Corporate sustainability has become mainstream. Few companies would argue today – as they argued in the past – that the only responsibility companies have to society is to make a profit. Today, corporations proudly describe their social responsibility initiatives. Nardia Haigh of the School of Business at University of Massachusetts, Boston and Andrew Hoffman of […]
Read More… from Sustainability-driven Hybrid Companies Challenge Business Dogma
Most people make moral judgements intuitively: we feel what is right or wrong. For example, imagine a dilemma in which a runaway trolley is racing toward five people, who will be killed if the trolley is not stopped. A man named Adam stands on a footbridge overlooking the trolley tracks. In an effort to save […]
Read More… from We Trust People Who Believe in Absolute Moral Rules
The gig economy (‘gigs’: think musicians and bands) — an economy built more than ever before on contract workers and part-timers — is dramatically changing the relationships between employers and the people they employ. One side effect of the gig economy, according to a recent study, is that short-term workers on their way out are […]
Read More… from Last Chance Cheating: A Gig Economy Challenge
What is the role of social movements in inspiring or sparking corporate social responsibility? To answer this question, Panayiotis Georgallis of the University of Michigan’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise builds on the academic research related to social movements and to corporate social responsibility, which are two distinct fields of research. Social movements are […]
Read More… from How Social Movements Spark Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives
Both agency theory and stewardship theory help explain organizational dynamics, although starting from very different assumptions. Agency theory describes the relationship between the shareholders (called ‘principals’) and the company’s managers and executives (called ‘agents’) as a collaboration between parties with different interests: principals are focused on the success of the company while agents are focused […]
Read More… from A Symphony of Agency and Stewardship Values Ensures Family Business Success
While corporations are engaging in socially responsible initiatives related to their industries or to benefit their communities (supporting organizations to help the needy, for example), some companies are going one step further, according to research from the University St. Gallen’s Institute for Business Ethics. These fearless companies are supporting controversial causes unrelated to their industries […]
Read More… from Corporate Political Advocacy: Support Non-business-related Causes
An investigation into the problems of the 1973 Ford Pinto, a car susceptible to catastrophic explosions when rear-ended, revealed that Ford’s engineers had calculated that the company could save $11 per car at a cost of 180 burn deaths. While perhaps an exaggerated case of numbers pushing aside moral and ethical considerations, there is a […]
Read More… from How a Numbers-Crunching Culture Can Increase Unethical Behaviour
In addition to economic and diversity issues, the Duke University/CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey for the fourth quarter of 2014 focused on the issue of millennials in the workplace. A majority of CFOs surveyed believe that millennials can add value to companies, especially, according to 70% of the CFOs surveyed, through the technological savvy […]
Read More… from Firms Are Not Adapting to the Millennial Workforce
Most people think of themselves as moral and ethical. And yet, major fraud and unethical behaviour is widespread. A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina, University of Washington and University of Arizona studied how people who are otherwise good allow themselves to become involved in increasingly unethical behaviour. “There are a number of […]
Read More… from Ethics and the Slippery Slope: Why Good People Do Bad Things
Organizational values can exemplify the old saying that “words are cheap.” Inspiring words about ethics, diversity or sustainability etched on a lobby wall mean nothing if they are not reflected in the performance of actual practices within the organization. While such practices might seem to be developed and formulated at the top management level and […]
Read More… from Corporate Values: Translating Platitudes into Sustainable Practices
