The leadership disease. . .and its potential cures

Leadership development and executive education have taken on increased prominence in recent years. The natural tendency is to approach the subject of leadership as a hierarchically-based process that is focused on higher-level individual leaders influencing lower-level followers. This tendency is consistent with myths surrounding charismatic and heroic visionary leaders who are often portrayed as single-handedly inspiring and directing their organizations to new heights. Unfortunately, these simplistic portrayals of leadership are promulgated by the media and desired by the consuming public. However, this kind of framing of leadership is dangerous: it lays the seeds of centralization of power, which can have innumerable detrimental outcomes. Accordingly, we explore two potent antidotes to this simplistic hierarchical formulation of leadership that have become an increasing focus of leadership research: self-leadership and shared leadership.     

Non-Discrimination in Human Resources Management as a Moral Obligation

The purpose of socially responsible investing (SRI) is to: (1) allow investors to reflect their personal values and ethics in their choices, and (2) encourage companies to improve their ethical, social, and environmental performance. In order to achieve these ends, the means SRI fund managers employ include the use of negative screening, or the exclusion of companies involved in “sinful” industries. We argue that there are problems with this methodology, both at a theoretical and at a practical level. As a consequence, current SRI offerings cannot accurately reflect the values and ethical beliefs they propose to represent. Moreover, the use of a?priori criteria is potentially misleading, as we show by discussing examples of glue and wine making. Applying this flawed approach SRI funds fail to influence the direction of the firms they deem most in need of re-directing. Rather than engaging in the simple a?priori assumption that some industries are “saints” while others are “sinners” (Freeman, 2007) we suggest a new framework upon which the SRI screening methodology could be grounded. Embracing the philosophical tradition of American pragmatism, we suggest that SRI methodology could be improved by engaging in an analysis based on (1) the actual impacts of the company’s products and services, (2) the company’s relationships with its specific, real stakeholders, and (3) the contingent environment (social, economic, political, legal, and cultural) in which the business operates.     

Political sentiment and corporate social responsibility

This paper examines the association between firm-level political sentiment and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Drawing inferences from signaling and resource-based theory, we posit a positive relationship between political sentiment and CSR. Using 23,160 firm-year observations of US public firms between 2002 and 2018 as our sample, we find empirical support for our prediction. In addition, the positive relationship between political sentiment and CSR is driven by the environment, community relations, employee relations, and diversity dimensions of CSR activities. We find consistent evidence when we measure CSR using some ‘real effect’ variables. Our cross-sectional analyses reveal that the positive association between political sentiment and CSR is more evident for firms that have a high level of information asymmetry and firms that are large, mature, and active in political lobbying. Our findings remain robust to a batch of sensitivity and endogeneity tests. Overall, our findings advance the literature by highlighting the interplay between politics and firms in an ever-changing political environment.     

企业社会责任:义利合一的选择

企业是适应社会生产、流通分工的需要而产生的一种生产经营组织,为什么要承担社会责任?本文从企业的性质出发,论证企业社会责任是价值理性和工具理性的统一,是效率与正义的统一,是义利合一的选择。     

Luxury-cruise travellers’ brand community perception and its consequences

This study examines the roles of brand community and brand differentiation in the context of the luxury-cruise market. Employing a brand community integration scale, an online survey was conducted with 300 luxury-cruise customers in the USA. The results of structural equation modelling provided six findings as follows: (1) three of the four dimensions of brand community, namely the relationship with the cruise brand, the cruise product, and other cruisers, had positive effects on brand distinctiveness; (2) brand distinctiveness had positive effects on emotional brand attraction; (3) emotional brand attraction had positive effects on active engagement and repurchase intentions; (4) the corporate social responsibility image moderated the link between the relationship with other cruisers and brand distinctiveness; (5) customers’ desire for unique products moderated the relationship between brand distinctiveness and emotional brand attraction; and (6) service-use self-efficacy moderated the relationship between emotional brand attraction and active engagement. The results provide a deeper theoretical and practical understanding of the luxury-cruise market.     

完善企业社会责任标准体系的探讨

文章指出依靠非政府机构（NGO）来推动企业社会责任（CSR）,举步艰难。国际社会所制定的有关企业社会责任体系及企业行为准则（COC）,其共性内容与我国党和政府提出的全民共享改革开放成果和促进和谐社会及经济可持续发展理念是不矛盾的。因此,文章希望尽快完善中国企业社会责任标准体系和制定相应的法律法规。文章的核心是提出了中国特色的CSR有效推行模式应该是三部门协同参与的三角平衡模式。     

Exploring origins of ethical company/brand perceptions: Reply to Shea and Cohn's commentaries

This article responds to key questions that Shea (2010) and Cohn (2010) raise on Brunk's (2010a) work on consumer perceived ethicality (CPE) of a company or brand and expands on suggestions for further research. In particular the response here (1) considers concerns of generalizability, impact of cultural context, and transiency of the domain of CPE framework, (2) offers new insights into the complex and dynamic nature of CPE and its formation, (3) discusses issues relating to ethical consumption behavior, and (4) concludes with a debate on managerial implications including real-life strategic as well as operational challenges of effective CSR management.     

Islamic finance development and banking ESG scores: Evidence from a cross-country analysis

An extensive body of literature on CSR examined its effects on several business dimensions. However, little attention has been paid on the relationship between the growing role played by Islamic finance, its connection with sustainability and the drivers of such relationship.Based on a sample of 224 banks from sixteen emerging and advanced countries in the period 2014–2017, this paper assesses whether and to what extent the development of Islamic financial markets relates to banks’ sustainability strategies. We propose a novel perspective that includes the new Islamic Finance Development Indicator (IFDI), its components and how it relates to aggregate and individual ESG scores.Our results show a positive relationship between IFDI and ESG scores that mostly revolves around the social pillar. This finding strengthens the generally acknowledged link between Islamic finance and sensitivity to social implications, despite gains in sustainability are subject to non-linearity.