors compare CSR scores in dual- and single-class firms and investigate the association between CSR scores and cash flow rights in dual-class firms. This analysis reveals that dual-class firms have lower CSR scores than their single-class counterparts and that CSR scores in dual-class firms are positively related to the relative cost of CSR borne by the superior class of shares. The findings suggest that external accountability encourages CSR performance, and CSR performance is higher when the superior class bears a smaller portion of the cost of CSR activities. It follows that the analysis suggests the importance of governance structures for encouraging CSR, and the dampening impact of cost to CSR performance.

Will Cognitive Style Impact Whistleblowing Intentions?

This study explores the whistleblowing judgments and intentions of accounting students utilizing scenarios involving accounting earning’s manipulations and fraud. Individual differences affect how one makes decisions yet are rarely explored in the whistleblowing literature. As such, the authors conducted an exploratory study to determine if one’s cognitive style (the method a person uses to perceive incoming information and how they make decisions) affects whistleblowing judgment and intent. Using multivariate regression, the authors find that cognitive style significantly affects moral sensitivity, whistleblowing judgment, and whistleblowing intent. This chapter makes several important contributions to the existing literature. This is the first study that explores whether cognitive style affects moral sensitivity, whistleblowing judgments, and whistleblowing intentions. Second, it demonstrates that the models which exclude individual differences may be incomplete.

Do American Accounting Students Possess the Values Needed to Practice Accounting?

As in other countries, the accounting profession in the United States strives to hire and keep qualified professionals, who possess the technical competence and ethical character essential to accounting practice. The reputation of the profession has been periodically tarnished by a lack of ethical behavior on the part of some Certified Public Accountants (CPAs). This suggests a misfit between those in the profession and the ethical values toward which the profession strives. When CPAs commit unethical behavior, doing so creates a major problem for the profession. Research has shown that the congruity of personal values with organizational values, person–organization fit (P–O fit), is an important factor in the hiring, socialization, and retention of employees. This research compares the personal values of US accounting students with the personal values of leaders in the accounting profession. Personal value priorities were measured with the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS). The findings indicated that these samples of accounting leaders ( N = 193) and accounting students ( N = 516) significantly differed in the priority given to 24 of the 36 personal values. This result suggests a lack of P–O fit between accounting students and the accounting profession. These findings have implications for CPA firms in the United States, specifically with regard to hiring ethically “fitting” staff and fostering an ethical culture in accounting firms.

Increasing Student Engagement Using Giving Voice to Values and Peer Feedback

The Giving Voice to Values (GVV) program takes a unique approach to ethics education by shifting the focus away from a philosophical analysis of why actions are unethical to a focus on how individuals can effectively voice their values to resolve ethical conflict. The authors explore how peer feedback and peer assessment, when implemented within a GVV module, can increase students’ understanding of ways to resolve ethical dilemmas, increase student engagement, and increase confidence in confronting unethical actions. The findings indicate that the use of peer feedback and assessment increases students’ understanding of ways to resolve ethical dilemmas, increases confidence in confronting unethical actions, and student attitudes suggest that assessing peers is a way to learn from each other and enhances interaction/engagement of students in the course. The teaching methods described in this study can easily be implemented in any specific discipline or accounting ethics course.

Law Versus Ethics in Accounting

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the relationship between law and ethics in accounting. The primary arguments of the chapter are that law and ethics have between intertwined historically, that concepts of morality and ethics have permeated law and that laws are based on ethical and religious principles. As a result, it is important for accounting students and practicing accountants to understand the close relationship between law and ethics. The chapter defines the meaning of “legal” and “ethical,” and draws distinctions between these concepts. It also discusses historical relationships between law, morality and ethics in major religious traditions. The concepts of ethics expressed in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and how these concepts influenced the development of law and ethics in Western philosophy are then discussed. In particular, the ethical principles of independence, integrity and objectivity as embodied in the Code of Conduct of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) are recognizable in Aristotle’s premise, that moral virtue is situated at the mean between deficiency and excess and that ethics is oriented toward practical implementation of the good life through human rationality. The final section of the chapter discusses the application of law and ethics to accounting and in particular to the detection of management fraud.

Socialization and Professionalism

The current study examines the effect of socialization on the inculcation of professional accounting values. Three sources of socialization are examined: public accounting firms, non-public accounting firms (industry) and accounting professional associations. Specifically, the study compares the professionalism of public and industry accountants. Consistent with expectations, the results suggest that public accountants have stronger beliefs in professional autonomy and self-regulation than industry accountants, and that industry accountants have stronger beliefs in professional affiliation, social obligation and professional dedication than public accountants. It was hypothesized that while professional associations promote all professional values, public accounting firms and industry have different promoting priorities. Public accounting firms foster beliefs in self-regulation and professional autonomy while industry opposes these values, resulting in public accountants having stronger beliefs in these values. Conversely, it was posited that industry encourage beliefs in professional affiliation, social obligation and professional dedication to a greater extent than public accounting firms. The result is that the industry accountants have stronger beliefs in these values than the public accountants. Investigating these issues increase understanding of the importance of the socialization process fostering accounting professional values and identifying areas of potential conflict and reinforcement accountants face when working in public accounting and industry.

A Comparative Study of the Whistleblowing Activities: Empirical Evidence from China, Taiwan, Russia, and the United States

This chapter explores cultural factors that influence the propensity to blow-the-whistle in China, Taiwan, Russia, and the United States. This study found that culture and traditions have strong impact on the propensity of whistleblowing. This research analyzed 1,541 working adults in China, Taiwan, Russia, and the United States. Statistical analysis of self-developed questionnaires reveal that: (a) Americans have a greater disposition to engage in whistleblowing than Chinese, Taiwanese, and Russian; (b) Americans have a smallest level of fear of retaliation to whistleblowers than Chinese, Taiwanese, and Russian; (c) the intention of Chinese, American, and Taiwanese to whistle-blow is influenced to a greater degree by position of wrongdoers than that of Russian; and (d) guanxi (personal relationships or networks) has a greater effect on the propensity to whistle-blow for Chinese and Taiwanese than for Americans and Russian. Auditors and managers need to be aware that employees in different cultures respond differently to factors that influence whistleblowing activities. The results of this study will help auditors and managers better assess risk and the effectiveness of internal controls and ethical standards.

Earnings Management Ethics: Stakeholders’ Perceptions

The chapter examines the perceptions of a range of stakeholders regarding the ethics of earnings management (EM) by Libyan commercial banks. EM ethics research has largely been based on a questionnaire developed by Bruns and Merchant (1990 ). This chapter addresses the issue in two different ways. First, it directly examines the interviewees’ perceptions on whether EM is ethical or not. Second, stakeholders’ perceptions are surveyed using a set of questions that consider, for example, the effect of EM on others’ interests and whether EM is ethical if applied within General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the law. A total of 28 semi-structured interviews were carried out with stakeholders comprising: preparers of financial statements, users, regulators, and academics. A questionnaire survey of stakeholders which yielded 102 responses (response rate 53%) was also carried out. Interview findings indicated that 50% of the interviewees have the view that EM is ethical. Questionnaire results, on the other hand, revealed that EM is agreed, on balance, to be perceived as unethical. However, if applied within GAAP and the legal framework it is perceived, on balance, to be ethical. The chapter provides insights into stakeholders’ perceptions of EM ethics. The findings are of particular relevance to the users, and specifically, the external auditor as well as current and potential investors. EM practices, according to the literature, degrade financial reporting quality and may affect economic decisions. Auditors should be aware that EM may be regarded as an ethical practice and therefore more scrutiny might be required. In terms of accountability a manager should be held accountable not only to shareholders but also to society as a whole.

An Evaluation of Methods for Teaching Auditing Students Auditor Independence Compliance Rules

Auditing textbooks include summary level coverage of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) Code of Professional Conduct, but textbook coverage is too brief to support a strong understanding of auditor independence. Independence rules have the force of professional law for the independent auditor ( PCAOB, 2015 ). Threats to firm independence can arise from events and circumstances such as investments in the client, loans from the client, past-due fees, contingent fees, deposits in the client, gifts and job offers. Student test results from a five-year rotation of alternative auditor independence lecture support materials demonstrate that using the actual AICPA Code of Professional Conduct reduces student performance. However, this drag on student performance was mostly offset by the positive impacts of simultaneous use of an independence decision tree developed for this chapter and tested as a teaching material for classrooms use.

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Ethics and careers.

This article first examines the organizational context in which choices about ethical behavior take place and then discusses sources and career effects of ethical values. The stages in development of moral reasoning are then examined and also the types of ethical issues associated with specific career stages. The special case of organizational whistle-blowers is considered. Finally, the bases for making ethical decisions and opportunities for careers in the field of ethics are discussed.

Organizational Context

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a number of highly publicized events concentrated negative attention on ethics in public life and in private and public organizations, such as WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, HealthSouth, and Arthur Andersen. Consequences for individuals held responsible for these legal and ethical failings were career ending in many cases.

A plethora of potential ethical issues faces individuals at all organizational levels: discrimination, sexual harassment, falsifying financial information, insider trading, confidentiality and privacy violations, lying (to managers, colleagues, or customers), stealing, bribery, undercutting coworkers, claiming credit for work done by others, misrepresenting credentials, covering up unsafe working conditions and products—to name just a few types of ethical violations that occur in organizations. Most individuals can expect to face and handle many ethical issues throughout their careers.

As organizational changes accelerate, new situations with uncertain ethical overtones require action: downsizing, outsourcing, employability replacing career ladders, use of contingent workers, technological changes, and the increasingly global nature of competition. These changes impact careers at all organizational levels and present new challenges to those trying to balance their own career development and the needs of the organizations that employ them. The changing nature of workers’ psychological contracts introduces new tensions between individual career considerations and obligations to employers. As job security fades and individuals recognize a lack of commitment from their organizations, they reciprocate with less commitment to their employers. The accepted exchange relationship between employer and employee has eroded, and individuals must now take responsibility for maintaining and updating their skills and managing their careers.

Sources and Career Effects of Ethical Values

Individuals develop ethical standards as a result of socialization in their families, community, religious institutions, and professions. When they join organizations, the contexts in which they work become a powerful determinant of ethical choices. In fact, organizational context is a stronger determinant of ethical behavior than individual moral reasoning ability or espoused ethical standards. Individuals have been shown to use lower levels of ethical reasoning when making decisions in business settings than they do in non-business contexts. Organizational culture, the presence and strength of a code of behavior, role-modeling by managers, the reward system of the organization, and personal career consequences of ethical choices may override the individual’s code of behavior or ability to reason ethically.

Ethics impacts careers in a number of ways. Personal beliefs about work that is valuable to society and consistent with the individuals’ values influence the choice of a career. Decisions to join, stay with, or leave a particular career or organization may be made on the basis of congruence between the individual’s moral beliefs and those enacted by and required of members of the profession or organization.

One criterion for determining whether a profession exists is the presence of a generally accepted code of ethics for those working in the area. Professions thus socialize their members into the behaviors regarded as ethical by their practitioners; however, these professional ethical standards may come into conflict with expectations for employees of particular organizations. For example, certified public accountants must pass an examination on the ethics of accountancy. If their employers request that they falsify accounting records or violate generally accepted accounting practices, the ethics of their profession will be in conflict with the expectations of their employers—and possibly with their own ethical standards.

Development of Ethical Reasoning Ability

Movement through stages of ethical reasoning occurs as individuals mature. At the lowest levels of moral reasoning, preconventional, individuals make choices based on hedonistic consequences for themselves: They do what gives them pleasure or what allows them to avoid punishment or pain. At this level of cognitive moral reasoning, individuals are concerned about the consequences of their actions for themselves. As people mature, their ethical choices are influenced by the standards of the groups to which they belong. Conformity to rules and laws of peer groups govern ethical choices at the conventional level. At the highest level of moral reasoning, postconventional or principled, individuals’ ethical choices are made by reference to principles they have accepted or developed for themselves. Here, the concern is for consequences to society at large, not just to individuals and their reference groups.

Ethical Issues and Career Stages

Different types of ethical dilemmas are faced by individuals at different career stages. Using Donald Super’s career development framework, researchers have found different types of ethical issues faced by those in the exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement stages of their careers.

In the aptly named exploration career stage, individuals focus on acceptance from peers and also may be most vulnerable to pressure from superiors. If achieving performance norms is critical to peer acceptance, this need for acceptance by peers can lead to ethical shortcuts. If the organization rewards goal achievement, the individual in this early career stage may feel pressured to achieve those goals using any means, ethical or unethical. The potential for ethical shortcuts is increased if superiors themselves do not model ethical behavior.

When individuals enter the establishment stage, they have made some commitment to a particular profession or career and are increasingly concerned with career advancement. High levels of competition may result in individual ethical compromises to achieve promotion. In individuals with high success drives, this temptation may be intensified. In the establishment stage, the pressure to take ethical shortcuts may be mostly internal, in contrast to the exploration stage, in which pressure comes from peers and superiors.

During the maintenance and disengagement stages, both external and internal pressures to violate personal ethical standards in pursuit of organizational goals can be expected to lessen. With established track records, decreased competition, and more personal acceptance of one’s achievement levels, both internal and external pressures for unethical behavior can be expected to decrease. In addition, as individuals become more focused on their work legacies, they may gain more incentive to help others achieve their life and career potential and also further integrate their own careers into their whole life systems. On the other hand, individuals in the maintenance stage are expected to be at the top of their careers, often in positions that may lead to temptations to encourage subordinates to use ethically questionable means to achieve organizational goals. Furthermore, individuals who have reached upper-management positions may face external pressure from stockholders as well as from their boards of directors to do whatever it takes to increase share price.

Thus, the nature of the pressure to behave unethically, the types of ethical issues faced, and the motivation for ethical/unethical behavior can be expected to vary over the course of a career, but no career stage immunizes individuals from the necessity of handling ethical issues.

Whistle-blowing

In extreme cases, individuals may choose to become whistle-blowers, even though the consequences of such actions are almost always detrimental to the individual’s career. Whistle-blowers speak out about illegal or unethical behavior in organizations. They may blow the whistle internally or, after exhausting internal reporting systems, publicly report organizational wrongdoing. At the other extreme, individuals who remain in positions or organizations that require some violation of their personal ethical standards may disconnect their emotions from the work situation and therefore reduce commitment to the organization and fail to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors. Perceptions of ethical culture are strongly related to both job satisfaction and organizational commitment and thus to organizational citizenship behaviors.

Issues differ in their levels of moral intensity. Moral intensity is higher—and whistle-blowing is more appropriate—when consequences are greater, when there is general social consensus that an action is wrong, when it is highly likely that the harmful consequence will actually occur, when the event is imminent and proximate to the individual, and when the effect is concentrated rather than diffuse. Enron whistle-blowers Sherron Watkins and Maureen Castaneda felt the legal and ethical violations at Enron justified their going public with the company’s lapses. In another case, the Challenger disaster might have been avoided had the engineer, Alan McDonald, who disagreed with the judgment regarding the safety of the O-rings, taken his concerns outside NASA.

Being a whistle-blower frequently carries heavy career consequences. Most whistle-blowers lose their jobs as a result of their reporting legal or ethical violations. They may also be unable to find employment in their professions after the event. Most suffer financial and/or personal reverses as they pursue cases, which frequently drag on over a number of years. Nonetheless, whistle-blowers feel a moral imperative to expose organizational actions that endanger others, even at the cost of their own careers.

