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This article provides instructions for an engaging classroom activity when discussing the Equal Pay Act of 1963. Students are asked to consider how to approach pay decisions when hiring a new employee for their business. Issues arise when the new hire asks for a higher wage than a current employee of a different sex. Legal Environment of Business/Business Law, Business Communication, and Business Ethics are all tied together in a discussion of what it means to pay someone more or less money based on their sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Securities and Exchange Commission requires the disclosure of changes to or waivers of corporate codes of ethics. Because the nature of amendments or waivers can vary, we expect the text of Item 5.05 to include different topics within different filings. We examine the population of these disclosures in Item 5.05 8‐K filings from 2004 to 2020. While previous studies utilized small samples (fewer than 50 observations) to examine limited aspects of these filings, we use the population of these filings from 2004 to 2020 (2121 8‐K filings) to elucidate the nature and details of the disclosures. We assess whether Latent Dirichlet Allocation—a computational linguistics technique—can help discern the underlying topics represented in filings. While the Securities and Exchange Commission identifies two topics—amendments and waivers—the Latent Dirichlet Allocation analysis reveals four topics (three related to amendments): (1) code updates and clarifications; (2) combining codes of conduct for all officers and employees, or splitting codes to include a code directly applicable to senior financial officers; (3) codes of ethics waivers; and (4) substantive code changes. The overall trend is for fewer 8‐Ks to be filed in recent years, with updates and clarifications becoming the predominant filing type. Our results further indicate that Item 5.05s related to updates and clarifications, and those related to combined or split codes, use fewer words and are more easily readable than those disclosing waivers or material code changes. Although we find no significant price reaction to Item 5.05 8‐K filings, we find significant trading volume and volatility reactions, suggesting that these disclosures could give rise to differences in opinion among investors, which is consistent with the US Senate's assertion that these disclosures are of interest to investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines paradoxes, challenges, and opportunities in the context of ethical customer experience management. Central to this discussion are different stakeholders such as firms, customers, policymakers, regulators, and society at large, as well as key issues associated with them. Firms aim to design and manage compelling experiences using customer data but face challenges balancing cost, customization, ethical concerns, and fairness in customer experience management. Customers should be encouraged to reflect on whether to share personal information for customized experiences, as well as on how far their responsibility goes in ensuring critically informed decision‐making. Policymakers and regulators must integrate the views of various stakeholders into policies and guidelines that promote a healthy society. Importantly, the digitization of customer experience has given rise to unprecedented ethical concerns related to the prospect of 'programming' these experiences. The shrinking temporal and spatial distance between stimuli, customer action, data footprint, and tracking poses significant reflections and dilemmas for both customers and firms. In this context, it is essential to determine ethical reflections and guidelines for customer experience design and management. We argue that firms should involve customers in assessing the implications of their experiences, while policymakers should facilitate the involvement of all stakeholders (including firms, customers, regulators, academics, and NGOs) to create an ongoing, healthy dialogue. This dialogue should guide a continuing debate aimed at evaluating the implications of specific actions in customer experience management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers new insights into organizational inclusion and corporate sustainable development in the Japanese context. Specifically, we aim to explore organizational inclusion in the antecedents of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) inclusion and its effects on corporate outcomes, such as corporate market performance (CMP) and corporate environmental performance (CEP). Drawing upon legitimacy theory, we propose a conceptual model to uncover how operational diversity encourages organizational inclusion, such as supportive policies and practices. Moreover, grounded in stakeholder theory, we explore how organizational inclusion affects corporate outcomes, including CMP and CEP. Using a large sample of 1456 Japan‐listed firms with detailed organizational inclusive practices and corporate outcomes. Results indicate that operational diversity has positive effects on organizational inclusion. Moreover, the results indicate that organizational inclusion strengthens CMP and CEP. The empirical results are consistent after performing robustness checks based on subsampling. Our study contributes to the global discussion on business ethics, corporate market responses, and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has demonstrated that encounters of potentially moral injurious events (PMIEs) may result in longstanding psychological trauma that impact healthcare workers' mental health and well‐being. In this paper, we explore strategies to alleviate PMIEs for medical social workers. In‐depth semi‐structured interviews (30–60 min) were conducted with medical social workers (n = 75) across the state of Texas. Supported by directed content analysis, textual data were coded and categorised to finalize emerging themes. Findings demonstrate that multilevel strategies ought to be implemented into daily healthcare practice. PMIEs that impact frontline healthcare delivery can be alleviated by having formal and informal support systems (e.g., mentorship, supervision, counselling) as well as honest and transparent interprofessional collaborative care to facilitate psychological team safety. PMIEs across the healthcare organisation, perhaps due to internal policies and