Purpose

Life insurance salespeople are hired to pursue the best interests of life insurers on the one hand, the salespeople are also expected to pursue the best interests of customers on the other hand. However, the best interests of life insurers are not necessarily consistent with the best interests of customers. This study aims to investigate the influences of interest conflicts on the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention by focusing on the role of ethical leadership and ethical training.

Design/methodology/approach

Four types of interest conflicts are studied. Questionnaires are administered to a total of 757 full-time life insurance salespeople. Data analysis is performed by using analysis of variance tests and partial least squares regression.

Findings

The main results indicate that the types of interest conflicts change the life insurance salespeople’s ethical attitude and ethical intention. Moreover, ethical training could make the life insurance salespeople become more concerned about the interests of customers, but not the interests of life insurers. The results also challenge a belief that ethical leadership and ethical training will often have direct, consistent and significant impacts on the ethical attitude and ethical intention of life insurance salespeople.

Originality/value

Interest conflict is an important issue in the literature on financial regulation. The potential for life insurance salespeople to behave unethically has also received extensive attention by researchers. This study provides clarification of the relationships among interest conflicts, ethical leadership, ethical training and ethical decision-making of life insurance salespeople. This is the first study that analyzes the relationships. The results of this study may provide some contributions to the relevant literature.

中文翻译：

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人寿保险销售人员的道德决策：利益冲突、道德领导和道德培训的影响

目的

聘请寿险销售人员一方面是为了追求寿险公司的最大利益，另一方面也期望销售人员追求客户的最大利益。然而，寿险公司的最大利益并不一定与客户的最大利益一致。本研究旨在通过关注道德领导和道德培训的作用，探讨利益冲突对寿险销售人员道德态度和道德意向的影响。

设计/方法/方法

研究了四种类型的利益冲突。对总共 757 名全职人寿保险销售人员进行了问卷调查。通过使用方差检验分析和偏最小二乘回归进行数据分析。

发现

主要结果表明，利益冲突的类型改变了寿险销售人员的道德态度和道德意向。此外，道德培训可以使寿险销售人员更加关心客户的利益，而不是寿险公司的利益。结果还挑战了一种信念，即道德领导和道德培训通常会对人寿保险销售人员的道德态度和道德意图产生直接、一致和重大的影响。

原创性/价值

利益冲突是金融监管文献中的一个重要问题。人寿保险销售人员行为不道德的可能性也受到了研究人员的广泛关注。本研究阐明了人寿保险销售人员的利益冲突、道德领导、道德培训和道德决策之间的关系。这是第一个分析这些关系的研究。本研究的结果可能对相关文献有一定的贡献。