Integrity, honesty, and a strong work ethic are high on employers’ lists of traits and skills they seek in employees. However, many employees fail to see a positive relationship between ethical behavior and career advancement. In fact, they believe they must choose between adhering to their personal ethical standards and their own career progressions. Concerns for organizational profit and/or survival often trump individual concerns about honorable behavior. Ethicists thus recommend that early in their careers, individuals make decisions about the lines they will not cross. If these decisions are not consciously taken when there is time for thoughtful consideration, individuals may find themselves unwittingly compromising their integrity as they respond to the organizational pressures of the moment.

Bases for Making Ethical Decisions

Philosophers have suggested prescriptive approaches to ethical thinking. The utilitarian approach judges whether an action is ethical by examining its likely consequences. Among the alternatives available, the ethical choice is the one that creates the greatest good or the least harm for the greatest number of people. This approach, with its roots in economics, is embraced by the majority of businesspeople and by many in other fields. Using utilitarian reasoning, for example, management fires some workers in an attempt to improve profits, attract investors, and retain other jobs, or they close a plant in one town because its inefficiencies have a negative impact on profits of more efficient plants in the same organization. Utilitarianism works well for those in the majority, but minorities do not fare well under this philosophical approach to making ethical decisions. That many others benefited from the decision may offer small comfort to those who lost their jobs or to the town whose economy was decimated when the plant closed. In addition, the likely consequences of all alternatives cannot be known with certainty. Information about some consequences or even about some groups or individuals who will be affected by the decision may be unavailable.

A second approach to ethical decision making is the rights approach. A decision is considered ethical if it avoids violating the basic human rights of any stakeholders affected by the decision. Difficulties with this approach include the impossibility of getting universal agreement on what basic human rights are. To some, these rights include the right to a livable wage or health care; others recognize fundamental rights to life and freedom, but to little else. Furthermore, rights can conflict, and there are no clear rules for determining which rights take precedence in a particular case.

In the justice approach to making ethical choices, decisions are considered ethical if the same procedures apply to all who are affected by the decision (procedural justice) or if those who are similarly placed receive similar outcomes (distributive justice). Thus, those with similar professional qualifications, workloads, and performance levels should receive similar compensation; those with lesser credentials, workloads, and performance levels should be compensated less than those in the first group, but all members of the same performance class should receive similar outcomes.

The virtue approach focuses on the integrity of the decision maker or moral actor. Intentions and motives as well as actions themselves are considered in judging whether or not an action is ethical. This approach relies on community standards of behavior. In professions, these standards are encapsulated in codes of behavior accepted by practitioners in the field.

Organizational Careers in Ethics

Career opportunities in the field of ethics are increasing. Growth in the demand for ethics officers in corporations is partially a response to changes adopted in 1991 by the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The sentencing guidelines reduce penalties for corporations found guilty of violations if they can demonstrate that they have comprehensive ethics programs in place. Having a high-level executive with direct responsibility for ethical behavior in the organization is a strong signal that companies take ethics seriously. More recently, the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has rein­forced the pressure for compliance officers who are held responsible not only for ensuring compliance to ethics laws but also for the development of an organizational climate and culture that support ethical behavior.

The responsibility for compliance with employment laws, ensuring nondiscrimination in hiring and treatment of employees, and setting programs in place to prevent sexual harassment is generally housed in human resource management departments. Thus, careers in human resource management also require a thorough grounding in law and ethics.

Ultimate responsibility for ethical behavior in organizations, however, still rests with individual employees. Company titles that include the word ethics may be limited, but the necessity of considering the ethical implications of organizational decisions permeates the entire organization and affects careers at all levels.

• Accounting Careers
• Antisocial work behaviors
• Organizational citizenship behavior
• Organizational justice
• Super’s career develop­ment theory

References:

• Alford, C. F. 2001. “Whistleblowers and the Narrative of Ethics.” Journal of Social Philosophy 32:402-418.
• Boatwright, J. R. 1997. Ethics and the Conduct of Business. 2d ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Carter, T. 2004. “Ethics Czars in Demand.” ABA Journal 90(11):32.
• DeGeorge, R. T. 1999. Business Ethics. 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Kohlberg, L. 1976. “Moral Stages and Moralization: The Cognitive-developmental Approach.” Pp. 34-35 in Moral Development and Behavior: Theory, Research, and Social Issues, edited by T. Lickona. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Kohlberg, L. The Psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages. New York: Harper & Row.
• Roozen, I., De Pelsmacker, P. and Boystyn, F. 2001. “The Ethical Dimensions of Decision Processes of Employees.” Journal of Business Ethics 33:87-99.
• Trevino, L. K. and Nelson, K. A. 1995. Managing Business Ethics: Straight Talk about How to Do It Right. New York: Wiley.
• Weeks, W. A., Moore, C. W., McKinney, J. A. and Longnecker, J. G. 1999. “The Effects of Gender and Career Stage on Ethical Judgment.” Journal of Business Ethics 20:301-313.

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How to Develop a Strong Work Ethic

• Tutti Taygerly

Hiring managers want to see your motivation, can-do attitude, and dedication.

In our early career years, it can be challenging to figure out what behaviors are and are not acceptable in different professional environments. Employers are now expecting more of entry-level workers and they want to see that you have good work ethic. So what is work ethic?

• Work ethic refers to a set of moral principles, values, and attitudes around how to act at work. It often surrounds what behaviors are commonly acceptable and appropriate (or not).
• Qualities like reliability, productivity, ownership and team support all demonstrate professional integrity, or a strong commitment to ethical behavior at work. In contrast, low-quality work, tardiness, or lack of attention to details demonstrates bad work ethic.
• If you’re new to the workplace, a good way to start is by observing. Pay attention to how your coworkers behave in meetings to gain a better understanding of their “etiquette,” as well as the communication styles of different people and teams. Another essential part of building good work ethic is adopting a “do it like you own it” attitude. You can do this by being proactive in small, but powerful, ways.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

Have you ever wondered about how to behave appropriately at work? Throughout your career, and especially in the early years, it’s challenging to figure out what behaviors and attitudes are and are not acceptable in different professional environments. The more you traverse companies and industries, the clearer your understanding will become. When you’re just starting out, though, it can be hard to pin down these behaviors.

• Tutti Taygerly is a leadership and executive coach with 20+ years of design experience across large companies, design agencies and startups.

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• v.128; 2017

Ethics and Professionalism 2016

C. ronald mackenzie.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Whether a reaction to events in the clinical arena, a consequence of technological innovation, or the legitimization of the marked ethos in health care, the field of medical ethics has become a complex domain in our time. Indeed, the ubiquity of ethical dilemmas in the provision of health care is well documented with more than 99% of primary care physicians reporting ethical problems arising in the conduct of their practices (1–3). Although commentary relating to this domain has most often originated in the primary care setting, hospital-based medicine and its ethics committees are another fertile source, as is medical research. Yet when one examines subspecialty medicine, a remarkable dearth of analysis and discourse pertaining to medical ethics emerges. This discussion is an attempt to address this deficit, at least as it pertains to one subspecialty: rheumatology. Leading with a brief overview of medical ethics writ large , perceptions concerning the ethical challenges arising in current rheumatic disease practice will be presented, hopefully enhancing awareness and sensitivity to the ethical challenges arising in modern day medical practice.

MEDICAL PROFESSIONALISM

Although medical ethics focuses primarily on the care of patients and populations, its reach is broad encompassing four major sectors that define the field in the current day. There is “bioethics,” a contemporaneously evolving and compelling casebook of real-life ethical dilemmas of which Karen Ann Quinlan was amongst the first examples. Often end-of-life (sometimes at life’s beginning) in their nature, such clinical dilemmas have spawned the formation of ethics committees now in virtually every hospital in the country. There are also the challenges arising in research; the Tuskegee trial a highly publicized example. Third are the ethical challenges arising from the restructuring of medical care; examples of “organizational ethics” include the advent of Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) and large hospital systems and their consequent impact on physician autonomy, activity overseen by such groups as the Joint Commission. Finally, “professional ethics” or “medical professionalism” constitutes a fourth domain and is the focus of this presentation.

Although most physicians could articulate what they believe the term medical professionalism connotes, for the purpose of this discussion the definition employed by the American Board of Medical Specialties is here shown:

“A belief system in which group members (“professionals”) declare to each other and the public the shared competency standards and ethical values they promise to uphold in their work and what the public and individual patients can and should expect from medical professionals.” (4)

At the core of such declarations is the promise to acquire, maintain, and advance a value system grounded in the conviction that the medical profession exists to serve the interests not only of patients but the greater public as well. Further, there are commitments to the maintenance of the knowledge and skills necessary for good medical practice (competency) as well as the capacity to effectively direct and deliver the profession’s specialized knowledge and skills (the art of medicine).

Now, before moving on to how these issues pertain to the field of rheumatology: Why did such work seem necessary? The stimulus came in the form of a paper published several years earlier (5) in which investigators described a remarkable deficiency in the discourse pertaining to medical ethics in the rheumatology literature, their search of more than 400,000 published manuscripts yielding only 104 (0.026%) with ethically based content. For a field so challenged by chronic, disabling disease and yet hope in the form of new (but expensive) therapies, this conspicuous disconnect spawned the work that here follows.

ETHICAL CHALLENGES IN RHEUMATOLOGY

To inform the conversation concerning the current ethical challenges faced by the rheumatology community, the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) Committee on Ethics and Conflict of Interest conducted a national survey of its membership to identify the most common ethical issues affecting their subspecialty. Published in Arthritis & Rheumatology in 2013, the following summarizes the study (6).

The objectives were (1) to learn of the perceived frequency of ethical issues in rheumatology; (2) to identify activities that pose ethical problems in rheumatologic practice with two additional objectives (not presented herein); (3) to determine the extent of education and self-perceived ethical knowledge of ACR members; and (4) to determine member interest in and to suggest content for future ACR-sponsored educational activities related to bioethics.

For their methods, the survey included 12 closed-ended questions addressing five core areas: 1) ethical dilemmas in daily practice; 2) ethical concerns in basic and clinical research; 3) influence of industry; 4) ethics of regulatory policies, potential conflicts, and disclosure; and 5) personal education and interest in ethics. Two open-ended questions asked respondents to list ethical issues most relevant to rheumatology and to provide commentary. Data analysis was descriptive.

The results showed that 771 responses were received. Respondents believed that ethical issue arise most frequently in practice and in clinical research. As shown ( Figure 1 ), members responded that the most frequent domain in which ethical dilemmas arise is clinical research (almost 60%), followed by practice (44%) with such problems believed to be less common in basic science research (26%). However, when asked about true ethical lapses, that is, a failure to uphold an ethical standard that one purports to believe, the rates were lower: 18% clinical practice, 17% clinical research, and 7% basic science ( Figure 2 ).

How often do ethical dilemmas occur in rheumatology?

How often do ethical lapses occur in rheumatology?

The most common practice-related ethical issues were costs to patients and society for expensive treatments and profits from infusions. Additional concerns included profiting from infusions, accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies, and profiting from imaging. With respect to process-related concerns practicing defensive medicine, not spending enough time with patients, caring for the uninsured, and practice productivity obligations were cited as points of tension. In addition, more than half of respondents perceived multiple ethical issues regarding relationships with industry, the most prevalent being serving on the board of directors (76%), participating in speaker’s bureaus (66%), and serving as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company (61%). Industry-related activities considered to have the least ethical implications were meeting with company sales representatives (39%) and medical liaisons (30%). Sixty-five percent believed that rheumatologists should disclose any industry-related activities to their patients.

Participants were also asked to list the three ethical issues most relevant to their practice environment and to describe how these issues posed problems. Four hundred ninety participants responded to this question, and the responses were grouped into themes by consensus. Profiting from infusions and ancillary services were the most commonly cited ethical concerns. Providing care that was overly aggressive and using finances generated by these services to cover existing infrastructure expenses were also cited. Physicians’ relationships with pharmaceutical companies were considered to pose diverse ethical problems ranging from preferentially prescribing drugs, financial gain from enrolling patients in clinical trials, and influencing the content of expert rheumatology discourse. Providing care for patients with limited or no insurance posed ethical dilemmas in terms of access to care and in influencing coding to increase reimbursement. Indeed, embellishing coding for all patients regardless of insurance was also viewed as a way to compensate for general under-payment and as a way to obtain medications for patients who would otherwise not be covered by their insurance. Further, using new costly medications in lieu of effective older and less expensive drugs was considered unethical not only from the perspective of excessive cost but also from the point of view of consultants using their expert status for personal and financial gain. Reference to the practicing of defensive medicine came up frequently, had many dimensions, and was often considered forced upon rheumatologists to maintain viable practices.

In a second open-ended component, participants were asked to volunteer additional comments. Most of the 179 individuals who provided comments expanded on the major issues already identified; however, several new topics were identified. Some respondents stated that concerns about medical ethics are over-emphasized and not in touch with the realities of rheumatology practice. Others commented that rheumatologists might have the fewest ethical issues because they are in a low-cost specialty and “the problem is far larger in the total world of medicine.” Conflicts with institutions to generate revenue from rheumatology practices were perceived as sometimes adversarial. Further identified were the many potential ethical dilemmas arising in the physicians’ relationships with their patients, ranging from lack of adequate time to spend with patients, addressing non-compliance, embellishing records at patients’ requests, and using online communication. Respondents were also concerned about threats to their professionalism and autonomy citing ethical problems arising in their relationships with other physicians. Some respondents even had strong opinions about the role of the ACR, particularly with respect to relationships with pharmaceutical companies and being more active in patient advocacy.

The results of this survey suggest that ethical problems in rheumatology are of concern to the professions’ membership and give support to a call for a proactive endorsement of initiatives and programs, the development of policies and the provision of consultation to assist practitioners in dealing with the ethical challenges they confront.

In closing, while historians continue to debate the origins of medical ethics and professionalism, the 1847 American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Code of Medical Ethics is a reasonable place to start. Fashioned after the writings of the Manchester physician Thomas Percival, who in his book on professional etiquette coined the term “medical ethics,” the AMA code is the first of its kind, for any profession, anywhere. Fast-forwarding almost 170 years, the discourse pertaining to medical professionalism is highlighted by the 2016 adoption of the first comprehensive revision of the AMA Code of Medical Ethics in 50 years (7,8). Its grounding principles set standards of conduct that serve to fashion ideals of ethical behavior for our profession and help us address such core questions as: Who are we? How can we be better? What ought we to do and why? How should we do it?

Potential Conflicts of Interest: None disclosed.

Nestler, Richmond: Wonderful talk....I wonder if you could address what I see as an ethical issue that effects all academic centers and is top-down. In other words, senior leadership in many places are focused on the changing healthcare system we reimburse in the system. Fee-for-service versus macro-bundle care, quality, etc. And it seems to me that the organization then imposes or dictates to the physicians how they should practice to optimize revenue. Where are we on that continuum? Which seems to me to contradict the notion that you should simply do what is in the best interest of the patient regardless of the payor system. So I wonder if you have any comments about that?

MacKenzie, New York City: Well, I think that’s probably a reference that the locus of control has shifted away from us. It’s beyond a trend. Maybe it’s just a reality that can never be changed. I don’t think it assaults the need for us to push as hard as we possibly can against forces such as that. I think Dr. Brem pointed out a good example of the struggle he had in acquiring approval to get the medication for brain tumors. They persevered, and were ultimately successful. I think those are the kinds of battles that we have to wage as individuals or as departments or as larger groups to modify the impact of those kinds of decisions that you’re raising.

Barondess, New York City: Thank you for that thoughtful presentation. In relation to the questions you left us with, I wonder if you’d comment on what it appears to be an increasing trend at clinical practice in an aging population. It is the extrusion of patients on Medicare from clinical practices on the basis of their Medicare coverage. How should we think about that? What should we do? Patients whose insurance coverage is confined to Medicare are increasingly being invited to leave medical practices and that strikes me as rather a dilemma for us.