practices, may be reduced by implementing educational initiatives and building ethical workplace cultures that serve to explicitly reduce stigma associated with mental health and enhance worker well‐being. PMIEs that derive from macro‐level social policies (e.g., insurance, health disparities) may be alleviated by instituting patient advocacy initiatives and dismantling systems of oppression to lessen psychological stress and trauma. Hospital leadership ought to understand how the United States healthcare industry triggers PMIEs across the healthcare workforce. Multi‐tiered practices and policies that addresses frontline delivery care, leadership and administrative responsibilities, and the healthcare industry can enhance psychologically safe workplaces and elicit macro‐level institutional reform in how health systems function. These findings have important implications for healthcare policy makers, practitioners, educators, and researchers to inform future research and practice development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Donald E. Westlake's Parker novels, focusing on the character of Parker as an anti-organization man and free-market anarchist. The novels, written under the pseudonym Richard Stark, depict Parker as a professional thief with a strict moral code and a commitment to efficiency. The narrative contrasts Parker's individualistic approach with the conformist ethos of American culture in the mid-20th century, highlighting his outsider status in a society that values corporate conformity. The article explores Parker's interactions with criminal organizations and his unwavering dedication to his craft, positioning him as a unique and compelling figure in the genre of crime fiction. [Extracted from the article]

Among measures tackling the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic, the selling of private insurance policies covering individual infection is overlooked by the ethics literature. To record the "COVID Claimania" in Taiwan and to assess its ethical implications, we collected 38 policies from 10 insurers sold between January 2020 and May 2022 and found that their risk calculation of the COVID‐19 prevalence ranged from 0.5% to 11.08%. In reality, the prevalence by the end of 2022 was 37% in Taiwan. Selling private insurance policies is ethically problematic in three ways. First, it represents the insurance industry's irresponsible risk‐taking profit‐seeking behaviors. Second, it would jeopardize the effectiveness of the disease‐prevention measures by inducing uncontrollable moral hazards. Third, it would expose the insurance companies to unbearable financial risks and cause substantial negative external impacts. The government should intervene in the private insurance market in preparation for future public health emergencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article relies on two major business ethics books to propose a decalogue of corporate behavior. Notably, both Donaldson and Dunfee's Ties That Bind (1999) and Kerr et al.'s CSR: A Legal Analysis (2009) tried to avoid the sinuous and inconclusive normative quest for hypernorms of business social responsibility: the former proposed an integrated social contract between business and community, while the latter adopted a positivist approach, looking at existing law of all sorts, national and international, to decant eight principles of CSR. Using a methodological tool from the first book, namely, the macrosocial contract between business and communities, this article updates the list proposed in the second book. As societal expectations evolve in time, emerging principles are included in the amended list, such as meeting tax obligations, refraining from taking advantage of disaster‐struck communities, and prioritizing the human in the age of artificial intelligence. The mixed approach (ethical, contractarian, and positivist) allows introducing the 10 principles as "commandments": initial reasonable content of a macrosocial for business, informed by undisputed ethical principles (hypernorms) and potentially implemented through positive law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the concept of relational egalitarianism in the workplace, emphasizing the importance of justice and equity for organizational efficiency. It explores how perceptions of organizational justice impact employee well-being, creativity, and behavior. The text also delves into the idea of a workplace structured without hierarchy, promoting cooperative and non-hierarchical organizational structures. The article provides a critical examination of relational egalitarian ideal theory, offering insights into business ethics, public administration, and social and political philosophy. [Extracted from the article]

Porter and Kramer's "creating shared value" (CSV) proposal has achieved significant penetration into both the academic and corporate communities. Building on other critiques of CSV, this paper assesses whether the CSV framework, notwithstanding its popularity, currently possesses an appropriate and adequate theoretical foundation to represent an overarching normative framework for the entire business and society field. The analysis does so by comparing CSV with a series of other dominant business and society approaches including corporate social responsibility, business ethics, stakeholder management, sustainability, and corporate citizenship. The analysis finds that while CSV does address the fundamental business and society normative requirement that business activities should contribute to sustainable net societal value, it currently fails to adequately incorporate the equally important notions of (i) appropriately balancing stakeholder interests with those of the corporation's shareholders, as well as (ii) demonstrating sufficient accountability (i.e., taking responsibility) by properly reporting on and addressing any negative impacts resulting from the firm's activities. The paper concludes with a revised and expanded restatement of the CSV concept, which attempts to take into account and address its current theoretical limitations in order to enhance its appeal as an overarching business and society normative paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Engineers are professionally obligated to protect the safety and well‐being of the public impacted by the technologies they design and maintain. In an increasingly complex sociotechnical world, engineering