• Work

• Feedback Cycles

• Identity flexibility and sustainable cooperation
• Reconciling stakeholder interests
• Shared responsibility and sustainable cooperation

This paper introduces the concept of moral uneasiness as a way to capture low-stakes but pervasive moral dilemmas in organizational life. While established concepts such as moral injury, moral distress, and moral anxiety illuminate situations of severe harm or general moral tension, they overlook the smaller, recurring conflicts between professional roles and personal convictions that shape everyday organizational experience. Moral uneasiness refers to the minor yet persistent psychological discomfort that arises when individuals must act against their moral intuitions in fulfilling professional obligations. Although less intense than moral injury or distress, the frequency of such moments suggests that they may significantly influence both individual well-being and the moral orientation of organizations over time. By distinguishing moral uneasiness from adjacent concepts, the paper fills a conceptual and experiential gap, offering a framework for understanding how seemingly modest conflicts accumulate and subtly erode moral integrity within organizations and society more broadly.

The central research question is: What is moral uneasiness, and how does it differ from established concepts such as moral injury, distress, and anxiety? The paper asks whether recognizing this less intense but more frequent phenomenon provides a clearer framework for understanding everyday moral dilemmas in organizations. Finally, it investigates how acknowledging moral uneasiness can deepen our understanding of moral agency in professional life and its broader organizational impact.

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