MacKenzie, New York City: Well, that is a big dilemma and for those of us who practice in New York City, it’s extraordinarily prevalent. I don’t know what the solution to that is. Obviously physicians are exerting their autonomous decisions about how they want to structure their professional activity or their business related activity. I think it’s problematic to consider that it should be legislated against. I am not sure there is a solution to that other than appealing to these concepts of professionalism that those kinds of decisions tend to assault.

Barondess, New York City: Do you think influential medical societies should take a public position on that problem?

MacKenzie, New York City: Yes, I think that they should.

Baum, New York City: Lovely talk....At Einstein in the first few days of orientation we have our students actually create an oath and a colleague had led that effort for a number of years. It’s really an inspiring document ....it’s usually about three quarters of a page and it includes everything that probably everyone in this room would applaud, and does applaud when its read. And then one can watch over the next 3 or 4 years of the students progressions with school....A number of these vows of ethics and professionalism sort of erode away before one’s very eyes. It’s quite distressing to see in many cases. Do you have any comments about that?

MacKenzie, New York City: Yes, I’m actually aware of that practice. In some places it has replaced the reciting of the Hippocratic Oath. I think it does clearly involve an engagement by the students that goes far beyond just simply reciting an oath, whether it’s been modified or otherwise. I guess I have a question about that for you and that is this: Is it a matter of the timing? I mean obviously you picked students in their first year when they are highly idealistic and the system hasn’t really had its impact. Would it be more meaningful actually to have a mid-course correction or early correction and do it at the end? And the second question I have for you is, do you actually revisit with them as a class what they set out in their first year at the end before they graduate.

Baum, New York City: Yes, and Yes. We have them actually modify the oath in the second year and then again it’s talked about before graduation. But one gets the feeling that the heart and soul behind its creation is not necessarily mirrored in the continued statement of the oath. I personally find that discouraging.

Weinblatt, Boston: I’d like you to comment about the increasing use of concierge practices..... Some of them actually being sponsored by academic medical centers and also the practice, including at institutions you know well in which surgeons do not accept insurance and bill the patients the full rate of their visits and the ethics of that.

MacKenzie, New York City: This is a similar theme to Dr. Barondess’ question. So, yes, I think we have lost or are about to lose a faculty member in our division to a concierge practice within a few weeks. I think that is just a downstream version of exactly what Dr. Barondess was bringing up....and I don’t know what the solution to that is. You know, in our department there is a requirement at least when one begins, to be relatively broad in terms of one’s participation in insurance plans. That isn’t enforced throughout the entire career of the physicians. I would say that rheumatologists have done a lot better job. We regard this as an ethical standard and maintain that compared perhaps to the orthopedic surgeons in our hospital. I think that the only way that is going to change is by a mandate. And that would have to be a mandate at our place by the physician-in-chief and the surgeon-in-chief. They might just simply have to live with whatever the consequences of that in terms of people leaving.

Thibault, New York City: Thanks very much for bringing this very important issue to this esteemed audience. Just two comments: One about Jerry Barondess’ very important note. I’ll remind everybody that since the late 60s, virtually everybody in medicine has been trained with Medicare money. It would not be inappropriate that there be, in fact, a legal requirement that in exchange for that training, we would agree to take care of Medicare patients. And we might start that movement. Secondly, in regard to the loss of idealism of our students is well documented. While curricula in professionalism and ethics are important and now are much more prevalent, huge amounts of data show the most powerful impact on student and resident: behavior and idealism are the role models that they have or don’t have. And we need to hold up a mirror to ourselves and our systems and are we acting in the most appropriate way to be role models and examples? And I think that is an exceedingly important issue and I thank you for bringing this topic to our audience.

MacKenzie, New York City: Well, I think that is clearly exceedingly important, and our responsibility, that all of us really bear. And I think it gets increasingly harder and harder with the demands of modern-day practice, and we just need to keep it in the forefront of our minds. So, anybody interested in reading the best paper on mentoring ever, should consult The Transactions of the American Clinical and Climatological Association , Volume 106, pp. 1–24, 1995, “A Brief History of Mentoring.” The President’s Address by Jeremiah A. Barondess! Thank you very much!

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Gabrielle Blackman, Chair

Hello SIOP Members!

Welcome to the Committee for the Advancement of Professional Ethics (CAPE) website. CAPE serves the SIOP community by assessing and supporting the ethics-related professional development needs of I-O psychology professionals.

On this website, you will find useful resources that will assist you in recognizing and navigating ethical dilemmas in your practice, research, and teaching roles. Students will also find foundational information regarding the ethical dimensions of I-O psychology. 

Practitioners may find the APA ethics code useful in guiding client interactions. Consider using our engaging tools, such as the Dilemma Stimulus Training Cards , to facilitate ethics-related discussions with your team. 

Researchers may find the suggested articles useful when conducting ethics-related research. You may also find it useful to explore our recommended resources for conducting ethically sound research. 

Educators may find the CAPE Bingo Game , full of ethical scenarios, to be a fun classroom activity. The ethics course syllabi and the suggested articles will also be helpful to those developing new ethics courses. 

CAPE encourages all SIOP Members to explore SIOP’s official code of ethics : the American Psychological Association’s (2016) Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct. Explore the information on our website regarding the code’s ongoing revision and SIOP’s responses to the revision. CAPE will keep the SIOP community updated on the code’s revision and invite community member input when draft versions of the revised code become available.

If you have any comments or suggestions for us, please use the “contact us” button below to share your thoughts. Thank you for taking the time to explore CAPE’s website and for your interest in ethics within the I-O psychology field. 

Sincerely, 

Gabrielle Blackman, Ph.D.

CAPE Committee Chair

APA Ethics Code

Educator resources, researcher resources, reference lists.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does siop have an ethics code.

Yes, SIOP members, whether they belong to APA or don't, agree to adhere to APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.

What makes a problem ethical in nature?

Three elements contribute to the nature of ethical issues:

1. A choice, often difficult and emotional, must be made. 2. The situation invokes one or more ethical implications (e.g., as identified by the APA Ethics Code) 3. The decision will have a significant impact on others.

Why is the study of ethics important?

We depend on the trust of others in order to do our work and we don't earn that trust without treating them honestly and respectfully (i.e., ethically). While the ethical path is sometimes obvious, studying ethical decision-making strategies helps I-O psychologists identify and navigate ethical considerations that may not be evident at first glance. SIOP members agree to adhere to the APA Principles of Conduct and Ethics Code, a resource that sensitizes us to potential areas of concern. The excerpts sheet on the CAPE web page lists standards that are particularly relevant to I-O psychologists. Note that most other parts of the ethics code are applicable to I-O psychologists as well (e.g., Boundaries of competence, Conflict of interest, Exploitive relationships, Maintaining confidentiality, Sexual harassment).

Does CAPE offer advice for handling specific ethical dilemmas?

No. CAPE serves an educative function and does not have the resources or expertise to consult with members about specific ethical matters. While individual CAPE members may be willing to serve as a sounding board to you, we are not necessarily ethics experts and should not be viewed as such.

What do I do if I have an ethical dilemma?

There are steps you can take to work through the dilemma, and you can approach the issue using the following: 1.  Identify stakeholders that may be impacted by the course of action you pursue. 2.  Research relevant guidance (e.g., APA Ethics Code, organizational policies and procedures, pertinent laws or contract language). 3.  Consult one or more trusted colleagues to ask for help in thinking through the situation and potential courses of action.

When should I formally report unethical behavior?

Some unethical behavior is of a particularly serious nature, warranting a formal response. Consistent with APA Ethics Code Standard 1.05, consider reporting unethical behavior if someone is experiencing substantial harm as a result of the unethical behavior.

While CAPE does not provide guidance on individual cases, you may want to consider the following when determining whether to report unethical behavior:

•   Have you attempted to address the unethical behavior through informal means (e.g., talking directly to the person who you believe to be acting unethically)?
•   Is the unethical behavior directly violating a person's human rights?
•   Does your company/organization require you to report unethical behavior of this nature?
•   Are you required by law to report unethical behavior of this nature?
•   Are there confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements that are relevant to disclosing information?

To whom should I report unethical behavior?

There are many options for reporting unethical behavior. It is important to consider your company/organization's existing protocol, as well as relevant policies and laws.

Some options that may be appropriate for reporting unethical behavior may include the following:

•   Your supervisor (Fisher, 2016)
•   Your HR Department
•   SIOP (see SIOP's Whistleblower Policy )
•   The American Psychological Association - if the offender is a member
•   A state licensing board - if offender is licensed
•   Other authorities

I have been accused of unethical behavior, but I disagree with the allegations. What should I do?

Being accused of unethical behavior, when you disagree with the allegations, may seem unfair and stressful, however, there are steps you can take if this happens.

•   Begin with honest self-reflection. Is it possible that you unknowingly engaged in a behavior that may appear to or actually be unethical?
•   Consult one or more trusted colleagues to get help thinking through the situation and potential courses of action you might consider taking.
•   Cooperate with any investigation into the matter.

What are the differences between research, academic, organizational, and personal ethics?

Although the nature of the problems will manifest differently, the same principles apply across each one.

How do I build my own ethics group within my organization or research if there is not one?

If you are in an environment where there are not many or any peers that you can reach out to, you may consider developing external resources. Utilize professional networks (e.g., LinkedIn, other SIOP members) to begin building a trusted network of competent people you can reach out to for guidance or advice on ethical matters.

Code of Ethics and Guiding Documents

•   APA Ethics Code adopted by SIOP ( Free Access ) 
•   Updates from the Ethics Code Revision Task Force ( Free Access )
•   Canadian Psychological Association. (2000). Canadian code of ethics for psychologists, (3rd Ed.). Ottawa, Canada.
•   Academy of Management. (2002). Academy of Management code of ethical conduct. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 291–294. ( Free Access )
•   Society for Human Resource Management Code of ethics ( Free Access ) 
•   The Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research ( Free Access )

Developing and Using Codes of Ethics

  Hill, R.P. & Rapp, J.M. (2014). Codes of ethical conduct: A bottom-up approach. Journal of Business Ethics, 123, 621-630.

  Stevens, B. (2008). Corporate ethical codes: effective instruments for influencing behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 78, 601-609.

Theories and Models of Ethics

  Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological review, 108(4), 814–834.

  Jones, T. M. (1991). Ethical decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent model. Academy of management review, 16(2), 366-395.

  Kohlberg, L., & Hersh, R. H. (1977). Moral development: A review of the theory. Theory into practice, 16(2), 53-59.

  MacDougall, A. E., Martin, A. A., Bagdasarov, Z., & Mumford, M. D. (2014). A review of theory progression in ethical decision making literature. Journal of Organizational Psychology, 14(2), 9-19.

  Murphy, J. M., & Gilligan, C. (1980). Moral development in late adolescence and adulthood: A critique and reconstruction of Kohlberg’s theory. Human development, 23(2), 77-104.

General Guides for I-O Psychologists

  Banks, G. C., Knapp, D. J., Lin, L., Sanders, C. S., & Grand, J. A. (2021). Ethical decision making in the 21st century: A useful framework for industrial-organizational psychologists. Industrial and Organizational Psychology. ( Free to SIOP members ) 

  Lefkowitz, J. (2011).  Ethics in industrial-organizational psychology (Vol. 2, Chap. I.8), In S. Knapp, L. VandeCreek, M. Gottlieb & M. Handelsman (Eds.), APA Handbook of ethics in psychology. Wash., DC: American Psychological Association. 

  Lefkowitz, J. (2017).  Ethics and values in industrial organizational psychology (2nd Ed).  New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. (Espec. Chap. 15, “Taking Moral Action.”)

  Lefkowitz, J. (2021). Forms of ethical dilemmas in industrial-organizational psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14(3), 297 - 319. ( Free Access )

•   Lefkowitz, J., & Watts, L. L. (2021). Ethical incidents reported by industrial-organizational psychologists: A ten-year follow-up. Journal of Applied Psychology. Advance online publication. ( Free Access )

Guides for I-O Practitioners

General Guides:

  Cooper, T. L. (Ed.). (2001). Handbook of administrative ethics, 2nd Ed.. New York: Dekker.

  Hunkenschroer, A. & Kriebitz, A. (2022). Is AI recruiting (un)ethical? A human rights perspective on the use of AI for hiring. AI and Ethics, July,  1-15. doi: 10.1007/s43681-022-00166-4

Knapp, D. J. (2008). Handling ethical matters. In W. C. Borman & J. H. Hedge (Eds.), The I/O consultant’s handbook. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

  Lowman, R.L., & Cooper, S.E. (2017). The ethical practice of consulting psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

  Lowman, R. L. (Ed.), Lefkowitz, J., McIntyre, R, Tippins, N. (Assoc. Eds.). (2006). The ethical practice of psychology in organizations (2nd ed.) Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Personnel Selection:

  Lefkowitz, J. & Lowman, R.L. (2017).  “Ethics of Employee Selection.”  Chap. 26 in J.L. Farr & N.T. Tippins, (Eds.).  Handbook of Employee Selection, 2nd ed.  New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.  (1st ed. Published 2010.) ( Free Access )

Organizational Change and Development:

  Church, A. H., Burke, W. W., & Van Eynde, D. F. (1994). Values, motives, and interventions of organization development practitioners. Group and Organization Management, 19, 5–50.

  Nielsen, R. P. (1989). Changing unethical organizational behavior. The Academy of Management Executive, 3, 123–130.

Research Ethics

  Israel, M. & Hay, I. (2006). Research ethics for social scientists: Between ethical conduct and regulatory compliance. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

  Kalichman, M., Magnus, P.D. & Plemmons, D. (2016). Conflicts of interest. In Resources for Research Ethics Education. ( Free Access )

  Office of Research Integrity.  (2014, Dec. 2).  Handling misconduct. ( Free Access )  

Reproducibility and Replicability:

  National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences. (2015, May). Social, behavioral, and economic sciences perspectives on robust and reliable science. Washington, DC: Author. ( Free Access )

  Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), 943-951. ( Free Access )

  Simons, D.J. (2014). The value of direct replication. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(1), 76-80.

  Simons, D.J., Holcombe, A.O. & Spellman, B.A. (2014). An introduction to registered replication reports at Perspectives on Psychological Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(5), 552-555. ( Free Access )

Data Collection:

  Broder, A. (1998). Deception can be acceptable. American Psychologist, 53, 805–806.

  Brody, J. L., Gluck, J. P., & Aragon, A. S. (2000). Participants’ understanding of the process of psychological research: Debriefing. Ethics & Behavior, 10, 13–25.

  Chastain, G., & Landrum, R. E. (Eds.). (1999). Protecting human subjects: Departmental subject pools and institutional review boards. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

  Groves, B. W., Price, J. H., Olsson, R. H., & King, K. A. (1997). Response rates to anonymous versus confidential surveys. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 85, 665–666.

  National Research Council. (2003). Protecting participants and facilitating social and behavioral sciences research. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

  Sashkin, M., & Prien, E. P. (1996). Ethical concerns and organizational surveys. In A. I. Kraut (Ed.). Organizational surveys: Tools for assessment and change (pp. 381–403). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Data Sharing: 

  American Psychological Association. (2015). Data sharing: Principles and considerations for policy development. ( Free Access )

Data Analyses:

  Bosco, F.A., Aguinis, H., Field, J.G., Pierce, C.A. & Dalton, D.R. (2016). HARKing’s threat to organizational research: Evidence from primary and meta-analytic sources. Personnel Psychology, 69(3), 709- 750. ( Free Access )

  Wasserman, R. (2013). Ethical issues and guidelines for conducting data analysis in psychological research. Ethics & Behavior, 23(1), 3-15.

