Ethics

Challenges to Professional Independence in a Relational Society: Accountants in China Abstract This study examines the tensions between the western concept of professional independence and accountants’ commitment to significant others under the care perspective of guanxi. The principle of professional independence is founded on arm’s-length transactions to avoid undue influence on professional and ethical judgement. However, in the relational society of China, social interactions based on Confucianism elicit a duty of care and concern towards significant others in important relationships. For a professional accountant, the commitment to persons with whom they have guanxi is potentially at odds with their commitment to professional independence. Data collected from interviews with Chinese accounting professionals, accounting academics and expatriate accountants working in China provide insight on how Chinese accounting professionals discharge their obligations under guanxi. Notions of guanxi and the rules of exchange identified in Hwang’s (Knowledge and action: A social psychological interpretation of Chinese cultural traditions, Sin-Li, Taipei, 1995) model of “Confucian ethics for ordinary people” provide the lens to explain the ethical dilemmas facing Chinese accountants. The findings suggest that accounting professionals prioritise the interests of their superiors and clients over the users of financial reports. Despite accountants’ moral obligation to protect the public interest, personal and professional obligations in China struggle to extend beyond client or employer interests mostly because of the absence of a formal relationship or connection with the public. This contrasts sharply with the notion of professional independence practised in western societies, where accounting professionals must be independent of their clients and superiors and commit to a duty to protect the public interest. The outcome of this study demonstrates the impediments to transplanting western concepts to different cultures.

Employee Entitlement, Engagement, and Performance: The Moderating Effect of Ethical Leadership Abstract Drawing on theoretical arguments from the psychology discipline, we investigate the implications of employee entitlement in organizational settings. Specifically, we utilize workplace engagement theory to suggest that due to their skewed sense of deservingness, employees high in entitlement are less likely to experience workplace engagement. Furthermore, the negative relationship between employee entitlement and workplace engagement is strengthened when ethical leadership is low, yet mitigated when ethical leadership is high. Finally, we predict that under conditions of low ethical leadership, reductions in engagement explain why employee entitlement results in hindered job performance. This mediated effect does not hold when ethical leadership is high. We tested our theoretical model utilizing field data from employees and their direct supervisors in the financial services industry (N = 243). Our results support our theoretical model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Erratum to: Abusive Supervision and Subordinate Proactive Behavior: Joint Moderating Roles of Organizational Identification and Positive Affectivity The original version of this article was corrected: Figures 5 and 6 were updated.

Seriously Personal: The Reasons that Motivate Entrepreneurs to Address Climate Change Abstract Scholars increasingly argue that entrepreneurs and their small- and medium-sized enterprises should play a central role in reducing the rate and magnitude of climate change. However, evidence suggests that while some entrepreneurs recognize their crucial role in addressing climate change, most do not. Why some entrepreneurs nevertheless concern themselves with climate change has largely been overlooked. Some initial work in this area tentatively suggests that these entrepreneurs may engage with climate change because of their personal values, which either focus on financial or socio-ecological reasons, or a combination of both. Yet, it is unclear if all for-profit entrepreneurs engage with climate change for the same reasons, or if indeed their motivations vary across business types. Over a period of four years, we examined entrepreneurs’ motivations to engage with climate change through a variety of qualitative research methods. Our findings illustrate how entrepreneurs who address climate change have motivations specific to their business activity/industry and level of maturity. In each instance, we link these motivations to distinct conceptualizations of time and place. We contend that, through a more differentiated understanding of entrepreneurial motivations, policy-makers can draft climate change-related policies tailored to entrepreneurial needs. Policies could both increase the number of entrepreneurs who already engage in climate change mitigation and leverage the impact of those entrepreneurs already mitigating climate change.

Normative Underpinnings of Direct Employee Participation Studies and Implications for Developing Ethical Reflexivity: A Multidisciplinary Review Abstract This paper seeks to join studies which have drawn attention to the ethical reflexivity of research and the research enterprise in the organisational studies’ field. Towards this end, we review OB, HRM, and IR studies on direct employee participation in organisations post-1990s to examine their normative underpinnings. Using Fox’s (Industrial sociology and industrial relations. Research Paper 3, Royal Commission on Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations, HMSO, London, 1966, Beyond contract: Work, power and trust relations. Faber and Faber, London, 1974) three frames—unitarist, pluralist, and radical—we compare the underpinnings within and across the chosen disciplines to bring ethical reflexivity to studies in this area of inquiry. Implications are drawn out to take forward the quest for more ethically reflexive employee participation research.

Abusive Supervision and Subordinate Proactive Behavior: Joint Moderating Roles of Organizational Identification and Positive Affectivity Abstract Drawing on the transactional model of stress, we propose that organizational identification and positive affectivity moderate the relationship between abusive supervision and proactive behavior. In Study 1, we collected data from a sample of 165 dentists and 41 supervisors in two Chinese hospitals. In Study 2, we used a sample of 226 employee-supervisor dyads from a large Chinese transportation company. The results of two studies showed that the interaction between abusive supervision and organizational identification on proactive behavior (personal initiative in Study 1 and organizational proactive behavior in Study 2) occurred only when positive affectivity was high. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications and indicate future research directions.

