Business Ethics Research Research Articles

Editorial Musings on What Makes the Blood Flow in Business Ethics Research

Editorial Musings on What Makes the Blood Flow in Business Ethics Research

Who Do I (Dis)Trust and Monitor for Ethical Misconduct? Status, Power, and the Structural Paradox.

A wealth of research documents the critical role of trust for social exchange and cooperative behavior. The ability to inspire trust in others can often be elusive, and distrust can have adverse interpersonal and ethical consequences. Drawing from the literature on social hierarchy and interpersonal judgments, the current research explores the predictive role of a structural paradox between high power and low status in identifying the actors most likely to be distrusted and monitored for ethical misconduct. Across four studies and an internal meta-analysis, we found that the structural paradox was associated with distrust-related judgments and behaviors. In Study 1, high power-low status actors were judged as less trustworthy. In Studies 2 and 3, high power-low status actors were sent less money in a trust game, an effect fully mediated by feelings of dislike. Study 4 revealed that high power-low status actors were more likely to be monitored for cheating, an effect partially mediated by trust judgments. These findings contribute to business ethics research by identifying the structural paradox of high power-low status as a salient contextual influence impacting observers’ distrust and monitoring dynamics. Implications for reducing observers’ level of distrust of high power-low status actors are discussed.

Business ethics research at the world's leading universities and business schools

AbstractThis paper explores the role of the leading universities and best‐ranked business schools in the evolution of the academic field of business ethics. An advanced bibliometric methodology is applied to publications in business ethics from the major universities of the Shanghai ARWU ranking and from the FT‐ranked business schools. The comprehensive bibliometric study encompasses multiple indicators and examines the evolution of business ethics publications over time. Business ethics research is built on two complementary interdisciplinary streams of research, philosophy, and management. The study indicates that it were not the top universities that contributed most to research advancements in the field of business ethics but second and third tier universities. This finding suggests that academic research in new subfields constitutes a niche strategy for universities and business schools to differentiate themselves. The study furthermore highlights the prominent role of the product champion or ‘idea champion’ in management research at universities. The diffusion of business ethics research illustrates the possibilities for lower ranked business schools with lower budget to excel in specialised subfields and interdisciplinary subthemes.

Enabling the Voices of Marginalized Groups of People in Theoretical Business Ethics Research

The paper addresses an understudied but highly relevant group of people within corporate organizations and society in general—the marginalized—as well as their narration, and criticism, of personal lived experiences of marginalization in business. They are conventionally perceived to lack traditional forms of power such as public influence, formal authority, education, money, and political positions; however, they still possess the resources to impact their situations, their circumstances, and the structures that determine their situations. Business ethics researchers seldom consider marginalized people’s voices and experiences as resources to understand their lives, as demonstrated through a review of 7500 articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics and Business Ethics Quarterly (2000–2019). Only 78 studies included aspects of marginalized groups. 69 of those studies discussed the topic of marginalized groups of people, but without integrating their explicit voices into the text. Only 9 of the 78 articles featured marginalized people’s explicit voices about their marginalization experiences incorporated into the text as a source for exploration. None of the identified studies discussed the potential for theorizing based on such voices. This paper contributes to business ethics theory by developing four theoretical possibilities vis-à-vis the critical voices of marginalized people’s experiences in business: (a) marginalized theory on critical agency and freedom of speech; (b) the gatekeeping role of academia; (c) primary sources; and (d) a participative perspective. Discussing the theoretical potential of quoting the above voices can enrich business ethics research in terms of the theoretical understanding of marginalized groups in business.

Capital Round-Tripping: Determinants of Emerging Market Firm Investments into Offshore Financial Centers and Their Ethical Implications

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in offshore financial centers (OFCs) is gaining increased attention in business ethics research. Much of this research tends to focus on OFCs as locations where firms can avoid taxes, considering such behavior as unethical. Yet, there is dearth of studies on capital round-tripping by emerging market firms, which is an integral part of this phenomenon. Such round-tripping involves firms sending capital into OFCs only to invest it back in the home country under the guise of “foreign” investment. Presently there is little discussion of the ethical implications of such round-trip FDI activities. In this paper, we conceptualize round-tripping as institutional arbitrage and look at the determinants and ethical implications of such investments into OFCs. Exploring Russian round-tripping we note that firms tend to invest more funds in OFCs that offer a combination of tax and secrecy, or secrecy and property rights protection arbitrage opportunities. In either case firms exploit the opportunities provided by institutional differences between the OFC and Russia while investing back into Russia. Our results tend to indicate that equating OFC investment to tax avoidance and thus deeming it as unethical behavior is too narrow an explanation in the case of emerging economy round-tripping. This is because such investments are often motivated by the unethical behavior of home country stakeholders and may in fact provide benefits to society.