International Research 

  Blackman, G. M. (2021). Ethical considerations in international leadership research. In Y. Tolsitkov-Mast, J. Walker, & F. Bieri (Eds.), International Leadership Research Handbook. Routledge. 

  United States Office of Human Research Protections. (2019). International compilation of human research standards. ( Free Access )

Teaching and Training Ethics

  Hartner, D.F. (2015). Should ethics courses be more practical? Teaching Ethics, 15(20), 349-368.

  Korenman, S.G. (2006). Teaching the responsible conduct of research in humans (RCRH). Chap. 4. Conflicts of interest (COI). ( Free Access )

  Medeiros, K. E., Watts, L. L., Mulhearn, T. J., Steele, L. M., Connelly, S., & Mumford, M. D. (2017). What is working, what is not, and what we need to know: A meta-analytic review of business ethics instruction. Journal of Academic Ethics, 15, 245-275. ( Free Access )

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Does the Ethos of Law Erode? Lawyers’ Professional Practices, Self-Understanding and Ethics at Work

• Original Paper
• Open access
• Published: 25 October 2022
• Volume 187 , pages 33–52, ( 2023 )

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• Bernadette Loacker 1 , 2  

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Furthering an integrative ethics-as-practice framework, this paper explores the professional practices, self-understanding and ethics of lawyers working in the Germanic legal context. Existing studies of the legal profession often argue that changing conditions in law have led to a ‘constrained morality’ and an ‘erosion of ethos’ among lawyers. While the current study acknowledges shifts in lawyers’ ethos, it challenges the claim of an erosion or ‘lack’ of morality. The narratives of the interviewed practitioners rather suggest that socio-discursively constituted professional practices, identity and ethics are complex and contingent. Focusing on the ‘moral rules in use’ and how lawyers negotiate ethical matters ‘from within’ evokes ongoing ambiguities and struggles inscribed in ethical (self-)positions, pointing, as such, to the limits of assessing lawyers’ conduct as ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’. The study thereby extends both normative and practice-based business and professional ethics studies.

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Introduction

This paper explores how changes in the legal professions have affected the socio-discursively constituted professional practices, self-understanding and ethics of lawyers, with the objective to better understand whether and how these changes challenge the ethos of law. Traditionally, lawyer’s ethos, understood as the set of values and norms that shape the customs of engagement in the profession (Daston & Galison, 2007 ), was based on the duty to uphold the rule of law and grounded in principles such as professional integrity, autonomy and independent judgement (Fasterling, 2009 ). However, in recent years, the so-called economics-rules-all (Goldsmith, 2008 ) maxim has gained in relevance in law, as have ‘client capture’ (Dinovitzer et al., 2014 ) and accountability maxims, leading some authors to argue that the professional ethos of lawyers ‘erodes’ (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ). On the basis of a qualitative study conducted within the under-exposed Germanic legal profession, this paper critically engages with such claims.

The paper pursues an ethics-as-practice framework (Clegg et al., 2007 ; Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ), which considers ethical questions to “arise in practice”, requiring, as such, that they are “dealt with in practice” (Carter et al., 2007 , p. 2). More specifically, the paper seeks to explore how people define themselves and “their ethical position in relation to everyday practice” (McMurray et al., 2011 , p. 5). The current study, therefore, analyses how Austrian lawyers relate to the institutional and professional values and norms underpinning their doing, sense of self and ethics at work. The paper thereby extends existing analyses within management and organisation studies (MOS) and professional studies (Empson, 2007 ; Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2008 ; Gustafsson et al., 2018 ), which provide interesting insights into the legal profession and its organisation but hardly engage with the ethical questions inscribed in law. Relatedly, the paper seeks to enrich extant studies on the ethics of/in law. These studies are either conceptual in nature (Luban, 2010 ; Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, 2015 ) or, in instances where the specific ethics at work are empirically explored, mostly normatively aligned (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ; Parker & Rostain, 2012 ). They thus aim to define codes and standards of ‘ethical’ conduct and prescribe how lawyers ought to act (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ).

With its focus on situated practices, this paper, by contrast, explores how lawyers manoeuvre the variegated demands that typify the profession and, in the process, respond to contingent ethical concerns. The analysis shows that lawyers’ engagement with questions of professional-legal ethics is polyvocal and open-ended. It specifically suggests that lawyers’ ethical position and self-understanding is informed by different, entangled ‘lawyer types’ that prevail within the profession, including the entrepreneurial ‘service provider’, the ‘trusted advisor’, the ‘posturer’ and the so-called lawyer technician (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). The analysis eventually posits that most lawyers dynamically negotiate questions of ethics, mainly by neutralising, enclosing or reframing them and/or discussing them from a reflexive though often abstract point of view.

The main contributions of the paper are as follows: using an ethics-as-practice framework, the paper contributes to the interwoven fields of business, organisational and professional ethics, which are still dominated by normative approaches focusing on universal moral-legalistic frameworks that define the ethics of individuals from outside (Clegg et al., 2007 ). Analysing, in line with an integrative practical ethics approach, how precisely legal practitioners constitute themselves in relation to the ethical issues that form part of socio-discursively shaped professional practices, however, allows the evocation of the variegated yet under-explored ambiguities and struggles that seem immanent in ethics and ethical responsibilities ‘at work’ (Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ). By undermining individualising, prescriptive positions, separating between ethical conduct and ‘misconduct’ (Gabbioneta et al., 2019 ), the paper overall responds to calls from scholars prompting practice-based ethics analyses that allow to nuance existing debates with their emphasis on individuals’ local micro-practices and -accounts (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ). By foregrounding the Germanic-Austrian legal system, the paper, moreover, extends current research within MOS and professional studies, which mostly investigates institutional changes in the context of corporate law firms in the Anglosphere (Allan et al., 2019 ; Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ). Seconding Dinovitzer et al. ( 2015 ), who ask to cease limiting the study of professional practices, identity and ethics to the context of large law firms, the present study thus contributes insights to the complex professional-moral world of Austrian legal sole practitioners.

The remainder of the paper is as follows: the next section outlines the core assumptions that direct ethics-as-practice approaches in extant business, professional and MOS studies. The subsequent section portrays recent shifts in the legal profession and their implications on lawyers’ work. This is followed by a discussion of existing research on lawyers’ professional identity and ethics. The methodology section then situates the qualitative study in its specific milieu and introduces its research design, grounded in in-depth interviews with Austrian lawyers. The analysis itself is split into three parts. It begins with a portrayal of lawyers’ professional practices, manifesting the specific challenges they encounter, before discussing their articulated professional self-understanding with reference to different lawyer types that the narratives reflect. The third part of the analysis eventually explores how lawyers dynamically engage with ethical matters as part of their professional practice and identity at work. The discussion reiterates the paper’s main insights and contributions. Among other things, it challenges the widespread claim that lawyers’ ethos currently erodes.

A Practice-Based Ethics Approach

While the ethics-as-practice framework has become more important within the field of business and organisational ethics (Loacker and Muhr, 2009 ; Clegg et al., 2007 ; McMurray et al., 2011 ) and, more recently, professional ethics (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ), normative-moralistic ethics analyses still dominate the debate. Such studies commonly seek to “develop more holistic governance and regulatory frameworks to better manage and possibly prevent, the risks associated with…wrongdoing” (Gabbioneta et al., 2019 , p. 1711). An ethics-as-practice approach, by contrast, does not direct attention “towards models that define, predict or judge ethics” (Clegg et al., 2007 , p. 111), but rather wishes to understand how “ethics are differentially embedded in practices that operate in a…contextualized manner” (p. 111). The approach thus seeks to engage with the question of ethics “locally and empirically” (Rhodes & Wray-Bliss, 2012 , p. 42), and not from a safe or abstract distance. However, this does not imply that moral codes are considered irrelevant or exclusively problematic, but what is considered more significant than moralistic frameworks and codices is how individuals relate to them on a micro-level, i.e. how they identify with, challenge, or redefine them and, by this means, inform the practice of ethics and constitute themselves as ethical-moral subjects (Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ).

Albeit the ethics-as-practice approach is not a homogeneous approach, there are certain premises that unite practice-based analyses: they are critical of universal ethical rules, codes of conduct and value statements that aim to prescribe and codify ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ or ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ behaviour. They further doubt that sets of codes can ensure ethical conduct (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ), instead emphasising the situated and subjective character of ethics (Carter et al., 2007 ). Adopting a non-normative, non-essentialist position, in effect, implies not to a priori define what is (un)ethical but to explore in the specific field of practice what is considered as specific “ethical substance” (Foucault, 1997 ) or matter, and “what people actually do when they engage with ethics” (Clegg et al., 2007 , p. 110). In doing so, it is acknowledged that ambiguity and “contestation over moral choices” (p. 107) are a constitutive part of ethics and ethical responsibility and can, as such, not be fully ‘modelled’ and regulated. To the contrary, ethics seems to begin “where the case does not exactly correspond to any rule” (p. 100).

There is a growing number of scholars arguing that practice-based studies should gain in relevance within business and, specifically, professional ethics studies, as they allow us to develop a better understanding of the pressures and conflictual demands that are part of professional practice and inform the ways in which professionals “construct their own identities that, in turn, impact the manner in which ethical dilemmas” (Dinovitzer et al. 2010, p. 127) and concerns are negotiated. In view hereof, the current study furthers an integrative practical ethics framework that goes beyond an individualistic view of professionals’ ethical positioning and instead explores the conduct and subjectivity of individuals within the broader social, professional and organisational contexts in which they are situated. It is thereby assumed that moralistic-legalistic regulatory frameworks can never define individuals’ ethical (self-)practices. Broadly inspired by a Foucauldian ethics understanding (Foucault, 1997 ), certain scopes of autonomy are rather considered to be at the heart of ethics and ethical decision-making (Loacker and Muhr, 2009 ; Ibarra-Colado et al., 2006 ). Simultaneously, the study acknowledges that dominant social and institutional codes and norms have implications for individuals in that they shape their identity formation, ethical choices and enactment of the former.

Against that background, ethical (self-)practices are in the present study conceptualised as both socio-discursively constituted and actively (in)formed by the single subjects of moral conduct. Before further explicating how legal professionals develop their ethical-professional positions in response to prevailing norms and demands, we now recapitulate the central insights of recent research on changes in the legal professions and related effects on practitioners at work.

Shifts in the Legal Profession and Its Regulation

Changes that have affected the legal profession for about two decades are oftentimes discussed with reference to umbrella terms such as the ‘neoliberal turn’ or the ‘post-2000 era’ of law (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ). These changes led to increasingly hybrid modes of regulating the work of lawyers (Empson, 2007 ) and inform established professional norms and standards as well as lawyers’ practices (Allan et al., 2019 ). To develop a better understanding of the contemporary nature of the legal profession, it seems sensible to first engage with the question of what it traditionally looked like. The codes of conduct that have “historic significance” (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 , p. 118) in law and long-regulated lawyers’ duties, ethical responsibilities and roles serve here as a good starting point.

The first codes that defined lawyers’ tasks and duties and sought to ensure ‘good’ legal practice emerged in the mid-19th century (Backof & Martin, 1991 ). They included professional values such as integrity, independence and autonomous judgement, alongside a duty to serve the public, referring to the social service ethos that traditionally prevailed in the profession (Hanlon, 1999 ). Over time, however, these codes have been refined, not least to balance the profession’s increasing “economic self-interest with the needs of society” (Backof & Martin, 1991 , p. 104); some historical codes such as professional independence and the duty to serve the rule of law are still binding, though (Fasterling, 2009 ). Model rules that nowadays exist across different jurisdictions further share some commonalities. The obligation to represent and “safeguard the interests of clients” (The Federal Ministry of Justice, 2014 , p. 22) is, for instance, reflected in most codes of conduct. Related professional maxims include, e.g., confidentiality, obligation of secrecy and the duty of loyalty (International Bar Association, 2011 ). The role of lawyers as “gatekeepers of justice” (Michelson, 2006 , p. 1) is, likewise, still addressed in many model rules. However, whether and how lawyers perform this role, paralleled by the power to facilitate but also deprive access to justice, is, from a practical ethics perspective, a largely open question.

The effects of institutional changes on lawyers’ values and specific practices remain, indeed, contested, even though there is broad agreement that tendencies such as marketisation, commercialisation and economisation increasingly pervade the field, within the Anglo-American legal context but also beyond (Michelson, 2006 ). Concomitantly, we can observe growing competition and financialisation in law (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ), an emphasis on individual client-orientation (Gustafsson et al., 2018 ) and a promotion of managerial accountability, purportedly counteracting the profession’s deregulation and liberalisation (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ). Considering that more traditional maxims, such as patronage, seniority and hierarchy orientation, are still prevalent in many firms (Empson, 2007 ), it seems that contemporary lawyers inhabit an ever-more complex world (Fasterling, 2009 ). This is, among other things, reflected in growing performance pressures and variegated work practices (Sommerlad, 1995 ), increasingly insecure employment conditions (Ackroyd & Muzio, 2007 ) and a diffuse overall image of so-called professionalism and the ethos of law (Parker & Rostain, 2012 ).

Several studies thus suggest that it is eminently difficult for lawyers to balance the different demands they face while upholding values such as independence and integrity (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ). Conflicts between, e.g., professional and commercial interests and public and client interests have become an integrative part of legal work (Gustafsson et al., 2018 ). In light hereof, some studies argue that institutional rules and procedural moral codes are crucial to continually ensure compliance with professional standards (Fasterling, 2009 ; Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2008 ). More critical studies, however, challenge this position and argue that the economic globalisation of the field undermines, in conjunction with new regulations promoting managerial accountability, traditional principles and ideals (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ; Baron & Corbin, 2017 ). Other analyses, moreover, point out that formal disciplinary-professional codes are widely disconnected from lawyers’ work realities (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). Their effects thus seem widely indeterminate (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ).

In addition, some studies argue that legal professionalism, traditionally linked to questions of professional responsibility and ethics, no longer stands in opposition to the ‘market’ (Hanlon, 1999 ). By contrast, legal professionalism appears to be more and more permeated by profit-generation maxims and performance measures, such as PEP (profits per equity partner). Such measures associate the value of law firms and the quality of legal work with profitability (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ), and not, for instance, the acceptance of professional responsibility or considerate judgement. Particularly in corporate law firms, numeric-financial indicators are increasingly pervasive. Following Heinz et al. ( 2006 ), corporate law is also the legal ‘hemisphere’ that is considered prestigious, in contrast to, e.g., civil law. Against that backdrop, some scholars note a shift from law as profession to ‘law as business’ (Parker & Rostain, 2012 ).

Phenomena such as financialisation, corporatisation and commercialisation are especially prominent in the Anglo-Saxon legal context. In the UK, it was specifically the so-called Legal Services Act that led in the post-2000 period to an accelerated dissemination of ‘shareholder value logics’ in the profession (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ). While the act came along with new auditing rules, it allowed, for the first time, separation between ownership and control in legal firms (Ackroyd & Muzio, 2007 ). This was again accompanied by an expansion of global US firms in the UK, promoting a corporate model that has been discussed as the ‘one-firm model’ (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2013 ). The model enables large law firms to provide services across different jurisdictions and, thus, allows them to occupy an ever-more powerful position within the legal ‘market’.

