Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale

Abstract

The Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale (PRESOR) is a psychometric instrument designed to measure individual attitudes, cognitive perceptions, and organizational orientations toward the integration of moral principles and corporate social stewardship within business operations. Developed by business ethics scholars Anusorn Singhapakdi, Scott J. Vitell, K. C. Rao, and David L. Kurtz in 1996, the PRESOR was established to address an empirical gap regarding how managers, executives, and business students evaluate the necessity of ethical conduct and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in relation to standard criteria of commercial performance, such as profitability, competitiveness, efficiency, and organizational survival.

Grounding its conceptual architecture in the organizational effectiveness menu articulated by Kraft and Jauch (1992), the original scale comprises 13 declarative statements evaluated via a 9-point Likert-type continuum ranging from 1 (Disagree) to 9 (Agree). Exploratory factor analyses across empirical investigations consistently delineate three underlying dimensions: Social Responsibility and Profitability, which captures the perceived compatibility between moral conduct and commercial viability; Long-Term Gains, assessing the conviction that sustained viability, employee morale, and long-range effectiveness necessitate prosocial commitments beyond immediate pecuniary return; and Short-Term Gains, reflecting an instrumental orientation prioritizing immediate stockholder gratification, financial gains by any means, and mechanical efficiency over ethical norms.

Psychometric evaluations demonstrate robust content and face validity vetted by expert panels, alongside convergent and predictive validity demonstrated through systematic associations with ethical ideologies—specifically idealism and relativism as conceptualized by Forsyth (1980)—and socially responsible attitudes. Internal consistency estimates across cross-cultural and domestic management samples typically yield Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between 0.57 and 0.71 for subscales in early exploratory samples, with elevated reliabilities observed in refined structural models. The PRESOR remains an essential diagnostic tool within behavioral business ethics, pedagogical assessment, and international cross-cultural organizational research.

Keywords

Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale, PRESOR, business ethics, corporate social responsibility, organizational effectiveness, managerial decision-making, ethical ideology, stakeholder theory, psychometrics, scale development

Authors

The PRESOR scale was developed and psychometrically validated by a collaborative research team specializing in marketing ethics, consumer behavior, and organizational decision-making:

• Anusorn Singhapakdi, Ph.D. — Professor of Marketing, Strome College of Business, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia, United States. Dr. Singhapakdi is a prolific researcher in marketing ethics, corporate social responsibility, quality-of-life studies, and international business strategy.
• Scott J. Vitell, Ph.D. — Professor Emeritus of Marketing and holder of the Phil B. Hardin Chair of Marketing, School of Business Administration, University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi, United States. Dr. Vitell is recognized as an international authority on behavioral business ethics, moral philosophy in commerce, and consumer ethical orientations.
• K. C. Rao, Ph.D. — Academic researcher and organizational analyst who contributed to structural modeling and empirical data collection within foundational business ethics investigations.
• David L. Kurtz, Ph.D. — Emeritus Professor of Marketing and former R.A. and Donald Young Chair in Business Administration, Sam M. Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. Dr. Kurtz is an accomplished textbook author and management scholar focused on marketing pedagogy and strategy.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale (PRESOR) is to systematically evaluate how organizational decision-makers, practicing managers, employees, and future business professionals conceptualize the strategic value of ethical behavior and corporate social responsibility (CSR). In classical economic paradigms, typified by the neoclassical agency theory articulated by Milton Friedman, the overarching responsibility of corporate executives is framed almost exclusively as maximizing stockholder wealth while adhering to minimal legal boundaries. Conversely, modern stakeholder frameworks and normative socio-economic theories assert that organizations must attend to broader societal welfare, environmental integrity, and human flourishing as core components of long-term commercial vitality. The PRESOR operationalizes this intellectual tension, measuring whether an individual perceives ethical commitment and social responsibility as essential prerequisites for organizational success or as burdensome impediments to profitability and survival.

