Journal of Business Ethics最新文献

We provide evidence on the effects of criminal/corrupt politicians on firm performance and investments in their constituencies. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we focus on close parliamentary elections in India to establish a causal link between election of criminal-politicians and firms’ stock-market performance and investment decisions. Election of criminal-politicians leads to lower election-period and project-announcement stock-market returns for private-sector firms with economic ties to the district. There is a significant decline in total investment and employment by private-sector firms in criminal-politician districts. Interestingly, decline in private-sector investment is largely offset by a roughly equivalent increase in investment by state-owned firms.

Businesses often attempt to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by showcasing women in their leadership ranks, most of whom are white. Yet research has shown that organizations confer status and power to women who engage in sexist behavior, which undermines DEI efforts. We sought to examine whether women who engage in racist behavior are also conferred relative status at work. Drawing on theory and research on organizational culture and intersectionality, we predicted that a white woman who expresses anti-Black racism is conferred more status in the workplace than a white woman who does not. A pilot study (N = 30) confirmed that making an anti-Black racist comment at work was judged to be more offensive than making no comment, but only for a white man, not a white woman. Study 1 (N = 330) found that a white woman who made an anti-Black racist comment at work was conferred higher status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man, with perceived offensiveness mediating these effects. Study 2 (N = 235) revealed that a white woman who made an anti-racist/pro-Black Lives Matter comment was conferred lower status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man. Finally, Study 3 (N = 295) showed that people who endorse racist and sexist beliefs confer more status to a white man than to a white woman regardless of speech, but that people low in racism and sexism confer the highest status to a white woman who engages in anti-Black racist speech. These studies suggest that white women are rewarded for expressing support for beliefs that mirror systemic inequality in the corporate world. We discuss implications for business ethics and directions for future research.

In this paper, we are situated in postcolonial, decolonial, and feminist epistemologies to study environmental racism in the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch where human activity has changed the functioning of the earth. Drawing from critiques of the Anthropocene, the concept of racial capitalism, as well as environmental justice and racism scholarship, we show how proposed solutions to the climate crisis overlook and may even exacerbate racial injustices faced by communities of color. We contend that a climate justice agenda that is grounded on racial justice is necessary for our scholarship to develop a racially just management and organization studies (MOS). To accomplish this agenda, we propose three shifts: from studying elite institutions to researching grassroots organizations concerned with climate and racial justice, from uncritical endorsement of global technologies to studying local adaptation by communities of color, and from offering decontextualized climate solutions to unraveling racial histories that can help us address racial and climate injustices. We discuss the implications of these shifts for management research and education and argue that MOS cannot afford to ignore climate justice and racial justice—they are both inextricably linked, and one cannot be achieved without the other.

Prosocial behavior—actions aimed to benefit other individuals, groups, or communities—are important for promoting and maintaining a healthy society. Extant research on the factors driving prosocial behavior has mainly addressed short-term effects, overlooking the factors that motivate long-term prosocial behavior. Building on attachment theory, we theorize that an interpersonal factor, receiving social support, can foster prosocial behavior in the long-term, both in the environment where the support was received and beyond it. We argue that receiving social support positively predicts felt security—a sense of being safe, cared for, and loved—which in turn associates with higher motivation to engage in behaviors that benefit others. We test our hypotheses with cross-sectional, longitudinal, retrospective, and experimental data. In Study 1, data from a sample of international business school alumni validate past research and show a significant positive relationship between receiving social support and engaging in prosocial behavior both within and beyond the environment in which support was received. Study 2 leverages data of US adults in a multi-wave study to show that receiving social support predicts prosocial activities several years later. Study 3 uses a retrospective survey to show that receiving social support relates positively to long-term prosocial behavior through higher felt security. Study 4 experimentally manipulates social support and further demonstrates that receiving social support fosters prosocial behavior through boosting felt security. Overall, our findings show that receiving social support motivates long-term prosociality through its positive association with felt security.

This study explored how the nature of CEOs’ human capital affects the scope of their firms’ corporate social responsibility initiatives. By integrating upper echelons theory with the attention-based view of the firm, the analyses showed that generalist CEOs with a broader range of knowledge and skills tend to aim their firms’ corporate social responsibility efforts toward a broader range of responsibility domains than do specialist CEOs with a narrower range of knowledge and skills. The difference is weaker when a firm’s board has a sustainability committee or when industry peers are active in a broad range of corporate social responsibility domains. These findings are supported by data on S&P 1500 firms spanning 2000 to 2018.

