Public trust in business, defined as the degree to which the public—meaning society at large—trusts business in general, is largely understudied. This article suggests four domains of existing trust research from which scholars of public trust in business can draw. The authors then propose four main hypotheses, which aim to predict the determinants of public trust, and test these hypotheses using a factorial vignette methodology. These results will provide scholars with more direction as this article is, to the authors’ knowledge, (...) one of the first empirical studies of public trust. Furthermore, the study will enable those companies interested in increasing public trust to understand better respective determinants of public trust. (shrink)

For decades, scholars have debated the corporate objective. Scholars have either advocated a corporate objective focused on generating value for shareholders or creating value for multiple groups of stakeholders. Although it has been established that the corporate objective can shape many aspects of the corporation—including culture, compensation, and decision making—to date, scholars have not yet explored its psychological impact; particularly, how the corporate objective might influence employee well-being. In this article, we explore how two views of the corporate objective affect (...) employee self-determination, a key component of overall psychological need satisfaction and well-being. We hypothesize that a corporate objective based on creating value for multiple stakeholders will increase employee psychological need satisfaction as compared to one focused on creating value for only shareholders. Across four experimental studies and one field survey, we find consistent support for our hypotheses and test three facets of a stakeholder-focused corporate objective. Theoretical implications and future research directions are discussed. (shrink)

Scant research has examined the effects of an organization’s stakeholder orientation on the cognition and attitudes of employees. Our study focuses on how one aspect of an organization’s objective, its stakeholder orientation, affects employee job satisfaction. Through seven studies utilizing different samples and measures, we theorize and demonstrate that employees with a higher perceived stakeholder orientation experience enhanced job satisfaction. We provide correlational field data and causal experimental evidence to show that increased employee perspective-taking is one potential mediator of this (...) effect. These results contribute to our understanding of job satisfaction and perspective-taking by showing how employee orientation toward other stakeholders affects their attitude toward their job and social cognition. We also expand the focus of stakeholder orientation beyond normative philosophy and toward understanding its effects on the cognitions and attitudes of organizational members to provide a basis for examining the behavioral implications of different stakeholder orientations. (shrink)

The paper considers two main cases of how the creative arts can inform a greater appreciation of human dignity. The first case explores a form of theater, Commedia dell’Arte that has deep roots in Italian culture. The second recounts a set of theater exercises done with very minimal direction or self-direction in executive education and MBA courses at the Darden School, University of Virginia, in the United States. In both cases we highlight how the creative arts can be important for (...) promoting human dignity in organizations, and how they can lead to a more authentic conversation about values, ethics, and meaning. (shrink)

While decision making scholarship in management has specifically addressed the objectivist assumptions within the rational choice model, a similar move within business ethics has only begun to occur. Business ethics scholarship remains primarily based on rational choice assumptions. In this article, we examine the managerial decision making literature in order to illustrate equivocality within the rational choice model. We identify four key assumptions in the decision making literature and illustrate how these assumptions affect decision making theory, research, and practice within (...) the purview of business ethics. Given the breadth of disciplines and approaches within management decision making scholarship, a content analysis of management decision making scholarship produces a greater range of assumptions with finer granularity than similar scholarship within business ethics. By identifying the core assumptions within decision making scholarship, we start a conversation about why, how, and to what effect we make assumptions about decision making in business ethics theory, research, and practice. Examining the range of possible assumptions underlying current scholarship will hopefully clarify the conversation and provide a platform for future business ethics research. (shrink)

In this article, we will outline the principles of stakeholder capitalism and describe how this view rejects problematic assumptions in the current narratives of capitalism. Traditional narratives of capitalism rely upon the assumptions of competition, limited resources, and a winner-take-all mentality as fundamental to business and economic activity. These approaches leave little room for ethical analysis, have a simplistic view of human beings, and focus on value-capture rather than value-creation. We argue these assumptions about capitalism are inadequate and leave four (...) problems in their wake. We wish to reframe the narrative of capitalism around the reinforcing concepts of stakeholders coupled with value creation and trade. If we think about how a society can sustain a system of voluntary value creation and trade, then capitalism can once more become a useful concept. (shrink)