From an applied organizational perspective, the instrument serves several diagnostic functions. Human resource practitioners and organizational development consultants deploy the PRESOR to evaluate the ethical climate of firms, identify potential cultural discrepancies across functional divisions, and evaluate the efficacy of corporate ethics training programs. Discrepancies in subscale orientations among executive leadership often indicate systemic vulnerabilities, such as an excessive short-term operational focus that may predispose an enterprise to ethical misconduct, regulatory non-compliance, or catastrophic reputational damage.

In academic and pedagogical contexts, the PRESOR functions as a primary outcome measure within business education. Educational institutions use the scale in longitudinal cohort studies to determine whether core curricula in business ethics, sustainability, and stakeholder management alter the cognitive schemas of undergraduate and graduate students. By comparing baseline scores at matriculation against exit scores prior to graduation, researchers can empirically verify whether formal ethics instruction instills the conviction that ethical accountability and corporate profitability can constructively co-exist.

In cross-cultural and empirical behavioral research, the PRESOR provides a standardized, psychometrically grounded baseline for testing complex structural equation models. Scholars routinely employ the scale to investigate how macro-level national cultures, institutional regulatory environments, and individual moral philosophies interact to determine executive responses to ethical dilemmas, whistleblower disclosures, and corporate citizenship initiatives.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the PRESOR is the multidimensional cognitive representation of the utility, salience, and moral imperative of ethics and corporate social responsibility in determining organizational effectiveness. Rather than measuring an individual’s personal moral standards in isolation, the scale assesses cognitive schema regarding systemic organizational cause-and-effect relationships: specifically, whether prosocial behavior leads to corporate flourishing or competitive vulnerability.

The construct is comprised of three core dimensions identified through psychometric factor analysis:

1. Social Responsibility and Profitability

This dimension reflects an individual’s cognitive appraisal of the compatibility between societal stewardship and corporate financial success. Individuals scoring high on this dimension reject the assumption of a zero-sum trade-off between ethical commitment and profitability. Instead, they endorse the premise that “good ethics is good business.” They believe that maintaining ethical standards and social responsibility directly enhances an organization’s competitive posture in a globalized marketplace. Conversely, low scores on this factor signify a belief that adherence to strict ethical principles compromises firm competitiveness and that corporate survival mandates abandoning social responsibilities during severe market pressures.

2. Long-Term Gains

The Long-Term Gains factor captures the cognitive orientation toward sustainability, stakeholder welfare, and overarching organizational health across extended temporal horizons. This subscale measures the conviction that ethical operations, employee morale, and societal contributions are structural determinants of ultimate corporate survival and enduring profitability. An individual with a high orientation on this factor conceptualizes business as possessing normative responsibilities extending beyond net income. High scorers affirm that an enterprise’s total institutional effectiveness is intimately tied to its moral integrity, viewing ethics not merely as an expedient marketing mechanism, but as an essential philosophical anchor for long-term viability.

3. Short-Term Gains

The Short-Term Gains subscale operationalizes an instrumental, transactional, and hyper-pragmatic orientation toward corporate activity. This dimension assesses an individual’s inclination to prioritize immediate financial returns, stockholder satisfaction, and mechanical operational efficiency over normative ethical commitments. High scores on this factor reflect a willingness to subordinate moral considerations to rapid profit generation, including inclinations toward rule bending or rule breaking if commercial survival or revenue expansion appears to demand it. It measures an aggressive organizational schema wherein ethical reputational concerns are dismissed as subordinate to immediate technical and financial performance.

Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the PRESOR rests upon the convergence of several major theoretical models within administrative science, moral psychology, and organizational sociology:

1. Kraft and Jauch’s Organizational Effectiveness Menu

The structural origin of the PRESOR is grounded directly in the work of Kraft and Jauch (1992), who developed an “organizational effectiveness menu” to examine the relative standing of ethical priorities against traditional commercial metrics. Traditional organizational models historically ranked success almost exclusively along quantitative, fiscal dimensions: return on investment (ROI), output quality, market share, and operational efficiency. Kraft and Jauch integrated ethics and social responsibility directly into this evaluative taxonomy, demonstrating that managerial decision-makers assign varying weights to non-economic versus economic goals. Singhapakdi and colleagues (1996) synthesized these concepts into standardized psychometric items to quantify the cognitive weight assigned to ethics relative to financial benchmarks.