educators and professional institutions have a duty to train engineers in these responsibilities. Purpose/Hypothesis: This article asks, where are engineers trained in their public welfare responsibilities, and how effective is this training? We argue that engineers trained in public welfare responsibilities, especially within engineering education, will demonstrate greater understanding of their duty to recognize and respond to public welfare concerns. We expect training in formal engineering classes to be more broadly impactful than training in contexts like work or professional societies. Data/Methods: We analyze unique survey data from a representative sample of US practicing engineers using descriptive and regression techniques. Results: Consistent with expectations, engineers who received public welfare responsibility training in engineering classes are more likely than other engineers to understand their responsibilities to protect public health and safety and problem‐solve collectively, to recognize the importance of social consequences and ethical responsibilities in their own jobs, to have noticed ethical issues in their workplace, and to have taken action about an issue that concerned them. Training through other parts of college, workplaces, or professional societies has comparatively little impact. Concerningly, nearly a third of engineers reported never being trained in public welfare responsibilities. Conclusion: These results suggest that training in engineering education can shape engineers' long‐term understanding of their public welfare responsibilities. They underscore the need for these responsibilities to be taught as a core, non‐negotiable part of engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the impact of automation on work and social cooperation, emphasizing the need to prioritize values beyond economic efficiency. The author proposes the concept of "fair hybrid cooperation" to arrange automation processes in a way that provides meaningful work for all. They argue that technology should be considered as a nonhuman cooperator and that organizations should be included in the basic structure of society. The article also explores the concept of "contributive primary qualities" and argues that all workers should have access to these qualities to pursue their life plans. The author provides examples of current organizational arrangements and evaluates them based on the fair hybrid cooperation test. Additionally, the article examines the potential of nurse bots to enhance meaningful work in the healthcare sector. The author suggests that nurse bots could alleviate some burdens on human nurses and create opportunities for more fulfilling work. Overall, the article emphasizes the importance of justice and well-being in automation choices and calls for a normative shift towards fair cooperation and meaningful work for all. [Extracted from the article]

Consumers have demonstrated new ways of engaging with fashion retailers and experiencing their brand values. This research aims to understand better how fashion consumers form their purchase intentions, by exploring how their expectations about corporate social responsibility influence consumer brand engagement and purchase intention. The research comprises two studies, using different methodologies. The first study is quantitative; it involved 1296 individuals and the results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The second study is qualitative and utilizes expert opinions from the fashion industry; it seeks to derive managerial and practical implications from the findings of the first study. The results show that corporate social responsibility influences the purchase intention of fashion consumers, but mainly through brand engagement. Consequently, fashion companies should focus on building consumer trust in the sustainability initiatives of brands, including by utilizing local suppliers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a collection of research papers that explore the role of innovation in addressing global challenges (GCs) from various perspectives. The papers cover topics such as customer influence on firms, realignment in innovation ecosystems, corporate social innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the innovation performance of for-profit firms, strategic agility and gender diversity in emerging market small and medium-sized enterprises, and the development of low-cost heart valves. The authors hope that these papers will provide valuable insights into innovation and inspire further research and collaboration in addressing GCs. [Extracted from the article]

A genuine commitment to ethics and compliance (E&C) programs means that top management adopt them for what they represent and not for other purposes. Only then can they truly build socially responsible behavior and a successful and sustainable business, as stated in the latest international standard for compliance management practice (ISO 37301:2021), which we found to be consistent with a new business narrative as conceptualized in Freeman's work. However, it also requires that top managers place a moral value on these practices, rather than simply using them for instrumental reasons. Building on Kohlberg's six stages of moral development as applied to managers' moral thinking, this manuscript offers a model to explain how top managers' moral valuing of these practices varies along a moral reasoning continuum, resulting in four distinct modes. It also theorizes that each mode of moral valuing yields an archetype of E&C programs. It thus offers a new approach that contributes to the business ethics and management literature by incorporating a morally grounded perspective on the adoption and implementation of E&C practices and how it might shape their features and characteristics. It also aims to improve professional practice and business contributions to Freeman's ideas through genuine ethics‐based E&C programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of complaints systems in improving private labor regulation in global value chains, using the Fair Labor Association (FLA) as an example. It highlights the significant limits that impede workers' outcomes and advocates for national, societal, and business improvements to system performance. It emphasizes the need for broad reforms to improve the effectiveness of complaint systems across private regulatory initiatives.

