paper - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Transcription
paper - The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading: Privileging Clout in Admissions at the University of Illinois Nathan F. Harris Ph.D. Candidate Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education University of Michigan 2015 AERA Annual Conference April 16, 2015 I welcome any comments on this paper. Feel free to write me at [email protected]. The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Abstract Most policy recommendations in higher education characterize ethical misconduct as a problem of individual moral failings that can be fixed by adopting more stringent rules. This article, however, explores an alternative thesis. It examines a secret "clout list" and "shadow" undergraduate admissions process for high-profile applicants at the University of Illinois; the exposure of this process in 2009 prompted the resignation of the University's president, numerous trustees and the Urbana-Champaign chancellor. The article, which analyzes extensive public testimony from a state investigative commission, advances our theoretical understanding of ethical misconduct in colleges and universities by clarifying the relationship between the ethical traps of cognitive biases and the environmental factors and organizational structures that aggravate these psychological tendencies. It animates the concept of "ethical fading" to explain why and how academic leaders can rationalize misconduct as serving institutional strategic interests. It also demonstrates how organizational routines can exacerbate ethical fading, which helps to explain why and how ethical misconduct is an organizational problem. In demonstrating a relationship between organizational routines and ethical fading, the article also clarifies how academic leaders shape ethical misconduct and reveals how organizational routines that serve as "truces" inside organizations can constitute ethical "hotspots." The article concludes by specifying opportunities for future research on ethical fading in higher education. Keywords ethics; admissions; cognitive biases; organizational theory; leadership; governance; politics of higher education; qualitative research; scandal; equity 1 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) During the 2000s, a renewed focus on ethical conduct emerged from scandals inside and outside of higher education. The American Council on Education (ACE), for example, explained, “New economic demands and emerging forms of financial and academic relationships … mean that even the most scrupulous collegiate leader sometimes needs guidance to discern the most ethical course of action” (ACE, 2008, p. 1). To address these pressures, ACE (2008) recommended “basic precepts” for administrators, faculty, staff and trustees to consider when developing codes of conduct. Similarly, the Association of Governing Boards (AGB) asserted that the responsibilities of trustees extend beyond ensuring fiscal health to avoiding a broader range of transgressions (AGB, 2006, 2009). In “The New Ethics of Trusteeship,” Leslie and MacTaggart (2008) stressed that a board’s most important responsibility was to protect the public’s trust and suggested numerous ethical reforms, including conducting “ethical audits.” Although these recommendations are useful, they offer incomplete remedies for curtailing ethical misconduct. To echo Bertram Gallant and Kalichman (2011), reforms too often characterize misconduct as individual moral failings that could be fixed by adopting more stringent rules. The following article advances this perspective by analyzing a secret admissions process for high-profile applicants at the University of Illinois (UI). In May 2009, the Chicago Tribune reported that UI senior administrators had long maintained a “clout list” of “special interest” applicants applying to undergraduate and graduate programs. The list for undergraduate admissions, “Category I,” included applicants with connections to prominent donors, political officials and trustees and administrators. Most special applicants were white; in 2009, 32 of 33 overturned decisions involved white applicants (ARC, 2009i). A “significant percentage” of Category I applicants also hailed from affluent suburbs; over one third came from three high schools outside of Chicago (ARC, 2009i, p. 15). 2 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) The list was created to prevent special applicants from “falling through the cracks,” but it evolved into a “shadow” process for granting preferential treatment in admissions. Category I applicants tended to report lower test scores and class ranks than other applicants, but they enjoyed a higher acceptance rate than their unconnected peers (ARC, 2009i). Administrators even overturned the denial decisions of Category I applicants, including 33 cases in 2009 (ARC, 2009i, p. 15). A state panel established to investigate this preferential treatment, the Admissions Commission Review (ARC), concluded, "undue influence compromised the fairness and integrity of admissions on a systemic basis" at UI (ARC, 2009i, p. 3). The culprits behind the process were not rogue admissions officers, but UI’s senior leaders, including trustees and the Urbana-Champaign chancellor. The Commission found, “Category I derived its lifeblood from the active participation of, and tone set by, those at the top of the University … Officials routinely did nothing to block or diffuse the pressure (or worse, amplified it)" (ARC, 2009i, p. 1). This article advances our theoretical understanding of ethical misconduct in colleges and universities by articulating the relationship between the ethical traps of cognitive biases and the organizational structures and environmental factors that aggravate these psychological tendencies. First, the article animates the concept of “ethical fading” to explain why and how academic leaders can rationalize misconduct as serving institutional interests. Second, it demonstrates how organizational routines can exacerbate ethical fading, which helps to explain why and how ethical misconduct is an organizational problem. Third, in demonstrating this relationship between routines and ethical fading, the article reveals the adaptability of routines and clarifies how academic leaders shape ethical misconduct. Fourth, it defines organizational routines that serve as “truces” as "hotspots" for ethical fading due to the implicit dimensions of 3 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) truces. Through these contributions, this article deepens and expands earlier promising research on ethical misconduct in higher education (Bastedo, 2009; Bertram Gallant, 2011). The structure of this article aims to capture the narrative character of case study research. After analyzing the concept of ethical fading from behavioral ethics and the concept of organizational routines from organizational behavior, I describe my analytical method for analyzing data from the Admissions Review Commission. The analysis is organized into four subsections: the official admissions process; the Category I admissions process; the environmental context shaping the Category I process; and rationales for why administrators and trustees participated in the Category I process. The discussion focuses on three conclusions: environmental cues triggered self-deception mechanisms, including self-serving euphemisms, that stimulated ethical fading and enabled administrators and trustees to ignore the ethical considerations of offering preferential treatment to privileged applicants; this ethical fading was aggravated by dimensions of the Category I organizational routine, including a deliberate constriction of authority; and the process constituted an organizational truce for managing a competing set of institutional priorities across a complex network of relationships, which suppressed the ethical reflection of senior administrators and trustees. The final section specifies opportunities for future research on ethical fading in higher education. Theoretical Framework Bounded Ethicality & Ethical Fading Recent research in behavioral ethics reveals how otherwise ethical individuals can make unethical decisions. This research asserts that ethical misconduct doesn’t stem from individuals calculating the pros and cons of corruption, but rather from cognitive failings that impair decision-making (Banaji, Bazerman & Chugh, 2003; Chugh & Bazerman, 2007; Cain, 4 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Loewenstein & Moore, 2005; Moore & Loewenstein, 2004; Moore, Tetlock, Tanlu, & Bazerman, 2006; Moore & Gino, 2013). By extending Herbert Simon's (1983) concept of "bounded rationality," Bazerman and Chugh (2005) defined “bounded awareness” as “an individual’s failure to ‘see’ and use accessible and perceivable information while ‘seeing’ and using other equally accessible and perceivable information” (p. 2). Similarly, Chugh, Bazerman and Banaji (2005) articulated “bounded ethicality” as the “critical constraint” or “limitation in recognizing the ethical challenge inherent in a situation or decision” (p. 75).1 This research illustrates that due to cognitive biases, individuals construe situations that prioritize their own concerns at the expense of “objective” ethical considerations. In one example, Moore et al (2006) specified the process of “moral seduction” or when individuals are “unaware of the gradual accumulation of pressures on them to slant their conclusions” (p. 11). By exploring the work of independent auditors, they found that cognitive biases such as selective perception are more likely to explain instances of misconduct than premeditated acts of corruption. In the higher education literature, Bastedo (2009) recast the problem of trustee independence through this conceptual lens. Threats to independence, including political loyalties and professional expertise, stemmed from trustees prioritizing their own interests through motivated reasoning rather than “malicious intent.” Whereas moral seduction describes how individuals come to understate the ethical conflicts shaping their behavior, other research in behavioral ethics illustrates how individuals dismiss the existence of such conflicts. Messick and Bazerman (1996) were among the first to question whether executives even notice ethical dimensions when making decisions due to selfserving biases. Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004) advanced this argument, specifically defining the 1 Bazerman and Tenbrunsel (2011) briefly mention the Category I process, describing it as an example of bounded ethicality (pp. 40-42). 5 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) term "ethical fading" to describe the process by which “the moral colors of an ethical decision fade into bleached hues that are void of moral implications" (p. 224). With ethical fading, environmental cues trigger self-deception mechanisms that narrow the decision frames of individuals; self-interest ultimately privileges interpretations of cues that ignore ethical considerations. They argue that these self-deception mechanisms are pervasive in organizational life: euphemistic language; psychological numbing such as induction; errors in perceptual causation such as focusing on individuals rather than systems and committing acts of omission; and constrained representation of “objective” truth (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004). To protect their ethical self-images, individuals eliminate “negative ethical characterizations or distort them into positive ones” (Tenbrunsel & Messick, 2004, p. 232). Organizational Routines Despite this recent research in behavioral ethics, scholars have yet to explore how organizational structures shape the self-deception mechanisms that exacerbate bounded ethicality such as ethical fading. More generally, we know that structures such as the division of labor and organizational routines shape misconduct (Brief, Bertram & Dukerich, 2001; Palmer, 2008). Vaughan (1999), for example, coined the term “structural secrecy” to describe how division of labor, hierarchy and specialization segregate knowledge about tasks and goals in ways that perpetuate misconduct in organizations. By formalizing misconduct in organizational routines, employees might not notice unethical behaviors that would typically prompt concerns because routinization "blunts" awareness that a moral issue is even at stake (Ashforth & Anand, 2003). Upon closer examination, organizational routines might affect ethical fading for reasons beyond fostering mindlessness. Research in organizational behavior has long stressed the role of routines in organizing work. Cyert and March (1963) described routines as "standard operating 6 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) procedures" and "the memory of an organization” (p. 101). Nelson and Winter (1982) later defined routines as "regular and predictable behavior patterns of firms" (p. 14), likening them to genes that are heritable and selectable by the environment. Feldman and Pentland (2003) refined this definition to be “repetitive, recognizable patterns of interdependent action, carried out by multiple actors” (p. 95). Early research on routines stressed their role in reducing cognitive strain (March & Simon, 1958), but routines have been found to be more than "simple rules of thumbs to address regular decisions" (Parmigiani & Howard-Grenville, 2011, p. 416). Nelson and Winter (1982), for example, envisioned a political dimension to routines, arguing that routines serve as a "truce" between subunits to "avoid procedural warfare" (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 98). More recently, research on routines has emphasized their adaptability. Routines not only provide stability, but also reflect change as organizations learn how to adapt to their environment (Cohen et al, 1996). In exploring the planning routine of a high-tech manufacturing company, Howard-Grenville (2005) found that employees approached routines with different intentions, demonstrating a role for individual agency with routines. Similarly, Feldman and Pentland (2003) envisioned a duality with routines: the abstract, idealized understanding of the routine (ostensive aspects) and the “performance” of the routine in specific places and times (performative aspects). They conceptualize a recursive relationship between these ostensive and performative aspects, which constitutes an ongoing enactment or “effortful accomplishment” of the routine that generates new understandings of the routine. An implication of this new perspective is that routines not only change in response to exogenous pressures, but also enable endogenous change in organizations (Feldman & Pentland, 2003). Scholars have traditionally explained organizational change as the product of exogenous events such as introducing new technologies, reflecting the belief that routines foster “structural 7 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) inertia” that stymies change (Weick & Quinn, 1999). This new emphasis on the adaptability of routines, however, implies that routines could be mechanisms for ethical fading as executives, staff and stakeholders codify interpretations of environmental pressures and organizational idiosyncrasies into structures that preserve and privilege self-serving meanings regardless of “objective” ethical considerations. Research Design Data & Method My investigation of the Category I admissions process applies the case study method. Case studies present rich empirical descriptions of a phenomenon within a specific setting (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 1994). By embracing this “rich, real-world context,” case studies stimulate theory development because they investigate “research questions that address ‘how’ and ‘why’ in unexplored research areas” (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007, pp. 25-7). Research in organizational behavior has long applied the case study method to analyze instances of organizational misconduct (Vaughan, 1999). My data derives from the Admissions Review Commission (ARC). In June 2009, Governor Pat Quinn established the Commission to examine UI’s admissions practices, including the policies that “provide favorable consideration to applicants” (ARC, 2009i, p. 8). The Commission conducted its investigation over summer 2009, submitting its final report in August 2009. A clear charge of the Commission was exploring whether Governor Rod Blagojevich’s administration interfered with admissions. Mr. Blagojevich had been arrested in December 2008 on corruption charges and removed from office by the Illinois General Assembly in January 2009. 8 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) The Commission collected data from three main sources (ARC, 2009i). First, staff reviewed more than 9,000 pages of UI documents, including emails about Category I applicants. Second, staff interviewed more than 40 individuals, including UI‘s trustees and president, former UI presidents, the Urbana-Champaign chancellor, several UI deans, UI staff in admissions and governmental relations, state legislators, high school counselors and experts in university governance and admissions. Third, the Commission conducted 12 public hearings, featuring testimony from 30 witnesses, including trustees and administrators who had been interviewed by staff. My data consists of three artifacts from the Commission’s investigation: 1) recordings and transcripts of public hearings; 2) its final report; and 3) documents such as emails. In particular, the recordings and transcripts of the public hearings are essential data. Public inquiries – and the final reports they produce – not only aim to uncover evidence in order to allocate blame and responsibility, but also serve to defend, and potentially re-establish, the legitimacy of organizations under scrutiny (Gephart, 1984; Gephart et. al, 1990). Brown (2000) reminds us that final inquiry reports can constitute “a monologue, a univocal representation that omits, marginalizes and selectivity highlights in its suppression of interpretative plurality,” adding that the “latent intent” of these reports “is to close down rather than open competing plotlines; to curtail not encourage skeptical questioning” (p. 67, 68). Data analysis, which will be detailed in the next subsection, revealed that the final report did not include key aspects of the Category I process that were explored during public hearings. With the rich data that was collected before and during the public hearings, I am able to profile a multiplicity of voices that shaped the Category I process. 