All in the Mind? Ethical Identity and the Allure of Corporate Responsibility

Abstract

This paper develops a critique of the concept of 'ethical identity' as this has been used recently to distinguish between 'cynical' and 'authentic' forms of corporate responsibility. Taking as our starting point Levinas' demanding view of responsibility as 'following the assignation of responsibility for my neighbour', we use a case study of a packaging company-PackCo-to argue that a concern with being seen and/or seeing oneself as responsible should not be confused with actual responsibility. Our analysis of the case points first to the allure of programmes of strategic corporate responsibility and the ways in which, through identification, they can provide a tacit form of moral sanction to managers in their aggressive pursuit of profit. It then contrasts the responses of different managers to negative staff feedback to illustrate the difference between managers' attempts to defend their identity of being 'responsible' managers, and responsible conduct itself. The paper concludes that a potent danger of programmes of corporate responsibility is that they allow managers to deceive not just others, but also themselves in relation to the exercise of responsibility.

The Struggles of the Interculturalists: Professional Ethical Identity and Early Stages of Codes of Ethics Development

“…The former group of studies has an entity-level focus and investigates the firm's ethical claims, behaviour, and its relationship with stakeholders (Berrone et al 2007). The latter studies have an internal employee focus (Messikomer and Cirka 2010;Verbos et al 2007;Baker and Roberts 2011). In our study, we investigated social meanings expressed during collective conversations within the SIETAR community and during professional trainings.…”

“…Some studies centre on revealed ethics (e.g. Haniffa and Hudaib 2007); others chose to investigate both revealed and applied ethics and their link with, for example, firms' performance (Berrone et al 2007;Baker and Roberts 2011).…”

Contemplative Leadership: The Possibilities for the Ethics of Leadership Theory and Practice

“…The search for ethical or moral leadership continues to receive considerable attention in the leadership literature (e.g., Baker and Roberts 2011;Eisenbeiß and Brodbeck 2014;Lawton and Páez 2014;Levine and Boaks 2014). Empirical research on ethical leadership, however, is scarce (Demirtas 2015), and the questions of whether and how the ethics of leadership play out in practice present an important research problem.…”

“…Such approaches, they infer, sustain a pre-occupation with the self that supports the pursuit of individual wealth and status, while undermining moral considerations in relation to others. Moreover, de Gama et al (2012) highlight the need for more research on contexts and specific situations where leaders are ''being for the Other'' (p. 105) rather than seeing the Other as an object to do things on and where leaders are practicing responsibility to the Other (Baker and Roberts 2011). Our interest lies in advancing these discussions on the ethics of leadership.…”

“…Firstly, we look to various related streams of leadership theory and integrate existing work on contemplative leadership (Nolan 2013) with the literatures on virtue ethics and the ethics of leadership (Baker and Roberts 2011;Beadle and Moore 2006;Knights and O'Leary 2006;Rhodes 2012), relational leadership/ethics (Cunliffe and Eriksen 2011;de Gama et al 2012;Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien 2012;Maak and Pless 2006), and virtuous organizations (Moore 2012;Whetstone 2005) to offer a comprehensive conceptualization of contemplative leadership. We propose that contemplative leadership is relational, engaged, reflexive, and embodied activity that requires knowledge from within context and practical wisdom.…”