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Accountability is of universal interest to the business ethics community, but the emphasis to date has been primarily at the level of the industry, organization, or key individuals. This paper unites concepts from relational and felt accountability and team dynamics to provide an initial explanatory framework that emphasizes the importance of social interactions to team accountability. We develop a measure of team accountability using participants in the USA and Europe and then use it to study a cohort of 65 teams of Irish business students over three months as they complete a complex simulation. Our hypotheses test the origins of team accountability and its effects on subsequent team performance and attitudinal states. Results indicate that initial team accountability is strongly related to team trust, commitment, efficacy, and identifying with the team emotionally. In established teams, accountability increases effort and willingness to continue to collaborate but did not significantly improve task performance in this investigation.

Against the backdrop of a global pandemic, this study investigates how U.S. higher education leaders have centered their crisis management on values and guiding ethical principles. We conducted 55 in-depth interviews with leaders from 30 U.S. higher education institutions, with most leaders participating in two interviews. We found that crisis plans created prior to the COVID-19 pandemic were inadequate due to the long duration and highly uncertain nature of the crisis. Instead, higher education leaders applied guiding principles on the fly to support their decision-making. If colleges and universities infuse shared values into their future crisis plans, they will not have to develop a moral compass on the fly for the next pandemic. This paper suggests the following somewhat universal shared values: (1) engage in accuracy, transparency, and accountability; (2) foster deliberative dialog; (3) prioritize safety; (4) support justice, fairness, and equity; and (5) engage in an ethic of care. To navigate ethics tensions, leaders need to possess crisis-relevant expertise or ensure that such expertise is present among crisis management team members. Standing up formal ethics committees composed of diverse stakeholders also is instrumental in navigating tensions inherent in crises. The next pandemic is already on the horizon according to experts. Through infusing values into future crisis plans, higher education leaders can be confident that their responses will be grounded in their communities’ shared values.

This paper highlights the dark side of power imbalance regarding its consequences in agri-food supplier–buyer relationships. We report on findings from two studies. The first study is based on a sample of 105 key informants, while study 2 is based on a sample of 444 key informants, all from the cocoa agri-food supply market of Ghana. While the first study focuses on the antecedents of power imbalance and its consequences, the second study explores the role of cooperatives/collective action in minimizing supplier exploitation. Data from these studies were analysed using the partial least squares technique (SmartPLS). Analysis of these findings shows switching costs’ impact on power imbalance to be curvilinear, while power imbalance has a curvilinear relationship with opportunism. The negative consequences of power imbalance are further exacerbated by dependency and the lack of joint action. Furthermore, we found the negative impact of power imbalance on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members, while, counterintuitively, we found the positive impact of economic satisfaction on financial performance to be stronger for non-cooperative members than for cooperative members.

The financial sector has seen a transformation towards ‘sustainable’ finance particularly in Europe, driven also by unprecedented regulatory reforms. At the same time, many are sceptical about the real impact of these reforms, fearing that they are triggering a paradoxical financialisation of sustainability. Building on recent research on institutional logics and institutional fields formation, we examine changes in the EU regulatory dynamics as characterised by shifts in framing the relationship between sustainability and finance. Deploying a longitudinal approach (2009–2019), consisting of archival data and semi-structured interviews, we explore the development of EU sustainable finance regulation as an extended, interactive and contested process. Specifically, we suggest that regulatory dynamics depend on the hybrid configuration of the social constituencies supporting sustainable finance reforms and on shifts in the overall prevalence of the financial logic in society. Our paper sheds light on the inherent contradictions and limitations of sustainable finance as a means for transformative sustainability reforms. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-021-04763-x.

Corruption is one of the most intractable problems that the world is faced with and its reported impact is widespread and pervasive. Since the mid-1990s, international efforts to combat this problem expanded significantly, driven by the involvement governments, international financial institutions and non-governmental organisations. The objective of this article is to use Michel Foucault’s work in a critical analysis of the international fight against corruption. This analysis is centred on Foucault’s concept of governmentality, as well as his notions of knowledge, power and ethics. The primary focus is on the role played by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and Transparency International in the proliferation of international anti-corruption discourse and practices. Furthermore, South Africa will be used as a case study to unpack the historical and contextual factors that play a role in the legitimisation of corruption. As will be shown in this assessment, without adequately understanding the local factors that stimulate corruption and the other societal characteristics that serve to compound its pervasiveness, internationally driven anti-corruption initiatives have limited scope for success. Corruption will persist where there is a lack of resonance between international anti-corruption ideals and local norms, values and ideologies.

