{"title":"First Things First: Using Anchoring Bias to Examine the Effect of Penalty Severity and Social Norms on Tax Compliance","authors":"Tisha King","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05750-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05750-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Although ethics research shows that prospective penalties for tax fraud can increase taxpayers’ compliance with tax laws, we do not have a clear understanding of how perceptions of penalty severity impact tax compliance. To address this gap, I first conduct a survey to establish what propriety of penalty severity encourages compliance. I then examine experimentally whether taxpayers’ compliance is jointly influenced by penalty severity and social norms. I expect social norms to moderate the impact of penalty severity because social norms provide a contextual cue about the scope and relevance of an ethical issue. Specifically, I expect that when taxpayers anchor (do not anchor) on information about social norms, the positive impact of penalty severity on tax compliance is suppressed (not suppressed). My results are as predicted. I conclude that governments can increase compliance with tax laws by imposing appropriately severe tax fraud penalties and carefully considering the release of information related to compliance norms.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"42 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141504444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leonardo Henrique Lima de Pilla, Alketa Peci, Rodrigo de Oliveira Leite
{"title":"Is the State a Socially Responsible Shareholder? State-Owned Enterprises, Political Ideology, and Corporate Social Performance","authors":"Leonardo Henrique Lima de Pilla, Alketa Peci, Rodrigo de Oliveira Leite","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05751-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05751-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The effects of state ownership on firms’ outcomes depend on how governments influence the goals of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Yet scant scholarly attention has been devoted to understanding what circumstances shape governmental influence on SOEs’ corporate social performance (CSP). Addressing this gap is important because SOEs are becoming increasingly more hybrid, and must thus balance multiple private and public stakeholders’ financial and social goals. We contend that, compared to non-SOEs, SOEs face additional institutional and legitimacy pressures that lead them to act in socially responsible ways, resulting in higher social and environmental CSP. However, these pressures are moderated by two other factors that determine the strength of governmental influence: whether the state has a majority shareholding and the incumbent government’s political ideology. We examine a 12-year panel of 150 Brazilian listed firms, including 41 SOEs, and demonstrate that state ownership is positively associated with the social dimension of CSP but only when the state is the majority shareholder, and thus able to strongly influence SOEs’ goals. Moreover, the more right-leaning the government, the weaker becomes the moderating effect of majority state ownership. This is because political ideology determines how governments influence the tradeoffs between SOEs’ economic and social goals.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"163 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scoring the Ethics of AI Robo-Advice: Why We Need Gateways and Ratings","authors":"Paul Kofman","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05753-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05753-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Unlike the many services already transformed by artificial intelligence (<i>AI</i>), the financial advice sector remains committed to a human interface. That is surprising as an AI-powered financial advisor (a <i>robo-advisor</i>) can offer personalised financial advice at much lower cost than traditional human advice. This is particularly important for those who need but cannot afford or access traditional financial advice. Robo-advice is easily accessible, available on-demand, and pools all relevant information in finding and implementing an optimal financial plan. In a perfectly competitive market for financial advice, robo-advice should prevail. Unfortunately, this market is imperfect with asymmetric information causing generalised advice aversion with a disproportionate lack of trust in robo-advice. Initial distrust makes advice clients reluctant to use, or switch to, robo-advice. This paper investigates the ethical concerns specific to robo-advice underpinning this lack of trust. We propose a regulatory framework addressing these concerns to ensure robo-advice can be an ethical resource for good, resolving the increasing complexity of financial decision-making. Fit for purpose regulation augments initial trust in robo-advice and supports advice clients in discriminating between high-trust and low-trust robo-advisors. Aspiring robo-advisors need to clear four licensing gateways to qualify for an AI Robo-Advice License (AIRAL). Licensed robo-advisors should then be monitored for ethical compliance. Using a balanced score card for ethical performance generates an ethics rating. This <i>gateways-and-ratings</i> methodology builds trust in the robo-advisory market through improved transparency, reduced information asymmetry, and lower risk of adverse selection.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513379","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Blair Wang, Daniel Schlagwein, Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, Michael C. Cahalane
{"title":"‘Emancipation’ in Digital Nomadism vs in the Nation-State: A Comparative Analysis of Idealtypes","authors":"Blair Wang, Daniel Schlagwein, Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic, Michael C. Cahalane","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05699-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05699-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Academic and public debate is continuing about whether digital nomadism, a new Internet-enabled phenomenon in which digital workers adopt a neo-nomadic global lifestyle, represents ‘real’ emancipation for knowledge workers—or if it is, instead, the opposite. Based on a field study of digital nomadism, and accepting a pluralist approach to emancipation, we analyse the ‘emancipatory project(s)’ that digital nomads engage in. This analysis, following Weberian idealtypes, employs a tripartite structure: unsatisfactory conditions (what people want to overcome); emancipatory means (actions taken); and emancipatory ends (desired outcomes). We critically compare digital nomadism to the traditional descriptions of emancipatory projects in nation-state contexts, as found in prior literature, using the same analytical framework. Juxtaposing these idealtypes, we discuss similarities and differences and analyse their inherent assumptions, logics and ethical stances. We conclude that digital nomadism generates an emancipation that is very much ‘real’ for digital nomads, whose experience cannot be disregarded, but with a ‘postmodern’ ethos that is at odds with modernity and its ethos originating from the Enlightenment.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141504446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hunting and Fishing CEOs: Environmental Plunderers or Saviors?","authors":"Thomas Covington, Steve Swidler, Keven Yost","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05744-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05744-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>CEOs who participate in hunting and fishing benefit by appreciating natural environments and permanently consuming natural resources. We examine whether CEOs who hunt and fish make different environmental decisions and find that firms led by CEOs who obtain the most hunting and fishing licenses have lower environmental performance as measured by MSCI-KLD. This effect is strongest in the environmental category of climate change but also extends to pollution, waste, and the protection of natural capital. Furthermore, firms led by CEOs with the most hunting and fishing licenses are significantly more likely to pay a regulatory settlement for an environmental regulatory infraction.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Robbin Derry, Paul T. Harper, Gregory B. Fairchild