In light of the rise of generative AI and recent debates about the socio‐political implications of large‐language models, chatbots, and the like, this paper analyzes the E.U.'s Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA), the world's first comprehensive attempt by a government body to address and mitigate the potentially negative impacts of AI technologies. The paper critically analyzes the AIA from a business and computer ethics point of view—a perspective currently lacking in the academic (e.g., GBOE‐related) literature. It evaluates, in particular, the AIA's strengths and weaknesses and proposes reform measures that could help to strengthen the AIA. Among the AIA's strengths are its legally binding character, extra‐territoriality, ability to address data quality and discrimination risks, and institutional innovations such as the AI Board and publicly accessible logs and database for AI systems. Among its main weaknesses are its lack of effective enforcement, oversight, and control, absence of procedural rights and remedy mechanisms, inadequate worker protection, institutional ambiguities, insufficient funding and staffing, and inadequate consideration of sustainability issues. Reform suggestions include establishing independent conformity assessment procedures, strengthening democratic accountability and judicial oversight, introducing redress and complaint mechanisms, ensuring the participation and inclusion of workers, guaranteeing political independence of the AI Board, providing enhanced funding and staffing of market surveillance authorities, and mandating "green AI." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the adoption of business‐like practices, such as commercialization and managerialization, may enhance the capacity and sustainability of nonprofit organizations, these practices may elicit negative reactions from the general public. This tension poses a challenge for nonprofit organizations as they seek to strike a balance between implementing practices that promote growth and survival and maintaining public support. This study focuses on people's moral judgment of nonprofits' practices and offers a social psychological explanation for why some business‐like practices may be viewed as inappropriate by the public. Specifically, we illuminate the significance of people's normative preferences for communal‐ or market‐focused principles as a basis for determining how an organization should operate and deliver its services. Using an online experiment with a sample size of 1255 participants, we found that: (1) people express a relatively high level of moral acceptance of business‐like practices, but this level is significantly lower than that of nonprofits' societal practices; (2) individuals are more likely to rate business‐like practices that have revenue‐seeking intentions as less acceptable when they believe that an organization should operate and deliver services based on communal principles. Moreover, our findings reveal that people's normative preferences differ more based on the service (e.g., health, microfinance, art) than on the organizational ownership (nonprofit vs. for‐profit). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines ethical requirements in job advertisements as a proxy to understand how ethical qualities are required in the job market. We apply deep learning and natural language processing to analyze the ethical requirements in 196,272 job postings from 13,703 companies across a variety of industries and professions. This large sample allows us to generate a holistic review of ethical requirements in job postings by industry and profession. Specifically, our results show that less than half of the job postings in our sample include requirements for ethics, despite increased attention to ethical conduct. The IT industry had the fewest job postings with ethical requirements compared to other industries. Of the topics within ethical requirements coded in this study, obligations to professional standards occurred most frequently whereas information confidentiality and privacy are less prevalent. Our results have important implications for the ethical practices of businesses and academic ethical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the concept of employee voice and its importance in the Asia Pacific region. While there is extensive research on employee voice in Western countries, there is a lack of knowledge about its state in the Asia Pacific. The article explores the institutional and cultural factors that influence employee voice arrangements and behavior in the region. It also highlights the differences in union arrangements and government involvement in different countries. The article concludes by suggesting areas for future research, such as country-specific voice practices, cross-country comparative studies, and novel voice mechanisms in the Asia Pacific. [Extracted from the article]

This study empirically investigates the direct and interactive effects of firm‐level ethics policies and country‐level investor protection on firm corporate governance transparency. Using data on 9298 firms collected from the Bloomberg Terminal, we find that there is a positive relationship between country‐level investor protection and firm corporate governance transparency. The results also support the argument that firms with existing ethics policies exhibit greater corporate governance transparency. We also find that in countries with weaker investor protection, the impact of firm‐level ethics policies on corporate governance transparency is stronger. This study advances our understanding of the corporate governance transparency determinants, and the empirical evidence supports the notion that firm‐level factors such as ethics policies may compensate for the lack of formal national investor protection regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the need to transition to a Circular Economy being highlighted at government and industry level, business research has focused on how firms incorporate circular business practices. However, there is a lack of research on what motivates and drives businesses to implement environmental and CE practices, specially from an Australian context. This research aims to understand what factors drive and