A Review of The Empirical Ethical Decision-Making Literature: 1996–2003

This review summarizes and critiques the empirical ethical decision-making literature from 1996–2003. One hundred and seventy-four articles were published in top business journals during this period. Tables are included that summarize the findings by dependent variable – awareness, judgment, intent, and behavior. We compare this review with past reviews in order to draw conclusions regarding trends in the ethical decision-making literature and to surface directions for future research.Michael J. O’Fallon is a graduate student in the Department of Management and Operations at Washington State University. His primary research interest is individual ethical decision-making and behavior in organizations. Recently, he has explored issues in organizational behavior, human resource management, and consumer behavior toward genetically modified foods.Kenneth D. Butterfield is an associate professor of management at Washington State University. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from The Pennsylvania State University. His research has been published in a variety of academic journals, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Business and Society, Business Ethics Quarterly, Human Relations, Journal of Higher Education, Journal of Managerial Issues, and Research in Higher Education. His current research interests involve organizational behavior issues such as managing ethical decision-making and behavior in organizations, examining why people fail to recognize moral issues, understanding academic dishonesty and promoting academic integrity, and examining organizational punishment from the manager’s perspective.     

The Social Integration of Immigrants and the Role of Policy — A Literature Review

As with economic integration, immigrants’ social integration improves along with their years of residence in destination countries. Policies have some potential to influence the process of social integration.     

Organisational Spirituality – A Literature Review

The jury remains out about the bottom-line relevance of organisational spirituality. This article reviews the arguments made thus far, using those sources most commonly cited as providing ‹evidence’ that organisational spirituality adds value to the bottom line. Having collated the evidence, this article offers some observation about the robustness of this existing ‹business case’. It then offers some preliminary conclusions on the literature review, examining the merits of pursuing a ‹business case’ in this field and identifying some specific questions for future research.     

The Unification of the Colombian Stock Market: A Step Towards Efficiency–Empirical Evidence

ABSTRACT

The empirical evidence presented in this study shows that there has certainly been a structural change in the Colombian stock market since the merger of the three regional Exchanges (Bolsas) into the Colombian Stock Exchange (Bolsa de Valores de Colombia). This change has been reflected in a greater level of efficiency in that market. Regarding individual assets, the findings coincide with Samuelson (1998) in the sense that the stock market is micro-efficient but macro-inefficient, which means that the efficient market hypothesis performs better for individual stocks than for the aggregated price indexes of the market.

RESUMEN. La evidencia empírica presentada en este estudio muestra que realmente operó un cambio estructural en el mercado accionario colombiano a partir de la fusión de las tres Bolsas regionales en la Bolsa de Valores de Colombia. Este cambio se ha reflejado en un mayor nivel de eficiencia de este mercado. En cuanto a los activos individuales, los hallazgos coinciden con Samuelson (1998) en el sentido de que el mercado bursátil es micro-eficiente pero macro-ineficiente, es decir, que la hipótesis de la eficiencia del mercado se cumple mejor para acciones individuales que para los índices de precios agregados del mercado.

RESUMO. A evidência empírica apresentada neste estudo mostra que, sem dúvida, tem ocorrido uma mudança estrutural no mercado de ações colombiano, a partir da fusão das três Bolsas de Valores regionais, dando origem à Bolsa de Valores de Colombia. Esta mudança refletiu o alto nível de eficiência deste mercado. Quanto aos ativos individuais, percebe-se a coincidência com Samuelson (1998), no sentido de que o mercado de ações é micro-eficiente, mas também é macro-ineficiente, ou seja, que a hipótese de um mercado eficiente atua melhor para as ações individuais do que para os índices de preços agregados do mercado.     

The Role of Local Context in Headquarters–Subsidiaries Relationships: A Global Analysis of the Literature

This study reviews the literature on multinational corporations’ headquarters–subsidiaries relationships, focusing on the role of the local context and its influence on subsidiaries in developed and emerging markets or countries. The author searched the literature using several terms directly related to these issues. The findings demonstrate that subsidiaries can only operate successfully in foreign locations by adjusting their policies to fit into the local environment because there are multiple contexts. Multinational corporations manage the local context by integrating their home behavior and that of the subsidiaries’ operating environments. A framework for identifying and managing different local contexts is proposed.     

What is Ethical Competence? The Role of Empathy,Personal Values,and the Five-Factor Model of Personality in Ethical Decision-Making

The objective of the present research was two-fold: (1) to provide a new definition of ethical competence, and (2) to clarify the influence of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality on ethical competence. The present research provides a comprehensive overview about recent approaches and empirically explores the interconnections of these constructs. 366 German undergraduate students were examined in a cross-sectional study that investigated the relationship of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model of personality with moral judgment competence and counterproductive work behavior as indicators of moral judgment and behavior. We found self-transcendence values to be related to both, high levels of empathy and ethical competence, in contrast to self-enhancement values. Multiple mediation analysis revealed unique effects of empathy on ethical competence through values as mediators. Affective (but not cognitive) empathy transmitted its effect on ethical competence through benevolence, conformity, tradition, power, and hedonism. Most importantly, perspective taking lost its predictive power when investigated alongside affective empathy dimensions. These results converge to an important role of affective empathy, in particular empathic concern, with regard to personal values and ethical competence. Furthermore, the five-factor model of personality explained variance in measures of ethical competence. Our research suggests that organizational decision makers should consider the role of empathy, personal values, and the five-factor model in their human resource management in order to select employees with high ethical competence.     

