Fairtrade Towns as Unconventional Networks of Ethical Activism

The 2008 financial crisis exposed the dark side of the financial sector in the UK. It brought attention to the contaminated culture of the business, which accommodated the systemic malpractices that largely contributed to the financial turmoil of 2008. In the wake of the crisis there seems to be a wide consensus that this contaminated culture can no longer be accepted and needs to change. This article examines the ills of the UK financial market, more specifically the cultural contamination problem, which was uncovered by the 2008 financial crisis, in order to explore its genesis and the suitable solutions for it. In this regard, the article analyses the ethical finance sector from theoretical and practical perspectives in order to assess its role in addressing the cultural contamination problem of the UK financial market.     

Moral Recovery and Ethical Leadership

Journal of Business Ethics - Research on ethical leadership generally falls into two categories: one celebrates individual leaders and their ‘authentic’ personalities and virtuous...     

Bridging Ethics and Self Leadership: Overcoming Ethical Discrepancies Between Employee and Organizational Standards

In spite of extensive study and efforts to improve business ethics and increase corporate social responsibility, a quick review of almost any business publication will show that breaches of ethics are a common occurrence in the business community. In this paper we explore reasons for potential discrepancies or gaps between organizational and individual ethical standards, the consequences of such discrepancies, and possible methods of reducing the detrimental effects of these differences. The concept of self-leadership, as constructed through social learning theory is examined, and shown to be a potentially valuable tool for employees' use in making reasoned decisions in varying organizational ethical climates. Specifically, the authors will show how the practice of self-leadership can be employed as an important means to improve moral action within the firm.     

When Leadership Goes Unnoticed: The Moderating Role of Follower Self-Esteem on the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Follower Behavior

The authors examined the effects of ethical leadership on follower organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and deviant behavior. Drawing upon research related to the behavioral plasticity hypothesis, the authors examined a moderating role of follower self- esteem in these relationships. Results from a field study revealed that ethical leadership is positively related to follower OCB and negatively related to deviance. We found that these relationships are moderated by followers’ self-esteem, such that the relationships between ethical leadership and OCB as well as between ethical leadership and deviant behavior are weaker when followers’ self-esteem is high than low. Implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.     

The Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior: Linear or Curvilinear Effects?

In this study, we examine the nature of the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), defined as unethical behavior conducted by employees with the aim of benefiting their organization, and whether the strength of the relationship differs between subordinates experiencing high and low identification with supervisor. Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 239 public sector employees in China, we find that ethical leadership has an inverted u-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with UPB. As the level of ethical leadership increases from low to moderate, UPB increases; as the level of ethical leadership increases from moderate to high, UPB decreases. Further, we find that the strength of this inverted u-curve relationship differs between subordinates with high and low identification with supervisor. That is to say, the inverted u-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and UPB was stronger when subordinates experienced high levels of identification with supervisor. The theoretical and managerial implications of our findings for understanding how to manage UPB in an organizational context are discussed.     