9 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Data Analysis The systematic coding of transcripts was the primary means of data analysis, reflecting the methodological norms of qualitative inquiry (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The coding of transcripts and reports consisted of several phases. The first phase was reading witness testimony. The second phase, open coding, entailed analyzing testimony and coding it into units of raw data. This analysis revealed eight broad themes: a) description of the official admissions process; b) description of one’s involvement in the official process; c) description of the Category I process; d) description of one’s involvement in the Category I process; e) description of specific cases of preferential treatment in admissions; f) description of political interference in admissions; g) description of environmental factors shaping admissions; and h) recommendations for improving UI’s admissions processes. The third phase of analysis, axial coding, entailed translating emergent codes into organizing concepts such as explanations for participating in the Category I process. This analytical process ultimately revealed two selective codes, ethical fading and organizational routines, that described behavior at higher levels of abstraction (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Suddaby, 2006). This analytical method proved fruitful in two respects. First, it did not impose a predetermined conceptual framework on the data. The interpretation describing ethical fading and organizational routines emanated from the voices of administrators and trustees during their public testimony. Second, and as noted earlier, this approach revealed that the Commission did not fully explore evidence detailing the official undergraduate admissions process and the Category I process in favor of detailing egregious examples of preferential treatment in admissions that occurred in some graduate programs (such as the law school). My analysis, therefore, provides a fresh opportunity to explore the dynamics of the Category I process. 10 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Limitations There are several limitations with this research. First, the public testimony offers rich description from participants in the Category I process, but it could reflect a social desirability bias in which individuals were offering post-hoc rationalizations of their behavior. Despite this possibility, commissioners asked many questions about specific examples of preferential treatment, including email exchanges documenting such treatment; witnesses hoping to recast their actions in different and more positive lights were constrained by the content of these artifacts. Moreover, the Commission interviewed numerous participants, allowing commissioners and the general counsel to triangulate interpretations of events from extensive documentary evidence and testimony from numerous individuals. Second, the Commission conducted its investigation and published its findings in just over two months. This ambitious timeframe left little time for commissioners to ask open-ended questions of witnesses to describe their motivation for participating in the Category I process. This concern, however, is somewhat mitigated by commissioners asking numerous clarifying questions of witnesses during public hearings, which forced individuals to describe their participation in the process. Research Findings The research findings are organized into four subsections: a) analysis of the official undergraduate admissions process; b) analysis of the Category I admissions process; c) analysis of the environmental context shaping the Category I process; and d) analysis of the reasons administrators and trustees offered to explain their participation in the Category I process. Woven together, these findings reveal the extent to which special applicants received preferential treatment, substantiate the shadow process as a formal organizational routine and specify the environmental cues that ultimately triggered ethical fading among administrators and trustees. 11 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Official Admissions Process at UI The principle of "holistic review" guided the official undergraduate admissions process. Admissions officers from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions (OUA) and in colleges rated applications using numerous criteria, including academic performance and rigor, scores on standardized tests, academic interests, extracurricular activities, personal characteristics, special personal talents and individual circumstances. According to Stacey Kostell, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, "we're evaluating that student based on what's available at their high school and what they've taken advantage of" (ARC, 2009d, 5:19:23). Although OUA admitted 30 percent of applicants automatically because of high grades and test scores, it conducted comprehensive reviews of most applicants, including those to prestigious programs such as engineering (ARC, 2009i). Most applications were evaluated by at least two admissions officers and ranked a "1," "2," "3," "4" or "5" – "1" was the best score and "5" was the worst score. The official admissions process included notification deadlines in December and February. In December, OUA assigned applicants into one of three categories: admitted, denied or deferred (ARC, 2009i). At this stage, admissions admitted applicants rated "1" and denied applicants rated "5” whereas most applicants rated a “2,” “3” or "4" comprised the "deferred" category. Before the February deadline, committees of admissions officers and college staff reviewed deferred applicants. Admissions officers then assigned all remaining applicants into one of three categories: admitted, waitlisted or denied (ARC, 2009i). In 2009, UI received over 26,000 applications, granted admissions to roughly 17,000 applicants and enrolled about 7,000 of these applicants (UI, n.d.). 12 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) “Category I” Admissions Process The Category I process, which remained a secret to most faculty, administrators and staff, reflected an approach to admissions that one former dean described as a "well-oiled, selfdescribed ‘system’ for dealing with ‘special interest applicants’ … with connections to elected officials, donors and trustees” (ARC, 2009i, p. 26). According to Chancellor Richard Herman, UI had been “tracking” high-profile applicants for “decades” (ARC, 2009c, 1:26). In his opening statement to the Commission, Trustee Larry Eppley explained, “My prior role as board chair received admission inquiries from many sources. I followed the established admissions protocol and the decades-old policy on special consideration for admission” (ARC, 2009e, 3:48). While the “watchlist” totaled 100 applicants per year in the late-1990s, it had increased to more than 150 applicants per year by the mid-2000s (ARC, 2009c). The Category I protocol evolved into a more formal process for several reasons. First, senior administrators came to realize that monitoring special applicants did not provide sufficient control to manage relationships with high-profile sponsors in 2002 after an embarrassing situation in which the grandson of a former governor was denied admissions through the official process (ARC, 2009b). Second, the implementation of a new enrollment management system “streamlined” the shadow process. The "Category I" name actually came from a field for special applicants in the Banner Enrollment Management Suite, which UI implemented for undergraduate admissions in the mid-2000s. Its functionality allowed admissions officers to “tag” special applicants with a "red strike" or "red stripe” (ARC, 2009d) and any UI staff with access to the system to generate sophisticated reports about applicants. Third, Chancellor Herman steadily secured authority over the Category I process. The Commission characterized Herman as "the ultimate decision-maker with respect to Category I 13 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) applicants" (ARC, 2009i, p. 15). While serving as provost of the Urbana-Champaign campus, he assumed responsibility for fielding admissions queries from trustees because admissions reported through the provost’s office; and when Herman became chancellor, he continued this work despite OUA not reporting through the chancellor’s office (ARC, 2009d). Trustee David Dorris, for example, testified that upon joining the board, Herman recommended channeling admissions inquiries through the chancellor’s office (ARC, 2009f). To manage the process, Herman convened secret meetings prior to notification deadlines that included Rick Schoell (Executive Director, Governmental Relations) and Keith Marshall (Associate Provost for Enrollment Management). All Category I applicants were discussed in these meetings; at times, this smaller group considered admitting applicants who had been denied or waitlisted through the official process. In addition to these meetings, there were “rolling” discussions among Herman, Marshall and staff in governmental relations to address specific Category I applicants. In its final incarnation, the Category I process provided senior administrators increasing flexibility to manage relationships with key stakeholders. First, in deference to sponsors, admissions officers could not deny Category I applicants without consulting the referring individual (ARC, 2009i). Second, Category I applicants were often placed in a "holding pattern" in which they were either deferred after the December notification or waitlisted after the February notification (ARC, 2009i). To deflect criticism from counselors at feeder high schools, overturned applicants were admitted late in the admissions cycle – even into June (ARC, 2009i). Third, Category I applicants disproportionately benefited from appeals: the rate of appeal for special applicants was 50 percent, but it was only 10 percent for other applicants (ARC, 2009i). 