Leaving the Road to Abilene: A Pragmatic Approach to Addressing the Normative Paradox of Responsible Management Education Abstract We identify a normative paradox of responsible management education. Business educators aim to promote social values and develop ethical habits and socially responsible mindsets through education, but they attempt to do so with theories that have normative underpinnings and create actual normative effects that counteract their intentions. We identify a limited conceptualization of freedom in economic theorizing as a cause of the paradox. Economic theory emphasizes individual freedom and understands this as the freedom to choose from available options (a view that can be characterized as quantitative, negative freedom). However, conceptualizing individuals as profit-maximizing actors neglects their freedom to reflect on the purposes and goals of their actions (a qualitative, potential view of freedom). We build on the work of pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, who distinguishes between habitualized and creative problem-solving behaviors (theory of action), conceptualizes knowledge construction as a process of interdependent scientific social inquiry (epistemology), and understands actors as having the freedom to determine what kind of people they wish to be (ethics). We apply pragmatist theory to business education and suggest equipping students with a plurality of theories, supplementing neoclassical economics with other economic perspectives (e.g., Post-Keynesian, Marxist, ecological, evolutionary, and feminist economics) and views from other disciplines (e.g., sociology, psychology, and political science) on economic behavior. Moreover, we suggest putting students into learning situations that require practical problem solution through interdependent social inquiry (e.g., using cases and real-world business projects), encouraging ethical reflection. In doing so, we contribute by linking the problematic conceptions of freedom identified in economic theorizing to the debate on responsible management education. We conceptualize a pragmatist approach to management education that explicitly re-integrates the freedom to discursively reflect on the individual and societal purpose of business activity and thereby makes existing tools and pedagogies useful for bringing potential freedom back into business.

Individual and Regional Christian Religion and the Consideration of Sustainable Criteria in Consumption and Investment Decisions: An Exploratory Econometric Analysis Abstract This study aims to shed light on the relationship between individual and regional Christian religion (and religiosity) and individual sustainable behaviors in an exploratory manner, with a special focus on sustainable consumption and investment decisions. To this end, we econometrically analyze online representative survey data that contains information on the self-reported importance of the consideration of ecological and social/ethical criteria in the context of a large variety of individual behaviors. The target group are financial decisions makers in German households, i.e., important actors in the largest economy in Europe. Results of the econometric analysis suggest that Christian religion is positively related to a variety of (self-reported) ecological and social/ethical activities. Our findings empirically support explanations postulating a positive relationship between Christian religion and environmental behavior, such as the stewardship hypothesis, rather than opposite theories like White’s (Science 155(3767):1203–1207, 1967) dominion hypothesis. Particularly, we find that both individual and regional measures for Christian religion positively affect various behaviors emphasizing the importance of individual and contextual norms for individual behavior. Hence, we provide empirical evidence for the importance of Christian religion for another country than the USA, which is typically in the focus of similar studies. Our results can be used for targeted information campaigns by politicians to enhance sustainable behaviors or acceptance for related policy measures.

The Ethics of Entrepreneurial Shared Value Abstract In the business ethics literature, the growing interest in social entrepreneurship has remained limited to the assumption that pursuing a social mission will clash against the pursuit of associated economic achievements. This ignores recent developments in the social entrepreneurship literature which show that social missions and economic achievement can also have a mutually constitutive relation. We address this gap adopting the notion of shared value (SV) for an ethical inquiry of social entrepreneurship. Using a sensemaking framework, we assume that the emergence of SV propositions can be captured through the analysis of how social entrepreneurs make sense of events of change, selecting the journey of three exemplar cases for an inductive empirical inquiry. From our findings, we propose three themes for further examination. First, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are mostly shaped by idiosyncratic imperatives that inform both social mission and economic gain from the onset. Second, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV will be likely operationalised as a filtering device, which allows for resilience as well as potentially detrimental blind spots. And third, the ethical groundings of entrepreneurial SV are expressed through ongoing transparency. Whilst there are agendas, these are not necessarily hidden but instead are likely put on show for the scrutiny of markets and communities. We hope that this evidence can add more light to our still modest understanding of the ethical groundings of social entrepreneurship.

Dealing with the Full-of-Self-Boss: Interactive Effects of Supervisor Narcissism and Subordinate Resource Management Ability on Work Outcomes Abstract Extensive research has documented the harmful effects associated with working for a narcissistic supervisor. However, little effort has been made to investigate ways for victims to alleviate the burdens associated with exposure to such aversive persons. Building on the tenets of conservation of resources theory and the documented efficacy of functional assets to combat job-related stress, we hypothesized that subordinates’ resource management ability would buffer the detrimental impact of narcissistic supervisors on affective, cognitive, and behavioral work outcomes for subordinates. We found support for our hypotheses across three independent samples of US workers (N = 187; 199; 136). Specifically, higher levels of subordinate resource management ability attenuated the harmful effects of supervisor narcissism on employee-reported emotional exhaustion, job tension, depressed mood, task performance, and citizenship behavior. Conversely, these relationships further deteriorated for subordinates with lower levels of resource management ability. Overall, our research contributes to the literature that, although extensively documenting the harmful ramifications of narcissism in organizations, has neglected to investigate potentially mitigating factors.