Suchergebnisse

AbstractWithin the past few years, a new generation has joined the ranks of business managers or is preparing to become business managers: Generation Z (Gen Z), described as individuals born between 1995 and 2010. This paper has two aims: (1) to assess the Gen Z cohort framed by their value orientation preferences (VOP) and the importance given to principled moral reasoning (PMR) using values and cognitive moral reasoning theories and (2) to compare this information about the Gen Z cohort to prior generations. Using the Rokeach Value Survey and the Moral Reasoning Inventory, we uncovered support for our expectations that Gen Zs would have a balanced set of VOP—that is, similar preferences for a personal and a social value orientation and similar preferences for a competence and moral value orientation. Further, Gen Z preferences are unlike prior generations. The importance given to principled moral reasoning to resolve ethical dilemmas is lower than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers but surprisingly higher than Millennials as found in prior studies. Implications of these discoveries and suggestions for future research are presented.

AbstractValues research generally confirms that personally held values influence an individual's decision processes and behavior. Yet this academic research often is limited to the individual or organizational level of analysis. This study utilizes social identity and personal values theories to search for the presence of superordinate identities emerging at the meso level from six different industries. The six selected industries—accounting, banking, construction, education, energy, and manufacturing—represent a mix of highly respected and disrespected industries, as well as industries that have an ethical professional association and those that do not. Results provide evidence of meso‐level superordinate identities, distinguishing managers' personal value orientations from a generalized population, and across the six selected industries. Implications emanating from this research for the human resource practitioners and academic scholars are discussed.

ABSTRACTInitially, a brief history of Buddhism and Confucianism describes for the reader a framework developed to determine right versus wrong action and to guide followers of these religions to do the right thing in social or business practice. In addition, this article uncovers exemplary business practices grounded in Buddhist and Confucian ethical values system and practiced in the global business arena and uses these discoveries to describe an application of Buddhist and Confucian ethical values systems. The result is the recognition that these ethical values systems have an honorable and moral place in global business practice.

Business ethics research typically emphasizes the influence of personal and organizational forces upon ethical decision making. While accepting these forces as important, Collins (1989) and Jones (1991) suggest that the moral issue and its intensity may also influence individuals' resolution of an ethical dilemma. Utilizing a sample of 259 managers and a modified Moral Judgment Interview survey, this research reports that the type of harm, that is, the nature or kind of harm, and the magnitude of the consequences, that is, the degree or extent of the harm affecting the victim, influence the moral reasoning criteria evoked to resolve the dilemmas, as predicted by Collins and Jones. This finding has significant theoretical, empirical, and practical implications, as discussed in the paper.

Organizational values and beliefs significantly influence employee decision making and behavior and manifest themselves as multiple climates existing within a single organization. A subset of organizational climate is an ethical climate, embodying normative values and beliefs involving moral issues shared by the employees of the organization. Researchers have found multiple ethical climates present in an organization. This research explores a plausible explanation for the discovery of multiple ethical climates, or subclimates, within an organization. Specifically, the research tests the assumptions that the departmental task and stakeholder relationships influence and differentiate the ethical decision-making framework used by employees and the resulting ethical subclimate. Categories developed by Thompson (Thompson, J. D. 1967. Organizations in Action. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.) are extended to identify distinct departmental tasks and stakeholder relationships in order to assess their influence upon the employees' ethical decision-making process and departmental ethical subclimate. In order to uncover the various ethical subclimates within each workgroup, the Ethical Climate Questionnaire, developed by Victor and Cullen (Victor, B., J. B. Cullen. 1987. A theory and measure of ethical climate in organizations. W. C. Frederick, ed. Research in Corporate Social Performance and Policy: Empirical Studies of Business Ethics and Values, Vol. 9. JAI Press, Greenwich, CT, 51–71; Victor, B., J. B. Cullen. 1988. The organizational basis of ethical work climates. Admin. Sci. Quart. 33(1) 101–125.), was used in a modified form. The original instrument required the subjects to rate, on a Likert scale, the relevance of each ethical climate statement. In this project, a ranking of the statements was performed by the subjects, which minimizes the social desirability bias in the subjects' responses. This research found that the departmental task and stakeholder relationships so strongly influence employee decision making in all three department types that the ethical subclimate was also affected. Employees in a technical core department tend to use an individual locus of analysis and an egoistic criterion for decisions, emphasizing an instrumental ethical climate type. Buffer department employees exhibit a mix of ethical decision characteristics, but clearly manifest a caring ethical climate type. Employees in boundary spanning departments show a preference toward a cosmopolitan perspective and principle ethical reasoning, as well as a law and code ethical climate type.

Personal values and moral reasoning have been found to influence behavior. However, as presently developed, these theories do not provide a comprehensive understanding and explanation of an individual's decision-making process leading to behavior. This paper explores the four personal value orientations introduced by Milton Rokeach and the moral reasoning characteristics of Lawrence Kohlberg's stage theory of moral development. Relationships between personal value orientations and stages of moral reasoning are developed and hypothesized relationships are empirically tested. Theoretical and research implications are drawn from these relationships in order to better understand, explain, and possibly predict decision-making and reasoning processes.

Based on Kolhberg's theory of moral development, an assessment of managers' responses to three moral dilemmas was explored. The findings indicate that managers typically reason at moral reasoning stages 3 or 4, similar to most adults in Western, urban societies or other business managers. However, differences were discovered when the organizational size of the managers' employer and type of moral issue were considered. Managers employed by large to medium-sized organizations tended to reason at lower moral reasoning stages than managers who work in small firms or were self-employed. Moral reasoning exhibited when the dilemmas were placed in a business context was significantly lower than for a dilemma in a non-business context. Implications from these findings are discussed.

AbstractThe corporate financial performance (CFP)–corporate social performance (CSP) relationship has been investigated many times over the past few decades, yet the notion of CSP has generally been understood to be a single, monolithic aspect of corporate strategy. This article examines the common CFP–CSP understanding in three distinct ways: (1) by extending the evaluation of CSP as a complex, multistakeholder notion; (2) by analyzing CSP's relationship with the firm's financial performance at a given point in time as a lead (independent) variable in the relationship and as a lag (dependent) variable in the relationship; and (3) for both positive and negative stakeholder relationships. The results indicate that the employee emerges as the stakeholder group most strongly linked to CFP, followed by the consumer stakeholder. The natural environment and the community stakeholder group are minimally associated with CFP. General support is found for a CFP–CSP relationship at a given point in time, with some support found for CSP as a lead (independent) variable. When used as a measure of financial performance, return on assets is more often correlated with CSP than is return on equity. These results and their implications are discussed.

Volume Five of Business and Society 360focuses on research from leading scholars in this discipline contribute to a 360-degree evaluation of theory, including cross-discipline research, empirical explorations, cross-cultural studies, literature critiques, and meta-analysis projects.