Contemporary society operates beyond safe boundaries of the Earth system. Returning to a safe operating space for humanity within Earth system boundaries is a question of justice. The relevance of the economy—and thus of business—for bringing society back to a safe and just operating space highlights the importance of business ethics research for understanding the role of business in Earth system justice. In this commentary, we explore the relevance of business ethics research for understanding the crucial role of business in the dynamics of the Earth system. We do so by integrating the perspectives of business ethics and system-oriented sustainability science on the basis of the theory of metabolic rift, which explains how the dynamics of capitalism result in the destruction of the natural environment. On this basis, we argue that a mutually reinforcing relationship between perpetual economic growth and profit seeking behaviour of business, which we call the loop of unsustainability, continually deepens the metabolic rift and keeps business from effectively contributing to Earth system justice. This perspective allows us to formulate firm-level and system-level preconditions for attaining Earth system justice, and to sketch a research agenda that links business ethics scholarship with questions of Earth system justice.

Virtue signaling serves to express moral and ethical values publicly, showcasing commitment to social and sustainable ideals. This research, conducted with non-WEIRD samples to mitigate the prevalent WEIRD bias (i.e., the tendency to solely rely on samples from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies), examines whether the scarcely studied virtue-signaling construct mediates the influence of consumers’ attachment anxiety (vs. avoidance) on their green purchase behavior and prosocial responses. Drawing on attachment theory and the emerging virtue-signaling literature, the current work reports the results from three studies (N_total = 898) in which consumers’ attachment patterns were not only measured, as in most prior related research, but also manipulated. Study 1 confirmed the unique ability of measured attachment anxiety, but not attachment avoidance, to predict consumers’ green purchase behavior and prosocial tendencies, with virtue signaling mediating these links. Study 2 manipulated participants’ attachment patterns, finding further support for the mediating role of virtue signaling between attachment anxiety (vs. avoidance) and these dependent variables. Study 3 provided a more nuanced account for our virtue-signaling conceptualization by documenting that self-oriented, but not other-oriented, virtue signaling mediated the link between attachment anxiety and both our key outcomes in public contexts. From a managerial viewpoint, these findings indicate that anxiously attached consumers constitute a potentially lucrative segment for companies seeking to expand their market share of sustainable and ethically produced products.

30 years ago, R. Edward Freeman levied an influential challenge against the “separation thesis”, which maintains that ethical and business concerns are distinct and separable. However, achieving an integration of empirical and normative research continues to pose significant challenges. In this article, it is argued that the tradition of philosophical pragmatism offers a pathway to bridge this divide. While Freeman’s critique is rooted in pragmatism, it falls short of fully embracing the pragmatist turn as advocated by Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, who extended the methodologies of empirical inquiry to ethical issues. Typically, this pragmatist turn has been sidelined due to the formidable objection that norms and values cannot be empirically confirmed nor disconfirmed. This objection is critically examined, arguing that it is largely based on conceptions of science associated with positivism and logical empiricism, effectively challenged by pragmatism. Embracing a pragmatist perspective, it is argued, can substantially enhance both theoretical and empirical research within business ethics. This approach entails integrating observations that pertain to the values, norms and responsibilities of businesses. Conversely, with a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of such proposals, observations can help determine which ethical theories and perspectives best accommodate empirical findings. Additionally, pragmatism presents a novel approach to the role of business in society, enabling businesses to engage in democratic processes of inquiry into value.

The audit profession’s technical and ethical standards require the application of professional skepticism throughout the financial statement audit process, as auditor skepticism is essential for detecting financial statement fraud and protecting the investing public. However, recent research suggests that audit supervisors often punish staff for exercising skepticism, presenting auditors with an ethical conflict between acting in their own self-interest and acting in a way that improves audit quality and protects the public. This research also suggests that supervisors who reward appropriate skeptical behavior, regardless of the outcome, appear to develop staff that are more likely to detect and convey fraud red flags to their superiors. Building on this research, we use a case-based survey to identify the characteristics of audit supervisors (audit seniors and managers) who are more likely to reward appropriate skepticism, even if it ultimately does not identify a misstatement. We find that trait skepticism, especially suspending one’s judgment, positively drives the evaluations of professional skepticism in our setting. Also, we observe that when supervisors believe that their own audit partner will view the skepticism favorably, they “pay it forward” by rewarding their own staff who engage in skepticism. Our findings identify the characteristics that audit firms may want to develop and foster in auditors rising to supervisory levels.

Racial injustice in employment demands the attention of business organizations because it profoundly shapes our life prospects. While comparing the ideal of perfectly equal opportunity with its invariably imperfect alternatives can impede reform, the true challenge lies in addressing persistent inequities as we strive for equality. This article introduces “shared inequity” as a frame of reference for assessing workplace racial disparities and emphasizing a collective responsibility to remedy systemic issues. In critiquing an exaggerated notion of meritocracy, I emphasize that structural racism, rather than just individual acts, facilitates collective advantages, especially for White males. Hence, it is morally fitting to frame racial justice in employment, not only in terms of perfect equality, but also in terms of justly sharing an imbalance that cannot be corrected without counterbalance. The “shared inequity” lens offers a more realistic and just approach to pursuing racial justice in the workplace.