To what extent financialised performance pressures and overall economic rationales also predominate in the Germanic legal context will be discussed below. However, from the present analysis, we can conclude that the legal profession is characterised by a hybrid set of principles and norms, which informs legal practice as well as lawyers’ attitude to their work. The next section further elaborates on how the portrayed shifts may affect lawyers’ identity and hence their discursive and reflexive conception of self (Kuhn, 2009 ). The discussion focuses on studies that explored the nexus between identity and ethics, as they provide insights into whether an engagement with ethical concerns is considered part of lawyers’ self-formation at work.

Shifts in Lawyers’ Professional Identity and Ethics

Notwithstanding the various responsibilities that disciplinary codes ascribe to legal professionals, studies of lawyers’ identity often suggest that their self-understanding is mainly informed by the duty to advocate for client interests (Dinovitzer et al., 2014 ). For instance, Gustafsson et al. ( 2018 ) and Sandefur ( 2015 ) see lawyers’ self-performance increasingly informed by the client-first maxim or the ‘client service virtue’, making lawyers ever-more dependent on their clients. Moorhead and Hinchly ( 2015 ), furthermore, argue that identifying with the notion of ‘client service provider’ implies a refusal of any professional responsibility outside the remit of commercial client focus.

Other studies suggest that, in an era of global economisation, values such as status, individual career achievement and individual business performance have become central sources of identification (Sommerlad, 1995 ). Parker and Rostain ( 2012 ), for instance, assess the business maxim as the central value directing the self-understanding of corporate lawyers, referred to as “handmaids to global capital” (p. 2360). Allan et al.’s ( 2019 ) study of corporate-commercial lawyers, similarly, proposes that the growing focus on ‘financialised management’ turns lawyers into strategic-careerist professionals, although, according to them, lawyers’ calculative attitudes and identity aspirations cannot be separated from the professional field, in which high-performance pressures, deteriorating employment conditions and an “ontological insecurity with regard to career projects” (p. 126) have become an integrative component of work.

Studies of the relationship between lawyers’ identity and ethics at work have, further, elaborated on subjects such as the ‘ethical lawyer’ (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ), lawyers’ ‘ethical consciousness’ (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ) and ‘ethos’ (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ). As indicated, these studies are mostly underpinned by normative-prescriptive ethics approaches that seek to define what good legal practice looks like and often associate such practice with compliance with predefined codes and rules (Fasterling, 2009 ). They thereby particularly challenge the practices and self-understanding of lawyers working in large law firms. A recurrent argument here is that the performance measures in such firms foster problematic cultures, favouring not only competition but also non-collegial behaviour and ‘misconduct’ (Baron & Corbin, 2017 ; Gabbioneta et al., 2019 ). Several analyses, concomitantly, conclude that large law firms lack ‘ethical infrastructures’ (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ) that could cultivate ‘professional morality’ among lawyers.

Kuhn’s ( 2009 ) study of corporate lawyers in the US, for instance, suggests that lawyers absorb and identify with the professional and managerial-organisational discourses that dominate in law firms. Such identification enables lawyers to ‘neutralise’ complex ethical questions in legal work, but it simultaneously implies that lawyers dismiss their ‘ethical sensitivity’ and reflexivity. Such insights are echoed by Chow and Calvard ( 2021 ), who argue that the professional identity of corporate lawyers is “morally constrained”, mainly due to the prevalence of “commercial-managerial imperatives” (p. 226) in law. Moorhead and Hinchly’s ( 2015 ) study, furthermore, emphasises that the self-understanding of corporate lawyers is increasingly governed by what is portrayed as ‘lawful’ practice. Rather than engaging with questions of professional ethics, lawyers thus seem to reify ethical issues and turn them into technical-legal, managerial problems. Moorhead and Hinchly consequently resume that the “ethical consciousness” of commercial lawyers is “not a strong part of professional identity” (p. 44).

Vaughan and Oakley ( 2016 ), authors of another study on the self-understanding and ethics of UK corporate lawyers, similarly argue that lawyers ‘codify’ ethical tensions between, e.g., client demands, commercial interests and professional responsibility. Vaughan and Oakley therefore introduce the notion of the “lawyer technician” (p. 50), referring to a lawyer type who distances themselves from ethical issues by claiming to represent client interests from a ‘value-neutral’ position. “Saying no” (p. 67) to client demands is, moreover, not considered an option. The authors hence argue that corporate lawyers are typified by “moral relativism”, if not “ethical apathy” (p. 68). While the current analysis prompts that lawyers’ engagement with ethics is more complex, it will seize on the notion of the lawyer technician as it evokes some identity aspects that also find expression in the accounts of Austrian sole practitioners.

While there is no homogenous assessment of lawyers’ practices, self-understanding and overall ethos, most studies note that in a marketised profession, it is challenging to reconcile variegated and potentially antithetic demands (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2008 ). Intensified pressures, indeed, lead to contested practices, including the subversion of prevailing codes of conduct and, in some cases, the violation of law (Fasterling, 2009 ). As indicated, some scholars thus argue that the profession needs further codes and rules to better ‘manage’ the ethics at work (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ) and to encourage self-reflection among lawyers (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ). Others, however, posit that it is precisely the growing focus on rules that challenges core values of legal professionalism and leads to the deterioration of lawyers’ sense of responsibility and ethos (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ). Scholars such as Gustafsson et al. ( 2018 ) and Sandefur ( 2015 ), more specifically, propose that lawyers’ traditional values are increasingly replaced by professional standards such as public accountability and client service ethic. Hanlon ( 1999 ), similarly, argues that governmental and institutional changes led to a shift from a professional ethos, foregrounding social service as a central epistemic virtue, to a market-defined ethos that values managerialism and commercial practice over service to justice.

Let us recapitulate: prevailing studies of lawyers’ identity and ethics provide insights into phenomena such as ethical reification, ethical misconduct and the role of accountability within legal practice. Some studies place emphasis on individual lawyers, ascribing to them an overall lack of ‘ethical consciousness’ and empathy (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ), and thus suggest that lawyers are “unconcerned about the ethics of what they and their clients were doing” (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 , p. 71). Other studies problematise the legal field, specifically large firms, for fostering a ‘morally constrained’ climate (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ) and jeopardising good legal practice; as Vaughan and Oakley ( 2016 , p. 74) put it, “an ethically minimalist subfield creates an ethically apathetic habitus”. By contrast, the integrative ethics analysis developed in this paper is not interested in defining what ethical practices or the ‘moral attorney’ look like. It instead focuses on how lawyers negotiate established institutional codes and, by this means, “constitute themselves as subjects in relation to ethics” (McMurray et al., 2011 , p. 5). Lawyers’ subjectivity is thereby understood to be shaped by both socio-discursive practices and norms as well as self-practices, allowing individuals to considerately contribute to their self-formation (Foucault, 1997 ). As the analysis will show, lawyers’ engagement with ethical questions is convoluted, undermining, as such, simplistic judgements. First, however, we introduce the study’s methodology.

Methodology

Contextualisation.

The empirical material stems from a large research project that investigates changes in the work of Austrian legal professionals, including lawyers, judges and state prosecutors, and their effects on legal practice and the ethos of law. While the paper benefits from the insights gained in this context, the current analysis deliberately focuses on lawyers, representing, alongside judges, the core professional group within the judicial system. Considering that the Austrian system of justice is widely under-exposed, we begin by contextualising the study.

While the theoretical education in Austria is identical for all legal professions, the specific “activities of the different professions have been developed in such a way that they complement each other” (The Federal Ministry of Justice, 2014 , p. 23). The training of lawyers consists of five years of study and an additional five years of practical training. During the latter, candidate lawyers work for an individual lawyer or a law firm. The training is complemented by a nine-month placement at court. Following this, candidate lawyers can take the bar exam. They can subsequently secure entry in the register of lawyers and become a full member of lawyers’ self-governing professional body, the Federal Bar Association (Rechtsanwaltsordnung, 2009 ).

Whereas both lawyers and judges are involved in the administration of justice, judges are formally “only bound by the law and decide on the basis of their own legal convictions” (The Federal Ministry of Justice, 2014 , p. 25). Hence, they are asked to implement the law as “independent agents” (p. 24), with “the securing of legal peace” (p. 22) presenting a main juridical duty. A core responsibility of lawyers is, by contrast, to offer legal advice and defend the interests of individual clients before other authorities. Other professional responsibilities are listed in the so-called Lawyers’ Act, the profession’s statutory basis. It states, among other things, that lawyers are subject to “an obligation of secrecy, protected by law, and to strict disciplinary rules” (p. 27). The bar association has to monitor whether lawyers’ practices comply with these rules. When found guilty of violating their duties, lawyers are “liable with all their personal assets” (p. 27).

In 2019, roughly 6670 lawyers were registered in Austria, whereby almost 80% of them were male lawyers (Rechtsanwaltskammertag, 2019 ). This demonstrates the under-representation of women in the profession and, more generally, the continued relevance of traditional maxims such as male patronage and seniority (Empson, 2007 ). That said, while the Germanic legal system has recently undergone various changes, manifested in increasing (inter)national competition, financial-economic pressures and a liberalisation of the field, there is still some continuity. There are thus parallels and differences between the continental legal system and the Anglo-Saxon context.

In comparison to the Anglosphere, the majority of Austrian lawyers work as so-called independent general practitioners in small law firms (Rechtsanwaltskammertag, 2019 ). Historically, statutory requirements obliged lawyers to be self-employed, to uphold professional values such as independence and autonomy (Rechtsanwaltsordnung, 2009 ). While there are now some large, internationally oriented corporate law firms (e.g. Freshfields or Wolf-Theiss), the global ‘one-firm model’ (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2013 ), grounding the success of lawyers’ work in financialised performance metrics, does not predominate in the Germanic context. Indeed, a separation between ownership and control in law firms is not allowed. The phenomenon of salaried lawyers is, furthermore, rather marginal in the Austrian context. As sole practitioners, lawyers bear the economic responsibility and risk for their business (The Federal Ministry of Justice, 2014 ).

With reference to the two hemispheres defining lawyers’ position, corporate and non-corporate law (Heinz et al., 2006 ), one can further posit that, in the Germanic system, the second hemisphere prevails. The division between two hemispheres of law is also reflected in different types of settlement: one type is based on lawyers’ ‘Fees Act’; another type is based on hourly rates. The Fees Act defines how much lawyers can bill for legal services and is used by most general practitioners. By contrast, specialist lawyers, often working in corporate law firms, mostly settle on the basis of (more profitable) hourly fees. However, irrespective of contingent specialisations, all Austrian lawyers are asked to contribute to the existent legal-aid system. This system also gives those access to the rule of law who cannot afford litigation. For such services, lawyers do not receive any remuneration (The Federal Ministry of Justice, 2014 ).

Eventually, it is worth mentioning that the continental system of justice is grounded in a different legal tradition than the Anglo-American system. The UK follows the so-called common law tradition, in which ‘case law’ prevails, while the European system is rooted in the ‘Roman law’ tradition and so-called code-based law. Code-based law is considered rather theoretical, prompting its advocates to argue that it is more substantiated than the Anglo-Saxon jurisdiction. Proponents of the latter instead claim that case law is more narrative and flexible (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2013 ). Without judging the two jurisdictions, it is assumed that they affect the administration of the rule of law, and the specific practices, self-understanding and ethos prevailing among legal professionals.

Research Design, Study Participants and Data Analysis

The empirical study was based on a qualitative research design and provides ‘exemplary insights’ (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2011 ) into how changes in the Austrian legal system shape, on a micro-level, the professional practices and negotiation of lawyers’ identity and ethics at work. The insights were gained from an in-depth analysis of 20 open, semi-structured interviews conducted with self-employed lawyers practicing in Austria, each lasting between two and three hours. To grasp the multifaceted nature of the world lawyers are embedded in, a sample was chosen that reflects a rich diversity of professional experiences. The sample includes seven female and thirteen male lawyers. A third of the participants are based in Vienna; they mainly work on business law cases. The other participants are located in western Austria. Most of them represent private clients and work in areas such as civil or criminal law. While lawyers’ status varies across the sample, all have at least 10 years’ working experience, with some having 30–40 years’ experience. The analysis is complemented by insights gained from secondary information, i.e. documents such as annual reports published by the Federal Ministry of Justice, public reports published by the bar association, legal practitioner magazines including Das Anwaltsblatt , and media accounts on the Austrian legal professions (Bowen, 2009 ).

The semi-structured interviews focused on six main themes: (a) lawyers’ professional biographies and work experiences, (b) evaluation of change and continuity in professional norms and standards, (c) the role of business and performance maxims in law, (d) the relationship between morality and law(fulness), (e) lawyers’ self-concept and subjectivity, and (f) challenges of the profession and the overall system of justice. All interviews were recorded and transcribed and, thereafter, thematically and theoretically structured (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2011 ). For the purposes of anonymity, pseudonyms have been used throughout.

The process of data analysis involved various iterative movements between interview transcripts and secondary sources, circling around questions such as what typifies the profession? What are the main changes and challenges lawyers address and experience? How do lawyers narrate themselves? What are, more broadly, recurrent themes that the independent practitioners evoke, i.e. what matters to those within the profession? After multiple readings of the material, we began with a first thematic structuring of the data. Emergent themes included economic pressures, entrepreneurial demands, dependency on clients, service provision as a core responsibility and self-identification source, the significance of lawful practice, and reification and redefinition of sensitive issues at work. The first-order analysis eventually aroused an interest in further exploring how lawyers understand and negotiate ethical matters in everyday practice and, by this means, (co)construct their identity. The empirical material was subsequently structured with reference to theoretical concepts, paying particular attention to notions such as situated-local practices, moral-legalistic frameworks and codes, and ethical-moral subjectivity and self-formation, as discussed in the ethics-as-practice literature (Carter et al., 2007 ; Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ).

The second-order analysis led to further development of the initially evolving themes. In line with an abductive approach (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2011 ), we sought micro-practices and -accounts evoking how the legal practitioners relate to and engage with the variegated norms, demands and codes that prevail in the specific field of practice and, simultaneously, tried to be open to new categories of meaning (this, e.g., allowed to discern different lawyer types speaking in practitioners’ self-accounts). The analysis finally resulted in three main thematic categories: (a) socio-discursively constituted professional practices manifesting work-related challenges, (b) professional self-understanding and identity, and (c) ethical practices and self-positioning at work. In accordance with an ethics-as-practice framework (Clegg et al., 2007 ), these categories allowed to link interwoven themes and organise the presentation of the empirical material. For a more detailed overview of the main categories and their various sub-themes, we refer the reader to Table 1 .

The analysis, overall, followed a ‘reflexive methodology’ (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000 ). This involved a critical awareness that extant ontological and epistemological commitments underpin and shape, similar to theoretical and methodological choices and assumptions, the process of knowledge creation. Critical-reflective questioning and refining of the modes through which insights were developed was thus central to the process of interpreting the empirical material. This material is presented in what follows. The first sub-section introduces lawyers’ professional practices and allows, as such, to situate the intricacies that lawyers face. The second sub-section subsequently discusses lawyers’ articulated self-understanding, placing emphasis on the dynamically entangled lawyer types evoked in the narratives. The third sub-section then elaborates in detail on lawyers’ engagement with questions of ethics and thereby provides further insights into their discursively and ethically-reflexively constituted subjectivity.

Lawyers’ Professional Practices: Change and Contestation

Lawyers’ narratives suggest that their professional practices are impacted by recent changes in the field, including increasing competition, client focus, accountability demands and economic performance pressures. While the 1980s and 1990s are often referred to as the “golden age” (Severin), many lawyers argue that

[The] good times are over now. The work is very challenging…and some lawyers go out of business. (Paul)

Distinct competition and economic pressures tend to result in a “fight for money and clients” (Cassie) and a growing focus on calculative-entrepreneurial practices , which are, again, furthered by the steady liberalisation of the profession. Following Archie, “what was previously done by lawyers is now often done by legal consultants, accounts, or computer programmes”. Such shifts are observed with scepticism, as most cases are considered “too complex to be outsourced or resolved by an online programme” (Sven).

