The business world has increasingly accepted the concept of a corporate purpose that extends beyond profit and shareholder value. More and more companies recognize that their core purpose is to benefit all stakeholders, including customers, employees, and suppliers, as well as their communities and society at large. Sustainability is a key element in a company’s […]
Read More… from Corporate Purpose Inspires Employee Sustainability Behaviours
When a company has committed a transgression against one or more of its stakeholders, and wishes to rebuild the stakeholders’ trust and confidence, it engages in ‘moral repair’. For example, a mining company in South Africa wanted to make amends to the families of striking mine workers killed by police during the strike. The company […]
Read More… from Making Amends: The Two Levels of Moral Repair
While the technological capabilities and impact of artificial intelligence (AI) has brought significant change to multiple facets of business and even society, the core of AI is still machines, not humans. And while these machines can learn, they cannot discern right from wrong—unless we deliberately step in to add an ethical dimension to AI. Where […]
Building on his own research, and other studies and theories developed by researchers in the field of ethics and morality, RSM professor Muel Kaptein offers a framework that answers the question: when should companies change their ethical norms. Ethical norms are the rules, policies and procedures of a company put in place to ensure the […]
Read More… from When Should Companies Change their Ethical Norms?
A new study of employee misconduct in the financial services field reveals that supervisors have the most significant impact—negative or positive—on employee misconduct in their firms. Based on 10 years of data from broker-dealer investment firms, the study by Zachary Kowaleski of University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, Andrew Sutherland of the MIT Sloan School […]
Read More… from Why Supervisors Are the Keys to Preventing Employee Misconduct
According to the World Trade Organization, the products and services purchased by the government account for 15-20% of developing countries’ GDP. Putting aside the relative handful of defence contractors with their multi-billion contracts, how can companies break into the B2G sector? The surprising answer from one academic researcher is a firm’s corporate social responsibility activities. […]
Read More… from How CSR Can Lead to Lucrative Government Contracts
Psychologists are divided concerning the link between personal misconduct and professional misconduct. Some argue that misconduct reflects a personal trait; others argue that behaviour is situational — a person may behave unethically in one context but not another. New research, building on the database of a website for married people looking to have an affair, […]
Read More… from Misbehaving, Private, Personal Misconduct Can Lead to Professional Misconduct
In their research, Afshin Mehrpouya of HEC Paris and Imran Chowdhury of Pace University explore the mechanisms, and importantly the assumptions behind the mechanisms, involved in transforming social responsibility (CSR) into financial performance (CFP). A closer look at those assumptions reveals why socially responsible behaviour is not always reflected in better financial results. They first […]
Read More… from Doing Good’ Does Not Always Improve the Bottom Line
It’s not surprising to see people in the workplace tired and depleted. The cognitive consequences of such fatigue — the negative impact on people’s ability to think clearly and make sound decisions — are well documented. This state of ‘ego depletion’, to use the psychologists’ term, is also known to impact ethical decisions. Psychologists argue […]
Read More… from Why Managers Forgive Ethical Lapses of Tired Employees
In a seminal 2011 Harvard Business Review article, Michael Porter and Mark Kramer urged companies to abandon the ‘old narrow view of capitalism’ in which the sole purpose of companies is to make profits. Instead of focusing exclusive on share value, they argued, corporations have a duty to also address the challenges of society — […]
Read More… from How to Create Shared Value for the Firm and Society