What Really Leads to Partner Relationship Management? A Review of Literature

This research article aims at providing a comprehensive overview of the Partner Relationship Management (PRM) domain through an exhaustive literature survey. Current scenario, definitions/perspectives, breakdown of studies by nation, PRM as a software application, the need for PRM, the process of developing partner relationships, and major models, along with major defining constructs and other major insights, have been summarized in the area of partner relationship management using content analysis. The focus is on bridging the gap in the existing academic literature by providing a comprehensive compilation of partner relationship management literature inclusive of B2B and B2C scenarios for future researchers. A list of select premier academic databases has been used to identify the relevant research papers in the domain. This article will help in reducing the time and efforts of researchers by quickly providing a comprehensive view of the PRM literature.     

Fairness and the Main Management Theories of the Twentieth Century: A Historical Review, 1900–1965

Although not always termed “organizational justice,” the fairness of organizations has been a consistent concern of management thinkers. A review of the 1900–1965 time period indicates that management theorists primarily conceptualized organizational justice in utilitarian terms, although each theory emphasized distributive and procedural justice to different degrees. There is clearly a need for contemporary scholars to consider non-economic rationales for organizational justice, but the willingness of earlier scholars to make utilitarian arguments about organizational justice and productive efficiency helped legitimize the idea of fairness in organizations as an arbiter of value. Further, each theory tempered absolute managerial autonomy with some inherent check thereon. Researchers interested in organizational justice should therefore take a historical perspective in considering how management theory includes consideration of justice-related concerns.     

The Worth of Values – A Literature Review on the Relation Between Corporate Social and Financial Performance

One of the older questions in the debate about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is whether it is worthwhile for organizations to pay attention to societal demands. This debate was emotionally, normatively, and ideologically loaded. Up to the present, this question has been an important trigger for empirical research in CSR. However, the answer to the question has apparently not been found yet, at least that is what many researchers state. This apparent ambivalence in CSR consequences invites a literature study that can clarify the debate and allow for the drawing of conclusions. The results of the literature study performed here reveal that there is indeed clear empirical evidence for a positive correlation between corporate social and financial performance. Voices that state the opposite refer to out-dated material. Since the beginnings of the CSR debate, societies have changed. We can therefore clearly state that, for the present Western society, “Good Ethics is Good Business.”     

Twenty-five years (1992–2016) of the International Business Review: A bibliometric overview

The International Business Review (IBR) is a leading international academic journal in the field of International Business (IB). Such leadership is reflected in the large number of publications that grow year after year and particularly in the large number of citations received from other journals of high academic prestige. The aim of this study is to conduct a bibliometric overview of the leading trends regarding the journal’s publications and citations since its creation in 1992 until 2016. The work identifies the authors, universities, and countries that publish the most in IBR by mainly using the Scopus database though eventually complemented with Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection. It also analyzes the most cited papers and articles of the journal. Besides, the study graphically maps the bibliographic material by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) viewer software. In order to do so, the work uses co-citation analysis, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence of author keywords. The results show the prominent European profile of the journal where contributors from European universities and countries are the most productive ones in the journal. Particularly, British and Scandinavian universities obtain the most remarkable results. However, mostly scholars from North America, but also from Oceania and East Asia are increasingly and regularly publishing in the journal. In addition, IBR is very well connected to other leading journals in the field, such as the Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and the Journal of World Business (JWB), as well as with other top management journals, thus demonstrating its core position in IB research conducted worldwide.     

Who Says There is an Intention–Behaviour Gap? Assessing the Empirical Evidence of an Intention–Behaviour Gap in Ethical Consumption

The theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour (TRA/TPB) have fundamentally changed the view that attitudes directly translate into behaviour by introducing intentions as a crucial intervening stage. Much research across numerous ethical contexts has drawn on these theories to offer a better understanding of how consumers form intentions to act in an ethical way. Persistently, researchers have suggested and discussed the existence of an intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Yet, the factors that influence the extent of this gap and its magnitude have not been systematically examined. We, therefore, contribute to the debate on the intention–behaviour gap by reviewing the empirical TRA/TPB studies that have assessed both intention and behaviour in ethical contexts. The findings from our review show that few studies assessed the intention–behaviour relationship and as a result, there is limited empirical evidence to date to quantify more accurately the intention–behaviour gap in ethical consumption. Our second contribution aims to provide an empirical case study which assesses the magnitude of the intention–behaviour gap in the context of avoidance of sweatshop clothing and to assess the roles of planning and actual behavioural control in potentially reducing the intention–behaviour gap. The findings of our case study suggest that there is indeed a large gap between intention and behaviour, and we conclude by calling for more empirical longitudinal studies to assess the complex nature of the relationship between intention and behaviour.     

