What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy, Personal Values, and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making Rico Pohling • Danilo Bzdok • Monika Eigenstetter • Siegfried Stumpf • Anja Strobel Received: 19 June 2014 / Accepted: 4 February 2015 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 Abstract The objective of the present research was two- fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical com- petence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German un- dergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, per- sonal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis re- vealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an impor- tant role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical com- petence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence. Keywords Basic human values Á Counterproductive work behavior Á Empathic concern Á Perspective taking Á Human resource management Á Moral behavior Á Moral cognition Á Moral judgment Introduction In today’s complex economic world, actions of organiza- tional actors can have far-reaching impact. An example for a case of severe global consequences could be observed in Japan, in March 2011 (Buesseler 2012; Strickland 2011). The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant got out of control after it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami on March, 11 in 2011 (CNN Wire Staff 2011). Two years after this most dramatic nuclear disaster since Chernobyl (Strickland 2011), human failure was identified as the one R. Pohling (&) Á A. Strobel Division of Personality Psychology and Assessment, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, Technische Universita ¨t Chemnitz, 09120 Chemnitz, Germany e-mail: rico.pohling@gmail.com A. Strobel e-mail: anja.strobel@psychologie.tu-chemnitz.de D. Bzdok Neurospin, CEA Saclay, Bat. 145, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France D. Bzdok Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Du ¨sseldorf, 40225 Du ¨sseldorf, Germany M. Eigenstetter Department of Industrial Engineering, Hochschule Niederrhein, 47805 Krefeld, Germany S. Stumpf Department for Computer Science and Engineering, University of Applied Sciences Cologne, Campus Gummersbach, 51643 Gummersbach, Germany 123 J Bus Ethics DOI 10.1007/s10551-015-2569-5