While past studies have enriched our understanding of the impact of returnee executives on firm market strategy and outcomes, we know relatively little about the relationship between returnee executives and firm nonmarket strategies. Grounded in upper echelons theory, this study explores the relationship between returnee executives and corporate philanthropy, the latter of which is an important nonmarket strategy in emerging economies such as China. Using data on publicly listed Chinese companies from 2010 to 2017, we find that the proportion of returnee executives is negative related to corporate philanthropy. We also find that this negative relationship is strengthened by executive ownership, but weakened by corporate prominence and political connections. Our study makes important theoretical contributions to strategic leadership research, upper echelons theory, and the literature of corporate philanthropy. The managerial implications are also discussed.

We examine corporate philanthropic decisions in response to the local spread of COVID-19. From a strategic perspective, firms may proactively undertake philanthropic efforts to limit the spread of the pandemic and avoid a degraded business environment. From the perspective of non-trivial costs, increased economic uncertainty can raise concerns about business survival and lead to conservative philanthropic strategies. Following the proverb “prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them,” at the provincial level, our results support the second perspective. Specifically, when the spread of the pandemic worsens in a province, local firms are less likely to make COVID-19-related donations in terms of likelihood and amount. Investors also react negatively, not only to the local spread of COVID-19 but also to COVID-19-related philanthropic donations. At the organizational level, our evidence indicates that there is at least some level of cost–benefit analysis underlying corporate philanthropic decisions. Specifically, corporate philanthropic donations, especially those made to the local business environment, are significantly affected by organizational-level factors, such as pre-existing resource availability and motives to acquire political and reputational resources. Overall, our multilevel study presents a comprehensive picture of corporate philanthropic decisions amid the COVID-19 crisis.

The goal of this paper was to investigate whether and how a firm that engages in different kinds of corporate social performance (CSP) can create a favorable corporate reputation among its stakeholders, and as a result achieve a good financial performance. Building on stakeholder theory, we distinguish two types of reputation—reputation among public stakeholders and reputation among financial stakeholders. We argue that CSP activities affect these two reputations differently. In addition, we empirically test the relationship among different types of CSP, reputation among public and financial stakeholders, and financial performance. Our results suggest that (1) Carroll’s four types of CSP (i.e., economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic) affect financial performance differently, and (2) their effects are mediated by reputation among public and financial stakeholders. Our findings provide guidelines for managers on choosing to emphasize certain CSP aspects in their communication, depending on the specific stakeholder group they are targeting. Loading... » Journal of Business EthicsJournal of Business EthicsLook Inside Within this Article Introduction Theory Data Analysis and Results Discussion References References Other actions Export citation Register for Journal Updates About This Journal Reprints and Permissions Add to Papers

This paper presents and illustrates the concept of sustainable corporate finance. Sustainability is a well-established concept in the disciplines of environmental economics and business ethics. The paper uses a broader definition of what is called “the firm” to pinpoint sustainability to the finance literature. The concept of sustainable finance is compared to traditional and behavioral finance. Four criteria are used to systematically analyze the basic differences. First on the order is the theory of the firm: the definition of the firm is reconsidered by integrating behavioral aspects and by expanding financial analysis to a three-dimensional goal setting. Secondly, a closer look is taken at the assumed behavior of economic agents and its consequences for the applied methodology. The shareholders paradigm is discussed against the background of growing stakeholder importance. Finally, the fourth criterion deals with the different ethical framework and its implication for financial behavior.

This paper provides preliminary insights into the process of sense-making and developing meaning with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR) within 18 Dutch companies. It is based upon a research project carried out within the framework of the Dutch National Research Programme on CSR. The paper questions how change agents promoting CSR within these companies made sense of the meaning of CSR. How did they use language (and other instruments) to stimulate and underpin the contextual essence of CSR? Why did they do that in this particular way? What were the consequences of this approach for shaping the process of CSR in their company? Did their efforts contribute to a new way of thinking and acting or was it merely putting old wine in new barrels? A preliminary conclusion is that change agents use above all linguistic artefacts (words and notions) and carry out practical projects while constructing meaning. Still, the meaning of meaning itself remains highly intangible, situational and personality related.

In both their external and internal communications, organizations tend to present diversity management (DM) approaches and corporate social responsibility initiatives as a kind of morally ‘good’ organizational practice. With regard to the treatment of employees, both concepts largely assume equality to be an indicator (as well as a goal) of organizational ‘goodness’, e.g. in terms of equal treatment, or affording equal opportunities. Additionally, research on this issue predominantly refers to prescriptive and imperative moralities that address the initiatives themselves, and values them morally. Schopenhauer opposes these moralities by conceptualizing morality as exclusively being based on the incentives of acting instead of the actions themselves. He identifies egoism, compassion, and malice as the sole incentives for every human action, whereby only those actions solely motivated by compassion can be ascribed genuine moral worth. In this context, this article shows that from a Schopenhauerian perspective, CSR and DM initiatives only have a genuine moral worth in so far as the individuals who have initiated or supported their implementation were exclusively motivated by compassion. Stressing the narrative of a business case, if utilized as a façade for true compassion that attaches economic legitimacy to these initiatives, does not necessarily harm their moral worth. The approach and the findings developed in this paper contribute to the discourse on the ethical behavior of organizations, as well as to the discourse on CSR and DM.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in unethical work behavior. Several types of survey instruments to collect information about unethical work behavior are available. Nevertheless, to date little attention has been paid to design issues of those surveys. There are, however, several important problems that may influence reliability and validity of questionnaire data on the topic, such as social desirability bias. This paper addresses two important issues in the design of online surveys on unethical work behavior: the response scale for questions regarding the frequency of certain types of unethical work behavior and the location of the background questions in an online survey. We present the results of an analysis of a double split-ballot experiment in a large sample (n = 3,386) on governmental integrity. We found that, when comparing response scales that have labels for all categories with response scales that only have anchors at the end, the latter provided answers with higher validity. The study did not provide support for the conventional practice of asking background questions at the end. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. ispartof: Journal of Business Ethics vol:120 issue:2 pages:275-289 status: published

