چکیده:
Problem Statement: Interviews with the practitioners of the “Iran Engineering and Executive
System (IEES)” indicate that there is a contradiction between the ethical judgments and
practices of the Engineering Consulting Firms (ECF).
Although the majority of firms consider ethical practices as a major goal, despite the individual
differences of the board of directors and organizational differences of the firms, many of their
decisions and practices are not according to ethical values such as honesty and respecting the
interests of all stakeholders. In the literature, such issues are studied in the field of ethical
decision-making.
It seems that the existing ethical decision-making theories and models have neglected the influence
of meta-organizational factors (MOFs) on the ethical decisions and practices of organizations, and
the lack of a clear theoretical framework for explaining the ethical practices of organizations at
the system level, that requires attention to meta-organization factors, is evident in the literature.
Research Objectives: Due to the literature gap to explain the research problem, the
identification of MOFs affecting the ethical practice and decision-making of ECFs has been
considered as the research goal.
Research Method: Considering that there is not a clear theoretical framework in the literature
to analyze the research problem, the qualitative research method and Grounded Theory
methodology of Strauss and Carbine have been used.
Conclusion: “Imposing Double Pressure on ECFs” has led to the emergence of the
phenomenon of “Ethical Yield Stress”, which is a major contributor to the conflict between
judgments and ethical practices of ECFs. On the other hand, MOFs such as “Inefficiency
of Public Executive Agencies” and “Inefficiency of the IEES” have provided the contextual
conditions of adopting unethical action-interaction strategies by the ECFs in the IEES