2. Rest’s Model of Moral Action and Cognitive Moral Development

The cognitive framing of the PRESOR aligns with James Rest’s Four-Component Model of Moral Functioning (1986), which posits that moral behavior is governed by four sequential processes: moral awareness (recognizing an ethical issue exists), moral judgment (deciding which course of action is morally right), moral motivation (prioritizing moral values relative to competing personal or organizational values), and moral character (possessing the fortitude to execute the decision). The PRESOR assesses the moral motivation and moral awareness components. If a manager does not perceive ethics as functionally vital to an organization’s ongoing survival and viability, their intrinsic motivation to prioritize ethical choices over immediate financial incentives is structurally undermined.

3. Stakeholder Theory vs. Stockholder Primacy

The PRESOR reflects the ongoing philosophical and strategic tension between the Shareholder Primacy Model formulated by Milton Friedman and the Stakeholder Theory championed by R. Edward Freeman (1984). Friedman’s doctrine conceptualizes any managerial allocation of corporate resources toward non-profit-maximizing social goals as a breach of fiduciary duty. Conversely, Freeman’s stakeholder paradigm argues that a firm represents a complex web of interdependent constituencies—including employees, consumers, communities, suppliers, and shareholders—all of whom have legitimate claims on the enterprise. The items in PRESOR directly map this theoretical divergence, contrasting the belief that “if the stockholders are unhappy, nothing else matters” with the premise that “business has a social responsibility beyond making a profit.”

Validity

The psychometric validity of the PRESOR has been evaluated through multiple methodological protocols, demonstrating robust construct, content, face, convergent, and predictive validity:

Content and Face Validity

During the initial instrument development by Singhapakdi et al. (1996), the provisional 13-item pool was submitted to a panel of expert judges consisting of university professors of marketing and doctoral researchers specializing in organizational behavior. This panel systematically examined each candidate item for lexical clarity, semantic ambiguity, structural triviality, and construct congruence. The judges confirmed that the scale items adequately and exhaustively represented the target domain: the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility in organizational effectiveness. Face validity was corroborated by administering the instrument to independent evaluators who were tasked with identifying the core construct measured; responses consistently converged on themes of corporate morality, organizational values, and the strategic importance of social responsibility.

Predictive and Convergent Validity

To establish predictive and convergent validity, Singhapakdi et al. (1996) executed zero-order correlation analyses and multiple regression models evaluating the relationship between the three PRESOR factors and established psychometric instruments: the Ethical Ideology Taxonomy (Forsyth, 1980) and the Socially Responsible Attitude Scale (Hunt, Kiecker, & Chonko, 1990).

The theoretical propositions were confirmed:

• Idealism (the degree to which an individual believes that desirable outcomes can always be attained without harming others) exhibited positive, statistically significant correlations with both the Social Responsibility and Profitability factor and the Long-Term Gains factor. Idealistic individuals systematically perceive corporate ethics as synergistic with sustained profitability.
• Relativism (the rejection of universal moral principles in favor of situational, skeptical evaluations) demonstrated positive correlations with the Short-Term Gains factor and negative correlations with the Social Responsibility and Profitability dimension. Relativistic individuals were significantly more likely to endorse prioritizing stockholder wealth and competitive survival over moral commitments.
• Socially Responsible Attitude demonstrated significant positive regression coefficients predicting the Long-Term Gains dimension, confirming that general prosocial personal values translate into specific beliefs concerning corporate efficacy.

Cross-Cultural and External Validity

Subsequent investigations have substantiated the scale’s construct validity internationally. Vitell, Ramos, and Nishihara (2010) examined Spanish executives and observed structural convergence across the primary subscales, mirroring findings established in North American corporate populations. Singhapakdi et al. (2001) demonstrated the cross-national predictive utility of PRESOR across diverse marketing professionals globally, showing that executive scores on PRESOR systematically predict downstream behavioral intentions regarding deceptive marketing, product safety, and ethical dilemma resolutions.