motivate businesses to implement sustainability practices, using a survey distributed among businesses operating in Victoria, Australia. The results show that the major motivation for businesses to implement actions was the belief of doing the right thing. Although financial returns were not considered a major driver, the results reveal that firms may not implement environmental activities if it is not financially viable. The responses also illustrate that understanding of CE‐related terminology within businesses were low, and that this could be a result of common terms used within the Australian context. Improving the ethical and moral conscience of business decision makers and incorporating wider CE actions into the general concept of doing the right thing could increase businesses implementing CE practices more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite significant economic growth in both developed and emerging markets, several disadvantaged and marginalized segments of the global population still live in poverty. Recognizing the important role of business in alleviating poverty, management scholars have been increasingly investigating the topic of poverty. Although reviews of the extant literature have provided overviews of select poverty‐related themes, such as that of the base of the pyramid, no one study has reviewed the topic of poverty across the management literature. The present systematic literature review collects, organizes and analyzes several hundred articles on poverty research, published in business and management journals during the past 25 years. The study identifies major themes in poverty research, reveals thematic overlaps among subdisciplines, summarizes adopted research methodologies, and recognizes opportunities for future research. We find that, despite the wide variation of research topics and approaches, the studied themes remain relatively insulated within each subdiscipline of management research. Drawing on United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, we conclude that, although the number of articles on poverty has increased considerably during the last decade, there are several research niches that future management scholars can investigate to alleviate one of the most pressing global challenges of our time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the interlink among managerial experience, capabilities, and social capital in relation to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities of multinational enterprises' (MNEs) subsidiaries in an emerging market context. Based on the empirical sample of 104 subsidiaries of 28 Italian MNEs operating in India, we found that CEO managerial capabilities are positively associated with CSR activities. However, interestingly, our findings also show that subsidiary CEO (managerial) experience is negatively associated with CSR activities in emerging markets. Therefore, our study is one of the few that highlights the negative repercussions of experience in the context of CSR activities in emerging markets. Moreover, our findings show that while social capital alleviates the negative influences of CEO experience on CSR activities, it does not enhance the role of CEO managerial capabilities in CSR activities. As such, our study contributes to research on business ethics with a focus on sustainable development in business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2013, mortgage advisory has become an independent profession in the Netherlands. Initially working for mortgage providers, the newly nonpartisan advisers now work for standard advisory fees, thereby reducing conflicts of interest. In this article, I provide an ethical analysis of the different types of ethos of mortgage advisers, that is, the ways they see and talk about, and relate to their work in a certain way. The central research question is: What different kinds of ethos do mortgage advisers have, and which moral dilemmas do they experience in their advisory work? The existence of moral dilemmas is controversial in ethics but nonetheless experienced in real‐world business practice. An "ethological" understanding of morality is developed in this paper to understand how these dilemmas are experienced. Twenty‐nine mortgage advisers have participated in Q methodological research, a mixed qualitative–quantitative small‐sample method. Three different types of ethos were found: Principled Advisers, Moral Advisers, and Minimal Morality Advisers. In considering these three types, I argue that many mortgage advisers should professionalize their ethical stance and learn to address situations in which moral values are neglected. Business ethicists, in turn, need to acknowledge that something may be considered morally inappropriate but is still defensible in some other sense. In this paper, I develop a "layered" conception of business ethics that broadens the perspective from universal notions, such as "rights" and "duties," toward a concrete ethos that people have in a certain professional practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a tribute to the late Dr. W. Michael Hoffman's life and professional career (1943–2018), including his important contribution to the business ethics academic community, as well as to the practical world of business. Following a brief summary of Dr. Hoffman's professional achievements, several tributes are provided including from Professor Richard De George, columnist Gael O'Brien, and Professor Patricia Werhane. The tributes are followed by synopses of a small sample of Dr. Hoffman's many journal articles published in several different business ethics journals spanning 35 years (1982–2017). The tribute concludes with a personal note of gratitude by the author to Dr. Hoffman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article critically analyzes the design and structure of the Bangladesh Accord, a private labor regulation initiative in the garment sector, focusing on contested features such as its legally binding nature, and transparency of functions. Topics include the Accord's innovative structural designs, the dynamics of its establishment post-Rana Plaza tragedy, and the interplay of scale, legitimacy, and risk in shaping private labor governance within global production networks.