Servant Leadership and the Impact of Supervisor Affiliation on Pro-Group Unethical Behavior

Based on social identity theory, this research aims to develop and test a model contending that the supervisor affiliation perceived by employees mediates the influence of servant leadership on employees’ pro-group unethical behavior. Among a sample of 239 supervisor-employee matching data of four foreign-owned engineering enterprises, we found that supervisor affiliation mediated the positive effect of supervisors’ servant leadership on employees’ pro-group unethical behavior. The results also revealed that employees’ moral attentiveness weakened the positive impact of supervisor affiliation on pro-group unethical behavior. The current study continues the momentum on business ethics research by advancing our understanding of antecedents of pro-group unethical behavior as well as how positive servant leadership affects such negative unethical behavioral outcome. This effort also extends research that shows mediating and moderating roles played by interpersonal contextual influence and individual difference. Implications of these results for theory, practice and directions for future research are discussed.

The Wealth Effect of Corporate Water Actions: How Past Corporate Responsibility and Irresponsibility Influence Stock Market Reactions

Ensuring access to clean water is one of the most important development and health challenges of the twenty-first century. Given the manifold impacts of business activities on water resources, corporate water actions should be of central concern to business ethics researchers. Yet so far we know too little about whether business activities that impact on water resources are noticed or how corporate water actions are valued by a firm’s stakeholders, including by financial markets. In response, we conduct an event study to investigate the shareholder wealth effect of reports of corporate water actions. We explore stock market reactions to water actions by S&P 500 firms from 2005 to 2017, showing that the market reacts positively to reports of responsible water actions and negatively to irresponsible actions. We further explain that these abnormal returns to water actions are associated with a firm’s past performance on ethical issues, arguing that the reputational effects from prior corporate social responsibility and irresponsibility influence market reactions. Our analysis provides evidence that there are diminishing marginal returns to responsible water actions for firms with records of past responsibility and an offsetting effect for those with past irresponsibility. Similarly, we demonstrate an insurance effect that limits punishment for irresponsible water actions for firms with responsible performance records and diminishing negative marginal returns for those already seen to be irresponsible. This study is the first to show that shareholders recognize market value in corporate water actions and are prepared to award or punish firms in stock markets based on their impacts on water.

TO BRIBE OR TO CHEAT? EFFECTS OF SELF-MONITORING AND GENDER

This study aimed to contribute to business ethics research investigating the effects of two individual differences – self-monitoring personality and gender – on ethical decision making. Applying a bribery scenario (intentions) and a cheating matrix task (behavior), results showed that high self-monitors had more unethical intention and behavior than low self‑monitors. Moreover, low self-monitors had more consistency intention-behavior than high self-monitors, and the inconsistencies of the later were different regarding gender. The bi-dimension of self-monitoring construct – acquisitive and protective – was tested and brought additional evidence about the ones who bribes. Possible explanations of these findings are discussed, with suggestions for future research.

Do they practice what they preach? The presence of problematic citations in business ethics research

PurposeIn scholarly publications, citations play an essential epistemic role in creating and disseminating knowledge. Conversely, the use of problematic citations impedes the growth of knowledge, contaminates the knowledge base and disserves science. This study investigates the presence of problematic citations in the works of business ethics scholars.Design/methodology/approachThe authors investigated two types of problematic citations: inaccurate citations and plagiarized citations. For this, 1,200 randomly selected citations from three leading business ethics journals were assessed based on: (1) referenced journal errors, (2) article title errors and (3) author name errors. Other papers that replicated the same title errors were identified.FindingsOf the citations in the examined business ethics journals, 21.42% have at least one error. Of particular concern are the citation errors in article titles, where 3.75% of examined citations have minor errors and another 3.75% display major errors – 7.5% in total. Two-thirds of minor and major title errors were repeatedly replicated in previous and ensuing publications, which confirms the presence of citation plagiarism. An average article published in a business ethics journal contains at least three plagiarized citations. Even though business ethics fares well compared to other disciplines, a situation where every fifth citation is problematic is unacceptable.Practical implicationsBusiness ethics scholars are not immune to the use of problematic citations, and it is unlikely that attempting to improve researchers' awareness of the unethicality of this behavior will bring a desirable outcome.Originality/valueIdentifying that problematic citations exist in the business ethics literature is novel because it is expected that these researchers would not condone this practice.

Do business ethics really matter?

Do business ethics really matter?

Ethical behavior perceptions in Russia: Do ethics‐related programs and individual characteristics matter?