Reliability

The internal consistency reliability of the PRESOR subscales has been assessed across various professional, academic, and cultural contexts using Cronbach’s coefficient alpha ($\alpha$):

Initial Development Sample

In the foundational scale development study by Singhapakdi et al. (1996), which evaluated 153 upper-level undergraduate and graduate (master’s) business students enrolled across three major United States business schools (situated in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and Southern regions), the subscale reliabilities were established as follows:

• Factor 1: Social Responsibility and Profitability (4 items): $\alpha = 0.71$
• Factor 2: Long-Term Gains (6 items): $\alpha = 0.57$
• Factor 3: Short-Term Gains (3 items): $\alpha = 0.64$

Although the reliability coefficient for the Long-Term Gains factor was modest ($\alpha = 0.57$), the authors grounded its psychometric acceptability in the foundational criteria articulated by Nunnally (1978), which notes that reliability coefficients spanning 0.50 to 0.60 are deemed sufficient and acceptable during the early phases of theoretical construct formulation and exploratory scale construction.

Subsequent Replication Studies

Subsequent psychometric investigations have reported variations in coefficient alphas depending on sample characteristics and methodological adaptations:

• In studies examining working managers and marketing executives (e.g., Singhapakdi et al., 2001), subscale internal reliabilities frequently improve, often yielding alpha coefficients ranging between 0.68 and 0.82 across the composite dimensions. Working professionals with extensive organizational experience tend to possess more crystallized cognitive frameworks regarding corporate strategy than university students, reducing measurement noise.
• In international adaptations (e.g., Vitell et al., 2010), when structural equation modeling or confirmatory factor analysis modifications are implemented (occasionally trimming low-loading items such as the item addressing “employee morale”), composite reliability metrics and Cronbach’s alphas routinely exceed 0.75 for the core factors.
• Test-retest stability metrics over brief intervals (2 to 4 weeks) in educational evaluation settings have demonstrated temporal stability coefficients exceeding $r = 0.73$, indicating that the instrument captures stable cognitive attitudes rather than fleeting situational states.

Factor Analysis

The structural dimensionality of the PRESOR was originally determined using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Singhapakdi et al. (1996) subjected the 13 raw scale items to a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) accompanied by an orthogonal Varimax rotation with Kaiser normalization.

Initial Factor Extraction

The exploratory factor analysis extracted three distinct components possessing eigenvalues greater than 1.0, accounting for a substantial proportion of the total explained variance across the item inventory:

• Factor 1: Social Responsibility and Profitability: Loaded strongly on four items that balance ethical adherence against commercial performance. Key loadings included statements asserting that “Social responsibility and profitability can be compatible” and that “Good ethics is often good business,” accompanied by reverse loadings on items stating that business firms must disregard ethics to remain competitive or ensure survival.
• Factor 2: Long-Term Gains: Composed of six items emphasizing sustained organizational health, the social purpose of business beyond fiscal return, institutional survival, and employee morale. Factor loadings for this component were highest on items asserting that “The ethics and social responsibility of a firm are essential to its long-term profitability” and “Business has a social responsibility beyond making a profit.”
• Factor 3: Short-Term Gains: Defined by three items focusing on narrow transactional imperatives. The strongest loadings were observed on items prioritizing stockholder happiness above all else, maximizing profits even if rules must be bent or broken, and prioritizing operational efficiency over ethical reputation.

Alternative Factor Solutions in Literature

Subsequent structural investigations by independent management researchers have noted that the factor structure of PRESOR can vary depending on cultural context and sample composition:

• The Two-Factor Solution: Several empirical studies (e.g., Etheredge, 1999) conducted confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) that indicated a two-factor structure may offer a cleaner fit in specific corporate environments. In this framework, the items collapse into a bipartite model contrasting an Importance of Ethics dimension (combining Social Responsibility and Long-Term Gains) against a Subordination of Ethics dimension (Short-Term Gains).
• Goodness-of-Fit Parameters: In modern structural equation modeling applications using CFA, modified three-factor models demonstrating acceptable goodness-of-fit indices typically report Comparative Fit Indices ($\text{CFI}$) $> 0.90$, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation ($\text{RMSEA}$) $< 0.08$, and Standardized Root Mean Square Residual ($\text{SRMR}$)$< 0.06$, after permitting appropriate covariances between conceptually related error terms.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale (PRESOR)
• Original Authors: Anusorn Singhapakdi, Scott J. Vitell, K. C. Rao, and David L. Kurtz
• Year Published: 1996
• Construct Assessed: Individual cognitive perceptions regarding the strategic importance, necessity, and role of ethics and corporate social responsibility in organizational success and effectiveness
• Administration Format: Self-administered paper-and-pencil questionnaire or computerized online survey
• Target Population: Business executives, practicing managers, administrative personnel, organizational employees, and business administration students (undergraduate and postgraduate)
• Number of Items: 13 declarative statements (with core subsets analyzed across various psychometric studies)
• Subscales / Dimensions:
  • Factor 1: Social Responsibility and Profitability (4 items)
  • Factor 2: Long-Term Gains (6 items)
  • Factor 3: Short-Term Gains (3 items)
• Response Format: 9-point disagree-agree Likert continuum:
  • $1 = \text{Disagree}$
  • $9 = \text{Agree}$
  • (Intermediate points $2$ through $8$ represent progressive increments of agreement between the two conceptual anchors)
• Scoring and Transformation Procedures:
  • Reverse-scored items are inverted prior to subscale summation or averaging using the transformation formula: $\text{Score}_{\text{reversed}} = 10 – \text{Score}_{\text{raw}}$.
  • Subscale scores are typically calculated by computing the arithmetic mean across the respective dimension items, yielding a composite index ranging from $1.0$ to $9.0$.
  • Higher scores on the Social Responsibility and Profitability and Long-Term Gains factors indicate a stronger belief in the strategic importance of ethical stewardship.
  • Higher scores on the Short-Term Gains factor indicate an instrumental disposition prioritizing immediate financial and operational metrics over moral accountability.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility Scale (PRESOR) was developed and introduced in 1996 via publication in the Journal of Business Ethics. As an academic psychometric instrument published within peer-reviewed scientific literature, the scale is generally accessible for non-commercial scholarly research, psychological investigation, and educational assessment without royal payment or licensing fees.

Scholars and behavioral researchers seeking to deploy the scale in formal investigations are expected to properly cite the foundational development paper (Singhapakdi et al., 1996). When utilizing the instrument in commercial consulting, organizational diagnostics, or fee-generating leadership evaluation settings, researchers and practitioners should contact the copyright holders or corresponding authors (via Springer Nature or academic affiliations) to confirm permissions and compliance with intellectual property standards.

References

• Etheredge, J. M. (1999). The perceived role of ethics and social responsibility: An alternative substance. Journal of Business Ethics, 22(1), 51–64. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006091404655
• Forsyth, D. R. (1980). A taxonomy of ethical ideologies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39(1), 175–184. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.39.1.175
• Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Pitman.
• Hunt, S. D., Kiecker, P. L., & Chonko, L. B. (1990). Social responsibility and personal success: A research note. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 18(3), 239–244. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02726475
• Kraft, K. L., & Jauch, L. R. (1992). The organizational effectiveness menu: A device for stakeholder assessment. Mid-American Journal of Business, 7(1), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1108/19355181199200003
• Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric Theory (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
• Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral Development: Advances in Research and Theory. Praeger Publishers.
• Singhapakdi, A., Vitell, S. J., Rao, K. C., & Kurtz, D. L. (1996). The perceived role of ethics and social responsibility: A scale development. Journal of Business Ethics, 15(11), 1131–1140. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00412812
• Singhapakdi, A., Karande, K., Rao, C. P., & Vitell, S. J. (2001). How important are ethics and social responsibility? A multinational study of marketing professionals. European Journal of Marketing, 35(1/2), 133–152. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090560110363388
• Vitell, S. J., Ramos, E., & Nishihara, C. M. (2010). The role of ethics and social responsibility in organizational success: A Spanish perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(4), 467–483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0134-9

Items of the Scale