This study builds on the natural resource‐based view to propose a mediation moderation framework by exploring the influence of green intellectual capital (GIC) on green business strategy through the mediating and moderating impact of green absorptive capacity (GAC) and corporate environmental ethics (CEE), respectively. The data were collected from 268 participants from large manufacturing industries in Pakistan to test the suggested model and analyzed using structural equation modeling (variance‐based). The findings show that GIC positively influences GAC and green business strategy in organizations. The results further indicate that the relationship between GIC and green business strategy is mediated and moderated by GAC and CEE. Moreover, a multi‐group analysis (MGA) shows no statistically significant differences across the industry groups. These results reveal the theoretical underpinning for environmental business strategy and provide a deep understanding of knowledge‐based resources and environmental regulations as important antecedents of green business strategy in manufacturing firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of board cultural diversity, audit committee experience diversity as well as business ethics on the effectiveness of oversight quality on ESG performance. Using Generalized Moments of Methods (GMM), we examine the ESG performance of the firms listed in the Hong Kong Hang Seng Composite Index between 2010 and 2015. We find that board cultural diversity and business ethics have positive correlations with ESG performance while audit committee experience diversity has a negative correlation with ESG performance. In our additional analysis, we observe that board cultural diversity is critical for improving social performance and business ethics is essential for improving environmental and social performance. However, audit committee experience diversity limits firm performance in three areas (environmental, social, and governance) of ESG performance. This is the first study that provides insights to both policymakers and practitioners by highlighting the importance of optimizing the levels of diversity and mandating the improvement of business ethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether CFO's educational background could influence his/her firm's level of earnings management because CFO plays a direct role in overseeing financial reporting. Based on agency theory and upper echelons theory, we discuss whether a CFO with/without an accounting degree could incentivize him/her to choose one over another among the three types of earnings management. Using a US sample between 1999 and 2016, we empirically find that CFOs with an accounting degree are associated with a higher degree of accrual earnings management and a higher degree of real earnings management through overproduction while CFOs without any accounting degree are associated with a higher degree of classification shifting. Our results hold robust when we implement a difference‐in‐difference test on the executive turnover from a CFO without any accounting degree to a CFO with an accounting degree. Finally, we find that CFOs with CPA certification behave more ethically in all three types of earnings management. Our study enriches the management demographic factor influence literature, unveils the role of CFO in choices of earnings management, supports ethics requirements in business education, and provides implications to executive hiring as well to audit practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethical workplace climate has been extensively researched in the for‐profit context but neglected in nonprofits. Perhaps because nonprofits promote shared values, engage with people, and implement development interventions creating public good, they are considered implicitly ethical. This assumption has been questioned in recent studies. We attempted to develop a psychometrically valid scale measuring ethical workplace climate following a sequential research design to fill this gap. We interviewed 74 employees from 30 nonprofit organizations using the critical incident technique to generate statements on ethical workplace climate. The statements generated were categorized with expert judges' help, followed by a survey of 507 nonprofit employees across India. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and subsequent confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) resulted in a 43‐item scale, further reduced to 26 items using stepwise regression. Results of subsequent application of EFA and CFA confirmed a four‐factor solution: self‐interest, collegiality, internal legitimacy, and stewardship. A follow‐up study of 243 members of nonprofit organizations confirmed the hypothesized relationships that ethical work climate has a significant effect on affective commitment and job engagement. Finally, we discussed our findings along theoretical contributions, implications, limitations, and future direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Animals are an important part of our social, economic and corporate world. Their wellbeing is significantly affected by the ways in which humans treat them. However, animals have long remained (and, indeed, continue to remain) effectively invisible in the business ethics and corporate responsibility discourse. This article argues in favor of the moral necessity of according animal welfare a higher priority in business. In line with most streams in both recent and traditional animal ethics, this article derives the avoidance of unnecessary animal suffering as the moral minimum standard for responsible management in the livestock industry. Based on a broad range of different interpretations of what animal suffering may be necessary, the article discusses three distinct ways in which humans working in the animal industry could meet their moral responsibility to avoid unnecessary suffering, and, with this, increase animal welfare: by ameliorating circumstances for animals, by aiming at a two‐pronged transformation, or by transforming into a "zero‐suffering" business. Considering animal welfare as a legitimate ethical value in and of itself is a first step towards overcoming the anthropocentric bias in today's