Investing or discounting self: are moral decisions shaped by conditions in the workplace?

Modern socioeconomic trends contribute to the complexity and diversity of ethical issues encountered in clinical nursing practice. Despite growing interest in ethical decision making among nurses, little is known about the contextual influences. The article describes an exploratory study of how nurses make ethical decisions and what factors hindered or helped them to act on their moral choices. Two central constructs were identified: investing and discounting self. The article explains essential subprocesses of these constructs within the context of clinical nursing practice.