However, liberalisation tendencies have also been accompanied by the introduction of new governmental policies such as the Data Transparency Programme or the Money Laundering Codex. Concomitant with such regulations is an increasing emphasis on externally oriented accountability practices , which some lawyers consider necessary in an ever-more complex, commercialised profession (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ), whereas others regard it as “yet another burden” (Elton) and risk to lawyers’ independent practice.

Several accounts further suggest that marketing and networking activities have become an integrative part of lawyers’ professional practice. Most lawyers consider ‘investments’ in relationship management necessary to secure mandates. Following Benno, it is no longer sufficient to “offer sound legal work; you must also be a tough marketer and salesman”, a circumstance that also contributes to the individualisation of the profession and that general practitioners experience as particularly challenging.

Practices of general practitioners , constituting the main ‘class’ of Austrian lawyers, are mostly oriented towards local, individual clients . Several accounts suggest that these practitioners tend to “take on any clients” (Cassie), even in instances wherein the “tariff law hardly compensates for the work” (Brigitte). That said, being exposed to precarious work conditions is, in the Austrian context, no longer an exception. Such conditions, however, hardly affect the second ‘class’ of lawyers, specialist lawyers. Practices of specialist lawyers are focused on the representation of (international) commercial clients and, thus, the “good, affluent clients” (Rainer), prepared to pay hourly rates between EUR 300 and 600. Whether such fees are justified is subject to ongoing debates. While some argue that specialist lawyers offer the ‘best’ quality, others challenge the practices prevailing especially in corporate law firms. Several accounts propose that these are defined by “numbers, metrics and high turnover” (Sandra):

There’s a clear hierarchy and status difference between standard lawyers and lawyers working in corporate law firms…They think they are superior, even though their work isn’t necessarily better, just much more expensive. (Lena)

However, not all lawyers agree that “it’s only a myth that corporate or specialist lawyers have more know-how than others” (Brigitte):

It pays off to choose a specialist lawyer. Their work isn’t comparable to the work of normal lawyers…Take a table from IKEA; it may last some years, but you can never compare a mass-product with the effort going into a handmade table…Retaining a specialist lawyer means that the client gets full attention, a first-class service and the best solution. (Sven)

Despite differing views, many lawyers accept that there is a correlation between the case and client type, amount in dispute and effort invested. This is particularly evident in instances in which the litigious value is very low, asking lawyers to “work really efficiently” (Georg), or where lawyers’ work is not remunerated, as in legal-aid cases. While most practitioners agree that it is, in principle, “important that the poor can also access legal services” (Cassie)—which indicates lawyers’ public service function (Hanlon, 1999 )—they equally criticise that the current system is based on “forced labour” (Elton), leading some to complete legal-aid cases with “minimal effort” (Richard). Expectations from clients who wish to gain more than a “standardised service, complying with disciplinary standards” (Paul) are referred to as “misplaced; we don’t live in Alice’s wonderland” (Sven). Only one lawyer, Archie, argues that “clients’ background does not matter; I treat every case identically”.

However, Archie also acknowledges that “not everyone is equal before the law”. Such claims are considered “overconfident” (Lena) or “simply wrong” (Lydia). Accounts such as “the law is not outside political and economic interests” (Elton) indeed suggest that economic considerations also influence the administration of justice. Judges, in particular, face ever-increasing performance demands, implying that they are asked to “produce verdicts very quickly” (Lena). According to some lawyers, this is paralleled by the risk that the complex question of dispensing justice is reduced to a “mathematical box-ticking exercise” (Sven).

With regard to the evaluation of their own practices, many lawyers are less critical, even if they are evidently affected by institutional changes and pressures. While safeguarding client interests is one of the core responsibilities of lawyers, several accounts suggest that “the generation of turnover is at times prioritised over client interests” (Paul). This is manifested in practices such as the “intentional prolonging of lawsuits” (Marianne) or attempts to “talk clients into unnecessary lawsuits” (Rainer). Following the narratives, such practices cannot only be observed in instances where lawyers face the “huge challenge to secure their own economic survival and work in the best interest of clients” (Sandra); they also prevail in successful law firms wherein “lawyers do not often choose the most sensible option, but one that allows to charge lots of billable hours” (Sandra).

Alongside ethically contested practices , there are, according to some practitioners, also unlawful practices within the field. Criminally liable practices include, for instance, the “negotiation of high-risk M&A deals outside the law” (Benno), or “billing for services not performed” (Lydia). Sven worked as a candidate lawyer in firms where such practices prevail:

In most corporate law firms, the money defines everything…Senior lawyers are often involved in money laundering, or fictional constitutions of foundations.

While all lawyers distance themselves from unlawful practices, some expound that practices compromising lawyers’ professional-ethical responsibility are, in part, the result of a profession increasingly informed by the economic-rules-all maxim (Goldsmith, 2008 ). Simultaneously, several lawyers argue that, in comparison to the “shareholder-oriented, financialised Anglo-American industry” (Tom), the Germanic field is still “widely solid” (Lena). Lawyers specifically problematise that the former is based on success fees and allows “law firms to be on the stock market” (Tom), something that is considered detrimental to independent legal practice. In light hereof, some lawyers remark that “for all difficulties, there’s still a good chance that people get as much justice as possible here” (Benno).

Taken together, the accounts on lawyers’ professional practices prompt that Austrian legal practitioners have been exposed to ever-more intricate demands in recent years. Having outlined the “exigencies in professional practice” (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 , p. 128), the following sections now elaborate on how lawyers negotiate and (co)construct their professional identity and engage with the ethical issues they consider inherent in everyday practice.

Lawyers’ Self-Understanding: Entangled Professional Types

The narratives suggest that legal practitioners form their identity with reference to different socio-discursive lawyer types that prevail within the profession. Lawyers relate to, identify and disidentify with these in variegated ways. The analysis, as such, suggests that lawyers’ articulated self-understanding is underpinned by dynamically entangled lawyer types. Types that are actively mobilised include the entrepreneurial ‘service provider’, the ‘committed-passionate lawyer’, the ‘trusted advisor’, the career-oriented ‘posturer’ and the ‘lawyer technician’ (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). Further types include the ‘reflexive practitioner’ or the so-called good lawyer, but they are less directly addressed. In what follows, we first present the predominant types voiced in lawyers’ narratives, before discussing how lawyers—ambiguously—position themselves towards them.

Out of their various formal roles, lawyers commonly consider the representation of client interests their main responsibility. More traditional roles, such as serving as ministers of justice, are often referred to as a “relict of the past” (Rainer), even if some lawyers acknowledge that, initially, they studied law because they wanted to “counteract inequalities” (Lydia) and “get justice” (Cassie). Simultaneously they argue that, over time, one realises “how things are done” (Sven) and that “idealism isn’t everything” (Lena). By this means, they re-evoke that established professional norms “affect individuals” (Sandra) and subjectify them in specific ways (Kuhn, 2009 ).

An in-depth analysis of lawyers’ accounts, further, suggests that the safeguarding of client interests is understood in various ways. The more reflexive lawyers, for instance, refer to the disciplinary codex and emphasise that “representing the interests of individual clients to the best of one’s knowledge” (Rainer) is “our professional duty” (Elton). Considered client focus is, from such a position, regarded “crucial to preserve the rule of law” (Sandra). However, most lawyers explicate their understanding of client representation differently. In line with institutional norms, they argue that “service- and customer orientation” are nowadays imperative:

The customer is king…I think lawyers don’t represent the law; they represent their clients…I want to offer a good service, and that’s why I’m available 24/7. (Lydia)

Richard, likewise, notes that “the lawyer is not obliged to the public but simply the lobbyist of his client”. Given such accounts, the self-understanding of many sole practitioners seems to be underpinned by the notion of the so-called service provider ; a lawyer type that Benno explicitly addresses:

My older colleagues may not want to hear this, but we’re service providers. Clients buy our intellectual know-how…We accompany and consult them, that’s it. We’re nothing more than a service occupation.

However, there are differences as to how the role of service provider is performed. Prioritising client interests over other responsibilities is for some lawyers concomitant with a willingness “to do everything for the customer” (Lydia), while others are more hesitant to “become clients’ accomplice” (Rainer). Lawyers’ narratives, moreover, suggest that the growing relevance of the ‘client-first maxim’ (Gustafsson et al., 2018 ) coincides with demands for “becoming more entrepreneurial and business-like” (Brigitte). This is also manifested in the self-presentation of some practitioners:

I always wanted to be an entrepreneur…I could have equally ended up as a self-employed goldsmith…But it was some kind of strategic decision to become a lawyer, an entrepreneurial lawyer. (Sven)

Other practitioners, in comparison, argue that they lack strategic-entrepreneurial “genes” and emphasise that “a good lawyer isn’t necessarily a good entrepreneur” (Lena), assuming that lawyers identifying with the notion of entrepreneurial service provider pursue a transactional-economic client approach.

That this is not mandatory, though, is illustrated by lawyers who foreground client advocacy in their self-accounts—because they regard themselves as trusted advisors . The notion of the trusted advisor is not completely antithetical to the entrepreneurial service provider, but lawyers identifying with the former seem to follow a more ‘proximal’ client approach, as reflected in an account from Fritz:

Our clients ask for all-encompassing support…The advice I give goes beyond my economic interests…But that’s how you develop good, trustworthy relationships…They’re the basis of success.

And the Viennese lawyer adds:

I’ve realised that it’s not easy to sell my law firm, because I’m kind of a trusted advisor for our clients…it all comes down to me. A trusted advisor…that’s who I am.

Lawyers whose self-understanding is informed by the idea of trusted advisor present law as “a very person-related profession” (Paul), resembling the equally “relationship-oriented medical profession” (Archie). That lawyers’ practices and self-understanding cannot be reduced to the economics-rules-all maxim is, moreover, supported by narratives of practitioners performing the highly committed, passionate lawyer type. This type prevails among female lawyers and defence lawyers.

Defence lawyers often refer to themselves, and are referred to, as “people with special attitudes and views” (Elton). While practitioners who do not engage with criminal law tend to distance themselves from defence lawyers and, specifically, the “milieu” (Severin) of their clients, defence lawyers themselves portray criminal law as “most exciting”:

I really like being a defence lawyer. These cases really matter…and I genuinely like to represent the partial interests of one party. (Richard)

However, it is especially female lawyers who seem fully committed to their work. Many of them consider legal practice “very rewarding” and speak of a “real connection” (Brigitte) with their profession—despite it being decidedly male-dominated. The latter implies that most women feel they must “persistently prove to be competent” (Lydia). Some also speak of a “misogynistic profession” (Cassie) and note that “a typical woman would not survive in this field” (Brigitte). While most women lawyers struggle with structural inequalities, they still claim to “love being a lawyer” (Cassie) and to be “married” (Lydia) to their profession or legal partners.

In comparison to female lawyers, many male lawyers express a more pragmatist attitude to their profession. This is reflected in another lawyer type, the posturer and careerist lawyer . Lawyers whose subjectivity tends to be informed by this type, e.g., note that progression and “certain status symbols matter” (Richard) and that (im)material “recognition is all but irrelevant” (Benno). Strikingly, though, in comparison with other lawyer types, most practitioners are keen to distance themselves from the career-oriented posturer, even where it speaks through the respective narrative. Accounts such as “unlike many others, I’m not the tough, performance-oriented lawyer, looking for competition” (Richard) or “ other lawyers want to drive a Porsche and see the title ‘lawyer’ on their business card” (Sven) are not uncommon. More critical-reflexive practitioners, however, explicate that “it’s problematic to self-identify with the posturer position” (Severin) and ponder that “lawyers’ work asks for a grounded personality” (Paul), opposing the externally oriented performative type.

There is yet another type that is evoked in lawyers’ narratives. We refer to this type, in accordance with Vaughan and Oakley ( 2016 ), as the lawyer technician . Lawyers who present themselves as such commonly speak of themselves as a “neutral PR division” (Benno) and portray legal practice as a widely “value-free technique” (Richard). That said, practitioners whose self-understanding seems to align with the lawyer technician often state that their work is not directly affected by conflictual, challenging demands. They tend to avoid critically engaging with their own practices and the practices of their clients. Instead, they emphasise that “what matters most is that one’s conduct is lawful” (Sven). Some accounts, further, prompt that the notion of lawyer technician is already endorsed at university. Following Richard, law education in Austria focuses on “the dissemination of narrow, memorisable knowledge”. An engagement with, e.g., concerns of legal ethics or the nexus between law(fullness), morality and justice is, simultaneously, widely missing.

We will return to the lawyer technician below, as it allows us to develop a more nuanced understanding of how lawyers navigate ambiguous ethical demands and form their professional-ethical identity. First, though, it is important to re-emphasise that the presented lawyer types are not or very rarely isolated. Most narratives suggest that lawyers relate to, interpret and ( dis )identify with extant types in dynamic ways, prompting that their identities are infused with entangled types and, as such, complex and contested. It is hence not uncommon for lawyers to refer to themselves as a “trusted advisor” (Fritz), as “entrepreneurially alert and highly committed” (Fritz), as a “neutral advocate of client interests” (Fritz) and as a “gatekeeper of justice” (Fritz).

It is to understand in light hereof that some lawyers note: “law consists of several professions” (Tom). Marianne, e.g., argues that “as lawyer, you have to perform various identities; among others, you are a jurist, entrepreneur and a social psychologist”. The challenges that may accompany this “multiplicity of roles” (Tom) and further lawyers’ intricate (self-)position often remain unaddressed, though. Indeed, rather than expounding how they personally deal with variegated responsibilities and demands in everyday practice, most practitioners narrate on the identity performance of other lawyers. Archie and Lena, e.g., ponder that, in the current context, lawyers’ subjectivity is mainly shaped by the “good performer” or “posturer” (Archie) type, differing from the “good jurist” in that their “main competence is to successfully sell themselves” (Lena). In a similar vein, Sandra elaborates on the various lawyer types “out there”:

The dominant type is the male posturer. He seeks to represent strength, fights for the sake of it, and has his status symbols. Then there’s the rather non-entrepreneurial legal expert, a diligent worker considering the engagement with law a science. Finally, there’s the so-called good lawyer, who is thoughtful and reflexive, fully committed, and genuinely cares for his clients…this type is rare.

What seems telling is the distal position from which many practitioners speak of common lawyer types. Many lawyers also give decidedly critical accounts of their professional colleagues and characterise the ‘typical lawyer’ as “conservative and careerist” (Sandra), “self-involved” (Severin), “pretentious and myopic” (Sven) and “hardly trustworthy” (Cassie). The claim, “I do not present the typical lawyer” (Richard), overall, evokes an interesting phenomenon, which can be referred to as othering. To acknowledge that there are some questionable (self-)performances within the field and simultaneously highlight that, personally, one is not involved in those is part of this practice.