There are important synergies for the next generation of ethical leaders based on the alignment of modified or adjusted mental models. This entails a synergistic application of moral imagination through collaborative input and critique, rather than "me too" obedience. In this article, we will analyze the Milgram results using frameworks relating to mental models (Werhane et al., Profitable partnerships for poverty alleviation, 2009), as well as work by Moberg on "ethics blind spots'' (Organizational Studies 27(3): 413-428, 2006), and by Bazerman (...) and Chugh on "bounded awareness" (Harvard Business Review, 2006; Mind & Society 6: 1-18, 2007) Using these constructs to examine the Milgram experiment, we will argue that the ways in which the experiments are framed, the presence of an authority figure, the appeal to the authority of science, and the situation in which the naïve participant finds herself or himself, all create a bounded awareness, a narrow blind spot that encourages a climate for obedience, brackets out the opportunity to ask the moral question: "Am I hurting another fellow human being?" and may preclude the subject from utilizing moral imagination to opt out of the experiment. We will conclude that these forms of almost blind obedience to authority are correctable, but with difficulty. We will argue that linking the modification of mental models to an unbinding of awareness represents an important synergistic relationship and one that can build effectively on the lessons learned from our experience with moral imagination. (shrink)

The paper considers two main cases of how the creative arts can inform a greater appreciation of human dignity. The first case explores a form of theater, Commedia dell’Arte that has deep roots in Italian culture. The second recounts a set of theater exercises done with very minimal direction or self-direction in executive education and MBA courses at the Darden School, University of Virginia, in the United States. In both cases we highlight how the creative arts can be important for (...) promoting human dignity in organizations, and how they can lead to a more authentic conversation about values, ethics, and meaning. (shrink)

Can business humanize its stakeholders? And if so, how does this relate to moral consideration for stakeholders? In this paper we compare two business orientations that are relevant for current business theory and practice: a stakeholder orientation and a profit orientation. We empirically investigate the causal relationships between business orientation, humanization, and moral consideration. We report the results of six experiments, making use of different operationalizations of a stakeholder and profit orientation, different stakeholders, and different participant samples. Our findings support (...) the prediction that individual stakeholders observing a stakeholder-oriented firm see the firm’s other stakeholders as more human than individual stakeholders observing a profit-oriented firm. This humanization, in turn, increases individual stakeholders’ moral consideration for the firm’s other stakeholders. Our findings underscore the importance of humanization for stakeholders’ moral consideration for each other. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the firm as a moral community of stakeholders. Specifically, we move away from a focus on managers, and how they can make business more moral. Instead we direct attention to stakeholders, and how business can make these stakeholders more moral. (shrink)

Declining levels of stakeholder trust in business are of concern to business executives and scholars for legitimacy- and performance-related effects. Research in the area of stakeholder trust in business is nascent; therefore, the trust formation process has been rarely examined at the stakeholder level. Furthermore, the role of personal values as one significant influence in trust formation has been under-researched. In this paper, we develop a contingency model for stakeholder trust formation based on the effects of stakeholder-specific vulnerability and personal (...) values of the trustor. Using a factorial vignette methodology, we find that Schwartz’s value set interacts with stakeholder roles so that trustworthiness signals of competence and character play differing roles during trust formation. These results inform stakeholder trust research, organizational trust research, and research in personal values. The research also informs managers tasked with rebuilding stakeholder trust in business. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe a way of teaching business ethics using the creative arts, especially literature and theater. By drawing on these disciplines for both method and texts, we can more easily make the connection to business as a fully human activity, concerned with how meaning is created. Students are encouraged to understand story-telling and narrative and how these tools lend insight into the daily life of businesspeople. The paper describes two main courses, Business Ethics Through (...) Literature and Leadership, Ethics and Theater, and the rationale for each. We begin by suggesting three main leverage points that the courses engender. We then rely on the words of students who have taken the courses for insights into what they learned. We then critically assess some of the principles that have informed course design over time. We conclude by suggesting that paying attention to the creative arts gives rise to a rather different approach to business ethics, one grounded in the pragmatist tradition in philosophy. (shrink)