sustainability and corporate responsibility debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, Alasdair MacIntyre has developed a style of moral philosophy and an argument for Neo‐Aristotelian virtue ethics that has deeply influenced business ethics. Most of the work inspired by MacIntyre has dealt with individual and organisational dimensions of business ethics rather than the market economic environment in which individuals and organisations operate. MacIntyre has been a fierce critic of capitalism and economics. He has read Adam Smith an advocate of selfish individualism, rule‐based ethics and the banishment of teleology. This reading is seriously defective, and Smith in fact offers much of what MacIntyre calls for in economics. MacIntyre's ethical framework can be made more powerful and useful to business ethicists by incorporating Smithian insights, especially Smith's account of market virtues and teleological account of markets as extended cooperation directed towards the common good of wealth creation. Aside from issues of the interpretation of MacIntyre and Smith, this analysis opens new pathways for dialogue between business ethicists and economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on case studies and secondary data, this study theorises how and why firms engage in corporate social irresponsibility (CSIR). Using the inductive process of theory building based on case studies of two forestry companies operating in China, this study explains how and why organisations with initial intentions towards corporate social responsibility (CSR) engage in CSIR based on paths taken and the behaviours across micro (individual), meso (organisational), and macro (industry) levels. Hence, there is a 'grey zone' between CSR and CSIR (Clark, C. E., Riera, M., & Iborra, M. (2021). Business & Society, 61, 1473–1511. 10.1177/00076503211015911). This study extends the path dependence literature on CSIR (Küberling‐Jost, J.A. (2019). Journal of Business Ethics, 169(3), 579–601) by integrating moral disengagement and the theory of planned behaviour, stakeholder agency, and institutional theory into path dependence theory based on observed behaviours across micro, meso, and macro levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article delves into how firms in the energy sector in Europe can earn economic rents from intangible assets, specifically firm-owned intangible assets (FIAs) and owner organizations' intangible assets (OIAs). It highlights the influence of institutional quality on rent creation, showing that FIAs benefit from higher quality institutions while OIAs are negatively affected. The study also emphasizes the advantage of OIAs in multiple-ownership settings, particularly in countries with better institutional quality. Overall, the research contributes to understanding how different types of intangible assets generate rents for firms and how institutional context shapes this process, with a focus on international business and corporate governance in emerging economies like China. [Extracted from the article]

The article in the British Journal of Management delves into the relationship between internationalization speed and performance among International New Ventures (INVs) in emerging and developed economies. It highlights the positive impact of accelerating internationalization on performance, particularly in developed economies, with resource synchronization playing a crucial moderating role. The research sheds light on the complexities of internationalization strategies and resource management in diverse global markets, offering practical insights for managers aiming to enhance their international performance through strategic resource synchronization. The text also introduces a new classification of countries into Economies of Excellence (EEs) and Developing Economies (DEs) based on economic development and governance systems, emphasizing the importance of accelerating internationalization speeds in both types of economies for INVs to effectively exploit market opportunities. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Is Social Trust a Governance Mechanism? Evidence From Dividend Payouts of Chinese Firms" delves into the impact of social trust on dividend payouts of Chinese firms, particularly in regions with less-developed institutional environments. The study reveals that higher levels of social trust are associated with lower dividend payouts, as firms in high-trust regions prioritize growth and innovation over distributing dividends. By analyzing various measures of social trust, such as Trust1CGSS and Trust_B, the research highlights how social trust influences corporate decisions in China, suggesting that it serves as a governance mechanism shaping dividend policies. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Risk Preferences of Gender-Diverse Boards: Evidence from CEO Debt-like Compensation" examines how gender diversity on corporate boards influences CEO compensation structures. Boards with more independent female directors are linked to higher debt-like pension compensation for CEOs in US firms, potentially impacting CEO risk-taking preferences and long-term perspectives. The study also explores the effects of gender diversity on CEO option compensation and restricted stock grants, shedding light on how board composition shapes corporate policies and CEO incentives. The presence of independent female directors on boards is associated with increased CEO debt-like compensation, aligning CEO interests with creditors and potentially reducing the cost of debt capital. [Extracted from the article]