However, there are also practitioners who seek to go beyond simple othering and critically engage with the reasons for the emergence of contested legal types and practices. Some note in this regard that it is the very “tough, highly competitive and individualised field” (Brigitte) that ‘makes up’ people in a specific way. As suggested, this ‘making up’ starts at university, continues during the legal training and resumes once lawyers have passed the bar exam. We would thus like to reiterate that lawyers’ professional and ethical-moral subjectivity is not given but continually evolves in interrelation with the socio-discursive practices and norms that prevail in the profession. Whereas at the beginning of their career, lawyers’ self-understanding often seems to be informed by aspirations such as “contributing to society” (Fritz) and “crusading for justice” (Cassie), over time, these aspirations tend to take a backseat, with lawyer types such as the entrepreneurial service provider, the posturer and ethically widely neutral lawyer technician gaining in relevance. Yet, as indicated, there are also lawyers who recurrently challenge and counteract pervasive professional models and norms. The more reflexive practitioners , e.g., argue that it is not sufficient to “only please your clients” or “comply with the law” (Archie) but emphasise that “personal decency still matters” (Lena) and that lawyers “have social responsibility” (Cassie) and an “important function within constitutional democracies” (Paul). Among other things, such considered self-presentations question unifying claims of lawyers ‘lacking’ reflexivity and a sense of professional-ethical responsibility (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ).

In view hereof, the following sub-section further explicates how lawyers negotiate questions of ethics as part of their identity formation. We will show that such negotiation is contingent and context-sensitive, suggesting that the ‘space for ethics’ in law is challenged but neither determined nor eroded.

Lawyers’ Ethics at Work

In what follows, we discuss three main ways or modalities of how lawyers engage with ethical issues that are considered integrative in legal work: ethical ‘closure’ and neutralising, considerate reflection from a distance, and reframing of ethical issues. We would thereby like to emphasise that these modalities are not clear-cut or fixed. The narratives rather suggest that lawyers’ ‘manoeuvring’ of ethics and ethical (self-)positions is dynamic and always situated in practice.

What we refer to as closure and neutralisation of ethical matters specifically dominates among defence lawyers, who are often highly committed to their work. Many of them note that what matters first and foremost is “to get the best possible result for the client” (Lydia), and not whether clients “are guilty or not”. Some, indeed, acknowledge a preference “not to know the truth” (Cassie) and argue to “only need a credible story” (Lydia)—as “lawyers do not prioritise justice, but representation of their clients” (Birgit). Such accounts suggest that some lawyers seek to avoid engaging with the ethics at work, especially in instances wherein such engagement might be unsettling or ‘disturbing’. References to lawyer types, such as the service provider and lawyer technician, are here mobilised, given that they allow to ‘professionally’ expound and rationalise what is (not) in lawyers’ responsibility remit. An account by Cassie specifies this:

The judge has the formal responsibility to define what’s true and just. I’ve done my job once I’ve used my legal know-how to my customer’s benefit.

Such transferral of responsibility is also echoed by Elton, arguing that he does “not dispense justice” and, hence, does “not need to be ethical in that regard ”. That some lawyers reify or exclude certain ethical issues inherent in legal practice is further substantiated by the following account:

I ignore the bigger picture. You build yourself your own castle…It can happen that you suddenly think, mmhhh…that guy committed this crime. But I try to avoid thinking about such things for long…I just want to listen to the story of my client…I often have discussions with my partner, who can’t understand how I can represent someone who abused a woman. I then say, ‘you need to stop this’…I don’t know the victims personally… Sometimes, I’m surprised about myself…that I’m not more affected. (Lydia)

Such excerpts propose that the ‘ethical consciousness’ of some lawyers can indeed be considered rather ‘minimalistic’ (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ). Yet, from a practical ethics viewpoint, it seems important to avoid generalising talk of, e.g., ‘ethical apathy’. Moments of such apathy may not only be grounded in lawyers’ specific institutional-professional socialisation; the “blending out” (Richard) and impersonalisation of ethical demands might in some instances also be necessary, as Sven notes:

General practitioners regularly deal with criminals, or with divorces where the question is who gets the children… They need to find ways to handle difficult situations…They need routines.

Referring to routines, the account suggests that, as a means of ethical closure, routines allow not to experience sensitive issues every time anew, fulfilling, as such, an important self-protective function. What is also interesting is that many lawyers who tend to ‘codify’ ethical questions via routines or other techniques are still keen to set certain ethical-moral boundaries, allowing them to separate their professional self from their personal self. From outside, some of these ‘redlines’ may seem rather opaque and arbitrary (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ); Lydia, for example, has ostensibly no problem with defending murderers and child abusers but highlights that she “would not represent someone identifying with NS ideologies”. We seek to avoid judging such positions but highlight that those doing the work define ethical matters in intricate ways.

Likewise, we want to (re)emphasise that lawyers’ identities and practices are not determined by lawyer types widely lacking ethical sensitivity. Indeed, several practitioners willingly ponder on ethical questions in law. In many instances, though, they reflect on ethics from a distance and thus intellectualise them. Business lawyers, for example, often contemplate ethical concerns in defence law:

I don’t do criminal law, but occasionally reflect on it…there’s the famous example of the client telling his lawyer that he committed a murder, and then gets acquittal due to insufficient evidence…How can you live with that? That’s certainly an ethical borderline case. (Tom)

One of the reasons why questions of ethics are oftentimes addressed with reference to defence or family law is their visibility in these realms. Cassie, e.g., narrates on a “serious ethical dilemma” she experienced when being asked to represent a client accused of sexual abuse, and Lena, a family and divorce lawyer, notes that she is repeatedly confronted with “complex, ethical problems”. The latter is seconded by some, while other practitioners argue that serious ethical concerns are not part of the “mundane daily business” (Sven).

However, in the context of mandatory legal-aid cases, most lawyers face or address ethical tensions. The following accounts are illustrative:

It’s demanding if you’re obliged to represent somebody who committed a serious crime. You have to distance yourself…I try to accurately represent the accused…but also try to act in a sensitive manner that doesn’t expose the victim. (Archie) Legal aid cases are often very unpleasant…but a child abuser is somehow also a human being. In a democracy, everyone has a right to advocacy…What I don’t understand though are over-engaged lawyers…I do in these cases what I must do, in view of our disciplinary codex. (Sven)

These excerpts prompt that ethical questions are differently understood and negotiated in practice. More specifically, they evoke that ethics is linked to personal choice and autonomy (Foucault, 1997 ). Where the latter is overly constrained, struggles over ethical-professional responsibility and decision-making emerge. This is especially manifested in the narratives of the more reflexive practitioners. They considerately reflect on their ethical position(s) and, e.g., argue to reject legal defence where they “cannot support clients’ claims” (Archie). Simultaneously, they acknowledge that it is not an easy endeavour to define one’s “ethical standards”, not least because of demands that are “not readily resolvable” (Sandra) but in a continually “grey zone” (Rainer). In practice, it also does not seem to happen often that lawyers turn down clients due to personal-ethical considerations—and yet, it is important to some to have the principle right to refuse client representation, a right that is grounded in the “maybe old-fashioned value” (Lena) of professional independence and autonomy. References to such values allow lawyers to substantiate that they “take the ethics of the lawyer serious” (Lena), regardless of it being fraught with tensions.

The latter is also evoked in an account by Rainer, who addresses questions of legal ethics outside the remit of criminal law. Following Rainer, in corporate law firms, it is, e.g., common practice to advise clients on how to “avoid paying taxes”. He considers such practice problematic, but adds:

I surely wouldn’t do everything and refuse to represent dubious clients…but it’s not always easy to say no…As a trainee lawyer, I often faced conflictual situations…your boss tells you what to do…so you just think, ‘close your eyes and get the job done’… There will always be ethical tensions, in business law and beyond… Lawyers respond to them differently.

The account further illustrates the complexity encompassing the realm of business, professional and organisational morality and challenges, as such, simplifying definitions of ethical and unethical conduct. Several narratives propose that lawyers are recurrently exposed to contested demands, from clients, employers and the ‘market’. Deciding whether or not to “condone problematic demands” (Brigitte) is often experienced as all but straightforward. Especially for trainee lawyers, the situational negotiation of ethics can turn into a “major struggle” (Tom):

I thought that lawyers’ conduct involves certain morals but, while working in business law firms, I realised this isn’t necessarily the case. As a trainee, I’ve been asked to sign documents including false claims. On a few occasions, I signed them. First, I didn’t have the courage to speak up…but then I resigned. I no longer felt able to act as an accomplice, supporting such practices. (Sven)

Lawyers explicitly reflecting on questions of legal ethics also often ponder on the system of justice. They argue that there is no such thing as “universal justice” and, thus, emphasise that “no law and code can do justice to every single situation” (Severin). Considering that the construct of justice is “overly complex” (Rainer), “manifold and subjective” (Sandra), “full justice” and responsibility do, indeed, not seem to exist. Alongside foregrounding the situatedness of the latter, some practitioners point to the potentially conflictual nexus between formal-procedural justice in law and personal-relational understandings of justice (Jones & Gautschi, 1992 ). They thereby acknowledge that “laws are, like verdicts, not always just…and comprehensive” (Paul), and still call for trying to “enact the rule of law as good and just as possible” (Marianne).

These accounts suggest that some lawyers challenge moral-legalistic regulative frameworks seeking to generally define what is ‘right’. However, emphasising that “the ethics of lawyers needs to go beyond the law” (Georg) does not necessarily imply that lawyers openly and critically engage with ethics as manifested in their own professional practice. That said, from the narratives, we learn that there is yet another way in which questions of legal ethics are negotiated. We refer to this modality as the reframing of ethics , meaning that some lawyers (also) turn ethical matters into “intellectual questions” (Fritz), “issues of creativity” (Brigitte), or concerns of lawfulness and accountability.

That questions of ethics are refined as questions of lawfulness and accountability (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ) is specifically revealed in accounts from corporate lawyers. Tom, for instance, claims to be concerned that his practices comply with disciplinary codes and rules. Following him, there are, however, “lawyers who regularly find themselves in grey zones, making you wonder what can still be considered accountable practice”. Simultaneously, Tom accepts that what is understood as such is not always unequivocal:

Take the example of tax justice…what exactly is it? If we talk of illegal earnings, then the case is clear. But if a company asks you whether there’s an opportunity to save on tax, I’m not sure if legal advice is necessarily problematic, morally…Everyone needs to decide this individually, but I’d say this is mainly a political problem.

The latter is echoed by Benno. While admitting that legal practices are occasionally questionable, lawyers can, in his view, not be made responsible for the existence of “legal tax loopholes”. It is rather lawyers’ task to “also use such loopholes”. Benno, thereby, reframes contingent ethical questions as technical-legal questions asking for an “accurate application” of the law. However, where professional practices can no longer be justified as lawful, many lawyers level criticism and hint at their “ethical boundaries”:

Corporate law firms help their clients to save taxes. For me, the question is whether such assistance violates criminal codes and disciplinary rules…While some firms still manoeuvre within the limits of the law, others do not…They use every trick to cheat the system. This isn’t acceptable. (Sven)

Ethical concerns are not only discussed as questions of accountability and lawfulness, though. Business lawyers also redefine the (ethical) complexities inscribed in law into intellectual-creative challenges . A final account by Sven illustrates this:

You can approach questions of tax-sparing from an athletic viewpoint too. Some lawyers use all their intellectual know-how and creativity to come up with a novel solution benefiting their clients…One can ask where the ethical conflict starts… Most of my cases are rather abstract. I play a minor role in a complicated economic network and serve as a widely neutral consultant…The question is whether I harm anyone. But in these networks, human lives are rarely at stake…so I don’t have a moral problem here. I consider this mainly an intellectual challenge.

This excerpt manifests once more how lawyers situationally negotiate questions of ethics. Here, the question of causing individual harm is defined as the main ‘ethical substance’, and not, e.g., the question of furthering corporate tax-sparing. The account further reiterates the relevance of the lawyer technician type, which shapes practitioners’ attitudes and identity work and enables them to downplay or temporarily resolve conflictual demands. However, within the remit of corporate law, it seems easier to accomplish such ‘resolution’, given that business lawyers are compared to, e.g., family lawyers, less directly exposed to “very personal and emotional issues” (Tom). Ethical tensions can thus be turned into a widely distal phenomenon, leading “some to assume that they don’t exist in corporate law, or only very subtly” (Severin). Subtlety is, however, not to be equated with non-existence.

Let us reiterate: the narratives evoke that there are different modalities of how lawyers construct and relate to matters of ethics. These modalities or ways of negotiating ethics should not be considered separate or isolated, though. They complement each other and are dynamically mobilised. Overall, we notice that the readiness to engage with ethical concerns in legal work varies, with some lawyers preferring to avoid such engagement, others welcoming it irrespective of concomitant tensions, and yet others showing a broad ‘continuum of ethical sensitivity’ in their conduct.

The study has explored the professional practices, identity and ethics of Austrian lawyers in a changing institutional context. Employing an ethics-as-practice framework, it sought to contribute to existing analyses, which tend to generally define and assess the ‘(un)ethical’ conduct of lawyers (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ; Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). In contrast to normative-prescriptive studies, the current research was guided by an understanding of ethics as a ‘lived practice’. Rather than focusing on moralistic-legalistic frameworks, practical ethics studies pay attention to the ‘moral rules in use’, i.e. how individuals draw on organisationally and institutionally defined codes and standards and negotiate ethical questions as they emerge (Rhodes & Wray-Bliss, 2012 ). Fostering an integrative practical ethics approach, the current study specifically accounted for the “contextuality and contestation of ethics…and ethical subjectivity” (Clegg et al., 2007 , p. 188) by exploring on a micro-level how socio-discursively constituted practices mutually inform lawyers’ identity and ethical position at work. Following Dinovitzer et al. ( 2015 ), it was thereby acknowledged that the challenges and constraints in professional practice affect how lawyers understand and enact ethics in the process of self-formation. In what follows, we elaborate on the study’s core insights and contributions to, specifically, extant normative and non-normative, practice-based analyses in business and professional ethics.

Professional Practices and Lawyers’ Identity (at) Work

The analysis of socio-discursively constituted professional practices has shown that lawyers are subjected to variegated demands (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ). It especially seems to be increasing competition, economic pressures and dependencies from individual clients that infuse lawyers’ work. Extant practices thus suggest that there is also in the Germanic context a growing focus on ‘the business of law’ (Parker & Rostain, 2012 ), which is paralleled by the promotion of law as a service occupation and the fostering of its ‘performative sides’ (Allan et al., 2019 ; Hanlon, 1999 ). Such tendencies lead to recurrent conflicts over attempts to reconcile market demands and client interests, as well as traditional and more contemporary professional-disciplinary principles (including seniority, professional autonomy, integrity and accountability). In some instances, they also lead to contested legal practices. Yet, in comparison to the Anglo-American legal context, practices in the Germanic setting seem less commercialised and oriented towards financialised performance (Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2009 ). Many Austrian lawyers, mostly working as self-employed sole practitioners, indeed struggle with financial constraints and socio-economic uncertainties. Overall, the analysis of lawyers’ situated practices prompts that they are ever-more complex and shaped by a diverse set of professional norms. As such, the study responds to calls from authors such as Dinovitzer et al. ( 2015 ), asking to explore the exigencies in professional practice beyond the context of large corporate law firms.

With regard to lawyers’ self-understanding , we first note that convoluted everyday practices also affect how professional-ethical identity is formed and defined (McMurray et al., 2011 ). The narratives, more specifically, suggest that lawyers’ self-understanding is infused by certain lawyer types that prevail in the professional field and speak through the narratives. These types include the entrepreneurial service provider, the trusted advisor, the committed-passionate lawyer, the posturer or performative type, the lawyer technician and the reflexive practitioner. The micro-level analysis evokes that they are dynamically entangled, with lawyers referring to, identifying and disidentifying with them in variegated ways. While notions such as the service provider and lawyer technician providing ethically neutral expert advice are recurrently evoked in the narratives, the analysis shows that lawyers’ self-presentation cannot be reduced to such types. Several accounts suggest that lawyers’ identity is equally shaped by idea(l)s that are, e.g., associated with the trusted advisor or the reflexive practitioner, committed to decent legal practice. The integrative practice framework guiding the analysis, moreover, revealed that lawyers understand the prevailing types differently. Identifying as a service provider does not, for instance, mean that lawyers exclusively consider themselves a “PR division” that strategically positions the “customer as king”; as illustrated, such identification can also be grounded in the duty to advocate client interests (Fasterling, 2009 ). At the same time, ‘othering’ or disidentifying oneself from types such as the careerist posturer does not necessarily pre-empt its manifestation in lawyers’ self-accounts. By illustrating such multi-facedness and contestation encompassing the meaning and enactment of existing lawyer types and roles, the study challenges univocal portrayals of lawyers’ professional-ethical identity and thereby enriches both extant normative (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ) as well as practice-based ethics analyses (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ).