Workers can be fired from jobs, citizens sent to jail, and adolescents more likely to experience depression, all because of algorithms. Algorithms have considerable impacts on our lives. To increase user satisfaction and trust, the most common proposal from academics and developers is to increase the transparency of algorithmic design. While there is a large body of literature on algorithmic transparency, the impact of unethical data collection practices is less well understood. Currently, there is limited research on the factors that (...) affect users’ trust in data collection practices and algorithmic transparency. In this research, we explore the relative impact of both factors as they relate to important outcome measures such as user’s trust, comfort level, and moral acceptability. We conducted two pilot studies to learn what real users consider to be ethical and unethical data collection practices, as well as high and low transparency for algorithms. We then used these findings in a 2 × 2 design to examine how transparency and the acceptability of data collection practices impact users’ acceptance, comfort, and trust in algorithms. Our results suggest that the singular emphasis on algorithmic transparency may be misplaced. Given the difference in their impact to increase acceptance, trust, and user satisfaction, a more effective strategy would be to also understand and abide by users’ views of ethical data collection practices. (shrink)

The relevance of the research In the face of increasing global competition, business was challenged to seek new methods for creating their competitive advantage and at the same time the decreasing budgets of higher education institutions were pressured to find new streams of financing. In both cases, collaboration is seen as an important method for achieving their objectives but universities of today have as well to find the appropriate balance between teaching, basic and applied research, and entrepreneurship. Ten types of (...) university-business collaboration are related quite directly to the missions of the university and the needs of business. Curriculum development and delivery is one of that ten, which aim is to develop human resources to modern society. A summary of benefits was identified in the academic literature as arising from UBC in relation to curriculum design and delivery for multiple stakeholders including academics, students, university administration, business and community. Overall, UBC may take various forms that are influenced by different factors but even if all stakeholders seeks the main purpose of this process they may get different benefits. The research aim was to identify the benefits of universities and business organizations in curriculum development. The objectives of the research: to determine the instruments and activities used for universities and business organizations collaboration, to identify universities and business organizations benefits from collaboration to the various stakeholder groups. Analysis of recent research and publications. UBC became the subject of education and management sciences. P. D'Este and M. Perkmann explored the factors of UBC, the types were identified by T. Davey, T. Baaken, V. Galan Muros, A. Meerman, T. Barnes, A. Gibbons and the levels of UBC were represented by B.N. Ponomariov, P.C. Boardman, T. Davey, R. Laužackas. The benefits of UBC to research quality have been studied by researchers T. Davey, M. Crespo, N. Carayol, H. Forsyth, R. Laxton, S. Lamichhane, T. Nath Sharma, P. Van der Sijde and H. Dridi, as a collaborative factor for learning improvement by researchers K. Ramakrishnan, N.M. Yasin, A. Draghici. An overview of the study of this object shows that it was mostly analysed in vocational training and in last ten years’ period the publications is growing in UBC. Research methodology. The paper seeks to represent the UBC benefits for different stakeholders and collaboration forms, which was used by university with the business organizations from leisure industry. Quantitative research was used to gain quantify opinions of benefits and instruments of UBC – and generalize results from a larger sample population. Methods applied for the research was scientific literature review, a questionnaire survey for business organization leaders and mathematical statistics. Conclusion. The benefits of the UVB were grouped according to the type of stakeholder's: society, university administration, academics, entrepreneurs, students. The benefits of business stakeholders include additional funding, access to education resources, lecturer and coordinator, support in evaluating the program and developing new study subjects. The highest rated benefit to others stakeholders from their view could be reducing academic staff training costs, as well as business information available to student projects, skills development and student employment opportunities and human resource development in the region. (shrink)