This study involved using a mixed method research design to examine the moral philosophy difference between the ethical decision-making process of CEOs in U.S.-led and non-U.S.-led within the luxury goods industry. The study employed a MANOVA to compare the ethical profiles between the two leader types and a phenomenological qualitative process to locate themes that give indication as to the compatibility of the luxury strategy values and practices with the principles and concepts of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. As the (...) luxury goods industry is facing the first slowdown since 2000, pressure to achieve sales targets in the U.S. to make up for losses in other markets will place these CEOs under extreme pressure from their headquarters. These leaders must possess the ethical decision-making capability to balance legal and moral dilemmas unique to multinational luxury goods organizations while delivering business results in a challenging environment. Results of the study show no evidence of difference in the ethical decision-making profiles between the two groups of leaders. The themes and emergent findings resulting from the qualitative analysis indicate a profound incompatibility between the values informing decision-makers using the luxury strategy and those employed by leaders operating within the principles and parameters of responsible leadership and conscious capitalism. Recommendations for future research include replicating the study with a larger sample, within a different geographic region or comparing leaders using the luxury strategy to those using conscious capitalism. (shrink)

Our research extends the current understanding of cognitive moral reasoning research by considering the often‐overlooked element of context, specifically the issue presented in the ethical dilemma, and the issue of gender agreement between the subject and the dilemma actor. We rely on gender identity and cognitive moral reasoning theories to provide the theoretical underpinnings of our exploration to deepen our understanding of the contextual forces affecting cognitive moral reasoning. Our results generally confirm earlier research findings and provide valuable information regarding (...) our understanding of the impact of the dilemma context and the gender agreement or disagreement between the subject and the actor in an ethical dilemma, with significance found for four of our five hypotheses, with half of the significant results in the direction predicted. Implications for future academic research and business practice are discussed. (shrink)

This research builds on previous investigations seeking to understand how individuals reason about moral problems. Our research includes a preliminary investigation about Millennials and a cross‐generational analysis using secondary research data to understand this emerging generation's moral reasoning and assess trends in moral reasoning over time. This study addresses content‐bias in moral reasoning by using a new instrument with business‐based dilemmas, the Moral Recognition Interview, based on the well‐established moral reasoning framework of Lawrence Kohlberg. Results show that the Millennials in (...) this study exhibit differences in moral reasoning based on gender, intelligence, work experience, and academic major, however not necessarily in an expected manner. Differences in moral reasoning were found when the context or “story pull” of the ethical dilemmas presented is considered. In addition, a comparison to other studies shows that business student Millennials tend to reason at lower levels of cognitive moral reasoning than non‐business college students, as well as college students in the 1960s–1970s (Baby Boomers) and in the 1980s–1990s (Generation Xers). (shrink)

Relying on an expanded view of leadership and the moral reasoning framework developed by Lawrence Kohlberg (1981), this study explores the moral reasoning of the chief executive officers at the 11 largest automobile manufacturers in the world. Using the CEO's letter to their stakeholders found in the organizations' annual social responsibility reports, the CEOs' moral reasoning is compared to other managers' moral reasoning, and the moral reasoning exhibited within the CEO group is analyzed for differences due to regional location. Contrary (...) to conventional understanding based on prior research, the CEOs in our sample did not exhibit moral reasoning at a higher level than a cross section of managers but there were differences within the sample of CEOs when looking at nationality. Implications of these results for CEOs, managers, academics, and others are explored. (shrink)

Collaborative consumption activities like saving food and buying used clothes are an important and rapidly growing part of sustainable consumer behavior. Many political and commercial campaigns promote collaborative consumption practices by highlighting subsets of normative motives, such as sustainable, social, and ecological effects. Whether or not consumers can comprehend these claims and incorporate them into their decision-making process is, however, unclear. This article introduces a new experimental study design to ethical consumer research—an adapted version of the Defining Issues Test—that enables (...) to assess consumers’ ability to cognitively and intuitively understand moral arguments in collaborative consumption contexts. The experiment was conducted with N = 435 collaborative consumers from Germany. The findings indicate that in different collaborative consumption contexts, consumers consider different moral arguments as important. Furthermore, the findings also indicate that consumers can incorporate the provider’s point of view in their moral judgment. (shrink)

Media stories of ethical lapses in business are relentless. The general public vacillates between revulsion, impatience, cynicism, and apathy. The role of the Business School in Moral Development is debated by scholars, accrediting agencies, and Schools of Businesses. It is a question to which there is no easy answer and one with which Business Schools continue to grapple. This article places the concept of "moral imagination," theories of moral development, and ethics in a behavioral context. It then discusses a staple (...) of business education, the case study, as a form of ethics narrative that provides ethical modeling within that context. Finally, in discussing the narrative role of the classroom professor in ethical modeling, it provides a framework for further discussion of the role of business education in moral development. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates its ‘CSR at a tipping point’ thesis by juxtaposing views of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as essential for business and societal sustainability against those that see CSR as unaffordable or irrelevant in the current economic climate. Drawing from Kohlberg's seminal theory of moral development, CSR is conceptualised as the development of organisation moral reasoning, and the proposition is illustrated by demonstrating inter-disciplinary similarities in levels of ethical concern within different approaches to the practice of marketing, human resource (...) management (HRM) and performance management. Levels of concern for CSR are related to environmental and firm-specific drivers and constraints that influence the CSR dynamic. Environmental influences on organisational CSR stances emanate from a range of stakeholder constituencies, while the importance accorded to CSR is also influenced by firm-specific factors such as the organisation's stage of development, strategy and leadership. The paper's identification of inter-disciplinary similarities in the varying levels of concern for CSR and its delineation of CSR drivers and constraints contribute to CSR theory, and these frameworks also represent analytical tools that managers can use to assess or to change an organisation's CSR stance. The multi-level perspective on CSR adopted by the paper links an organisation's overall or ‘macro’ CSR stance to the ‘meso’ levels of CSR represented by practice within its specialist functions. It proposes that the ‘CSR at a tipping point’ proposition is assessed by utilising the conceptual model in the paper within a case-study research design to determine whether specific organisations – identified as ‘CSR-positive’ ones by their relatively high level of concern for stakeholder welfare – are changing the importance they accord to CSR as a result of the new business context, and the extent to which practice in their marketing, HRM and performance management functions are shapers or consequences of this. (shrink)

