Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Entrepreneurship education with a focus on sustainable development primarily teaches students to develop a profit-driven mentality. As sustainable development is a value-oriented and normative concept, the role of individual ethical norms and values in entrepreneurial processes has been receiving increased attention. Therefore, this study addresses the role of moral competence in the process of idea generation for sustainable development. A mixed method design was developed in which would-be entrepreneurs were subjected to a questionnaire (n = 398) and to real-life decision-making (...) processes in a case assignment (n = 96). The results provide stepping stones for implementing (moral) competencies in entrepreneurship education as a possible avenue to move away from a sole focus on a profit-driven mentality. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

This study contributes to the burgeoning research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) at the individual level of analysis, in a hitherto largely neglected developing country context. Using survey information collected from 297 employees in public and private enterprises in Kosovo, this study examines how and to what extent employees’ perceptions of their employer's CSR activities are associated with their intention to emigrate. Applying a needs‐based framework, this research provides evidence that employees’ perceptions of CSR are positively related to the meaningfulness (...) of their work and job satisfaction and negatively related to intention to emigrate. Additionally, results confirm that the association between CSR perceptions and emigration intention is mediated by the meaningfulness of work and job satisfaction. From a practical point of view, this research should encourage private and public enterprises in developing countries to enhance and extend their CSR engagement. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The aim of our research is to analyze how different religions influence business ethics. We develop an index of practices in the field of business ethics, made up of 19 items containing practices related to workers, consumers, products, human rights, management of ethical conflicts, and crime prevention. Also, we consider a wide range of religion affiliations. To undertake this research, we use a panel data sample composed of 11,956 firm‐year observations from 18 countries. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we posit some (...) hypotheses based on the religions considered. The results obtained show that a higher percentage of religious adherents in the country where a company does business usually involve the implementation of more ethical practices in the corporate field. These findings are obtained for Christian, Islamic, Jewish, and Hindu religions. In contrast, this does not stand for Buddhist and folk religions. Also, countries where there is no predominant religion do not show a confluence between religion and ethical corporate practices. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

This paper aims to analyse how the discourse of CEO letters and other factors influence community involvement and Social Licence to Operate (SLO) in the mining industry. The analysis is based on qualitative information disclosed in sustainability reports and CEO letters from 32 mining firms. Content analysis was undertaken to obtain data for the study, and then a regression analysis and a multiple correspondence analysis were used to test the hypotheses defined in the study. The results indicate that the CEO (...) discourse influences how a firm expresses the importance of gaining its SLO, the philanthropic activities in which companies become involved and the destinations of the investments in the communities in which they operate. The results also show changes in the discourse between 2011 and 2015, which are, in part, explained by the difficult situation experienced by the sector during this period. The paper contributes to the Corporate Social Responsibility literature by integrating different theories from this field into the SLO framework. The analysis carried out and the results obtained are useful for both CEOs and Sustainability Managers, especially in managing their relationships with the communities where they operate or intend to operate. (shrink)

Despite the widespread popularity of the Creating Shared Value discourse, its ‘business case’ and ‘win–win’ rhetoric remain problematic. This paper adds an inclusive development perspective to the debate, arguing that analysing CSV strategies through an inclusivity lens contributes to a better operationalisation of societal value; makes tensions and contradictions between economic and societal value explicit and uncovers processes of inclusion, exclusion and adverse inclusion. We illustrate this by analysing Nestlé’s CSV strategy in its cocoa supply chains in Ghana based on (...) content analysis of company documents, interviews with value chain actors and stakeholders, and focus groups with farmers. We ask how Nestlé frames and implements its CSV discourse in practice and how this relates to the social, relational and environmental dimensions of inclusive development. Findings show how the company addresses inclusive development dimensions in its corporate discourse, practices and business operations, and what trade-offs it faces. We then unmask the inherent tension between business objectives and societal interests and explain why the scope, issues addressed and societal impacts of CSV remain constrained. We conclude that CSV can help reduce a company’s impact on some persistent societal issues, but that its contribution to transformational change remains limited because the need to uphold competitive advantages and short-term financial performance narrows its ability to address all inclusivity dimensions. Legislation mandating responsible business conduct and due diligence can reduce this inherent tension by levelling the playing field between companies addressing inclusivity issues vis-à-vis those who do not. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of Christian religion on corporate decisions related to human rights in the United States. Specifically, it examines the empirical association between a company's human rights practices and the Christian religiosity in its local community, as well as individual CEO religiosity in the United States, both of which have not been tested in prior studies. Employing a large sample from the United States, we find a congruent association between the “human rights friendly” practices of a company (...) and the Christian religiosity of the local community. This novel finding is robust to a diverse set of tests. In addition, we find that the association between Christian religiosity in the United States and human rights is more significant in reducing human rights concerns, than it improves human rights strengths. This study interprets these results as upholding the religious morality hypothesis, namely, that companies located in areas with higher religiosity are likely to engage in more human rights-friendly practices, and the United States. Christians consider religion as an influencing factor that encourages managers to embrace human rights. Furthermore, this study finds that individual religious managers tend toward more human rights-friendly practices, supporting our religious manager hypothesis. (shrink)

The recent deluge of sexual harassment allegations in the media serves as a reminder that sexual harassment remains a pervasive, destructive occurrence in the workplace. Organizations in the United States have taken a legal‐centric approach to managing workplace sexual harassment, resulting in impotent anti‐harassment policies, ineffective sexual harassment training, and underused reporting mechanisms. In this conceptual paper, I argue that men's differential perceptions of sociosexual behaviors have propagated this legal‐centric approach, which fails to meet organizations’ ethical obligation to provide a (...) safe and healthy work environment. Specifically, men have a different psychological experience of sexual harassment, which may inhibit their ability to take the perspective of targets. This lack of perspective‐taking has influenced the jurisprudence on workplace sexual harassment, which has in turn informed organizations’ approach to managing the phenomenon. I contribute to research on both business ethics and workplace sexual harassment by integrating two bodies of scholarship that have developed largely independent of one another: organizational psychology and legal. In so doing, I offer an explanation for the continued pervasiveness of workplace sexual harassment despite decades of legal sanction, organizational interventions, and research. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

This is the first study to examine the relationship between sustainability and soundness in banking as part of an integrated reporting approach. We consider 12 major European banks over the period 2006–2016. To test the relationship, two indexes were constructed, the sustainable performance index, which attempts to measure sustainability, and the banking soundness index, which measures bank soundness. The results show a bidirectional causality between sustainability and banking soundness. More specifically, soundness encourages banks to engage in sustainable development activities, while (...) the implementation of a sustainable development approach has a negative effect on banking soundness. Our research contributes to the literature on this topic in two ways. First, we propose a new method for measuring banking soundness based on a Bayesian approach. This approach allows us to study a large number of criteria and allows us to determine proactively the importance and the contribution of different determinants in achieving soundness. In addition, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that attempts to study the relationship between bank soundness and sustainability. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.