Business Ethics, The Environment & Responsibility (formerly Business Ethics: A European Review)

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 0962-8770

Issue Number

No. 33-1, January 2024

Latest documents

Issue Information
Ethics of mortgage advisers in the Netherlands: Professional attitudes and moral dilemmas
Since 2013, mortgage advisory has become an independent profession in the Netherlands. Initially working for mortgage providers, the newly nonpartisan advisers now work for standard advisory fees, thereby reducing conflicts of interest. In this article, I provide an ethical analysis of the different types of ethos of mortgage advisers, that is, the ways they see and talk about, and relate to their work in a certain way. The central research question is: What different kinds of ethos do mortgage advisers have, and which moral dilemmas do they experience in their advisory work? The existence of moral dilemmas is controversial in ethics but nonetheless experienced in real‐world business practice. An “ethological” understanding of morality is developed in this paper to understand how these dilemmas are experienced. Twenty‐nine mortgage advisers have participated in Q methodological research, a mixed qualitative–quantitative small‐sample method. Three different types of ethos were found: Principled Advisers, Moral Advisers, and Minimal Morality Advisers. In considering these three types, I argue that many mortgage advisers should professionalize their ethical stance and learn to address situations in which moral values are neglected. Business ethicists, in turn, need to acknowledge that something may be considered morally inappropriate but is still defensible in some other sense. In this paper, I develop a “layered” conception of business ethics that broadens the perspective from universal notions, such as “rights” and “duties,” toward a concrete ethos that people have in a certain professional practice.
The curvilinear relationship between corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage: Empirical evidence from China
The positive or negative impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR) may have on business performance have drawn research interest. In recent years, the focus of research has shifted toward the link between CSR and corporate competitive advantage. Corporate competitive advantage is a multifaceted and holistic concept that captures more than just corporate financial performance. Building on the resource‐based view (RBV), corporate competitive advantage construct theory, and CSR behavior theory, we explore how a firm's CSR engagement shapes its corporate competitive advantage. Our analysis of a panel dataset of 64 companies with a top‐100 CSR development index in China and 704 firm‐year observations over the sample period from 2009 to 2019 reveals an inverse U‐shaped relationship between CSR and corporate competitive advantage. This signifies that corporate competitive advantage first increases with CSR engagement but declines as it reaches a threshold level where CSR activities are beyond the affordability of the firm. We also examine how behaviors at various CSR engagement levels influence different dimensions of corporate competitive advantage. These results support a curvilinear relationship, explaining why many CSR strategies have been ineffective in the past. The findings may help guide corporate decisions and government policymaking on CSR.
A thorough examination of organizations from an ethical viewpoint: A bibliometric and content analysis of organizational virtuousness studies
The study comprehensively reviews previous research work in the domain of ‘Organizational Virtuousness’ (OV) using bibliometric and content analysis. It aims to provide insights into what is known about the field and where future research should be directed. As many as 193 published research articles during the last two decades (2004–2022) were retrieved from the Scopus database. These articles were thoroughly studied and then examined using VOSviewer and the Biblioshiny package of R software for bibliometric insights. The findings of the analysis have pinpointed the most influential journals, authors, and keywords and discovered seven research clusters. Notably, this study is one of the foremost attempts to review the extant research body on OV, and it inarguably helps and guides future research and practice.
Understanding the link between subsidiary CEOs and corporate social responsibility in emerging markets: Moderating role of social capital
This paper analyzes the interlink among managerial experience, capabilities, and social capital in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of multinational enterprises' (MNEs) subsidiaries in an emerging market context. Based on the empirical sample of 104 subsidiaries of 28 Italian MNEs operating in India, we found that CEO managerial capabilities are positively associated with CSR activities. However, interestingly, our findings also show that subsidiary CEO (managerial) experience is negatively associated with CSR activities in emerging markets. Therefore, our study is one of the few that highlights the negative repercussions of experience in the context of CSR activities in emerging markets. Moreover, our findings show that while social capital alleviates the negative influences of CEO experience on CSR activities, it does not enhance the role of CEO managerial capabilities in CSR activities. As such, our study contributes to research on business ethics with a focus on sustainable development in business.
Twenty‐five years of management research on poverty: A systematic review of the literature and a research agenda
