A netnographical approach to typologizing customer engagement and corporate misconduct

Customer engagement has important implications for the organization. The study developed a typology to understand customer engagement and its relationship with corporate misconduct. Customer engagement is categorized into co-developing, augmenting, influencing, and mobilizing behaviors, which are typologized into organizational and peer engagement, with co-developing and augmenting behaviors classified as organizational engagement, and the remaining two as peer engagement. In view of a focus on negative engagement in the case of corporate misconduct in previous research, this study deployed a netnographical approach to exploring positive and neutral engagement within the organization and with peers. The findings indicate that corporate misconduct not only elicits a negative response but may also elicit positive or indifferent engagement behaviors. This study contributes to customer engagement and corporate misconduct research by delving into underexplored aspects of consumer behavior.     

Social Trust and Corporate Misconduct: Evidence from China

We study whether greater social trust is associated with a lower incidence of corporate misconduct. Both social norm and network theory suggest that social trust can affect managerial behavior and reduce the likelihood of misconduct behavior. Consistent with this prediction, we find that social trust is negatively associated with corporate misconduct behavior. Moreover, we show that, when media coverage is higher, the negative relation between social trust and corporate misconduct behavior is more pronounced. Further analyses suggest that social trust can help mitigate both disclosure-related and nondisclosure-related misconduct.     

Family Ownership and Corporate Misconduct in U.S. Small Firms

This study adds to the theory of family business management by exploring the effects of family ownership on the corporate misconduct of small firms in the United States. The empirical findings indicate that small family-owned firms are less likely to commit misconduct than small non-family-owned firms. We interpret this finding as family firms aiming to achieve the trans-generational succession of moral capital. Further investigation shows a nonlinear family-ownership–misconduct relationship. A negative relationship between them only appears in mature firms. We further show that for relatively mature firms, only family firms with older owners are less likely to commit corporate misconduct.     

Trust Erosion During Industry-Wide Crises: The Central Role of Consumer Legitimacy Judgement

Journal of Business Ethics - Widespread unethical corporate misconduct in an industry triggers industry-wide crises. This research investigates how industry misconduct affects consumers’...     

Fostering an ethical organization from the bottom up and the outside in

Despite the best efforts of corporate compliance officers, boards of governance, auditors, and regulators, corporate misconduct continues to plague our markets. In this thought-provoking installation of Accounting Matters, we argue that efforts to fight fraud and other forms of corporate misconduct have failed, in part, due to the systematic approach employed toward a problem that is irregular, complex, and extends well beyond the boundary of the firm. By drawing upon research from the field of behavioral ethics to suggest a new approach that does more than just stress formal control systems, we illustrate how executives may strengthen organizational ethics through informal practices that work from the ‘bottom up’ and the ‘outside in.’ Our review includes practical recommendations regarding how to create shared responsibility for ethical leadership, how to empower employees to achieve both economic and ethical ends, how to enlist the aid of key stakeholders in identifying problems before they grow and spread, and how to redesign compliance practices to address the complex nature of corporate misconduct.     

Is the Perception of ‘Goodness’ Good Enough? Exploring the Relationship Between Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility and Employee Organizational Identification

Drawing on social identity theory and organizational identification theory, we develop a model of the impact of perceived corporate social responsibility on employees’ organizational identification. We argue that employees’ perceptions of their company’s social responsibility behaviors are more important than organizational reality in determining organizational identification. After defining perceived corporate social responsibility (PCSR), we postulate how PCSR affects organizational identification when perception and reality are aligned or misaligned. Implications for organizational practice and further research are discussed.     

Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethical Leadership: Investigating Their Interactive Effect on Employees’ Socially Responsible Behaviors

This research investigates the interlinkage between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and ethical leadership in inducing employees’ socially responsible behaviors (SRBs). Specifically, building on organizational identification theory and cue consistency theory, we develop and test an integrated moderated mediation framework in which employees’ perception of ethical leadership moderates the mediating mechanism between their perceptions of CSR (i.e., perceived CSR–environment and perceived CSR–community), organizational identification, and SRBs (i.e., green and societal behaviors). The findings highlight the need for consistency between employees’ perceptions of CSR and ethical leadership to foster their propensity to further social good through relationship-building activities with their organization. The results, which largely verify the theoretical framework, contribute to and have implications for both research and practice.     