AbstractThis paper aims to analyze how individual differences and ethics‐related programs predict Russian business students and working adults' perception of personal business ethics. This research evaluates the business ethics perceptions based on surveys of 1,207 managers, employees, and business students in Russia. This study finds the significant correlations between individual differences (gender, age, education level, and management experience), ethics‐related programs (business ethics courses taught in universities, ethics and diversity professional development training), and personal business ethics' perceptions of Russian business students and working adults. We also find that individual differences moderate the relationship between ethics‐related programs and how the personal business ethics of Russian business students and working adults are perceived. These findings advance current literature by revealing that age moderates the relationship between ethics‐related programs (formal ethic courses, ethics, and diversity trainings) and personal ethical behavior perceptions of working adults and business students in Russia. Our study found that gender had a significant positive moderating effect on relationship of organizational code of ethics, formal ethic courses, and diversity professional development with personal ethical behavior perceptions. The relation between personal ethical behavior perceptions and the presence of an organizational code of ethics was negative and marginally moderated by age and managerial experience. This study contributes to business ethics research by deepening the understanding of the impact of individual differences on the relationship between ethics‐related programs and personal business ethics' perceptions.

The Promise of Pragmatism: Richard Rorty and Business Ethics

Pragmatists believe that philosophical inquiry must engage closely with practice to be useful and that practice serves as a source of social norms. As a growing alternative to the analytic and continental philosophical traditions, pragmatism is well suited for research in business ethics, but its role remains underappreciated. This article focuses on Richard Rorty, a key figure in the pragmatist tradition. We read Rorty as a source of insight about the ethical and political nature of business practice in contemporary global markets, focusing specifically on his views about moral sentiments, agency, and democratic deliberation. Importantly for business ethicists, Rorty’s approach sets in stark relief our moral responsibility as useful, practical thinkers in addressing the societal challenges of our time. We use “modern slavery” as an empirical context to highlight the relevance of Rorty’s approach to business ethics.

Self-Representation of Marginalized Groups: A New Way of Thinking through W. E. B. Du Bois

I address an interesting puzzle of how marginalized groups gain self-representation and influence firms’ strategies. Accordingly, I examine the case of access to low-cost HIV/AIDS drugs in South Africa by integrating W. E. B. Du Bois’s work into stakeholder theory. Du Bois’s scholarly work, most notably his founding contribution to Black scholarship, has profound significance in the humanities and social sciences disciplines and vast potential to inspire a new way of thinking and doing research in the management and organization fields, including business ethics research. By drawing on Du Bois’s works, I argue that through reconstruction of their selves—knowing their souls—marginalized groups know their capabilities better, enabling them to overcome their political and strategic limitations and ensure their true self-representation. They are also empowered to use political imagination and strategies of resistance against more powerful opponents. This influences powerful actors to accept the demands of marginalized groups.

The 99 Percent Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism, by Paul S. Adler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. 240 pp.

The financial collapse, deepening wealth inequality, police brutality against African Americans, wage stagnation and antilabor practices, sexual discrimination, corporate personhood, tech monopolization, increased urgency of the climate crisis, and current COVID-19 pandemic have given rise to left-leaning populism under the guises of such movements as Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Poor People’s Campaign, Fight for 15, Indivisible, #MeToo, and the Sunrise Movement, among numerous others. [...]in seeking the root causes of these six crises, Adler threads together the features and by-products of the capitalist system, such as private enterprise, wage employment within firms, the capture of government by business, the natural environmental and social externalities posed by businesses, and a world economy that inherently depends on very uneven power relations. Admittedly, the majority of our research in business ethics and organizations and management offers at best theoretical and empirical tweaks to the status quo, translated practically into minor and temporary repairs to the crises posed by neoliberal capitalism.

ERP Study of Liberals’ and Conservatives’ Moral Reasoning Processes: Evidence from South Korea

Do liberals’ and conservatives’ brain processes differ in moral reasoning? This research explains these groups’ dissimilar moral stances when they face ethical transgressions in business. Research that explores the effects of ideological asymmetry on moral reasoning processes through moral foundations (i.e., fairness and authority) has been limited. We hypothesize two different moral reasoning processes and test them in the South Korean culture. Study 1 uses the neuroscientific method of event-related potentials (ERP) to explore the dissociable neural mechanisms that underlie Korean liberals’ and conservatives’ moral reasoning processes in business ethical transgressions. Liberals’ early frontal negative-going (EFN) brain waves showed that they are quick to pass negative judgment by intuitively detecting violations of fairness (i.e., moral engagement), while conservatives’ temporoparietal positive-going (TPP) brain waves showed that they have a higher motivation to respect authority (i.e., moral rationalization). Both liberals’ and conservatives’ ERP components occur within the first second of the decision-making phase, suggesting the rapid and intuitive nature of moral reasoning processes. Study 2 tests a mediating process and confirms that Korean liberals (conservatives) exhibit the moral engagement (rationalization) strategy, through the fairness (authority) foundation. These findings from our interdisciplinary research deepen the knowledge of the complexity of human morality in business ethics research.