14 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Deteriorating Environment Creates “Extreme Stress” During public meetings, administrators and trustees allayed most concerns that Governor Blagojevich had interfered with undergraduate admissions. They, however, acknowledged an increasing number of special applicants. Trustee Dr. Ken Schmidt, for example, characterized special inquiries as an “epidemic”; he was receiving inquiries “all the time” (ARC, 2009e, 3:11:11). The most prevalent factor identified for the increase was economic anxiety. Trustee Schmidt explained, “The more the economy had turned, the more inquiries we were getting” (ARC, 2009e, 3:12:30). Chancellor Herman believed that UI provided in-state students “great value” amidst tough economic times, which exacerbated UI’s increasing selectivity and stimulated an increase in the number of special applicants (ARC, 2009c, 27:03). Moreover, administrators and trustees voiced anxiety over UI’s fiscal future. Trustee Eppley, who had served as board chair for longer than his predecessors, was “concerned about protecting the University” after years of rescissions and decreased funding (ARC, 2009e, 15:31). In FY1980, UI received $1.32 billion in state appropriations, but by FY2009, it was receiving $718.5 million from the state (UI, 2008, p. 11). Its fiscal situation worsened during the 2000s – before and during Governor Blagojevich’s tenure. During the early 2000s, UI received consecutive mid-year rescissions totaling over $75 million; and these cuts were compounded by a decline in appropriations of more than 16 percent, representing a loss of $130 million, between FY2002 and FY2005 (UI, 2008, p. 6). As asserted in UI’s FY2010 budget proposal, “reductions placed extreme stress on the University” and “State budget difficulties during the last dozen years has significantly eroded the resource base of the University of Illinois” (UI, 2008, p. 6). This anxiety over resources concerned commissioners – wasn’t there a “natural incentive” to favor applicants sponsored by officials who controlled UI’s appropriations? The 15 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Chicago Tribune echoed this tension, describing “an awkward situation in which university officials are taking requests from legislators who hold the school’s purse strings and trustees who are, in essence, their bosses” (Cohen, St. Clair & Malone, 2009, p. 1). Chancellor Herman acknowledged, “we can't be naive as to the world we live in” (ARC, 2009c, 20:12), and described his actions as helping to “secure the broader interests of the institution” (ARC, 2009c, 23:31). Dr. James Stukel, a former UI president, further warned commissioners of the ethical hazards accompanying UI’s dynamic economic and political environment. “So here you sit, thinking about how can I do favors to do – to get something in return” (ARC, 2009h, 1:14:30). In a letter to Governor Pat Quinn, UI’s Faculty Senate recognized that decisions had “been made with an eye toward what these leaders thought would be best for the institution – maintaining good relations with state officials, donors, and others” (UI, 2009, para 24). Rationalizing the Category I Process During the Commission’s public hearings, senior administrators and trustees articulated four primary reasons for participating in the Category I admissions process, as described below. Being "Responsive" and "Courteous" Administrators and trustees emphasized being “courteous” and “responsive” to stakeholders who referred applicants. Staff in governmental relations considered admissions inquiries a form of constituent relations. Mr. Terrence McLennand, Assistant Director of State Relations, believed the Category I process strengthened relationships with legislators. To the extent that members contact us with a constituent request, which from the legislator perspective is no different when they get a call saying somebody – I can't get my tax refund, can you help get that dug out of the pile. I mean that – to the extent that we can answer, help them, assist, it helps our relations with the General 16 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Assembly ... Just as far as an inquiry, if they bring us an inquiry and we have an outcome that helps our relationship with the General Assembly (ARC, 2009b, 2:43:36). Richard Schoell, Executive Director for Governmental Relations, explained, “I believe it's my role to be responsive to members' requests as they come in because the interests they have in the University of Illinois” (ARC, 2009b, 1:12:08). Trustees stressed responsiveness not only to maintain relationships with public officials, but also to serve as sympathetic public stewards. Trustee Larry Eppley, who referred applicants with ties to Governor Blagojevich, expressed a perspective offered by many trustees: the citizens of Illinois deserved answers to their questions, including those concerning admissions. I wasn't hoping – I wasn’t demanding that ‘oh, this kid’s got to get in.’ None of that. These were anxious parents or anxious relatives. They have a question about admissions. The respectful thing to do, the courteous thing to do, the non-judgmental thing to do is if there can be a question answered or some sort of follow-up, whatever the issue is (ARC, 2009e, 1:35:53). Trustee David Dorris conveyed a similar sentiment, saying, “These people, when they contact me, what I want is information so I can go back and give them an answer. Not be rude, not be a cold bureaucratic organization, but give them information and it’s the end of the subject” (ARC, 2009f, 3:19:52). Senior administrators, including Chancellor Richard Herman and President Joseph White, also espoused this ethic of responsiveness. President White justified the special list “in order to respond courteously” to individuals (ARC, 2009i: 22). During his testimony, White supported the elimination of Category I, but argued that it humanized UI for prominent alumni and donors. I want to be completely realistic about this. This Commission is hearing a lot about 17 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) special treatment, favoritism. But understand we get complaints all the time about the University being a big, faceless bureaucracy. Unresponsive. And so, when we – if the answer to a prominent alum, which is probably what this is, is ‘thank you for calling, have Katie call the admissions office personally,’ the next thing I am going to hear from that person is 'you should see the way Princeton treats me. You should hear the way the University of Michigan treats me.' And that's just the fact (ARC, 2009i, 4:16:36). Similarly, Chancellor Herman stressed a need to maintain a special process as “a matter of courtesy." Although he regretted aspects of the Category I process, Herman underscored its benefits, particularly that "we are looked upon as being responsive" to trustees, donors, legislators and the governor's office (ARC, 2009c, 1:35:46). In contrast, Dr. Sidney Micek, President of the University of Illinois Foundation, recommended not eliminating the Category I process. He argued that it enabled “good stewardship” with donors (ARC, 2009g, 2:15:19). “I think it's important that admissions does its job … but ultimately … will not in any way disadvantage the University either, in the sense of, as a courtesy, allowing people who have invested in the University and who we want to keep investing in the University” (ARC, 2009g, 3:38:43). Creating Educational Opportunities Senior administrators and trustees asserted that the Category I process created educational opportunities for applicants. Despite evidence to the contrary, some administrators and trustees believed the process benefited under-represented students. Dr. James Stukel, a former UI president, emphasized creating opportunities for students across the entire state. During my presidency, I traveled 100,000 miles in my car to 48 communities 18 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) in Illinois. And the idea was to put a face on the University all over the state because we are the state's university ... In many of those meetings that I had with alums, with editorial boards, with people that come to the event, there were many stories that were big to them … There is a whole bunch of these quirky things where they don't quite fit in the [admissions] model … valedictorians who are in a small downstate community. They, their ACT may not be as high as others, but they didn't get in. They need a vehicle (ARC, 2009h, 37:53). Similarly, Trustee Dorris differentiated between forwarding applicants who were relatives or business associates and those who were from rural communities. "I don't apologize for me advocating for the downstate or small rural schools. They don't score as well as on the ACT. They just don't have the educational background" (ARC, 2009f, 3:39:08). In addition to geographical diversity, Trustee Frances Carroll justified her involvement as a means of advocating for racial diversity. She forwarded the names of applicants through the Category I process in hopes of increasing enrollment among students of color (ARC, 2009d). Trustee Niranjan Shah, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, similarly framed his advocacy of Indian students as increasing the representation of international students on campus (ARC, 2009f). A more common rationale for creating educational opportunities, however, was protecting applicants who deserved “a second look." Along with current and former administrators, trustees described examples in which their intervention secured admission for wronged applicants. Trustee Dr. Ken Schmidt described advocacy as a remedy for "the special circumstance when you know something is awry" (ARC, 2009e, 3:43:03). "What do you do then? Do you go back to the student and discuss it … where do you take that concern? If you 19 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) can't advocate for anybody nobody has an advocate" (ARC, 2009e, 3:43:07). In fact, Trustee Schmidt considered advocacy part of his duty as a trustee. I believe in my heart of hearts that if you are a trustee in the University, you, you were appointed by the governor and approved by the senate, then all of a sudden you have an obligation to the University and anything that has to do with it. And if you have a chance to advocate for a good cause or a student, then maybe you should think about doing that (ARC, 2009e, 3:05:37). Although Trustee Shah regretted “inquiring” about some applicants, he described many efforts as requesting that admissions “take a second look” at applicants who did not have “direct access” to “power” (ARC, 2009f, 1:47:58). On a similar note, former President Stukel lamented the lack of a “relief valve” for qualified students who were denied admissions (ARC, 2009h, 37:00). “For example, ‘why is it that my son had an ACT of 34 and did not get into the University of Illinois?’ If I’m a parent, I sure as heck want to know why that's the case. So where do they go?” (ARC, 2009h, 38:23). Staff in governmental relations shared this concern. Mr. McLennand believed it was his responsibility to “bring forward” admissions cases that legislators thought “deserved a second look” (ARC, 2009b, 2:28:30). Similarly, Mr. Schoell wanted to encourage admissions inquiries from citizens, including those channeled through legislators. "Sometimes those people don't know where to go. The University of Illinois is some big massive place. I want to make sure that those individuals do have an opportunity to tell their story" (ARC, 2009b, 1:53:06). Admitting “Qualified” Applicants Senior administrators and trustees believed that applicants admitted through the Category I process were qualified to attend the University of Illinois. First, they stressed that only a small 20 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) number of applicants received preferential treatment. Chancellor Herman explained that the Category I list only included 150 to 200 applicants every year; and approximately 90 of these applicants were admitted on their merits "without any discussion" and another 30 were eliminated from consideration by "normal procedure" (ARC, 2009c, 35:32). He overturned decisions, but characterized the frequency of these interventions as “very small” and only involving “a small number of individuals” (ARC, 2009c, 40:32). "That's not an excuse. It's just a statement of scale" (ARC, 2009c, 35:42). UI’s outside counsel emphasized this point in a letter to the Commission, claiming, “the isolated incidents of poor admissions decisions identified through the Commission's fact-finding process are an extremely small percentage of the overall admissions at our great university" (Latham & Watkins, 2009, p. 2). More frequently, administrators, trustees and even admissions officers maintained that applicants admitted through the Category I process were just as qualified as other applicants. Although Abel Montoya, a former Associate Director of Admissions, refused to overturn the denial decisions of some applicants – “I thought we were setting them up for failure, where I thought that their grades indicated they were going to flunk out” – he believed most reversals involved qualified students (ARC, 2009b, 37:02). “The ones that we know are going to be successful … There’s only so much I can do, if they got in … at least they’re going to be successful (ARC, 2009b, 36:43). Mr. McLennand dismissed the notion that Category I applicants stole spots from more qualified applicants; instead he argued that they were victims of UI becoming “hyper selective” (ARC, 2009b, 2:23:46). He believed that Category I applicants with “very competitive” test scores were being denied even though they would have received “automatic admission to any other state school” (ARC, 2009b, 2:24:26). Denied applicants would have been admitted “with their same scores” had they graduated from different high 21 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) schools, but they were “being compared to other qualified students” from “competitive” high schools (ARC, 2009b, 2:28:12). Chancellor Herman echoed similar points. He believed that Category I applicants, even those rated a “5,” “had as a minimum quality their ability to succeed at the institution” (ARC, 2009c, 34:51). He noted that half of applicants with overturned decisions reported ACT scores above the median for the Division of General Studies (ARC, 2009c, 1:28:40). In other cases, Herman justified reversing decisions because he believed students could succeed. In one example, he directed admissions to admit a denied applicant (who had connections to one of the governor’s prominent donors) after reviewing the applicant’s file. He told commissioners, “Well, honestly, in this particular instance, I looked at the information I had about the applicant and decided he could succeed” (ARC, 2009c, 1:44:50). Buffering the Official Admissions Process Senior administrators contended that the Category I process protected the undergraduate admissions process from external interference. Chancellor Herman served as “the buffer” for external stakeholders, trustees, the president and deans while Associate Provost Keith Marshall acted as the intermediary for admissions staff. In his opening statement to the Commission, Herman stated, “As chancellor, my intent was to insulate the colleges as much as possible from external requests, and respond promptly and appropriately to inquiries that we received” (ARC, 2009c, 1:41). He feared that public officials and trustees would begin “reaching into the colleges” and contacting deans unless he coordinated inquiries (ARC, 2009c, 15:35). Trustee Dorris, echoed this characterization, describing Herman as "very protective of the people underneath him.” “And he doesn't let things slide down that are going to be difficult to handle. He kept them to himself" (ARC, 2009f, 3:16:17). 22 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) While Chancellor Herman was trying to buffer those at the top, Keith Marshall was hoping to protect admissions officers. Stacey Kostell, Director of Undergraduate Admissions, explained that OUA had not "felt any external pressure" because “Keith shields us from that” (ARC, 2009d, 6:11:23). "To be honest, I think that Keith was being a good supervisor and letting us do our job in making sure that, that went through him and not through us" (ARC, 2009d, 5:07:43). During his testimony, Marshall stressed his efforts to insulate undergraduate admissions, saying, "I have done my level best from keeping the Category I process from the regular admissions process" (ARC, 2009a, 21:49) and “I have worked very hard in my role to separate out those two processes" (ARC, 2009a, 46:38). As a result, Kostell explained that admissions officers knew little about “how often those decisions were overturned, or really what that looked like – how many were on the list, what the decisions were and if a decision changed, how often that happened” (ARC, 2009d, 5:16:04). One consequence of this buffering was that few administrators and trustees knew the term “Category I” until the Chicago Tribune broke the scandal. Moreover, few administrators and trustees had realized that the tracking list actually constituted a formal process. President White, despite referring applicants, voiced surprised over Category I’s institutionalized nature, particularly the existence of meetings to overturn decisions. This surprise extended to trustees – even though most of them had intervened on behalf of applicants. In addition to Trustees Eppley, Schmidt and Carroll, Trustee Dorris was shocked to learn of the Category I process. “I, like all the other trustees, no matter how unbelievable it sounds, I had never heard that term or knew about this internal tracking system with preferential treatment until I read it in the Chicago Tribune” (ARC, 2009f, 3:15:33).2 2 In August 2009, seven of nine UI trustees resigned due to their participation in the Category I process. The resignations of President White and Chancellor Herman followed over the next two months. 23 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Discussion Ethical Fading among Senior Administrators The phenomenon of ethical fading impeded the ethical reflection of senior administrators and trustees at the University of Illinois. Environmental cues, including increasing numbers of undergraduate applications and insecurity over state funding, triggered self-deception mechanisms that constricted the decision frames of administrators and trustees. First, they used numerous euphemisms to mask advocacy of applicants or directives to overturn decisions. The Category I process was described as a “watchlist” or “tracking system,” disguising the extent of interference. Chancellor Herman, among others, rejected the opinion of admissions officers to admit applicants who “could do perfectly well” and were “going to be successful”; and admissions officers tolerated reversed decisions because they believed applicants had an “ability to succeed.” Moreover, administrators and trustees sanitized their involvement by employing positive language such as needing to be “responsive” and “courteous,” providing “relief valves” and “second looks” for “deserving” applicants and trying to “buffer,” insulate” and “shield” colleges and admissions. Through these euphemisms, individuals described their participation in terms that not only avoided negative judgments, but also portrayed their behavior in favorable language that enhanced self-perceptions of morality. Instead of offering privileged applicants preferential treatment, they were creating and protecting educational