营销渠道中的企业声誉、合同治理与角色外利他行为

以企业声誉理论、组织公民行为和渠道行为治理等理论为基础，分销商角色外利他行为为研究对象，提出了供应商企业声誉、合同治理与分销商角色外利他行为之间关系的概念模型。以分销商为调研样本，通过问卷调查获取了214份有效调研数据，采用层级回归分析方法对研究假设进行了检验。实证分析表明，供应商企业声誉的不同维度均对分销商角色外利他行为有显著的正向影响；同时合同治理在供应商企业声誉与分销商角色外利他行为关系中起着不同的调节作用。合同治理弱化了供应商分销能力声誉、创新声誉与分销商角色外利他行为的正向关系，强化了供应商公平交易声誉对分销商角色外利他行为的正向作用。研究启示供应商要积极运用声誉治理来激发分销商角色外利他行为，同时在此过程中要充分注意合同治理的边界条件，实施差异化策略来提高渠道治理绩效。     

Ethical choices in the design and administration of executive compensation programs

Within the past few years, executives have come under increased scrutiny and criticism for the levels of compensation they receive. At the same time, corporate practices surrounding the design and review of executive compensation programs have received increased attention. While some recent executive misconduct has involved violations of the law, many academics and other corporate critics view the issues involving executive compensation more from an ethical than a legal perspective. Several dimensions of the executive compensation decision process offer significant opportunities for ethical choices. This article identifies the major components of executive compensation and highlights decision points in the design and administration of each component where ethical issues may arise. Proposals to reduce the potential for ethical misconduct are also offered.     

Motivators of Mobilization

Using data on shareholder-initiated class action lawsuits in the US, I investigate the corporate scandals of US-listed foreign firms. The shareholders of scandal firms suffer considerable loss in both the short term and the long term. I document that firms domiciled in countries with weak institutions are more likely to be embroiled in corporate scandals, but such a relation can be moderated by the presence of Big 4 auditors. Investors automatically adjust for undiscovered misconduct when valuing the stocks of non-scandal firms (i.e., the spillover effect). Investors rely on the audit quality to form their expectations about the severity of undiscovered misconduct, and thus impose less negative spillovers on firms with Big 4 auditors, especially when the firms are from countries with weak institutions. Taken together, my results suggest that listing on US exchanges does not fully compensate for weak local institutions; voluntarily bonding to a more stringent audit process has an incremental effect on protecting shareholder interests and enhances the confidence of investors in firms’ financial integrity.     

Antecedents of corporate misconduct: A linguistic content analysis of decoupling tendencies in sustainability reporting

Corporate social irresponsibility and corporate misconducts are a severe threat to the endeavours to establish more responsible business practices. Therefore, academia and practice alike try to find ways to anticipate these behaviors. In this regard, linguistic analysis can provide an approach to detect decoupling tendencies of firms, that is to identify firms that fail to walk the talk. This paper examines how the sustainability reports of eight manufacturing firms in the automotive and aircraft industries differ in regard to their linguistic composition. By applying the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software, we emphasize how sustainability reports of decouplers and implementors differ in morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The analysis reveals that decouplers, among other factors, communicate in a less cognitively complex way. As they use shorter sentences, more informal language, less past and future references, and fewer conjunctions, we derive that decouplers are characterized by a lower linguistic sophistication. Moreover, decouplers’ reports can be classified by their linguistic hubris, which is defined by fewer emotional references, more self-references, less references to risk and anxiety, and heavy reliance on male language. The paper contributes to the debate on decoupling and corporate social irresponsibility, identifies linguistic antecedents of corporate misconduct, and enriches the domain of CSR reporting with a linguistic perspective. It supports the understanding of managers, policymakers and stakeholders of firms to evaluate whether a firm may fail to walk the talk.     

Corporate fraud,risk avoidance,and housing investment in China

This study investigates the impact of corporate fraud on household investment choices. We conjecture that by undermining trust in the financial and insurance market, corporate fraud behaviour would decrease households' investment in risky financial assets and increase investment in non-financial assets. Combining data on households' investment behaviour with information on fraudulent activities of listed companies in China, we find that households with more lifetime experience of corporate fraud invest less in stocks and are less likely to purchase private insurance. By contrast, fraud experience increases households' intention to invest in residential real estate. In addition, the impact of corporate fraud is stronger among individuals who pay more attention to economic information, among individuals who have more social interaction, and among individuals in better regulated regions. Furthermore, we find that different types of fraud have differentiated effects on household investment decisions. Our findings indicate that corporate misconduct could generate profound negative externalities on the whole financial system.     

The effects of entrepreneurial long-term commitment on post-IPO performance: Chinese evidence

Long-term commitment is a motivational factor that drives people towards entrepreneurship. Scholars and practitioners have lacked a robust and validated instrument for measuring long-term commitment and its dimensions in the specific context of entrepreneurship. Based on a unique dataset of emigration statuses of Chinese entrepreneurs, we develop an instrument of entrepreneurial long-term commitment and test its impacts on corporate outcomes and entrepreneurs’ individual behaviors. We observe that entrepreneurial long-term commitment significantly affects corporate policies, long-term shareholder wealth and entrepreneurs’ individual behaviors. Our research also helps to evaluate the values of these entrepreneurs in China.     

