| 1. |
- Boström, Magnus, 1972-
(author)
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Between Monitoring and Trust : Commitment to Extended Upstream Responsibility
- 2015
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 131:1, s. 239-255
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In line with the current trend toward sustainability and CSR, organizations are pressured to assume extended responsibility. However, taking such a responsibility requires serious and challenging efforts as it appears to involve a wider range of issues and increased need for close interaction between actors along commodity chains. Using a qualitative case study approach, the present article focuses on Swedish public and private procurement organizations with attention paid to textiles and chemical risks. It focuses on two crucial aspects of buyers’ relationships with suppliers in their efforts to advance environmental responsibility-taking—monitoring and trust—as well as how they intersect. The aim is to demonstrate, both theoretically and empirically, the limits and possibilities of monitoring and trust for developing extended upstream responsibility. The article demonstrates the problems with, on one hand, simple ritualistic monitoring and, on the other, simple trust, and explores potentially constructive pathways to extended upstream responsibility at the intersection of monitoring and trust. In connection with the findings, the article argues that theories on responsible and sustainable supply chain management must also take the enormous variety of organizations into account: not only large, private, transnational companies, which the literature has until now been preoccupied with.
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| 2. |
- Breuer, Wolfgang, et al.
(author)
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The Financial Impact of Firm Withdrawals from “State Sponsor of Terrorism” Countries
- 2017
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Netherlands. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 144:3, s. 533-547
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Using an event-study framework, we examine the stock market reaction to the announcement of firm withdrawal from countries designated as "State Sponsors of Terrorism" by the U.S. Department of State. We find that such announcements are, on average, linked to a statistically significant increase in firm value-an effect which already kicks in a few days before the announcement date. The observed abnormal returns are positively associated with the U.S. domicile, the intensity of a firm's hitherto existing engagement in a designated country, the number of countries that it withdraws from, as well as with a withdrawal from Iran compared to a withdrawal from other countries. Evidence suggests an increase in demand for stocks of withdrawing firms as a plausible cause of the positive stock price reaction. Pension and endowment funds are significantly less likely to own strategic stakes in firms with intensive involvements in countries designated as "State Sponsors of Terrorism." We find some statistical evidence that firms remaining active in such countries have abnormally positive returns in the long run.
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| 3. |
- Chiu, H. H., et al.
(author)
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Macroeconomic Fluctuations as Sources of Luck in CEO Compensation
- 2016
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 136:2, s. 371-384
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Macroeconomic fluctuations in interest rates, exchange rates, and inflation can be considered sources of good or bad "luck" for corporate performance if management is unable to adjust operations to these fluctuations. Based on a sample of 2,091 US firms, we decompose the impacts of macroeconomic fluctuations on three measures of CEO compensation. Our study provides empirical support for the importance of considering macroeconomic fluctuations in designing CEO incentive schemes. It adds to the managerial power literature on moral hazard and CEO compensation by pinpointing the obvious risk that the CEO in an asymmetric and non-linear reward system will be inclined to prioritize his/her own cash flow at the expense of fulfilling an assumed agency role. The policy conclusion for remuneration committees and board of directors is to filter out macroeconomic influences on performance to be rewarded whenever an asymmetric compensation scheme has been opted for.
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| 4. |
- Egels-Zandén, Niklas, 1978
(author)
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Responsibility Boundaries in Global Value Chains: Supplier audit prioritizations and moral disengagement among Swedish firms
- 2017
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 146:3, s. 515-528
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To address substandard working conditions in global value chains, companies have adopted private regulatory systems governing worker rights. Scholars agree that without onsite factory audits, this private regulation has limited impact at the point of production. Companies, however, audit only a subset of their suppliers, severely restricting their private regulatory attempts. Despite the significance of the placement of suppliers inside or outside firms’ “responsibility boundaries” and despite scholars’ having called for more research into how firms prioritize what suppliers to audit, few, if any, systematic studies have examined the topic. This is problematic, as the placement of firms’ responsibility boundaries determines what suppliers and workers are included in firms’ private regulatory attempts. Based on a study of 12 Swedish firms and the theory of moral disengagement, this paper starts to fill this research gap by exploring how firms’ responsibility boundaries are placed. The paper illustrates how firms’ responsibility boundary placement is best described as a patchwork with firms defining and delimiting their responsibilities differently. The paper also demonstrates that three supplier types (i.e., the worst, morally justified, and immediate suppliers) are particularly likely to be placed inside firms’ responsibility boundaries, while a fourth type (i.e., disregarded suppliers) is likely be placed outside.
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| 5. |
- Eriksson, David, et al.
(author)
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The Process of Responsibility, Decoupling Point, and Disengagement of Moral and Social Responsibility in Supply Chains: Empirical Findings and Prescriptive Thoughts
- 2016
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 134:2, s. 281-298
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of the paper is to explore and assess the process of responsibility, decoupling point, and disengagement of moral responsibility, in combination with business sustainability (BSus) in supply chains. The research is based on a qualitative approach consisting of two multifaceted case studies, each including multiple case companies and different empirical research characteristics, and a review of BSus in supply chain literature. The case studies apply moral disengagement (MDis) to propose how moral responsibility can deteriorate in supply chains, and the literature review identifies elements of BSus in supply chain management (SCM). The contribution of this paper is to compare these two research streams and evaluate the efficacy of the concepts proposed in the case studies. Through this study, BSus gains an entirely different and complementary toolkit which should facilitate further and more effective research in SCM. The theory of MDis also provides a foundation for reinforcing explanatory and prescriptive aspects of ‘best practices’ in the SCM literature. The findings also establish a basis for organizing and monitoring supply chains so as to improve BSus efforts. Considering moral responsibility as a flow this research explains why and how certain practices may impede BSus efforts in supply chains. Original and/or innovative outcomes include explanatory and prescriptive insights that emerge from a combination of empirical findings from two case studies, including seven companies and a framework for improving BSus management in supply chains, based on a typology of moral disengagement.