opportunities for applicants. Second, administrators and trustees succumbed to the psychological numbing of induction, which diminished their capacity to acknowledge the ethical consequences of providing preferential treatment. In a letter to Governor Pat Quinn, the Faculty Senate of the UrbanaChampaign campus acknowledged, “This President and Chancellor did not invent ‘clout’ as a factor influencing campus admissions; it has been a longstanding problem at this University as at 24 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) nearly every university, public or private” (UI, 2009, para. 5). The impulse to respond out of “courtesy” had become a taken-for-granted norm at the University of Illinois. Iterations of the Category I process continued to resemble historical practices just enough to not trigger ethical reflection. If tracking special interest applicants was ethical, so was contacting high-profile sponsors about pending decisions; if these practices had been ethical, so was meeting to discuss applicants; if meeting was ethical, so was reconsidering decisions to deny “qualified” applicants. The incremental evolution of the Category I process blurred discrete decisions points that might have prompted administrators and trustees to recognize the ethical implications of their actions. Third, administrators and trustees characterized the Category I process as a response to immutable exogenous factors, which privileged self-serving explanations of preferential treatment. Tenbrunsel and Messick (2004) warn, “self-interest may mean that I see other factors as more variable than they really are, and hence erroneously deflect blame from myself that should rightfully be assigned to me” (p. 230). The process of coordinating and responding to inquiries assumed the character of VIP customer service: important individuals need information or even a favor – what can we offer them? But the understandable desire to serve the needs of high-profile stakeholders too often supplanted ethical considerations of equity and fairness in admissions. Through biased attribution, administrators and trustees deemed their participation in the Category I process as a necessary imperative, which disguised the extent to which their behavior undermined the integrity of undergraduate admissions. Organizational Routines Aggravate Ethical Fading The ethical fading of administrators and trustees was aggravated by the organizational routine of the Category I process. First, conscious attempts to buffer the admissions office concealed the process and constricted its authority and task structure. Chancellor Herman and 25 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Associate Provost Marshall understood the reach of Category I, and senior staff in governmental relations and admissions knew that denial decisions were overturned at times, but very few individuals realized its machinations. For trustees, the process seemed straightforward: email or call Herman about an applicant and await his response. Trustees believed that admissions officers were evaluating referred applicants, but didn’t seem to grasp the extent to which Herman intervened behind the scenes. Admissions officers knew the powers that be were instructing Marshall to overturn decisions, but it wasn’t always clear who was pulling strings for applicants. The shadow process engaged a complex network of stakeholders, but because inquiries were routed through the chancellor’s office, it meant that an already clandestine process was unlikely to be understood because most people possessed a bounded view of the process. Second, administrators and trustees deliberately excluded admissions officers throughout the Category I process. Admissions used holistic review to rate applications, but trustees and administrators regularly judged the qualifications of applicants from a single data point. The convenient availability of data through UI’s enrollment management system enabled administrators outside of admissions to recast their overturning of admissions decisions as providing informed second opinions. Officials in government relations, for example, could access an applicant’s record and deem her test score as “high” or “competitive.” Dr. Stanley Ikenberry, UI’s former president, underscored this negative effect of enrollment management systems, saying, “There is a fundamental danger when you begin to routinize and systematize what is on its face a potential intrusion into the process “ (ARC, 2009h, 2:38:23). ”I think desystemitizing this – the administration may have been a little bit overly efficient here, and it unintentionally aggravated its own problem” (ARC, 2009h, 2:39:48). During secret meetings, Associate Provost Marshall tried to act as “devil’s advocate,” using aggregate statistics to 26 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) persuade the group against overturning some decisions, but these efforts focused mostly on egregious outliers. The suppression of admissions expertise ultimately eliminated opportunities to contextualize the meaning of admissions data. Third, minimal discussion of admissions policies among trustees enabled them to infer a hear no evil, see no evil perspective on admissions inquiries. Numerous trustees testified that the board rarely discussed admissions; trustees assumed little role in articulating and overseeing admissions policy beyond discussing tuition rates and out-of-state enrollment. Curiously, trustees were unaware that admissions didn’t even accept letters of recommendation from undergraduate applicants. This overall lack of knowledge about admissions practices not only raises concerns over the board’s commitment to policy oversight, but also illustrates how trustees could operate within a zone of ignorance concerning the Category I process, failing to ask questions about how their inquiries and referrals fit within the broader admissions process. This relationship between organizational routines and ethical fading begins to demonstrate how leaders actually shape ethical misconduct. First, routines embody a duality of structure and agency. “While organizational routines are commonly perceived as reenacting the past, the performance of routines can also involve adapting to contexts that require either idiosyncratic or ongoing changes and reflecting on the meaning of future realities” (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 95). The Category I example provides empirical support for Feldman and Pentland’s assertion. The process was not set in stone: its essential purpose endured over time, even as its particulars evolved to accommodate changing circumstances. The ostensive aspect of the routine changed little as presidents, chancellors, trustees and governors came and went, while the performative aspect of the routine adjusted to new pressures. The continual enactment of the routine demonstrated a reflective character that looked to the future as much as the past – the 27 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Category I process was both the blueprint for and footprint of how UI leveraged admissions to manage relationships with important stakeholders. Second, the Category I case demonstrates that both exogenous and endogenous events can stimulate adaptations in organizational routines. Exogenous events altered the Category I process, particularly increases in applications, and corresponding increases in selectivity, and continued anxiety over state funding. Yet endogenous events – Richard Herman’s decision to retain power over the process when transitioning from provost to chancellor, a new enrollment management system allowing staff outside of admissions to access data on applicants and the extended tenure of Trustee Eppley as board chair – also altered the process, eliminating opportunities for new perspectives to question the ethical assumptions underpinning the process. These examples illustrate that routines change not only from environmental pressures, but also from idiosyncratic changes within the organization itself. The lesson for leaders is not only to espouse ethical values, but also to work behind the scenes to ensure that values are codified and embedded into routines. The Category I process didn’t entail one-off email exchanges or hush-hush discussions among administrators and trustees. Instead leaders condoned and perpetuated the process, formalizing activities into a routine – forwarding names of applicants, labeling applicants as Category I, reconsidering the qualifications of denied applicants, admitting applicants into alternative majors, overturning admissions decisions. This continual enactment of the routine evolved into shared understandings about “the way things are done around here” (Levitt & March, 1988, p. 327). Not surprisingly, the Commission concluded that “failures in leadership” fostered a culture that “too easily tolerated undue influence and an overall admissions approach that merged, rather than 28 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) separated, an otherwise unremarkable institutional desire to cultivate relationships and curry favor with the rich and powerful” [emphasis in original] (ARC, 2009i, p. 2). Organizational Truces as “Hotspots” for Ethical Fading The Category I example also demonstrates that routines can constitute organizational truces. The process codified a compromise for how to manage a competing set of institutional priorities across a complex network of relationships. Instead of tolerating direct intervention in admissions from prominent donors or political officials or providing no differentiation in responsiveness to trustees or high-profile sponsors, senior administrators created and maintained procedures that protected the core admissions operation and satisfied UI’s strategic interests. Importantly, the specifications of Category I process – or put another way, the terms of the truce – were never explicitly acknowledged by different stakeholders. Nelson and Winters (1982) explained, “the terms of the truce can never be fully explicit … The terms become increasingly defined by a shared tradition arising out the specific contingencies confronted and the responses of those parties to those contingencies” (p. 111). The Category I process necessarily assumed a clandestine character, which illustrates how organizational routines that serve as truces can represent "hotspots" for ethical fading. An acknowledgment of the truce would have animated internal and external conflicts, which might have exposed the ethical implications of the process. The preservation of the Category I process required administrators and trustees to suppress and ignore ethical considerations because acknowledging such concerns might have signaled waning support to external stakeholders and revealed the scope of professional marginalization to admissions officers. As a truce, the Category I process buried considerations that might have prompted administrators and trustees to contemplate the ethical consequences of offering preferential treatment to privileged applicants. 