Abstract This study explores how the culture of free-riding, which can be either shrewdness or wiliness, influences the ethical decision-making of actors in different situations and how intelligence mediates this relationship. The current study encompasses the entire male and female population residing in Tehran, specifically across 22 regions. From this population, a sample of 384 individuals was selected using Morgan’s table and cluster sampling method, focusing on three specific regions. The data were analyzed by SPSS and AMOS software, using the mediation model and ANOVA to test the research hypotheses and the conceptual model. The results reveal that shrewdness, a positive dimension of free-riding, has a positive and direct relationship with intelligence and ethical decision-making, while wiliness, a negative dimension of free-riding, has a negative and direct relationship with both. Intelligence mediates the effect of shrewdness on ethical decision-making but not the effect of wiliness. The findings suggest that wiliness is more prevalent than shrewdness in the studied society.
Esmailnia et al. (Mon,) studied this question.