In light hereof, it is also worth reiterating that lawyers’ subjectivity is continually ‘made up’ in the specific field of practice, with established socio-discursive codes conditioning (but not defining) the former (Clegg et al., 2007 ). The study has, for instance, shown that the (self-)performances of Austrian lawyers are at the beginning of their career widely directed by aspirations such as “contributing to justice”; aspirations which become less important as practitioners learn “how things are done” in the profession. As an extension of studies of lawyers’ professional-ethical subjectivity conducted within the Anglosphere, the study, furthermore, suggests that lawyers’ self-understanding is mainly governed by institutional codes such as the ‘client-first’ maxim (Gustafsson et al., 2018 ), and less by organisational-managerial discourses dominating in large corporate law firms including, e.g., career and performance measurement discourses (Allan et al., 2019 ; Kuhn, 2009 ). When narrating who they are and have become, most independent practitioners thus refer to the standards that typify ‘the field’, and not to specific ‘in-house’ codes or conventions. Against that backdrop, we now elaborate in more detail on the question at the analysis’ heart: how do lawyers engage with prevailing professional norms and moral demands as part of everyday practice and, by this means, seek to co-constitute their ethical subjectivity?

Negotiating Ethical Matters: On Contingent Ethical Self-Positions

The study of lawyers’ micro-practices and -accounts suggests that there are three main modalities of negotiating ethical issues : lawyers neutralise and enclose them, reflect on them from a distance, and reframe them as intellectual-creative challenges or questions of accountability and lawfulness. Most lawyers employ more than one of these modalities, depending on the specific context and encounter (Ibarra-Colado et al., 2006 ). The analysis, overall, prompts that there is a wide continuum in terms of what lawyers define as ethical matter(s) and how they relate to ethical demands. While some claim “not to engage much with ethical questions”, others argue that “ethics is very important” to them, and yet others emphasise the contingency and situatedness of ethical concerns, i.e. they argue that ethics matters in certain, but not all, regards and areas. Relatedly, some lawyers consider ethical tensions immanent in legal practice, whereas others note that ethical dilemmas are hardly part of the “mundane work”. Among other things, such ‘ethical pluralism’ (Clegg et al., 2007 ) points to the limits of dominant normative analyses that seek to essentialise ethical conduct and manage ethics by imposing unifying standards and clear-cut dichotomies from outside (Gabbioneta et al., 2019 ). The framework underpinning this research, however, allowed to explore ‘ethics from within’ and accounts, as such, for the complexities and uncertainties that seem constitutive of ethics and ethical responsibility. The following reading of the phenomena of ethical closure, reflection from a distance, and reframing of ethical matters further substantiates how the research enriches existing studies in the field.

Irrespective of being highly committed to their work, lawyers active in legal domains such as criminal law oftentimes respond to ethical matters by enclosing , neutralising, or reifying them, reflected in accounts such as: “I ignore the bigger picture” or “I do not know the victims”. While such accounts can be critically discussed, the current analysis suggests avoiding unequivocal judgements of lawyers ‘lacking’ ethics. Enclosing and, thus, excluding delicate matters from the professional-legal sphere seems to be one way of regulating them. Some lawyers indeed consider the impersonalisation of emotionally challenging demands a necessity, just as the separation between the professional and personal sphere. The insights, furthermore, prompt that lawyers who enclose or silence ethical questions still try to set certain boundaries. Even if these ‘redlines’ are not always readily comprehensive from an external point of view, they reveal that lawyers do not simply lack ethical consciousness and empathy (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ), but rather manoeuvre ethics in intricate ways. Evoking such contestation and struggles over ethics is considered a central contribution of this ethics-as-practice analysis (Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ).

Another way of engaging with ethical issues is the reflection on ethics from a distance . This means that lawyers who actively address ethical matters in legal work often intellectualise and philosophise on ethics and the overall system of justice, rather than elaborate on the challenges they personally experience. However, most of these lawyers acknowledge that “grey zones” are part of legal practice, not easy to resolve and, as such, undermine simplistic recipes—something that is, e.g., explicated with reference to the matter of tax justice. What the affirmation of recurrent tensions further substantiates is that questions of professional ethics cannot be amply managed by abstract sets of rules or codes. Some reflexive practitioners, indeed, argue that the “ethics of lawyers needs to go beyond the law” and contemplate that the law can never guarantee “full justice” (Derrida, 1992 ). By this means, the sole practitioners refer to what seems to be at the heart of ethics and ethical decision-making: autonomy. This idea is, indeed, central in Foucault-inspired (self-)practice-based studies, foregrounding that ethics “is powerfully intertwined in an individual’s freedom to make choices about what to do and who to be” (Ibarra-Colado et al., 2006 , p. 45) and the social, professional and organisational “context in which those choices are situated [and] framed” (p. 45).

In our study, this nexus is reflected in how the historically significant values of professional autonomy and independence are obstructed from many directions (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ), and yet sought to uphold by practitioners as, for instance, the highlighting of lawyers’ formal right to refuse client representation suggests. Even though ‘no-saying’ does not seem to occur regularly, the analysis prompts that the opportunity to do so matters (Luban, 2010 ). What is more, despite scopes of autonomy being challenged, several lawyers try to “puzzle out the right thing to do” (p. 12) as part of their attempt to considerately form their identity and ethics at work. As indicated, this puzzling out occurs in a potentially persistently conflictual space (Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, 2015 ), in which decisions on (un)problematic practices and demands (from clients, superiors, the industry, etc.) are often not conclusive. It is also for this reason that we often observe a contingent negotiation of ethical matters among lawyers.

That said, we wish to reiterate the specifics of reframing ethical matters into questions of lawfulness and accountability and/or creative-intellectual challenges. This modality is mobilised both by lawyers who tend to enclose ethical concerns and by lawyers who critically reflect on the ethics in law. When reframing ethics into a question of lawfulness and accountability, some lawyers foreground the relevance of conformity with the law and extant codes. They specifically point to lawyers’ duty to acknowledge the disciplinary codes in which the profession is grounded and thereby evoke compliance as a significant part of their ethical self-position. This insinuates that codes are not necessarily detrimental to ethical conduct, even if the reflexive practitioners accept that code- and rule-following is not sufficient and does not ‘guarantee’ good practice. There are, however, also those lawyers for whom reference to the law and codes seems a possibility to downplay ethical tensions and grey zones inherent in legal practice. Adopting a pragmatic-neutral position, widely in line with the figure of the lawyer technician, such practitioners emphasise that what matters above all is to “act within the boundaries of the law”—something that is, according to the narratives, not always the case. While violating the law is a redline for the interviewed lawyers, there are hence some who consider the use of “political, legal loopholes” not necessarily problematic. The responsibility for their existence is here delegated to political authorities and not situated within one’s own sphere.

It is such practice that leads certain authors to argue that, in contemporary law, ethical responsibility is widely replaced by managerial accountability (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ). Whereas we acknowledge that pervasive institutional standards affect lawyers’ professional-ethical conduct and self-understanding, we are critical towards such generalising claims and, as such, do not equate the reframing of matters that are ethically contested with a dissolving of responsibility. Our study rather shows that moral-legalistic frameworks and codes are interpreted and used in various ways, including wide compliance with codes and the law (for both pragmatic-technocratic as well as considered ethical reasons), partial ignorance of codes, and their questioning and refining. It thereby enriches existing debates on the role of codes and regulative frameworks in normative and practice-based business and professional ethics, where such frameworks are either welcomed (in the former case) (Fasterling, 2009 ), or widely problematised (in the latter case) (Clegg et al., 2007 ; Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ).

That the navigation of lawyers’ professional-ethical responsibilities is eclectic is, eventually, exemplified by attempts to reframe ethics as a ‘creative-intellectual challenge’. This practice is mainly prevalent among lawyers specialised in corporate law who are, in comparison to, e.g., family or defence lawyers, less directly exposed to the human ‘face of the other’. This, again, leads some to adopt the position of a service provider for whom the complexities and ambiguities in legal work are in the first instance an intellectual-‘athletic’ challenge requiring professional expertise and creativity. Widely abstracting one’s professional practice from ethical questions, however, does not necessarily mean that lawyers are ‘unconcerned’ about ethics (Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). Lawyers with commercial clients rather argue that it is important to them that their work does “not harm single individuals”. Such positions re-evoke that there is a wide spectrum regarding how lawyers construct and make sense of situations as ethically charged (Ibarra-Colado et al., 2006 ). Making visible what practitioners define as ‘ethical substance’ (Foucault, 1997 ) and how they negotiate such substance is indeed considered another central contribution of this study, purposefully following a non-essentialist perspective on ethical (self-) practices .

The Erosion of Ethos in Law

Considering the above discussion, let us recapitulate by returning to the question raised at the paper’s outset: does the ethos of law erode? The claim that the ethos of law disintegrates in view of current changes in the profession is overall widespread in studies on lawyers’ ethics (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ; Chow & Calvard, 2021 ). These studies are commonly grounded in the assumption that there is such a thing as an ethos that can be defined and evaluated on the basis of certain a priori defined values. Where these values are not manifest in practice, a ‘lack’ of ethos and professional-ethical responsibility is oftentimes attested. Inspired by an integrative ethics-as-practice framework undermining prescriptive-normative positions (Clegg et al., 2007 ), the current study, by contrast, argues that any profession is underpinned by an ethos in that there are always socio-discursive norms and values that shape a specific field and the conduct and practices of those immersed in it. While acknowledging changes and challenges within the Austrian legal profession and concomitant effects on the ethics at work, the study further refrains from assessing the latter from an external-distal position.

From a proximal position focusing on practices on a micro-level, the so-called traditional ethos of law may, besides, be more diverse and contested than often assumed (Allan et al., 2019 ). Accounting for partly still prevalent principles, such as hierarchy and seniority (Empson, 2007 ), and acknowledging that historic values such as professional autonomy and independence still matter, the current study, specifically, asks to be wary of idealising former times as ‘glory days’. Even though professional demands seem increasingly convoluted (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ), living up to the disciplinary values and professional-ethical responsibilities inscribed in legal work may at no time be considered an easy, straightforward endeavour, but one accompanied by contingent frictions and ‘grey zones’. To develop a more nuanced understanding of the latter, we suggest, in view hereof, to reconsider the question of the erosion of ethos—with the more open-ended question of what the ethos of professional groups such as lawyers looks like, in all its manifold facets, taking its place.

Conclusions

This paper was interested in exploring how changes in the legal professions affect the practices, self-understanding and ethics of lawyers in the Austrian legal system. Employing an ethics-as-practice framework (Clegg et al., 2007 ; McMurray et al., 2011 ), the analysis has shown that lawyers negotiate ethical matters in different and dynamic ways, including their active acknowledgement, downplaying, or wide enclosure. While some practices of the independent practitioners can be contested, many practitioners reflect on ethical concerns and try to reconcile them in view of continuing intricacies at work (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 ). Evoking such pluralism in terms of extant practices and ethical positions questions assessments of lawyers being ‘ethically minimalist’ (Moorhead & Hinchly, 2015 ) and typified by ‘moral inertia’ (Chow & Calvard, 2021 ), as well as clear-cut distinctions between ‘ethical’ and ‘unethical’ conduct prevailing in professional and, specifically, legal ethics studies.

In light hereof, we conclude by reiterating the paper’s contributions. First, it contributes to research in MOS and professional studies investigating shifts in the legal profession, especially within the Anglo-Saxon corporate law context (e.g. Faulconbridge & Muzio, 2008 ; Gustafsson et al., 2018 ). Our study of legal sole practitioners, active in the under-explored Germanic context, supports this research to some degree but likewise shows that local specifics matter and should be taken into account when exploring the meanings and effects of changing professional rationales on lawyers’ identity and practice. Second, the study extends normative analyses of (corporate) lawyers’ ethics. While it is acknowledged that work-related pressures lead to struggles over ethical positions (Kuhn, 2009 ), the current study eschews homogeneous model portrayals of the ‘(un)ethical lawyer’, in common with generalising evaluations of lawyers ‘lacking’ ethical sensibility and ethos (Aulakh & Kirkpatrick, 2018 ; Vaughan & Oakley, 2016 ). Instead of foregrounding abstract moralistic-legal frameworks, the present study has explored ethics as a lived, situated practice and thus focused on the question of how independent legal practitioners relate to prevailing norms and rules in everyday practice and thereby form their ethical position. By this means, the study could reveal the complexities, ongoing ambiguities and uncertainties inherent in legal work and ethics.

Third and relatedly, the research enriches existing ethics-as-practice studies within the business, professional and organisational ethics domain. While many of these studies are theory focused (Loacker and Muhr, 2009 ; Carter et al., 2007 ; Ibarra-Colado et al., 2006 ), the current analysis has vitalised the conceptual framework by applying it to a field dominated by normative studies. The integrative approach of the research is considered a specific contribution to extant analyses, i.e. the study has explored the mutual conditioning of socio-discursively constituted professional practices, subjectivity and ethical (self-)positions at work and, thereby, accounted for the multifarious linkages between institutional and organisational rules and norms and the broader social context. By evoking that ethics is a personal choice that is framed by the specific context in which professional practice is located, the analysis has undermined individualising ethics approaches. While exploring ethics as a dynamic, relational phenomenon is in principle characteristic for non-prescriptive studies, there are, indeed, some practical ethics studies that still aim to identify ethical-moral problems in specific fields of practice, to ‘resolve’ or ‘prevent’ future “ethical lapses” (Dinovitzer et al., 2015 , p. 130). The present study, by contrast, genuinely affirmed the contingent, always context-specific and subjective nature of ethics, thus foregrounding how lawyers construct and (re)define ethical matters (for) themselves. By this means, we could, e.g., reveal the variegated understandings and enactments of lawyers’ formal roles and duties, and the polyvocal meanings and use of professional-moral codes, undermining extant dualisms between rule-following, rule relativism, and rule refusal. The latter specifically allows to nuance debates in non-normative, practical ethics studies, which tend to object to moral codes and rules (Clegg et al., 2007 ).

In line with Chow and Calvard ( 2021 ) and Dinovitzer et al. ( 2015 ), we would hence like to encourage further studies of practice-based ethics within the legal professions and beyond. Specifically, we call for integrative ethics studies that explore the irreducible entanglement of business, professional, organisational and individual ethics and morality and thereby acknowledge that the subtle questions of ethics are navigated and enacted on the level of local practice (Dey & Steyaert, 2016 ). Giving these questions more attention in business and professional ethics studies may allow the development of a more vivid and experiential understanding of the tensions that are inscribed in the ethics at work—a work that is ‘troublesome’ and continually ‘to come’.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sara Louise Muhr and the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. I am also grateful to all legal practitioners who participated in this study.

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Loacker, B. Does the Ethos of Law Erode? Lawyers’ Professional Practices, Self-Understanding and Ethics at Work. J Bus Ethics 187 , 33–52 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05276-x

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Received : 24 July 2021

Accepted : 10 October 2022

Published : 25 October 2022

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05276-x

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