“Morally Earned money” in Culture and Action: Group Buying Leaders During the Shanghai Outbreak

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 7: Culture, Labor, and Meaning Making at Work

Abstract

This study examines community group-buying leaders during the Shanghai outbreak, focusing on the relationships between culture and action, as well as between morality and money, in an emerging ethical context of disaster. The organizers define “morally earned money” from a business ethics perspective, emphasizing professionalism and market rules. However, in practice, they act according to disaster ethics, prioritizing altruism. This research applies and refines the dual-process model to explain this counterintuitive phenomenon. While organizers use business ethics to rationalize their actions and reduce moral stress, the sudden emergence of an ethical context triggers deeper moral schemas, leading them to act differently. Additionally, actors may intuitively sense which transactions are acceptable in an uncertain market, unconsciously applying moral schemas to “seek fortune and avoid disaster” and adapt to market changes. The article makes three theoretical contributions. First, this study indicates that the business ethics in China remains relatively superficial and fragile in the face of disaster ethics. It empirically answers the question of which cultural type—deliberative or automatic—dominates in unexpected situations. Secondly, It also highlights how the dual-process theory of culture overlooks the role of unconscious schemas as tools used intuitively. Overall, it reveals a mechanism that contrasts with previous studies, which typically focus on goods that inherently require moral interpretation when entering the market. In contrast, this study demonstrates the process by which a commodified good, which would not typically require moral interpretation, is suddenly placed into an ethical context.

Author

• Qianyi Wang, Fudan University