Cultural Differences in Academic Dishonesty: A Social Learning Perspective

In this study, we examined the role of social learning theory in explaining academic dishonesty among 673 college students in the United States, France, and Greece. We found support for social learning theory such that perceived peer dishonesty was incrementally valid as a predictor of self-reported academic dishonesty across three countries beyond personal factor of conscientiousness and demographic factor of age. Contrary to expectation, perceived penalty for academic cheating received support in the U.S. sample only. Justification for academic dishonesty contributed incremental variance after controlling for other factors including age, conscientiousness, perceived penalty for cheating and peer dishonesty across three countries. In addition, cultural differences accounted for almost 50% of the explained variance in academic dishonesty with French students reportedly engaged in significantly more academic cheating behavior than Greek and U.S. students. Discussion and implications for business ethics teaching and research were discussed.

Opening Constructive Dialogues Between Business Ethics Research and the Sociology of Morality: Introduction to the Thematic Symposium.

Over the last decade, scholars across the wide spectrum of the discipline of sociology have started to reengage with questions on morality and moral phenomena. The continued wave of research in this field, which has come to be known as the new sociology of morality, is a lively research program that has several common grounds with scholarship in the field of business ethics. The aim of this thematic symposium is to open constructive dialogues between these two areas of study. In this introductory essay, we briefly present the project of the new sociology of morality and discuss its relevance for business ethics. We also review the contributions to this thematic symposium and identify four specific domains where future research can contribute to fruitful dialogues between the two fields.

The Effects of Spirituality and Religiosity on the Ethical Judgment in Organizations

Despite the obvious link between spirituality, religiosity and ethical judgment, a definition for the nature of this relationship remains elusive due to conceptual and methodological limitations. To address these, we propose an integrative Spiritual-based model (ISBM) derived from categories presumed to be universal across religions and cultural contexts, to guide future business ethics research on religiosity. This article aims to empirically test (ISBM) in the context of Islam. It examines how different Muslims' views of God (emotional component) influence their ethical judgments in organizations, and how this process is mediated by their religious practice and knowledge (behavioral and intellectual components). Comprising focus group and vignette designs, the study was carried out with a random sample of 427 executives and management professionals from Saudi. After data collection, the study hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings confirmed that a view of God based on hope might be more closely associated with unethical judgments than a view based on fear or one balancing hope and fear. Furthermore, religious practice and knowledge were found to mediate the relationship between Muslims' different views of God and their ethical judgments. These results provide unique theoretical insights into religiosity's influence on ethical judgment, with important implications for management.

STRATEGI PEMASARAN DALAM MENGHADAPI PERSAINGAN USAHA PRESPEKTIF ETIKA BISNIS ISLAM

ABSTRACT 
 The purpose of this research is to find out the marketing strategy of BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan. The other purpose of this research is to know the Islamic business ethics towards the implementation of marketing strategy in BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan. The type of this research is qualitative research with a case study approach. The results of this study showed that supporting factors in the BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan include external environmental factors and internal factors. The factors relating to the internal environment include targeting, positioning and segmentation, while other supporting factors in the external environment BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan analyzes what are the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats that occur in the cooperative environment. BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan uses a marketing mix strategy which includes targeting, place strategies, pricing strategies and promotional strategies. Based on the results of the research in the Islamic business ethics, BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan concluded that the strategy was conducted at the BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan in accordance with the principles of Islamic business ethics, because in each process, the cooperative BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan Foundation on the concept of sharia and the promotion in its products is not exaggeration, while the price carried out by the cooperative BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan is using a system for the outcome of which the cooperative and the customer equally benefited , in promoting its products cooperatives BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan is not exaggerating, promoting it according to the quality and procedure that has been promised by BMT UGT Sidogiri Kraksaan.

Enchantment in Business Ethics Research

This article draws attention to the importance of enchantment in business ethics research. Starting from a Weberian understanding of disenchantment, as a force that arises through modernity and scientific rationality, we show how rationalist business ethics research has become disenchanted as a consequence of the normalization of positivist, quantitative methods of inquiry. Such methods absent the relational and lively nature of business ethics research and detract from the ethical meaning that can be generated through research encounters. To address this issue, we draw on the work of political theorist and philosopher, Jane Bennett, using this to show how interpretive qualitative research creates possibilities for enchantment. We identify three opportunities for reenchanting business ethics research related to: (i) moments of novelty or disruption; (ii) deep, meaningful attachments to things studied; and (iii) possibilities for embodied, affective encounters. In conclusion, we suggest that business ethics research needs to recognize and reorient scholarship towards an appreciation of the ethical value of interpretive, qualitative research as a source of potential enchantment.