Ethical Leadership for the Professions: Fostering a Moral Community

This paper examines the professions as examples of “moral community” and explores how professional leaders possessed of moral intelligence can make a contribution to enhance the ethical fabric of their communities. The paper offers a model of ethical leadership in the professional business sector that will improve our understanding of how ethical behavior in the professions confers legitimacy and sustainability necessary to achieving the professions’ goals, and how a leadership approach to ethics can serve as an effective tool for the dissemination of moral values in the organization. Dr. Linda M. Sama is Director of the Center for International Business Development and Associate Professor of Management at Pace University’s Lubin School of Business. She earned her Ph.D. in Strategic management from the City University of New York and her MBA in International Finance from McGill University. She was awarded the 1999 Lasdon Dissertation Award for her doctoral dissertation on corporate social response strategies and the Abraham Briloff Award of Best Paper in Business Ethics at the City University of New York in 1998. Dr. Sama made a transition to academe after a lengthy career in industry, where she acted as Director of Market Planning and Logistics for a major international subsidiary of Transamerica Corporation. She teaches primarily in the areas of International Business, Strategic Managements and Business Ethics, and has taught at Baruch College and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) prior to coming to Pace in the fall of 2001. At UTEP, she was designated as the Skno International Business Ethics Scholar from 1999–2001. She has published numerous articles and book chapters that address issues of corporate social responsibility, business and the natural environment, integrative social contracts theory, and business ethics dilemmas in the new economy. Her research appears in journals such as The Journal of Business Ethics, Business Ethics Quarterly, Business and Society Review, The Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, and the International Journal of Value-Based Management. She has also published research for the U.S. Department of Transportation related to the effects of NAFTA on U.S. – Mexico border logistics and has consulted to business clients on Strategic Planning, Global Leadership and Business Ethics. Dr. Victoria Shoaf is an Associate Professor and Assistant Chair of the Department of Accounting and Taxation at St. John’s University. She received her Ph.D. in Business, with a specialization in Accounting, from Baruch College of the City University of New York in 1997; she was awarded the 1997 Lasdon Dissertation Award. Prior to joining St. John’s University on a full-time basis, Dr.Shoaf worked for over fifteen years in the retail industry with merchandising firms. Her expertise is in establishing effective accounting systems and controls, including operational functions such as order entry and fulfillment, inventory control, point-of-sale data transfers and sales audit, as well as financial accounting functions. She has held controllership positions at Laura Ashley, Inc., Greeff Fabrics, Inc., and Tie Rack, Inc. While working in industry and while completing her doctoral degree, Dr. Shoaf taught accounting courses as an adjunct instructor at Pace University and at Baruch College. She received a commendation from the dean at Pace University for teaching excellence, and she was awarded a Graduate Teaching Fellowship at Baruch College. She currently serves on several professional committees, and she has provided consulting services in accounting education and training programs for several large employers.     

伦理型领导与伦理问题报告：一个多层次模型

基于社会学习理论及社会信息加工视角,文章探讨了伦理型领导激发员工报告组织内部伦理问题的多层次作用机制。文章采用两阶段问卷调查方式收集67名团队领导与302名员工调查样本,运用多层线性模型进行假设检验,结果表明,个体导向的伦理型领导对员工伦理问题报告具有显著正向影响,道德勇气在二者之间起部分中介作用。同时,团队导向的伦理型领导显著正向影响员工伦理问题报告,伦理氛围在二者之间起完全中介作用。此外,在伦理氛围更强的团队,个体导向的伦理型领导对伦理问题报告的作用更强。研究结果揭示了伦理型领导影响员工伦理问题报告的多层次作用路径及边界条件,对于加强组织的伦理管理具有重要的现实意义。     

Leadership,Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship

Leaders in today’s world face the challenge of earning the trust and commitment of organizational members if they expect to guide their companies to success in a highly competitive global context. In this article, we present empirical results indicating that when leadership behaviors are perceived as trustworthy through the observer’s mediating lens, trust increases and leaders are more likely to be viewed as ethical stewards who honor a higher level of duties. This article contributes to the growing body of literature about the importance of ethical stewardship in the trust relationship.     

The Perceptions of Ethical and Sustainable Leadership

Sustainable and ethical leadership in the financial industry expand in importance since the financial crisis of 2007–2009. This research examined the level of sustainable and ethical leadership of leaders in mortgage loan originator (MLO) organizations, as perceived by loan originators. The Perceived Leadership Survey (PLIS) developed by Craig and Gustafson (Leadersh Q 9(2):127–145, 1998) and the Sustainable Leadership Questionnaire (SLQ) developed by McCann and Holt (Int J Sustain Strat Manage 2(2):204–210, 2011) were utilized for this research. The survey results yielded high levels of both ethical and sustainable leadership. Employees also felt their leadership was encouraging ethical and sustainable behavior. However, correlations between the PLIS and SLQ did not prove to be dependent or closely correlated.     

