Clarity Under Pressure: A Structural-Theoretical Model of Moral Stability Under Entrepreneurial Pressure

Abstract

Entrepreneurial leadership unfolds under uncertainty, time pressure, and personal attribution of responsibility. Business ethics research intensively examines normative models of responsible leadership and the mechanisms of moral failure; it leaves open which inner structures stabilise moral judgment under real high-pressure conditions. What is missing is not another normative appeal to integrity but a structural account of how integrity is produced and maintained when conditions make it costly. This article develops the model Clarity Under Pressure: moral stability as the result of an integrated decision architecture. Three interdependent levels form its scaffold - cognitive clarity as the precondition of reflective information processing, Stoic control orientation as normative self-structuring that decouples integrity from outcome, and meaning orientation as an existential framing that relativises short-term success and threat logics. The article situates each level in its respective research tradition, derives seven testable hypotheses, and proposes a two-stage empirical design combining a cross-sectional survey with a scenario-based experiment, including a six-item instrument for Stoic control orientation (SCOS-6). By connecting stress research, virtue ethics, and meaning-in-life research, the model shifts the discussion from normative demands on leadership toward a structural analysis of moral decision stability under uncertainty.