The effects of entrepreneurial long-term commitment on post-IPO performance: Chinese evidence

Long-term commitment is a motivational factor that drives people towards entrepreneurship. Scholars and practitioners have lacked a robust and validated instrument for measuring long-term commitment and its dimensions in the specific context of entrepreneurship. Based on a unique dataset of emigration statuses of Chinese entrepreneurs, we develop an instrument of entrepreneurial long-term commitment and test its impacts on corporate outcomes and entrepreneurs’ individual behaviors. We observe that entrepreneurial long-term commitment significantly affects corporate policies, long-term shareholder wealth and entrepreneurs’ individual behaviors. Our research also helps to evaluate the values of these entrepreneurs in China.     

Corporate environmental market responsiveness: A model of individual and organizational drivers

This study examines the psychological and organizational drivers of corporate environmental market responsiveness (CEMR). Drawing on the relevant literature, the study identifies several variables of potential importance in CEMR and builds on the theory of planned behavior to propose a model of hypothesized relationships among these variables. The study tests hypotheses in an empirical study using a large sample of environmental managers from eleven members of the European Environmental Agency. The research findings show that the environmental behaviors of managers are largely determined by social judgments and perceptions. The present study has implications for managers who wish to pursue an environmental market-oriented approach to business. These results also have important implications for organizational theory and the debates about whether economic or social factors determine the effects of environmental issues on competitive advantage.     

Accountability and responsibility in research

Fraud and misconduct in scientific research appears to be increasing since 1980 when several cases were disclosed. Earlier instances were handled awkwardly, but the scientific community has since mobilized and issued guidelines about responding to allegations of misconduct and about the responsible conduct of research. Scientists, editors and the institutions of science are slowly learning how to cope with this problem.Patricia Woolf studies communication among scientists and has taught sociology of science. Her recent work has focused on research on misconduct, conflict of interest and the professionalization of medical editing.     

消费者-品牌关系的影响因素:一项探索性研究

近年来,消费者-品牌关系已经成为品牌研究领域的一个热点,但是,以前的研究比较偏重对品牌关系的维度和测量指标的探讨,有关消费者-品牌关系的影响机制的研究比较缺乏。如果采用开放性问卷进行调查,将探索出影响消费者-品牌关系的主要因素。同时对调查结果的内容进行分析,识别出五种影响消费者-品牌关系的因素类别,确认了一系列促进或破坏消费者-品牌关系的企业行为,并按照"企业能力"因素和"企业社会责任"因素的分类框架对这些企业行为进行系统分类。     

The suffering company: Consumer compassion towards companies exposed to negative events

When a company commits misconduct, it will usually suffer; for example, in the form of a short‐term decline in sales, a medium‐term loss of reputation, or a long‐term drop in its bottom line. But when a company is involved in a negative event for which it is fully responsible, for example, public customer agitations due to false expectations, some consumers might feel compassion for the company. In turn, they might aim to help the company overcome its period of suffering; for example, by making supportive recommendations. Drawing upon deservingness theory and previous findings on these issues, the authors propose a causal model suggesting antecedents of compassion and subsequent helping behaviors towards the company. A main finding is that the emergence of helping behaviors as a result of consumers’ compassion depends largely on company reputation. Self‐efficacy is a further focal construct influencing the intensity of felt compassion and helping behaviors depending on company reputation, suggesting that consumers apply emotion regulation strategies in such incidents.     

East meets west—Corporate governance in Asian emerging markets: A literature review and research agenda

This review examines how corporate governance mechanisms in the Asian emerging markets (AEMs) context affect firm-level outcomes. Literature about characteristics of the main corporate governance actors (boards and owners), their effects on firm-level outcomes, and contingency factors in AEMs offers interesting first insights. I synthetize these results and develop a research agenda that proposes how AEM corporate governance research should extend (but not ignore) agency theory, how AEM research about firm effects of corporate governance could take a stakeholder-oriented perspective, and how research could utilize the AEM institutional context to model contingency factors and extend our theoretical understanding of corporate governance.     

内生性财务契约研究范式转换:从完备契约观到不完备契约观

现代公司财务契约理论研究范式经历了三次转换:由外生性的新古典完备财务契约范式转换为内生性的完备财务契约范式,再转换为内生性的不完备财务契约范式。而作为最新的研究范式,不完备财务契约研究也先后经历了静态控制权理论范式和动态控制权理论范式的演进。内生性不完备财务契约研究范式将交易费用、制度、产权、契约等因素正式纳入公司财务理论研究视野,弥补了传统财务理论研究范式内生的制度性缺失。该范式也大大促进了我国公司财务理论研究,为解决经济转型阶段我国公司尖锐的财务冲突提供了更合理的解释和指导思路。