Despite significant economic growth in both developed and emerging markets, several disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the global population still live in poverty. Recognizing the important role of business in alleviating poverty, management scholars have been increasingly investigating the topic of poverty. Although reviews of the extant literature have provided overviews of select poverty‐related themes, such as that of the base of the pyramid, no one study has reviewed the topic of poverty across the management literature. The present systematic literature review collects, organizes and analyzes several hundred articles on poverty research, published in business and management journals during the past 25 years. The study identifies major themes in poverty research, reveals thematic overlaps among subdisciplines, summarizes adopted research methodologies, and recognizes opportunities for future research. We find that, despite the wide variation of research topics and approaches, the studied themes remain relatively insulated within each subdiscipline of management research. Drawing on United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, we conclude that, although the number of articles on poverty has increased considerably during the last decade, there are several research niches that future management scholars can investigate to alleviate one of the most pressing global challenges of our time.
Conditions for mission‐led companies to humanize the economy: An Aristotelian perspective
With the creation of the legal status of “benefit corporations,” mission‐led companies have been developing since 2010 in the United States, but also in the United Kingdom, Italy, and recently France. Shareholders of mission‐led companies define a social, scientific, or environmental mission for their companies in addition to the pursuit of profits. Given this specific characteristic, these companies seem more likely than traditional firms to serve human flourishing in an authentic way. But are these legal forms and strategic objectives sufficient? This article builds on Aristotelian virtue ethics and the concept of the “good life” to identify necessary conditions to build a mission‐led approach to firms that can truly humanize the economy. We explain mechanisms through which the mission‐led approach may provide an essential lever for humanization for the individual person, the company, its industry, and the broader economy. We also identify several factors that may limit or prevent the mission company's ability to contribute to the good life. This conceptual article is inspired by the context of the emergence of mission companies in France since 2019, which has led many companies to question their purpose and their mission towards society and their mission's implementation.
Nexus between government surveillance on executive compensation and green innovation: Evidence from the type of state‐owned enterprises
The Chinese government capped executive compensation in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) to address income inequality and promote a more equitable distribution of wealth. This study investigates whether regulating top executives' pay alters their motivation for corporate green innovation (GI) initiatives. Using data from 2006 to 2018 for Chinese‐listed SOEs, the regression analysis and difference‐in‐difference methods revealed that government restrictions on executive compensation negatively affect GI. Furthermore, the types of SOE results show that the negative effect of pay restrictions on GI exists only in local SOEs, as opposed to central SOEs. Moreover, high managerial shareholding positively moderates this negative effect, demonstrating that the adverse effects of compensation restrictions are mitigated by the convergence of interests between managers and stakeholders. These findings are robust to instrumental variables and other robustness tests. This study provides policy recommendations for the government to boost its assistance in GI and establish new environment‐related incentives that motivate managers to promote GI and inspire enterprises to deploy sustainable environmental initiatives.
How does founders' religiosity affect the proactive environmental strategies in family firms? Evidence from China
The current literature expands the existing knowledge of the antecedents of proactive environmental strategies (PES) in family firms from the perspectives of institutional, market and family involvement logics. However, scholars have not considered the influence of key family decision‐makers and their characteristics in this regard. Based on the ability and willingness framework, this study focuses on how founders' religiosity affects family firms' PES. Using data from the 2010 Chinese Private Enterprise Survey conducted by Chinese officials, we found that founders' religiosity drives family firms to implement PES. Altruistic and long‐term orientation are the internal mechanisms of this effect. Founders' political status enhances the positive impact of their religiosity on PES, whereas the founders' need for socioemotional wealth protection weakens the relationship between founders' religiosity and family firms' PES. We also found that Eastern and Western founders' religiosity has an asymmetric effect on family firms' PES. This study contributes to the literature on the PES of family firms, the family firm's ability and willingness framework, and family business heterogeneity.
The differential impact of substantive and symbolic CSR attribution on job satisfaction and turnover intention
Employees have their own understandings of corporate social responsibility (CSR) motives. This study investigated whether employees' different perceptions of CSR motives, including substantive CSR attribution and symbolic CSR attribution, influence their work attitudes, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Moreover, we explore the mediating role of person‐organization fit in the relationships among CSR attribution, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. We collected 687 responses for an overall response rate of 16%. The results of structural equation model (SEM) analyses show that substantive CSR attribution decreases employee turnover intention and that symbolic CSR attribution increases employee turnover intention. Based on these results, we provide relevant theoretical and managerial implications.