{"title":"Time to Talk About Race","authors":"Robbin Derry, Paul T. Harper, Gregory B. Fairchild","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05730-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05730-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This issue was initiated in a period of global tension and widespread corporate expressions of concern about racism. The articles presented here document the continued presence of disparate racialized experiences in a range of work environments. They provide deep insight into the ways that race shapes the lives of educators, researchers, students, employees, and managers. Such racialized experiences are widely unacknowledged by those whose lives and bodies insulate them. In the time since we initiated this special issue, the anxiety related to talking about race in schools and the workplace has become yet more virulent. In the United States, many municipalities have adopted laws constraining and controlling classroom conversations about race. Corporations continue to struggle with how to implement high-minded DEI policy statements without provoking backlash. We are hopeful that these articles provide greater awareness of racialized capitalism. Further, we aspire to open the door for business ethics research that recognizes the impact of race on institutional policies as well as formal and informal practices. Awareness, recognition, and acknowledgment of disparate impact are essential steps in creating more just work and educational environments.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Creative Destruction and the Autonomous Life","authors":"Brian Kogelmann","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05721-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05721-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper examines the tension between creative destruction—an inherent feature of capitalist economies—and the ideal of autonomy. Creative destruction is vital for economic growth, but it undermines the conditions necessary for autonomy by disrupting individuals’ ability to plan their lives. This creates a dilemma: we must either abandon the ideal of autonomy or economic growth. The paper explores potential regulatory strategies to mitigate the impact of disruptive innovation on life plans, but argues these ultimately fail. It then proposes a novel conception of autonomy consistent with capitalist creative destruction. With artificial intelligence poised to initiate unparalleled creative destruction, understanding this dilemma and potential solutions is crucial from an ethical perspective. The paper contends its revised conception of autonomy offers a path forward amidst transformative technological change.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141504445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do Criminal Politicians Affect Firm Investment and Value? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Approach","authors":"Vikram Nanda, Ankur Pareek","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05738-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05738-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>We provide evidence on the effects of criminal/corrupt politicians on firm performance and investments in their constituencies. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we focus on close parliamentary elections in India to establish a causal link between election of criminal-politicians and firms’ stock-market performance and investment decisions. Election of criminal-politicians leads to lower election-period and project-announcement stock-market returns for private-sector firms with economic ties to the district. There is a significant decline in total investment and employment by private-sector firms in criminal-politician districts. Interestingly, decline in private-sector investment is largely offset by a roughly equivalent increase in investment by state-owned firms.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141504447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do White Women Gain Status for Engaging in Anti-black Racism at Work? An Experimental Examination of Status Conferral","authors":"Jennifer L. Berdahl, Barnini Bhattacharyya","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05727-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05727-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Businesses often attempt to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) by showcasing women in their leadership ranks, most of whom are white. Yet research has shown that organizations confer status and power to women who engage in sexist behavior, which undermines DEI efforts. We sought to examine whether women who engage in racist behavior are also conferred relative status at work. Drawing on theory and research on organizational culture and intersectionality, we predicted that a white woman who expresses anti-Black racism is conferred more status in the workplace than a white woman who does not. A pilot study (<i>N</i> = 30) confirmed that making an anti-Black racist comment at work was judged to be more offensive than making no comment, but only for a white man, not a white woman. Study 1 (<i>N</i> = 330) found that a white woman who made an anti-Black racist comment at work was conferred higher status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man, with perceived offensiveness mediating these effects. Study 2 (<i>N</i> = 235) revealed that a white woman who made an anti-racist/pro-Black Lives Matter comment was conferred lower status than a white woman who did not, whereas the opposite held true for a white man. Finally, Study 3 (<i>N</i> = 295) showed that people who endorse racist and sexist beliefs confer more status to a white man than to a white woman regardless of speech, but that people low in racism and sexism confer the highest status to a white woman who engages in anti-Black racist speech. These studies suggest that white women are rewarded for expressing support for beliefs that mirror systemic inequality in the corporate world. We discuss implications for business ethics and directions for future research.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141504448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Seray Ergene, Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee, Erim Ergene
{"title":"Environmental Racism and Climate (In)Justice in the Anthropocene: Addressing the Silences and Erasures in Management and Organization Studies","authors":"Seray Ergene, Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee, Erim Ergene","doi":"10.1007/s10551-024-05723-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05723-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, we are situated in postcolonial, decolonial, and feminist epistemologies to study environmental racism in the Anthropocene—a new geological epoch where human activity has changed the functioning of the earth. Drawing from critiques of the Anthropocene, the concept of racial capitalism, as well as environmental justice and racism scholarship, we show how proposed solutions to the climate crisis overlook and may even exacerbate racial injustices faced by communities of color. We contend that a <i>climate justice agenda that is grounded on racial justice</i> is necessary for our scholarship to develop a racially just management and organization studies (MOS). To accomplish this agenda, we propose three shifts: from studying elite institutions to researching grassroots organizations concerned with climate and racial justice, from uncritical endorsement of global technologies to studying local adaptation by communities of color, and from offering decontextualized climate solutions to unraveling racial histories that can help us address racial and climate injustices. We discuss the implications of these shifts for management research and education and argue that MOS cannot afford to ignore climate justice and racial justice—they are both inextricably linked, and one cannot be achieved without the other.</p>","PeriodicalId":15279,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Business Ethics","volume":"164 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141513380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}