This paper discusses the issue of legitimacy and, in particular the processes of building, losing, and repairing environmental legitimacy in the context of the Deepwater Horizon case. Following the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in 2010, BP plc. was accused of having set new records in the degree of divergence between its actual operations and what it had been communicating with regard to corporate responsibility. Its legitimacy crisis is here to be appraised as a case study in the discrepancy between symbolic and substantive strategies in corporate greening and its communication. A narrative analysis of BP’s “beyond petroleum”-rebranding and the “making this right”-campaign issued in response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster discusses their respective implications for (green) corporate change. Further, the question is addressed why BP’s green image endeavors were so widely accepted at first, only to find themselves dismissed as corporate greenwashing now. The study concludes that where a corporation’s “green narrative” consistently evokes established narratives, its legitimacy will be judged against narrative, rather than empirical truth. Thus, the narrative will be more willingly accepted as speaking for the issuing company’s legitimacy, irrespective of whether it reflects substantive greening or not.Keywords: Corporate environmental responsibility, Impression management, Narrative analysis, Corporate communication, Image crisis, BP

Although interest in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets has increased in recent years, most research still focuses on developed countries. The scant literature on the topic, which traditionally suggested that CSR was relatively underdeveloped in emerging markets, has recently explored the context specificity, suggesting that it is different and reflects the specific social and political background. This would particularly apply to local companies, not so much to foreign subsidiaries of multinationals active in emerging markets. Thus far, empirical research that systematically documents a range of CSR activities of local companies and their performance has been scarce. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted among companies in the Mexican auto industry. CSR performance was investigated across three dimensions: environmental, labor, and community, using measures from existing research and global, ‘Western’ standards of practice, to identify the type of CSR activities and the level of CSR performance that exists, if at all, in the emerging-market context. Results show that local companies do engage in the type of CSR activities commonly associated with CSR in developed countries. To the extent that comparisons could be made, our findings also indicate that CSR activities and levels among the sample are comparable to what is known about CSR in developed-country settings. Moreover, six of the nine CSR dimensions are intercorrelated, which suggests that CSR in the Mexican auto parts industry is more structural than incidental.

Corporate community involvement (CCI) is often regarded as means of development in developing countries. However, CCI is often criticised for patronage and insensitivity both to context and local priorities. A key concern is the extent of ‹community participation’ in corporate social decision-making. Community participation in CCI offers an opportunity for these criticisms to be addressed. This paper presents findings of research examining community participation in CCI governance undertaken by Magadi Soda Company in Kenya. We draw on socio-political governance and interaction theories to examine the institutionalisation of participatory decision-making and its impact on changing governing roles and social action in CCI over time.

This paper investigates under what conditions a good corporate social responsibility (CSR) can compensate for a relatively poor corporate ability (CA) (quality), and vice versa. The authors conducted an experiment among business administration students, in which information about a financial services company’s CA and CSR was provided. Participants indicated their preferences for the company’s products, stocks, and jobs. The results show that for stock and job preferences, a poor CA can be compensated by a good CSR. For product preferences, a poor CA could not be compensated by a good CSR, at least when people thought that CA is personally relevant to them. Furthermore, a poor CSR could be compensated by a good CA for product, stocks, and job preferences.

This paper assesses the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and downside equity tail risk, a field of research that has so far been neglected. Using global equities data over the period of January 2003 to December 2011, inclusive, the downside tail risk of each company is estimated using techniques of extreme value theory and CSR is approached using stakeholder theory. Our findings show a significant relationship between certain aspects of CSR and downside tail risk. The nature of the relationship differs across region, CSR category and time. Furthermore, the relationships we found are sequential, which makes a causal link between CSR and tail risk plausible.

This paper compares the results of large-scale U.S. and U.K. surveys designed to identify managers' major ethical concerns and to investigate how firms are formulating and communicating ethics policies responsive to these concerns.