Responsible Leadership as Virtuous Leadership

Responsible leadership is rare. It is not that most leaders are irresponsible, but responsibility in leadership is frequently defined so that an important connotation of responsible leadership is ignored. This article equates responsible leadership with virtuousness. Using this connotation implies that responsible leadership is based on three assumptions—eudaemonism, inherent value, and amplification. Secondarily, this connotation produces two important outcomes—a fixed point for coping with change, and benefits for constituencies who may never be affected otherwise. The meaning and advantages of responsible leadership as virtuous leadership are discussed.     

The Masculinisation of Ethical Leadership Dis/embodiment

Using a worldwide sample, we examine whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance has an impact on the value of cash holdings. We find that investors assign a higher value to cash held by firms that have a high CSR rating. This result is consistent with the idea that CSR policies are a means for managers to act in the shareholders’ interests by mitigating conflicts with stakeholders. Finally, we reveal that CSR performance has a positive impact on the value of cash holdings only for firms which operate in countries where shareholders are well protected from expropriation by managers and in countries where the institutional quality is high.     

A Multilevel Trust-based Model of Ethical Public Leadership

I develop and test a multilevel trust-based model of ethical public leadership, which links ethical leadership, trust and leadership outcomes both within and across organizational levels. I examine how both ethical leadership and trust relate to employee well-being and satisfaction, group organizational citizenship behaviour and perceived organizational performance. The findings, based on data collected from an online quantitative survey conducted in three local councils of the north east of England, provide evidence in support of positive relationships between ethical leadership and employees’ trust in leaders at multiple levels. This trust is in turn shown to influence employees’ attitudes, behaviours and cognitions.     

How Positive and Neo‐Aristotelian Leadership Can Contribute to Ethical Leadership

Virtuous leadership is crucial for advancing leadership ethics. By comparing Positive Leadership and its notion of virtuousness with neo‐Aristotelian leadership based on virtue, this article sheds light on this research field. We expound on the differences and commonalities between the two and present possibilities of how they can enrich each other and further ethical leadership theory. Our findings concern the purported Aristotelian roots of virtuousness, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the positive and the neo‐Aristotelian approaches, and the interplay between technical skills and ethical excellence in leadership. We propose the adoption of practical managerial tools and procedures from Positive Leadership, making them dependent upon the virtues to achieve flourishing within organizations and society at large. © 2018 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Business Leadership: Three Levels of Ethical Analysis

Research on the normative aspect of leadership is still a relatively new enterprise within the mainstream of leadership studies. In the past, most academic inquiry into leadership was grounded in a social scientific paradigm that largely ignored the ethical substance of leadership. However, perhaps because of a number of public and infamous cases of failure in business leadership, in recent years there has been renewed interest in the ethical side of leadership in business. This paper argues that ethical issues of leadership actually arise at number of different levels, and that it is important to distinguish between various diverse kinds of ethical issues that arise in the study of leadership. The three levels identified are the level of the individual morality of leaders, the level of the means of their leadership, and the level of the leadership mission itself. We argue that only by fully understanding all of the different levels of ethical analysis pertinent to business leadership, and the distinctive kind of issues that arise at each level, can we fully integrate normative studies of leadership into the field of leadership studies. As such, this paper offers a model that incorporates three different levels of ethical analysis that can be used to study normative issues in leadership studies. Such a model can be used to better understand and integrate ethical issues into research, teaching, and training in leadership.     

Systemic Leadership and the Emergence of Ethical Responsiveness

The author of this paper argues that the responsibility to nurture and encourage a relationally responsive ethical attitude among the members of an organizational system is shared by all who participate in it. In the dynamic environment of a complex adaptive organizational system where it is impossible to anticipate and legislate for every potential circumstantial contingency, creating and sustaining relationships of trust has to be a systemic capacity of the entire organization. Leadership is socially constructed, as the need for it arises within the complex interactions between individuals and groups within organizations, and can therefore not be described as a set of traits or behaviors possessed by only certain individuals who occupy positions of authority. If the sharing of this kind of relational responsiveness to the everyday realities of organizational life is to be properly understood, it is important to consider it in its concrete institutional manifestations. The last section of this paper therefore explores how an organization, in which leadership is understood in relational terms and is shared by all, looks and functions.