Ethics

Value-Enhancing Social Responsibility: Market Reaction to Donations by Family vs. Non-family Firms with Religious CEOs Abstract Using a signaling framework, we argue that ethical behavior as evidenced by charitable donations is viewed more positively by investors when seen not to be based on self-serving motives but rather on authentic generosity that builds moral capital. The affirmed religiosity of CEOs may make their ethical position more credible, while their embeddedness within a family business suggests that CEOs are backed by powerful owners with long-time horizons and a desire to build moral capital with stakeholders. We find in a study of market responses to 1572 corporate donations by S&P 1500 firms that financial markets react more positively to charitable initiatives from firms with religion-declared CEOs, but only if these are family businesses.

A Normative Meaning of Meaningful Work Abstract Research on meaningful work has not embraced a shared definition of what it is, in part because many researchers and laypersons agree that it means different things to different people. However, subjective and social accounts of meaningful work have limited practical value to help people pursue it and to help scholars study it. The account of meaningful work advanced in this paper is inherently normative. It recognizes the relevance of subjective experience and social agreement to appraisals of meaningfulness but considers them conceptually incomplete and practically limited. According to this normative account, meaningful work should be meaningful to oneself and to others and is also meaningful independent of them. It sets forth grounds for evaluating some work to be more meaningful than other work, asserting the possibility that one could be mistaken about the meaningfulness of one’s work. While it thus proscribes some claims to meaningful work, it also opens up potential new avenues of inquiry into, among other things, self-aggrandizing and harmful work that is experienced as meaningful, morally valuable work that is not experienced as meaningful, and the distinction between experienced and normative meaningfulness.

What on Earth Should Managers Learn About Corporate Sustainability? A Threshold Concept Approach Abstract The Earth is facing pressing societal grand challenges that require urgent managerial action. Responsible management learning (RML) has emerged as a discipline to prepare managers to act as responsible leaders that can effectively address such pressing challenges. This article aims to extend current knowledge on RML in the domain of corporate sustainability (CS) through the application of threshold concepts, novel ideas which provide a doorway to new knowledge and transform a learner’s mindset. Specifically, after conducting a systematic review of the management literature, we identify 33 CS threshold concepts that are useful for mainstream managers and practitioners in their RML process. We group them into six CS threshold concept themes that can help managers understand the complexities and interconnectedness that characterize CS. Finally, we map CS threshold concepts with key competences for effective RML. Therefore, our contribution relies on translating existing CS theoretical frameworks into transformative, specific, understandable and applicable pieces of knowledge that might help mainstream managers to embed CS principles in their daily management practices.

The Effects of Spiritual Leadership in Family Firms: A Conservation of Resources Perspective Abstract Drawing from conservation of resources theory, we theorize that spiritual leadership serves as both a resource to enhance employees’ organizational commitment and a passageway to mitigate the negative effects of work–family conflict. Using primary triadic data from leaders, family employees, and nonfamily employees in 77 family firms, results support our theorizing that organizational commitment is enhanced by spiritual leadership but is decreased by work–family conflict. Contrary to theory, however, spiritual leadership exacerbated the negative effects of work–family conflict. Further analysis reveals that family and nonfamily employees respond differently to leadership and work–family stressors. While spiritual leadership has positive effects for family employees, it has negative effects for nonfamily employees experiencing high work–family conflict.

Deepening Methods in Business Ethics

Islamic Family Business: The Constitutive Role of Religion in Business Abstract Religion has significantly influenced societies throughout history and across the globe. Family firms—particularly those operating in strongly religious regions—are more likely to be subject to the influence of religion. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which religion affects business activities in family firms. We study how religion impacts business activities through a qualitative study of two Anatolian-based family firms in Turkey. We find that religion provides a dominant meaning system that plays a key role in constituting business activities through three mechanisms: (1) family imports religious practices as business practices; (2) family adheres to religious values as a rationale for business actions; and (3) family religious values define business taboos by avoiding the evil eye. These mechanisms highlight how religion becomes a source of well-understood business practices, how religion defines the nature of rationality that guides business activities, and how religious taboos can delimit the range of potential business activities, respectively.

The Family That Prays Together Stays Together: Toward a Process Model of Religious Value Transmission in Family Firms Abstract Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that successfully enacted their religious values in their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership.

Team Ethical Cultures Within an Organization: A Differentiation Perspective on Their Existence and Relevance Abstract Studies on the ethical culture of organizations have mainly focused on ethical culture at the organizational level. This study explores ethical culture at the team level because this can add a more detailed understanding of the ethics of an organization, which is necessary for more customized and effective management interventions. To find out whether various teams within an organization can have different ethical cultures, we employ the differentiation perspective and conduct a survey of 180 teams from one organization. The results show that there are significant differences between the ethical cultures of teams. These differences are relevant given the different relationships that were established between high and low clusters of team ethical culture and two outcome variables (i.e., the frequency of unethical behavior and employee responses to unethical behavior). The results also show that the dimensions of ethical cultures among teams have different patterns, which indicates the usefulness of using a multidimensional scale for capturing further differences among team ethical cultures.

Does It Pay to Invest in Japanese Women? Evidence from the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index Abstract In Japan, income, authority, and prestige are unequally distributed between men and women, even if they share the same occupational level. These inequalities are perceived as an ethical issue because they go against the principle of equal treatment at work. Nowadays, Japanese companies are under growing political and regulatory pressure to increase the hiring, promotion, and empowerment of female employees. In this context, the first equity index that tracks the financial performance of the best Japanese companies in terms of gender diversity performance—the MSCI Japan Empowering Women Index (hereafter WIN)—was launched in 2010. It aims to satisfy the growing demand of investors who want to reduce gender discrimination in Japanese workplaces. This paper compares the financial performance of the WIN stock index to the conventional parent index over the period 2010–2018, offering a unique setting to assess the effects of gender diversity screens on portfolio risk-adjusted performance. Our results are robust to a battery of risk-adjusted performance indicators and clearly indicate that investing in the WIN equity index does not come at a cost compared to investing in its conventional peer. This evidence is expected to reinforce confidence of investors who have an appetite for justice in increasing their investment in financial products that support the participation and the advancement of women in the Japanese workforce.

Mapping the Ethicality of Algorithmic Pricing: A Review of Dynamic and Personalized Pricing Abstract Firms increasingly deploy algorithmic pricing approaches to determine what to charge for their goods and services. Algorithmic pricing can discriminate prices both dynamically over time and personally depending on individual consumer information. Although legal, the ethicality of such approaches needs to be examined as often they trigger moral concerns and sometimes outrage. In this research paper, we provide an overview and discussion of the ethical challenges germane to algorithmic pricing. As a basis for our discussion, we perform a systematic interpretative review of 315 related articles on dynamic and personalized pricing as well as pricing algorithms in general. We then use this review to define the term algorithmic pricing and map its key elements at the micro-, meso-, and macro levels from a business and marketing ethics perspective. Thus, we can identify morally ambivalent topics that call for deeper exploration by future research.