Machiavellianism, stakeholder orientation, and support for sustainability reporting

• Author: William E. Shafer,Lorenzo Lucianetti
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12187

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Machiavellianism, stakeholder orientation, and support for

sustainability reporting

William E. Shafer

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Lorenzo Lucianetti

2

1

Accountancy, Lingnan University, Hong

Kong, People’s Republic of China

2

Business Administration, Department of

Management and Business Administration,

University of Chieti and Pescara, Pescara,

Italy

Correspondence

William E. Shafer, Accountancy, Lingnan

University, 8 Castle Peak Road, Tuen Mun,

NT, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of

China.

Email: weshafer@ln.edu.hk

This study investigates the relationsamong Machiavellianism, the stakeholder orientation, and Ital-

ian managers’support for corporate social and environmental reporting (SER). These relationships

have not previously been investigated among a sample of experienced managers but have impor-

tant implications. As anticipated, Machiavellianism had a strong negative association with the

support for SER.Machiavellianism was also negativelyrelated to the stakeholder orientation, which

in turn was positivelycorrelated with the support for SER. Supportfor the stakeholder orientation

partially mediated the association between Machiavellianism and SER. The findings advance our

understanding of the motivations for sustainability reporting by documenting that managers’fun-

damental personality traits and economic ideologies are closely associated and are important

determinants of normative support for social and environmental disclosures. We further suggest

that the results support the case for mandated compliance-with-standard sustainability reports

coupled with a requirement that such reports be independently audited.

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INTRODUCTION

Despite the widely publicized efforts of bodies such as the Global

Reporting Initiative (www.globalreporting.org) to promote sustainability

and social/environmentalreporting in recentdecades, the goal of attain-

ing legally mandated compliance-with-standard reporting has remained

elusive in most jurisdictions. Clearly the lack of sufficient progress

towardsthis goal is due to a complexmilieu of social,environmental,and

political factors. One suchfactor that has been periodically investigated

is the attitudes of organizational members who may influence sustain-

abilityreporting processessuch as top managersand accountants.

Indeed, for decades researchers have periodically assessed managers’

attitudes towards corporate social and environmental reporting (SER) and

have often based policy prescriptions such as increased education and

regulation on such attitude assessments (e.g., Deegan & Rankin, 1999).

But relatively little effort has been made to investigate the underlying

determinants of managers’attitudes from a social psychological stand-

point. As concluded by Mudrack (2007, p. 33), normative views towards

corporate social responsibility are “closely tied to fundamentalpersonality

traits..., values, and thinking patterns.”Thus, obtaining a more thorough

understanding of the personality traits and ideologies that influence atti-

tudes towards sustainability reporting should provide greater insights into

the potential effectiveness of various policy recommendations.

We argue that high Machiavellian managers will be more likely to

oppose prescriptive arguments in favourof sustainability reporting and

less likely to believe in the importance of corporate ethics and social

responsibility.We also anticipate that attitudestowards the importance

of corporate ethics and social responsibility will partially mediate the

relationship between Machiavellianism and support for sustainability

reporting. Surprisingly, it appears that previous studies of corporate

managers have largely ignored these issues.

We were interested in corporate social responsibility in Italy,

becausecorruption, a cultureof lawlessness,and tax evasionremain cen-

tral issuesin the country.Italy was ranked 69thon Transparency Interna-

tional’sC orruption Perceptions Index (CP I) for 2013 (www.transparency.

org/2013cpi/results,accessed 17 November2014), which puts it in one

of the lastpositions both atthe EU level and at the G20level. The ethical

behaviour of firms in their interactions with public officials, politicians,

and otherfirms appears to be evenworse, with Italy beingranked 103rd

(between Libya and Bolivia) (Global Competitiveness Report 2013–

2014,2013). Corporate SERis not legally mandatedin Italy.

Our findings, based on a survey of highly experienced managers who

were involved in their companies’sustainability reporting processes, gener-

ally support our expectations. The results advance knowledge in this field

by demonstrating that managers’basic personality traits and economic

ideologies are important determinants of their support for sustainability

reporting. These findings have important practical implications for efforts

to promote genuine acceptance of the goals of SER. Because Machiavel-

lianism is a deeply ingrained personality trait characterized by a relative

lack of concern for ethical issues, high Machiavellians should be relatively

resistant to influences such as moral appeals that emphasize the impor-

tance of corporate social responsibility and accountability to multiple

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C2018 JohnWiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer BusinessEthics: A Eur Rev. 2018;27:2 72–285.

Received:11 October 2016

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Revised: 20 February2018

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Accepted:3 April2018

DOI: 10.1111/beer.12187