The Relationship between Religiousness and Corporate Social Responsibility Orientation: Are there Differences Between Business Managers and Students?

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a relationship between a person’s degree of religiousness and corporate social responsibility orientation. A total of 411 managers and 506 students from seven universities were surveyed. The statistical analysis showed that religiousness does influence students’ orientation toward the economic, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of business. It does not, however, have a significant impact upon the managers’ attitudes. When the “low religiousness” students and managers were compared, differences were found with respect to the economic, ethical, and philanthropic components of corporate social responsibility. Similar results were obtained when the “high religiousness” students and managers were compared. The implications of these findings are discussed. Nabil Ibrahim is the Grover Maxwell Professor of Business Administration at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and Applied Statistics. Dr. Ibrahim’s articles have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Health Care Management Review, the Journal of Applied Business Research, as well as many other journals and proceedings. Donald P. Howard is an Associate Professor of Management at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship. His articles have appeared in a number of journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Applied Case Research, and Health Care Management Review, as well as many proceedings. John Angelidis is Professor and Chair, Department of Management, St. John’s University, New York, NY. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and International Business. Dr. Angelidis has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, Review of Business, Journal of Commerce and Management, as well as many other journals and proceedings.     

Twenty Years of European Business Ethics – Past Developments and Future Concerns

Over the past 20 years business ethics in Europe witnessed a remarkable growth. Today business ethics is faced with two challenges. The first comes from the social sciences and consultants who have both reclaimed the topics of business ethics, regretfully often at the loss of the proper ethical perspective. The second comes from the remarkable rise of corporate social responsibility which has pushed aside the mainstream business ethics methodology with its emphasis on moral deliberation by the individual. These challenges can be tackled by an institutional transformation in business ethics that links up to the long-standing European tradition of institutional analysis of the market. The second remedy is an enlargement of the research agenda in business ethics by coming closer to other parts of applied ethics where the business ethics view is at this moment grossly neglected.     

An Analysis of Corporate Social Responsibility,Corporate Identity and Ethics Teaching in Business Schools

Recent events have raised concerns about the ethical standards of public and private organisations, with some attention falling on business schools as providers of education and training to managers and senior␣executives. This paper investigates the nature of, motivation and commitment to, ethics tuition provided by the business schools. Using content analysis of their institutional and home websites, we appraise their corporate identity, level of engagement in socially responsible programmes, degree of social inclusion, and the relationship to their ethics teaching. Based on published research, a schema is developed with corporate identity forming an integral part, to represent the macro-environment, parent institution, the business school and their relationships to ethics education provision. This is validated by our findings. Dr. Nelarine Cornelius, Reader in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour, Brunel Business School, Brunel University, is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. She is also a Chartered Psychologist and is Director of both the Centre for Research in Emotion Work and the Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour Research Group at Brunel University. Dr. James Wallace, Lecturer in Quantitative Methods, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He has considerable experience of statistical and mathematical modelling gained over several years in the UK utilities sector and in H.E. His current research interests include, applying statistical and mathematical modelling approaches to Technological, Operational and General Management problems. Dr. Rana Tassabehji, Lecturer in Information Systems and E-business, School of Management, University of Bradford, is a member of the British Academy of Management and the UK Academy for Information Systems. She worked as an international business consultant and as a consultant in the UK IT sector and is currently an academic member of the eGISE eGovernment network. Her research interests include ethics and e-business, Internet security and e-government.     

Measuring Corporate Social and Environmental Performance: The Extended Life-Cycle Assessment

This papers attempts to bridge business ethics to corporate social responsibility including the social and environmental dimensions. The objective of the paper is to suggest an improvement of the most commonly used corporate environmental management tool, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The method includes two stages. First, more phases are added to the life-cycle of a product. Second, social criteria that measure the social performance of a product are introduced. An application of this “extended” LCA tool is given.     

Ethical Problems, Conflicts and Beliefs of Small Business Professionals

This paper presents the results of a national study of the beliefs and perceptions of small business professionals concerning ethics within their company and business in general. The study examined their views on the relationship between success and ethical conduct as well as the extent and nature of ethical conflicts experienced by the respondents. Some comparisons are made with similar studies that have been conducted in the past. Respondents have the most ethical conflicts with customers and employees, and with regard to honesty in contracts/agreements. Most also believe that ethical standards are lower than they were 10 and 20 years ago, primarily because society's moral standards are lower. Additionally, they believe that the behavior of top management has the most influence on decisions in ethical situations. Finally, consistent with prior studies, they believe that they have the most responsibility to customers, ahead of employees and stockholders.     

Why Firms Should Not Always Maximize Profits

Though corporate social responsibility (CSR) is on the agenda of most major corporations, corporate executives still largely support the view that corporations should maximize the returns to their owners. There are two lines of defence for this position. One is the Friedmanian view that maximizing owner returns is the social responsibility of corporations. The other is a position voiced by many executives, that CSR and profits go together. This article argues that the first position is ethically untenable, while the latter is not supported by empirical evidence. The implication is that there may be good reason for firms to deviate from a maxim of profit maximization. Ivar Kolstad is Senior Researcher at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI). He is the head of the CMI Human Rights Programme, and the coordinator of the institute programme Business Ethics for Multinational Corporations in Developing Countries. He has published internationally on the topics of social norms and development economics.     