A Discovery of Early Labor Organizations and the Women who Advocated Work–Life Balance: An Ethical Perspective

The relevance of leader ethicality has motivated ethical leadership theory. In this paper, we emphasize the importance of moral identity for the concept of ethical leadership. We relate ethical leadership incorporating an internalized moral identity to productive deviant workplace behavior. Using qualitative empirical data we illustrate the relevance of critical situations, i.e., situations in which hypernorms and organizational norms diverge, for the distinction of ethical leaders with or without internalized moral identities. Our paper takes a multidisciplinary approach integrating insight from management as well as humanities and social sciences toward a comprehensive sense of ethical leadership.     

Trends in the Clerical Labour Market, 1971–81: A Statistical Review

For an area of the economy which currently employs one in six of the GB workforce, remarkably little is known of detailed employment trends in the clerical labour market. This article attempts a statistical review of labour demand trends supplemented by information from in-company case studies recently conducted by the author. A review of changes in the level and pattern of employment in clerical and related skills is preceded by discussion on the definitional issue and on sources of appropriate information. The article concludes that our image of the clerical labour market is in need of an overhaul.     

An Empirical Investigation of the Ethical Perceptions of Future Managers with a Special Emphasis on Gender – Turkish Case

This study presents an empirical investigation of the ethical perceptions of the future managers – Turkish university students majoring in the Business Administration and Industrial Engineering departments of selected public and private Turkish universities – with a special emphasis on gender. The perceptions of the university students pertaining to the business world, the behaviors of employees, and the factors leading to unethical behavior are analyzed. The statistically significant differences reveal that female students have more ethical perceptions about the Turkish business climate, behavior of employees, and the ethicalness of the behavior of the employees in comparison with their male counterparts. M.G. Serap Atakan is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Administration of Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. She is teaching and conducting researches on business ethics, corporate social responsibility and retailing. She has two co-authored articles published in the Journal of Business Ethics. Sebnem Burnaz is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Istanbul Technical University. She holds Ph.D. degree in management with major in marketing. Her teaching and research interests are in the field of Marketing, Retailing, Decision Making, and Business Ethics. She has published articles which have appeared in Advances in International Marketing, Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. Y. Ilker Topcu is an Associate Professor of decision sciences in Istanbul Technical University. He has finished his Ph.D. studies in I.T.U., Faculty of Management. His teaching and research specialties are in the field of Operations Research/Management Science, Multiple Criteria Decision Making, Logistics, Transportation Planning, and Business Ethics. He has published papers which have appeared in Journal of the Operational Research Society, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Journal of Global Optimization, Transportation Research Part A, Lecture Notes in Economics and Mathematical Systems, Energy, and Building and Environment.     

Virtue Ethics and the Practice–Institution Schema: An Ethical Case of Excellent Business Practices

This paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the theory of virtue ethics and its applications in the business arena. In contrast to other prominent approaches to ethics, virtue ethics provides a useful perspective in making sense of various business ethics issues with an emphasis on the moral character of the individuals and its transformational influences in driving ethical business conduct. Building on Geoff Moore’s (Bus Ethics Q 12(1):19–32, 2002; Bus Ethics Q 15(2):237–255, 2005; Bus Ethics Q 18(4):483–511, 2008) treatment of Alasdair MacIntyre’s practice–institution schema, the paper discusses how individuals, as moral agents, can serve to promote virtuous business conduct and help foster a moral and ethical climate in the organization and in society at large. Using interview data from a broader study of the New Zealand wine industry as explanatory examples, the paper argues that while many companies’ sustainable practices are still largely market based, such excellent business practices are often driven by individuals’ moral and ethical pursuits.     

Impact of Ethical Leadership and Leader–Member Exchange on Whistle Blowing: The Moderating Impact of the Moral Intensity of the Issue

Given the prevalence of corporate frauds and the significance of whistle blowing as a mechanism to report about the frauds, the present study explores the impact of ethical leadership and leader–member exchange (LMX) on whistle blowing. Additionally, the article also explores the moderating role of the moral intensity [studied as magnitude of consequences (MOC)] of the issue on this relationship. The article reports results of three experimental studies conducted on the postgraduate students of a premier technology institute in India. Ethical leadership, LMX, and moral intensity are manipulated through scenarios. Study one (n = 81) manipulates ethical leadership (ethical/unethical) and quality of LMX (low and high) as independent variables; study two (n = 80) manipulates ethical leadership and moral intensity (high and low MOC), and study three (n = 87) manipulates LMX and MOCs to assess their individual and joint effects on whistle blowing. Results show that not only do ethical leadership and LMX predict whistle blowing, but these relationships get moderated by the moral intensity of the issue as well.