To Do or Not To Do: How Ethical Ambiguity Shapes Entrepreneurial Action

This paper explores perceived ethicality in entrepreneurial action. We extend the entrepreneurial action framework and propose that well-intended entrepreneurs evaluate a potential opportunity in terms of its feasibility, desirability, and ethicality. We advance a concept – ethical ambiguity – to capture situations where entrepreneurs perceive conflicting ethical interpretations based on utilitarian and deontological assumptions of right and wrong. We draw on (moral) cognition literature to propose (a) factors that determine the ability to recognize ethical ambiguity and (b) opportunity-specific characteristics that determine which ethical perspective dominates the belief-forming process. Our analysis opens a new research agenda connecting entrepreneurship and ethics literature.