Moral Intelligence and Ethical Decision-Making Among Nurses: Moderating Mediation Roles of Ethical Responsibility and...

Ethical decision-making remains a critical concern within the nursing profession due to the moral complexities and time-sensitive nature of healthcare delivery. Although moral intelligence has been recognised as an important ethical resource in organisational settings, the intervening mechanisms that influence the relationship among nurses remain inadequately explored. This study assesses the mediating role of ethical responsibility in the relationship between moral intelligence and ethical decision-making among nurses. The study further investigates the moderating role of time urgency in the mediated relationship.

The study collected data from 261 nurses using a multistage sampling technique. Questionnaires were completed anonymously through a time-lagged survey method. Process Macro was utilised to test the proposed moderated mediation model.

Results indicate that moral intelligence positively relates to ethical decision-making through ethical responsibility. Furthermore, time urgency moderates the indirect association between moral intelligence and ethical decision-making through ethical responsibility such that high time urgency weakened the mediated relationship.

This study advances ethical decision-making research by explaining how moral intelligence relates to nurses' ethical decision-making through ethical responsibility and under varying levels of time urgency. It also extends evidence on ethical decision-making within the African healthcare context.

Nursing managers should strengthen nurses' moral intelligence and ethical responsibility through ethics-focused training and supportive leadership. Given that time urgency weakens the indirect effect of moral intelligence on ethical decision-making, managers should also minimise unnecessary time pressure and provide nurses with sufficient opportunities for ethical reflection when making complex clinical decisions.