Information asymmetry and the pressure to conform to stakeholders’ expectations cause firms to engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) decoupling – a practice that has severe socioeconomic consequences for firms. Adopting a corporate governance perspective, this paper answers a novel question: whether board gender diversity (BGD) curbs CSR decoupling. Using a battery of sophisticated analyses and robustness tests on 9276 firm-year observations for the period 2002–2017, our results confirm that BGD is negatively associated with CSR decoupling. Analysis of the composition of gender-diverse boards further reveals that this effect is stronger for balanced boards than for skewed and tilted boards. Furthermore, we note that independent female directors are more effective monitors of decoupling than executive female directors. We also document that the relationship between BGD and CSR decoupling is stronger when the overall governance is weak. This implies that gender-diverse boards could act as a substitute mechanism for corporate governance that would otherwise be weak. Our study offers important theoretical and policy implications for the field of corporate governance and CSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study in the British Journal of Management explores the impact of bilateral trust on cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As). The research reveals that trust between bidder and target firms plays a crucial role in deal announcement and completion. Bidder trust towards the target and target trust towards the bidder are both important for deal announcement, while only bidder trust towards the target matters for deal completion. The study underscores the positive correlation between bilateral trust and merger performance, emphasizing the importance of trust in negotiation settings marked by contract incompleteness and foreign liability. [Extracted from the article]

The article "A Critique of the Agency Theory Viewpoint of Stock Price Crash Risk: The Opacity and Overinvestment Channels" challenges the traditional agency theory's explanation for the rise in stock price crashes among US-listed firms. Despite a significant increase in crashes from 5.5% in 1950 to 27% in 2019, the study finds that opacity and overinvestment do not have a significant impact on crash risk. The research calls for a deeper investigation into alternative explanations, such as the manipulation of investor expectations and the role of intangible assets in shaping perceptions. The study also explores the impact of modern information technologies and algorithms on stock price crashes, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, urging further research in the field of behavioral economics. [Extracted from the article]

The article delves into the relationship between market capacity and imperfect matching in the Chinese venture capital market, revealing an anomaly of imperfect matching with an inverted U-shaped pattern as market capacity changes. The study highlights a critical range of market capacity where matching efficiency is optimal, shedding light on the dynamics of matching structures in the VC market. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Ministry of Education of China, the research emphasizes the importance of addressing information asymmetry to enhance matching efficiency and reduce market inefficiencies. Additionally, the document features a compilation of academic papers by authors from various universities in China and Canada, covering topics such as government ownership in venture capital and the impact of geographic distance on start-up-VC partnerships, offering valuable insights into the realms of finance and entrepreneurship. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Inter-Firm Coopetition and Credit Ratings: How the Debt Market Reacts to Inter-Firm Coopetition" delves into the relationship between coopetition and credit ratings. It reveals that while firms involved in coopetition generally have higher credit ratings, there is a risk of short-term downgrades. Careful partner selection can help mitigate these risks. The document also provides a list of academic articles and researchers focusing on innovation, entrepreneurship, and interfirm cooperation, highlighting the significance of understanding interfirm relationships for business practices. [Extracted from the article]

The article in the British Journal of Management delves into the relationship between International Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) and the international performance of export-manufacturing firms in a least developed country (LDC). It highlights the significance of innovation capabilities in enhancing this relationship, suggesting that IEO, when combined with innovation capabilities, can lead to success for international entrepreneurial firms in an LDC. The study specifically focuses on the apparel export-manufacturing industry in Bangladesh, emphasizing the importance of developing and leveraging product and process innovation capabilities to improve international performance. The research underscores the contextual sensitivity of IEO and the critical role of capabilities in enhancing firm performance, offering valuable insights for firms operating in resource-constrained environments. [Extracted from the article]

The article "CEO Marital Status and Insider Trading" in the British Journal of Management examines how the marital status of chief executive officers (CEOs) affects their engagement in insider trading. The study reveals that married CEOs tend to earn lower profits from insider trading and are less likely to make opportunistic trades compared to unmarried CEOs. These findings hold true even after conducting various tests to ensure the results are reliable. The research sheds light on the impact of CEO marital status on insider trading returns, suggesting that family commitments and concerns about legal repercussions may influence their trading behavior. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Board Diversity and Firm Performance: The Role of Contextual Variables" explores the relationship between board diversity and firm performance in Indian companies. It reveals that board diversity has a positive impact on accounting performance but a negative impact on market performance, with contextual variables such as board independence and economic factors playing a significant role. The study emphasizes the importance of considering various factors to understand the complex relationship between diversity and performance in corporate governance, contributing valuable insights to the field. Researchers like Nitesh Pandey, H. Kent Baker, Satish Kumar, Prashant Gupta, and Searat Ali have made significant contributions to this area of study, providing a foundation for further research and exploration. [Extracted from the article]