Bounded personal ethics and the tap dance of real estate agency

This paper reports the results of a study investigating how a sample of successful real estate agents reacted to two ethical dilemmas; the findings formed the basis and a first evaluation of a model of bounded personal ethics. The agents faced dilemmas of whether to (1) reveal to purchasers their primary, legal responsibilities to sellers, increasing their chances of losing the purchasers as clients and (2) comply with regulations and reveal to sellers the information they had about purchasers, violating any personal connections they had established with them. Interviews indicated that agents tended to hide their responsibilities to sellers but still protected purchasers' interests; in essence, they acted illegally on both issues. These findings led to the formation of a model of bounded personal ethics which predicts that agents (and people in general) will act ethically until their ethical values conflict with their self-interest; then, with increasing financial temptations, self-interested action becomes more likely and often occurs almost automatically. Reanalysis of the data revealed many instances of bounded personal ethics. The paper concludes with a discussion of the dynamics of agency relationships and the implications of bounded personal ethics.