Trust and Dialogue: Theoretical Approaches to Ethics Auditing

The aim of this paper is to put forward an ethical framework for the conceptualization and development of ethics audits, here understood as a catalyst for company dialogue and in general, for management of ethics in the company. Ethics auditing is understood as the opportunity and agreement to devise a system to inform on ethical corporate behavior. This system essentially aims to increase the transparency and credibility of the companys commitment to ethics. At the same time, the process of elaborating this system allows us to introduce the moral dimension into company actions and decisions, thereby completing a key dimension of the production, maintenance and development of trust capital. To this end, the following four steps are taken. First, we analyze the relation between ethics auditing and trust as a basic moral resource in the dialogue between the company and its various stakeholders. Second, we examine the social balance sheet as a precursor to ethics auditing and focus on what prevents it from going further. Third, we attempt to reconstruct the basic moral assumptions underlying the companys social responsibility from the discourse ethics approach. Finally, we present a methodological framework from which to carry out our proposal, which embraces two basic theoretical perspectives stakeholder theory and the values derived from discourse ethics as a normative framework.     

“Society is Out There,Organisation is in Here”: On the Perceptions of Corporate Social Responsibility Held by Different Managerial Groups

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an increasingly significant managerial concept, yet the manager as an agent of corporate bureaucracy has been substantially missing from both the analytical and conceptual literature dealing with CSR. This article, which is both interpretative in nature and specific in reference to the U.K. cultural context, represents an attempt at addressing this lacuna by utilising qualitative data to explore the perceptions of managers working in corporations with developed CSR programmes. Exploring managerial perceptions of motives for CSR initiatives, methods of stakeholder engagement, organisational integration of CSR and its impact on managerial work, this study concludes that an instrumental approach dominates, which indicates an external–internal organisational paradox in the design and execution of CSR initiatives.     

Corporate Social Responsibility: A Comparative Analysis of Perceptions of Practicing Accountants and Accounting Students

The results of a survey of 272 practicing accountants and 374 accounting students enrolled in six universities are analyzed. Differences and similarities between the two groups with regard to their attitudes toward corporate social responsibility are examined. The results indicate that the students exhibit greater concern about the ethical and discretionary components of corporate responsibility and a weaker orientation toward economic performance. No significant differences between the two groups were observed with respect to the legal dimension of corporate social responsibility. Some explanations as well as limited generalizations and implications are developed. Nabil Ibrahim is the Grover Maxwell Professor of Business Administration at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and Applied Statistics. Dr.Ibrahim’s articles have appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics, Health Care Management Review, the Journal of Applied Business Research, as well as many other journals and proceedings. John Angelidis is Professor and Chair, Department of Management, St. John’s University, New York, NY. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and International Business. Dr. Angelidis has published articles in the Journal of Business Ethics, Business Review, the International Journal of Commerce and Management as well as many other journals and proceedings. Donald P. Howard is an Associate Professor of Management at Augusta State University, Augusta, Georgia. He teaches courses in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship. His articles have appeared in a number of journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Applied Case Research, and Health Care Management Review, as well as many proceedings.     

Global Business Citizenship and Voluntary Codes of Ethical Conduct

This article describes the theory and process of global business citizenship (GBC) and applies it in an analysis of characteristics of company codes of business conduct. GBC is distinguished from a commonly used term, “corporate citizenship,” which often denotes corporate community involvement and philanthropy. The GBC process requires (1) a set of fundamental values embedded in the corporate code of conduct and in corporate policies that reflect universal ethical standards; (2) implementation throughout the organization with thoughtful awareness of where the code and policies fit well and where they might not fit with stakeholder expectations; (3) analysis and experimentation to deal with problem cases; and (4) systematic learning processes to communicate the results of implementation and experiments internally and externally. We then identify and illustrate the three attributes of a code of conduct that would reflect a GBC approach. The three attributes are orientation, implementation, and accountability. The various components of these attributes are specified and illustrated, using website examples from six global petroleum companies.     

Revisiting the Concept of a Societal Orientation: Conceptualization and Delineation

Marketers have traditionally evaluated products and practices on the basis of whether something could be sold. It is also important to evaluate products and practices from a societal perspective, “Should a product be sold?” The first idea reflects a managerial orientation and what must be done to sell a product; the second idea reflects a societal orientation and the impact of selling a product. In relation to the second idea, the societal marketing concept was introduced in 1972. There has been little advancement in our understanding of a societal orientation since that time. The current study presents a conceptualization of a societal orientation based on a review of literature and qualitative interviews. The construct was conceptualized as “attention to the long-term well-being of individuals and society at large by enhancing positive impacts from and reducing negative effects associated with production and consumption of a product.” Five domains comprising a societal orientation are proposed: physical consequences, psychological well-being, social relationships, economic contribution, and environmental consciousness.     

Is It Ethical to Use Ethics as Strategy?

Increasingly research in the field of business and society suggests that ethics and corporate social responsibility can be profitable. Yet this work raises a troubling question: Is it ethical to use ethics and social responsibility in a strategic way? Is it possible to be ethical or socially responsible for the wrong reason? In this article, we define a strategy concept in order to situate the different approaches to the strategic use of ethics and social responsibility found in the current literature. We then analyze the ethics of such approaches using both utilitarianism and deontology and end by defining limits to the strategic use of ethics.     

Reasoning about Responsibilities: Mining Company Managers on What Stakeholders are Owed

Stakeholder theories propose that managers are responsible not only for maximizing shareholder value, but also for taking into account the well being of other parties affected by corporate decisions. While the language of stakeholder theory has been taken up in industries like mining, controversy remains. Disagreements arise not only about the apportionment of costs and benefits among stakeholders, but about who counts as a stakeholder and about how "costs" and "benefits" are to be conceived. This paper investigates these questions empirically by examining how managers in one mining company talk about corporate responsibilities and by analysing the explicit and implicit values systems and moral logics which inform this talk. The investigations discovered that while some claims by stakeholder groups were readily accommodated by managers, others were not. Analysis of the value frameworks employed by the mangers confirms the views of leading stakeholder theorists that stakeholder theory is grounded in the realities of management practice and behaviour.