29 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Directions for Future Research This article reveals numerous opportunities for future research on ethical misconduct in higher education. One opportunity is to explore the relationship between ethical fading and “academic capitalism.” In response to declining revenues from traditional sources, institutions are establishing new revenue streams by pursuing market-focused, “entrepreneurial” strategies and reconsidering how to deploy “institutional resources” (Mars & Metcalfe, 2009; Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004). Along with pursuing entrepreneurial activities, senior administrators might be broadening conceptualizations of institutional “resources” to generate new revenues from traditional sources such as alumni, donors and government. The taken-forgranted admissions practices of “legacy admits” and “development admits,” for example, aim to deepen the relationship between admissions and development in order to maximize gift revenues (Golden, 2007). Moreover, my analysis of the Commission’s data revealed examples of preferential treatment for numerous student services. In an environment of constricting resources, administrators might offer a broader set of “assets” – assignments to desirable residence halls, invitations to exclusive living learning communities and co-curricular programs or priority enrollment in popular courses – to strengthen, maintain or repair relationships with prominent external stakeholders. Future research could explore whether colleges and universities provide preferential treatment for external stakeholders across a range of services and the extent to which administrators, faculty, staff and trustees perceive these actions as ethical. The use of qualitative methods might prove difficult with this research due to social desirability bias (Arnold & Feldman, 1981) and the hidden nature of the behavior (Treviño & Weaver, 2003), but the use of surveys might offer sufficient anonymity for respondents (Wouters et al, 2014). The sensitivity 30 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) of this research highlights several trade-offs with survey design. First, balance observer-reports and self-reports (Zuber & Kaptein, 2013). Although some researchers argue that self-reports provide accurate assessments of ethicality under conditions of anonymity (Bennett & Robinson, 2000), others prefer observer-reports because this approach minimizes social desirability bias (Kaptein, 2008; Treviño & Weaver, 2003). Second, survey individuals at different levels of the institution. What a housing manager, for example, might consider a transgression, a development officer might consider an essential courtesy. Third, ask close-ended and open-ended questions. One set of close-ended questions could determine the frequency of preferential treatment, while others could gauge the reasons why certain applicants (or students) receive such treatment and ask respondents to rate the ethicality of these actions. Moreover, the inclusion of open-ended questions would allow respondents to describe reasons for providing preferential treatment in their own words irrespective of whether they conceptualize the behavior as ethical. Another research opportunity is to examine the relationship between ethical fading and the affective and cognitive processes of senior administrators. Individuals use self-control to resist negative behaviors, but because of ego depletion, one’s capacity for self-control diminishes over time (Treviño, den Nieuwenboer & Kish-Gephart, 2014). Gino and colleagues (2011) found that the likelihood of unethical behavior increases after individuals had to demonstrate selfcontrol. The work of presidents, chancellors and provosts claims a cognitive and emotional toll (Cohen & March, 1974; Kerr & Gade, 1986), which might make self-regulation more challenging over time and ethical fading even more difficult to acknowledge and mitigate. Despite the sensitivity of this issue, scholars could use qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how ego-depletion shapes ethicality among senior administrators. Semistructured interviews with presidents, chancellors and provosts could determine the stressors that 31 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) affect their work and ascertain the extent to which administrators believe these stressors tax their cognitive and emotional ability to address difficult problems, including navigating decisions with ethical consequences. Another approach could be convening focus groups of senior administrators to discuss the factors that complicate decision-making, which could be part of a conference hosted by an association or a school of education. These interviews and focus groups could then inform the development of surveys that investigate similar questions, particularly those exploring the relationship between job stressors and the cognitive and emotional capacity of senior administrators to recognize and raise ethical concerns. Conclusion This article serves to remind scholars, policymakers and leaders in higher education that the potential for misconduct pervades colleges and universities more than we assume – and even more than we feel comfortable acknowledging. The pull of ethical fading is powerful. At the University of Illinois, it was strong enough that senior administrators and trustees compromised the institution’s land-grant heritage. Dr. James Stukel, UI’s former president, described providing preferential treatment in admissions as betraying the institution’s “gene pool” (ARC, 2009h, 57:33). Sadly, the potential for transgressions that undermine the public’s trust in higher education is only to increase as colleges and universities continue adapting to deteriorating fiscal environments and dynamic political environments. Within the context of ethical fading, these pressures will make it even more difficult for administrators and trustees to recognize ethical imperatives while engaging important stakeholders and securing the interests of their institutions. At public institutions, threats to the integrity of admissions processes might not be novel. A recent report, which scrutinizes interference in admissions from the president’s office at the 32 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) University of Texas, suggests that public universities continue to formalize preferential treatment in admissions by establishing and adapting sophisticated organizational routines that circumvent formal admissions processes and contradict the letter and spirit of formal admissions policies (Office of the Chancellor, 2015; Stripling, 2015). Importantly, this article should not be interpreted as an excuse to exempt individuals from personal responsibility for unethical behavior. When trustees, administrators, faculty, staff and students violate ethical standards, they should pay the consequences. But if our scholarly community is serious about informing the design of more ethical institutions, we need to acknowledge that misconduct is an organizational problem that demands organizational solutions that embrace the realities of individual behavior. By understanding these environmental, organizational and psychological factors, we can help senior administrators and trustees begin to mitigate the conception and proliferation of ethical misconduct. 33 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) References American Council on Education (ACE). (2008). Working paper on Conflict of Interest (for review and comment). Washington, DC: Author. Arnold, H. J., & Feldman, D. C. (1981). Social desirability response bias in self-report choice situations. Academy of Management Journal, 24, 377–385. Ashforth, B.E. & Anand, V. (2003). The normalization of corruption in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25, 1-52. Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB). (2006). The leadership imperative. Washington, DC: Author. Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB). (2009). AGB Board of Directors’ statement of conflict of interest. Washington, DC: Author. Banaji, M. R., Bazerman, M. H., & Chugh, D. (2003). How (un) ethical are you? Harvard Business Review, 81(12), 56-64. Bastedo, M.N. (2009). Conflicts, commitments, and cliques in the university: Moral seduction as a threat to trustee independence. American Educational Research Journal, 46, 354-386. 