Ethical decision-making in transnational contexts: a multi-group qualitative study with U.S.-trained Chinese counselors

Counselors who migrated across national borders during training and practice could face complex ethical challenges shaped by cultural and systemic differences. However, understandings of how counselors experience ethical decision-making in transnational settings remain limited. Applying interpretative phenomenological analysis with a multi-group design, we examined the experiences of 18 Chinese counselors trained in the United States who were practicing in the United States (n = 10) or China (n = 8). We identified four cross-group themes: contextualizing “right” and “wrong,” navigating local regulatory systems, customizing ethical decision-making strategies, and opening spaces for ethical advancement. Group-specific subthemes further revealed contextual nuances across national contexts. Participants’ accounts reflected a dialectic interaction between internalized ethical values and shifting sociocultural structures. The findings extended existing ethical decision-making models by highlighting the role of contextual variability and identifying strategies to manage cultural and systemic discontinuities during ethical decision-making. Implications were discussed.