A well-known common wisdom asserts that strong social bonds undermine delinquency. However, there is little empirical evidence to substantiate this assertion regarding adolescence academic cheating across cultures. In this study, we adopt social bonding theory and develop a theoretical model involving four social bonds and adolescence self-reported academic cheating behavior and cheating perception. Based on 913 adolescents in France and China, we show that parental attachment, academic commitment, and moral values curb academic cheating; counterintuitively, peer involvement contributes to cheating. We (...) test our theoretical model across culture and gender, separately, using multi-group analyses. For French teens, peer involvement encourages and moral values undermine cheating; for Chinese adolescents, all four social bonds contribute to cheating, similar to the whole sample. For girls, parental attachment deters, but peer involvement enhances cheating. For boys, parental attachment is the only social bond that does not affect cheating. We treat social integration as a mediator of the relationship between peer involvement and social bonds that construct, in turn, is related to cheating and ask: Considering popularity, who are likely to cheat? Our answers provide an interesting paradox: Popularity matters, yet popular French girls and unpopular Chinese boys are likely to cheat. Social sharing is a positive pro-social behavior in consumer behavior. However, academic cheating and rule breaking, reflecting self-serving altruism and the red sneakers effect, at a very young age may have the potential to grow into the Enron Effect later in their lives as executives in organizations. We shed new lights on both the bright and dark sides of social bonds on cheating, demonstrate bad company corrupts good morals, differently, across culture and gender, and provide practical implications to social bonding, business ethics, and cheating. (shrink)

Interest in spirituality in the workplace and in leaders’ spirituality has grown in the last two decades, paralleled by the emergence of spiritual leadership theories and research. Despite evidence that spirituality is important to many leaders, the literature fails to adequately address the intersections of spiritual, leader, and moral development. A whole person and integrated approach to these three types of development seems beneficial to individual leaders, businesses, and society. In this article we first review spiritual, moral, and leader development (...) literature. Then, drawing on the theory of being-centered leadership, we present a framework which addresses the parallel and intertwined nature of spiritual, leader, and moral development. Our proposed framework includes markers of the three types of development and is inclusive of multiple spiritual development traditions. Four practices and processes of spiritual development are also explored and related to leader and moral development processes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are presented. (shrink)

Business leadership increasingly requires a master’s degree in business and graduate management admission test scores continue to be an important component of applications for admission to such programs. Given the ubiquitous use of GMAT scores as gatekeepers for business leadership, GMAT scores are likely to influence organizational ethical behavior through gender, cultural, and other biases in the GMAT. There is little prior literature in this area and we contribute by empirically documenting that GMAT scores are negatively related to the cultural (...) dimensions of masculinity and power distance and are positively related to math literacy, uncertainty avoidance, and individualism. We estimate that cultural factors may account for as much as an 80-point difference in cross-national mean GMAT scores which are also related negatively to local language literacy, national educational spending, wealth per capita, wealth inequality, and gender development. Most interestingly, we also find a significant negative association of GMAT scores with ethical orientation. These findings have important implications for business schools and corporate ethics and leadership. (shrink)

<b>Objectives:</b> To gather empirical data on how gender and educational level influence bioethical reasoning among medical students by analyzing their use of care versus justice arguments for reconciling a bioethical dilemma. <b>Setting:</b> University Departments of Medical Ethics, Social and Communication Psychology in Germany. Participants: First and fifth year medical students. Design and method: Multidisciplinary, empirical, 2-segment study of ethics in action: In intrapersonal Segment 1, the students were presented with a bioethical dilemma and then administered a 13-item questionnaire to survey (...) their individual preferences for care versus justice arguments in resolving the conflict. The survey questioned 6 justice, 6 care-related items and 1 socially critical item. Data were analysed by gender and year of medical school. In interpersonal Segment 2, the bioethical dilemma from Segment 1 was discussed in gender-mixed and gender-homogeneous groups. Coded transcripts were evaluated to identify prevalences in care versus justice reasoning. <b>Results:</b> Data on 462 medical students were evaluable (n=338 in Segment 1, n=168 in Segment 2, n=44 overlap). Gender and level of education had no effect on moral reasoning in intrapersonal Segment 1, but significantly affected reasoning in interpersonal Segment 2, where women significantly tended to use more care-orientated arguments. Justice arguments predominated the group discussions. <b>Conclusion:</b> Interpersonal contexts affect moral reasoning in medical students, probably by amplifying the socialisation relating to gender and educational level. Care orientation is associated with the female gender. Professional socialisation tends to reduce the diversity and richness of moral reasoning towards a more justice-weighted orientation. Medical ethics should teach both justice and care reasoning modes in order to broaden physicians' ability to reconcile bioethical dilemmas. (shrink)