34 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Bazerman, M. H., & Chugh, D. (2005). Bounded awareness: Focusing failures in negotiation. Frontiers of social psychology: Negotiation. Bazerman, M. H., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2011). Blind spots: Why we fail to do what's right and what to do about it. Princeton University Press. Bennett, R. J., & Robinson, S. L. (2000). Development of a measure of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(3), 349–360. Bertram Gallant, T. & Kalichman, M. (2011). Academic ethics: A systems approach to understanding misconduct and empowering change in the academy. In T. Bertram Gallant (ed.), Creating the ethical academy (27-44). New York: Routledge. Brief, A.P., Bertram, R.T. & Dukerich, J.M. (2001). Collective corruption in the corporate world: Toward a process model. In M.E. Turner (ed.), Groups at work: Advances in theory and research (471-499). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates. Brown, A.D. (2000). Making sense of inquiry sensemaking. Journal of Management Studies, 37(1), 45-75. Chugh, D. & Bazerman, M. H. (2007). Bounded awareness: What you fail to see can hurt you. Mind & Society, 6(1), 1-18. 35 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Chugh, D., Bazerman, M. H. & Banaji, M. R. (2005). Bounded ethicality as a psychological barrier to recognizing conflicts of interest. Conflict of interest: Challenges and solutions in business, law, medicine, and public policy, 74, 95. Cohen, J.S., St. Clair, S. & Malone, T. (2009 May 29). Clout goes to college. Chicago Tribune, 1. Cohen, M. D., & March, J.G. (1974). Leadership and ambiguity: The American college president. New York: McGraw-Hill. Cohen, M. D., Burkhart, R., Dosi, G., Egidi, M., Marengo, L., Warglien, M., & Winter, S. (1996). Routines and other recurring action patterns of organizations: contemporary research issues. Industrial and corporate change, 5(3), 653-698. Cyert, R. M., & March, J. G. (1963). A behavioral theory of the firm. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532-550. Eisenhardt, K. M., & Graebner, M. E. (2007). Theory building from cases: opportunities and challenges. Academy of Management Journal, 50(1), 25-32. 36 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Feldman, M. S., & Pentland, B. T. (2003). Reconceptualizing organizational routines as a source of flexibility and change. Administrative Science Quarterly, 48(1), 94-118. Gephart, R.P. (1984). Making sense of organizationally-based environmental disasters. Journal of Management, 10(2), 205-25. Gephart, R.P., Steier, L. & Lawrence, T. (1990). Cultural rationalities in crisis sensemaking: A study of a public inquiry into a major industrial accident. Organization & Environment, 4(1), 2748. Gino, F., Schweitzer, M. E., Mead, N. L., & Ariely, D. (2011). Unable to resist temptation: How self-control depletion promotes unethical behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 191-203. Golden, D. (2007). The price of admission: How America's ruling class buys its way into elite colleges-and who gets left outside the gates. Random House LLC. Howard-Grenville, J. A. (2005). The persistence of flexible organizational routines: The role of agency and organizational context. Organization Science,16(6), 618-636. Kaptein, M. (2008a). Developing a measure of unethical behavior in the workplace: A stakeholder perspective. Journal of Management, 34(5), 978–1008 37 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Kerr, C., & Gade, M. L. (1986). The Many Lives of Academic Presidents: Time, Place, and Character. Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. Latham & Watkins. (2009 July 24). University of Illinois – Admissions Reform Ideas. Chicago, IL: Author. Retrieved from: http://www.senate.illinois.edu/090724_arc.pdf. Leslie, D. & MacTaggart, T. (2008). The new ethics of trusteeship: How public college and university trustees can meet higher public expectations. Washington, DC: Association of Governing Boards. Levitt, B., & March, J. G. (1988). Organizational learning. Annual Review of Sociology, 319340. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley. Mars, M.M. & Metcalfe, A.S. (2009). The entrepreneurial domains of American higher education. ASHE Higher Education Report: 34(5). San Francisco, CA: Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Messick, D. M., & Bazerman, M. H. (1996). Ethical leadership and the psychology of decision making. Sloan Management Review, 37, 9-22. Moore, C., & Gino, F. (2013). Ethically adrift: How others pull our moral compass from true North, and how we can fix it. Research in Organizational Behavior, 33, 53-77. 38 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Moore, D. A., & Loewenstein, G. (2004). Self-interest, automaticity, and the psychology of conflict of interest. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 189-202. Moore, D. A., Tetlock, P. E., Tanlu, L., & Bazerman, M. H. (2006). Conflicts of interest and the case of auditor independence: Moral seduction and strategic issue cycling. Academy of Management Review, 31(1), 10-29. Nelson, R. R., & Sidney, G. Winter (1982) An evolutionary theory of economic change. Cambridge: Belknap. Office of the Chancellor of The University of Texas System. (6 February 2015). University of Texas at Austin – Investigation of admissions practices and allegations of undue influence – Summary of key findings. Palmer, D. (2008). Extending the process model of collective corruption. Research in Organizational Behavior (28): 107-135. Parmigiani, A., & Howard-Grenville, J. (2011). Routines revisited: Exploring the capabilities and practice perspectives. The Academy of Management Annals,5(1), 413-453. Randall, D. M., & Gibson, A. M. (1990). Methodology in business ethics research: A review and critical assessment. Journal of Business Ethics, 9, 457–471. 39 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Simon, H. A. (1983). Search and reasoning in problem solving. Artificial Intelligence, 21, 7-29. Slaughter, S. & Leslie, L.L. (1997). Academic capitalism: Politics, policies, and the entrepreneurial university. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Slaughter, S. & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets, state, and higher education. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009a June 16). Commission meeting – 1st open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009b June 29). Commission meeting – 2nd open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009c July 6). Commission meeting – 3rd open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 July 8). Commission meeting – 4th open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 July 14). Commission meeting – 6th open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. 40 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 July 21). Commission meeting – 7th open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 July 22). Commission meeting – 8th open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 July 27). Commission meeting – 9th open meeting. http://www2.illinois.gov/gov/admissionsreview/Pages/meetings.aspx. State of Illinois Admissions Review Commission (ACR). (2009 August 6). Report and recommendations. Springfield, IL: Author. Stripling, J. (2015 3 February). Admissions report chips at Austin chief’s uncompromising reputation, Chronicle of Higher Education. Suddaby, R. (2006). From the editors: What grounded theory is not. Academy of Management Journal, 49(4), 633-642. Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (2004). Ethical fading: The role of self-deception in unethical behavior. Social Justice Research, 17(2), 223-236. 41 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Treviño, L. K., & Weaver, G. R. (2003). Managing ethics in business organizations. Social scientific perspectives. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Treviño, L. K., den Nieuwenboer, N. A., & Kish-Gephart, J. J. (2014). (Un) Ethical Behavior in Organizations. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 635-660. University of Illinois [UI]. (2008 September 11). FY2010 budget request for operating and capital funds. Champaign, IL: Author. University of Illinois [UI]. (2009 August 21). University of Illinois. Senate of the UrbanaCampaign campus. To: Governor Pat Quinn and the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Retrieved from: http://www.senate.illinois.edu/sc1001.asp. University of Illinois [UI]. (n.d.). University of Illinois. UIUC Student Enrollment – Common Dataset for UIUC. Retrieved from: http://www.dmi.illinois.edu/stuenr/#CDS. Vaughan, D. (1999). The dark side of organizations: Mistake, Misconduct, and disaster. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 271-305. Weick, K. E., & Quinn, R. E. (1999). Organizational change and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 361-386. 42 The Organizational Trap of Ethical Fading (Harris – 2015 AERA) Wouters, K., Maesschalck, J., Peeters, C. F., & Roosen, M. (2014). Methodological issues in the design of online surveys for measuring unethical work behavior: Recommendations on the basis of a split-ballot experiment. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(2), 275-289. Yin, R. (1994). Case study research design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zuber, F., & Kaptein, M. (2013). Painting with the Same Brush? Surveying Unethical Behavior in the Workplace Using Self-Reports and Observer-Reports. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-32. 43