Sarhadi, Mehrdad and Hasanzadeh, Sogand

A qualitative analysis of unethical behaviors in projects: Insight from moral psychology - Project Management Journal - 53(4), Aug, 2022: p.331-348

Ethical aspects of stakeholder behavior can have a wide range of implications for other areas of project management. This research critically reviewed project ethics under the philosophical paradigm change from modernism to late modernism, which led to a flexible and realizable ethical framework based on Levinasian and Nietzschean moral psychologies. A qualitative approach was adopted through a multiple-case study to confront the theoretical framework with the empirical world, evaluate its authenticity, and obtain a better understanding of its challenges. Research results showed that stakeholders’ unconscious desire for existential meaning can provide considerable potential for dealing with ethical challenges. – Reproduced


Stakeholder behavior, Project ethics, Moral philosophy, Moral psychology, Existential meaning.