ORIGINAL ARTICLE How can mindfulness enhance moral reasoning? An examination using business school students Ashish Pandey 1 | Rajesh Chandwani 2 | Ajinkya Navare 1 1 Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India 2 Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India Correspondence Ashish Pandey, Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India. Email: ashish.pandey@iitb.ac.in Funding information SJMSOM Endowment Grant, Grant/Award Number: a/cI09101 Given the comprehensive influence of mindfulness on human thought and behavior, and the importance of moral reasoning in business decisions, we examine the role of mindfulness as an antecedent to moral reasoning through two studies. In Study 1, we propose and test a theoreti- cally derived model that links mindfulness and moral reasoning, mediated by compassion and egocentric bias using a survey design. In Study 2, we examine whether mindfulness training enhan- ces moral reasoning using an experimental design with graduate students of business management. The findings of Study 1 substantiate the positive association of mindfulness with moral reasoning. We found that this relationship is fully mediated by compassion and egocentric bias. The results of Study 2 suggest that mindfulness meditation training has a positive impact on individuals’ states of mindfulness, compassion, and moral reasoning, and decreases egocentric bias. We relate the findings of the study with contemporary neurological research and discuss the theo- retical, pedagogical, and managerial implications. 1 | INTRODUCTION Vijay Mallya, a well-known Indian business magnate and a member of parliament allegedly fled India in March 2016, duping a consortium of 17 public sector banks that had loaned approximately USD 13.5 million to his company, his company called Kingfisher Airlines, and the Enforcement Directorate, which was investigating a case of money laundering against him. 1 Mallya’s reaction on being questioned about his intentions and behavior was notably blunt: “Why am I being por- trayed as a criminal? Loan defaults are business matters. When the banks give out loans, they know the risk involved. They decide, we don’t.” 2 He added, “I have no regrets as such. Perhaps the only regret is that Kingfisher Airlines is not flying today when the oil price is so low.” 3 While the business mogul emphasized that he had not done any- thing illegal, his moral understanding and reasoning is in question, given that hundreds of employees lost their jobs at his airline, and he still owes large sums of money to public sector banks and other lenders. The moral integrity of global business leaders has increasingly been a subject of concern since the turn of this century, specifically due to notable scandals at companies such as Enron, Arthur Andersen, Tyco, WorldCom, Hewlett-Packard, Parmalat, Societe Generale, Siemens, and Satyam. Further, in addition to such high-profile scams, widespread cheating, deception, organizational misconduct, and unethi- cal behavior constitute equally formidable challenges facing our current business culture (Gino, 2015). In the present business world, which is highly complex and integrated with several societal dimensions, ethical actions require an individual to have well-developed moral reasoning (Falkenberg, 2004; Werhane, 1998). Managers’ moral reasoning has significant consequen- ces for their decision-making abilities, especially in situations involving ethical dilemmas (Falkenberg, 2004; Monga, 2007; O’Fallon & Butterfield, 2005). Moral reasoning refers to the cognitive processing of information related to ethical dilemmas (Trevi~ no & Youngblood, 1990) and has long been regarded as the principal determinant of a person’s ethical and moral behavior (Kulkarni & Ramamoorthy, 2014; Weber & McGivern, 2010). So far, studies have examined various antecedents to moral reasoning such as demographic characteristics, hierarchical position, the locus of control, religion, spirituality, and moral identity that are individual-level variables and organizational-level antecedents like industry characteristics and organizational ethical climate (Forte, 2004; Vitell et al., 2016). Mindfulness, as described in Eastern philosophical traditions, most notably Buddhism, refers to an individual’s state of mind, representing an open, unbiased awareness of and attention to, the inner experience and manifest actions (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). Arguably, openness and unbiased assessment of the circumstances and being aware of the inner experiences form the basis of moral reasoning. With this objec- tive, we studied the impact of mindfulness on moral reasoning. Mindfulness has a trait like stability but also state like feature to change Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2017;1–16. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer V C 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd | 1 Received: 19 September 2016 | Revised: 1 August 2017 | Accepted: 14 August 2017 DOI: 10.1111/beer.12171