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| 6. |
- Feng, Xunan, et al.
(author)
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Underpaid and Corrupt Executives in China’s State Sector
- 2018
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Verlag (Germany). - 1573-0697 .- 0167-4544. ; 150:4, s. 1199-1212
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study examines the role of executive compensation in public governance. We collect data on corruption cases that involve top-level executives in Chinese listed state-controlled firms. We find a significant positive relationship between underpayment of executives and the likelihood of an investigation into corrupt behavior. We also show that corruption is positively associated with firm performance and that the relationship between underpayment of executives and corruption is influenced by firm performance, suggesting that top managers are more likely to engage in illicit behavior if they are compensated poorly while the firms under their control perform well. Finally, we find that pay-performance sensitivity decreases when top executives are involved in corruption investigations, indicating a lack of pecuniary incentives. Our empirical findings point toward an important relationship between executive compensation and corrupt behavior, thus providing valuable input to the understanding of executive pay and its effects in China’s state sector.
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| 7. |
- Fontana, Enrico, et al.
(author)
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Non Sibi, Sed Omnibus: Influence of Supplier Collective Behaviour on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Bangladeshi Apparel Supply Chain
- 2019
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 159:4, s. 1047-1064
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Local supplier corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries represents a powerful tool to improve labour conditions. This paper pursues an inter-organizational network approach to the global value chain (GVC) literature to understand the influence of suppliers’ collective behaviour on their CSR engagement. This exploratory study of 30 export-oriented and first-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, a developing country, makes three relevant contributions to GVC scholarship. First, we show that suppliers are interlinked in a horizontal network that restricts unilateral CSR engagement. This is justified in that unilateral CSR engagement is a source of heterogeneity in labour practices; consequently, it triggers worker unrest. Second, we present and discuss an exploratory framework based on four scenarios of how suppliers currently engage in CSR given their network’s pressure toward collective behaviour: unofficial CSR engagement, geographic isolation, size and competitive differentiation, and external pressure. Finally, we show the need to spread CSR homogeneously among suppliers and to reconceptualize the meaning of CSR in developing countries, encouraging more scrutiny toward horizontal dynamics.
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| 8. |
- Fontana, Enrico, et al.
(author)
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Non Sibi, Sed Omnibus: Influence of Supplier Collective Behaviour on Corporate Social Responsibility in the Bangladeshi Apparel Supply Chain : Influence of Supplier Collective Behaviour on Corporate social Responsibility in the Bangladeshi Apparel Supply Chain
- 2019
-
In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer Verlag (Germany). - 1573-0697 .- 0167-4544. ; 159:4, s. 1047-1064
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Local supplier corporate social responsibility (CSR) in developing countries represents a powerful tool to improve labour conditions. This paper pursues an inter-organizational network approach to the global value chain (GVC) literature to understand the influence of suppliers' collective behaviour on their CSR engagement. This exploratory study of 30 export-oriented and first-tier apparel suppliers in Bangladesh, a developing country, makes three relevant contributions to GVC scholarship. First, we show that suppliers are interlinked in a horizontal network that restricts unilateral CSR engagement. This is justified in that unilateral CSR engagement is a source of heterogeneity in labour practices; consequently, it triggers worker unrest. Second, we present and discuss an exploratory framework based on four scenarios of how suppliers currently engage in CSR given their network's pressure toward collective behaviour: unofficial CSR engagement, geographic isolation, size and competitive differentiation, and external pressure. Finally, we show the need to spread CSR homogeneously among suppliers and to reconceptualize the meaning of CSR in developing countries, encouraging more scrutiny toward horizontal dynamics.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Frostenson, Magnus, 1970-
(author)
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Humility in business : A contextual approach
- 2016
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In: Journal of Business Ethics. - : Springer. - 0167-4544 .- 1573-0697. ; 138:1, s. 91-102
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The virtue of humility is often considered to be at odds with common business practice. In recent years, however, scholars within business ethics and leadership have shown an increasing interest in humility. Despite such attention, the argument for the relevance of humility in business could be expanded. Unlike extant research that focuses on humility as a character-building virtue or instrumentally useful leadership trait, this article argues that humility reflects the interdependent nature of business. Through such an approach, the article gives an extrinsic motivation of the relevance of humility in business, and, from a theoretical point of view, links the intra-personal and intra-organizational perspective on humility to an inter-organizational one. The article contextualizes the virtue of humility by relating it to the economic, cognitive, and moral aspects of business practice and managerial work. It claims that the assumption of self-sufficiency in business is a grave misrepresentation of what business is—a practice characterized by interdependency. Potential links between virtue ethics, leadership, and contextually oriented theories of business, such as stakeholder theory, network theories, and resource dependence theory, are also identified.
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