In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who (...) have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile. (shrink)

We examine the role of socio-demographic factors on consumers’ pro-environmental behavior –a subset of ethical behavior and analyze its implications in an emerging market, with a sample study from India. Multivariate analysis of variance was performed as research method. Results show that males display higher PEB than their female counterparts. Married consumers score more on PEB than single. Mid-age consumers also score high on PEB than young and old-age consumers. Furthermore, highly educated consumers are more pro-environmentalist than graduates and post-graduates. (...) The novelty of this study is that centers on the use of demographic variables interactively in order to form microsegments. For instance, married men score more on PEB scale than unmarried men and women and prefer green channels even more. On the contrary, unmarried women display no hesitation in paying more for energy-efficient goods compared to married men and unmarried men. Marketers may aim in setting such PEBs as the moral standards among consumers being an easily identifiable segment as their prime target. (shrink)

Social desirability bias (SDB) is one of the main concerns in self-reported studies that measures explicit attitudes such as ethics research. Although SDB was introduced since the early 1950s, little effort has been made to understand the necessity of including an SDB scale in studies of sensitive topics such as ethics. The purpose of this paper was to (1) identify whether current ethics-related studies considered SDB when conducting their research and (2) ascertain whether SDB was a significant variable in such (...) studies. This investigation takes the form of a systematic review of articles published within the last 20 years in well-known business ethics journals (2000–2019). We found that (a) only 13.67% of ethics research measured SDB; (b) although the majority of the reviewed articles were from the West, researchers in Asia have also made significant progress in recent years in measuring SDB in their studies; (c) SDB was used mainly as a control variable and as such researchers preferred scales with fewer items; and (d) SDB was unavoidable even when using online surveys. Based on our findings, we attempt to provide an overview of SDB in ethics research and encourage ethics researchers who adopt self-reported surveys to include an SDB measurement in their studies to control SDB. (shrink)

Given that services differ from goods in terms of intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability, customers may evaluate green services differently from how they evaluate green goods. Previous research has investigated customers’ perceptions and purchase decisions regarding green products. However, limited attention has been paid to the impact of green practices on customer evaluations of the service experience as well as important contingencies that bear on this relationship. Drawing on stakeholder theory, our study examines the impact of green practices on customer evaluations (...) and further considers the influences of environmental- and firm-level contingencies. We test our model with a multi-source dataset in the Chinese hotel industry. The findings indicate that green practices improve customer evaluations of the service experience. This positive impact is, however, weaker in external environments characterized by high internet penetration and market complexity but is stronger for hotels with innovative services and for business hotels. Our findings provide novel insights into the environmental ethics and stakeholder management literatures by revealing the role of green practices in promoting positive service evaluations as well as the contingent influences of external environments and internal firm-level characteristics. (shrink)

In this study, we examine the influence of senior leadership on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We integrate upper echelons research that has investigated either the influence of the CEO or the top management team on CSR. We contend that functional experience complementarity between CEOs and TMTs in formulating and implementing CSR strategy may underlie differentiated strategies in CSR. We find that when CEOs who have predominant experience in output functions are complemented by TMTs with a lower proportion of members who (...) have experience in output functions, there is a pronounced effect on the community, product, and diversity dimensions of CSR. In turn, when output-oriented CEOs are complemented by output-oriented TMTs, we observe an effect on the employee relations dimension of CSR. Interestingly, we find no influence of CEO-TMT complementarity on the environment dimension of CSR. In general, our empirical results support the relevance of the interaction between CEOs and their TMTs in defining their firms’ CSR profile. (shrink)

To promote ethical and pro-environmental behavior, hypocrisy sometimes is made salient to individuals: i.e., they are made aware that their past behavior does not conform to expressed norms. The fact that this strategy may backfire and may even reduce the likelihood of individuals performing the desired action has been largely overlooked. This paper develops a theory of how hypocrisy stimulates two opposing heuristic processes: one that favors the former, positive outcome and one that renders hypocrisy non-effective. We test the model (...) and reveal important boundary conditions using the finding of a comprehensive field experiment. Situational and individual factors determine which of the competing mechanisms is activated. The paper contributes a novel understanding to managers and scholars of how hypocrisy operates and illuminates the contingencies of when this strategy is beneficial. (shrink)