Today's organizational environment is characterized by high levels of cross-cultural, cross-national, and cross-religious communication, conflict, collaboration, and commerce. This environment produces myriad encounters between individuals who embrace different ideologies, religions and spiritual practices. As such, unanswered (and even unasked) questions about management, spirituality, and religion abound. This book, seeks to advance our understanding by asking the big questions. Blessed are Those Who Ask the Questions: What Should We be Asking About Management, Spirituality, and Religion in Organizations? is intended to be provocative in nature. Its chapters address novel ways that leadership, organizations, and organizational stakeholders mutually impact each other by their similarities and differences in religious, spiritual, and ideological traditions, cultures, and practices. Interdisciplinary in nature and firmly grounded in scholarly literature, this book identifies and maps out bold new trajectories for advancing the study of management spirituality, and religion (including but going far beyond Western, Christian conceptualizations of religion). Sometimes universal, sometimes quite specific, this volume identifies unexplored, underexplored, or unresolved issues in the field and proposes new streams of research. Diverse conceptual, empirical, theoretical, and critical treatments that honor a variety of inquiry styles and research methods push the boundaries of MSR research.

The Enlightened Shareholder Value principle and Corporate Social Responsibility are areas of increasing academic and research interest. However, discussions on the ESV principle in relation to CSR are very limited. This book provides a critical analysis of the impact of the concept of ESV, embedded in the Companies Act 2006, on CSR and explores the scope for reform. Along with analysing existing empirical research, it presents the findings of an empirical study conducted to determine whether the concept of ESV is capable of promoting or assisting CSR. The book also examines whether implementing an ESV approach has had any impact on the CSR practices of multinational corporations that originate in the UK and operate in developing nations, as in order to assess whether the ESV principle links to CSR both its domestic and international impact need to be considered. This analysis was undertaken through the lens of a case study on the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh, with some focus on the Rana Plaza factory disaster. This study also assists in demonstrating the changes that need to be made to improve the current situation. Lastly, the book addresses the need for reform in the area and provides possible suggestions for reform. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of corporate law, corporate governance and business studies in general as well as policymakers, NGOs and government departments in many countries around the world working in the fields of CSR, sustainability and global supply chains.

This set of essays brings together scholars and practitioners from different part of the world engaged in how ethical interpretations of globalization, citizenship, and information might provide insights into global relations and issues. This effort expands information ethics work into a wider circle, as the subject is examined by a purposefully diverse range of perspectives, from philosophers, to social justice educators, to working librarians. The book builds its arguments on both traditional scholarly and professional sources as well as new ones, by necessity, for example data leaked from software used by the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's national cryptologic agency, to spy on the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy that were part of the leaked Snowden data. The result is a work entwines cautionary tales with possibilities for resistance and that expands our understanding of citizenship and of the reshaping of public and private spheres. On one level the book brings to light the expansion of globalization, digital citizenship, and how the borders and boundaries of citizenship as a national concern have been challenged by globalized information systems and practices. On another level, the book reveals ways public and private spheres have been reshaped through colonialism, capitalism, and globalization.

Understanding human behavior and decision-making processes is a significant challenge within many fields of research. This doctoral thesis shows how human activities are characterized by multiple interconnected contexts and demonstrates the advantages of using a multi-layered model to examine interactions between social, economic and cultural factors. The model presented here offers large benefits for various target groups as it can be applied to a wide range of research fields. Consequently, this analysis supports an interdisciplinary approach to economics.

Managing As Mission pushes the boundaries of what it means to be a nonprofit manager by making the case that managing, as a reflection of the organizational mission - the cornerstone of any nonprofit - can bring about the change nonprofits were created to achieve: a better world for all. This book contains real-world examples, interview excerpts from nonprofit managers and directors, and a series of self-reflection and organization-wide tools to develop managers and managing as a mirror of the mission. Themes within this book include: a discussion of the history of nonprofit missions; management tasks and approaches; aligning values; building working relationship and trust; and creating organizational structures and interactions that mirror the organizational mission. It is written in an informal first-person style, utilizing humor that will, hopefully, allow the reader to see themselves in the examples and stories.

A consensus has emerged that corporations have societal and environmental responsibilities when operating transnationally. However, how exactly corporations can be held legally accountable for their transgressions, if at all, is less clear. This volume inquires how regulatory tools stemming from international law, public law, and private law may or may not be used for transnational corporate accountability purposes. Attention is devoted to applicable standards of liability, institutional and jurisdictional issues, and practical challenges, with a focus on ways to improve the existing legal status quo. In addition, there is consideration of the extent to which non-legal regulatory instruments may complement or provide more viable alternatives to these legal mechanisms. The book combines legaldoctrinal approaches with comparative, interdisciplinary, and policy insights with the dual aim of furthering the legal scholarly debate on these issues and enabling higher quality decision-making by policymakers seeking to implement regulatory measures that enhance corporate accountability in this context. Through its study of contemporary developments in legislation and case law, it provides a timely and important contribution to the scholarly and sociopolitical debate in the fastevolving field of international corporate social responsibility and accountability.

This edited book is at the intersection of the discussion on family-owned business, the CSR agenda and company competition in Europe. The authors contribute to the debates on corporate social responsibility by arguing that formal management systems are not the one-size-fits-all solution they are typically presented to be. Exploring alternative interpretations of the profile environmental management activities have in SMEs, the book evaluates the way in which cultural and ethical values are embedded in European SMEs in order to drive and orientate CSR successfully without following the mainstream 'systems' approach. It addresses several values of thought within the CSR debate such as intrinsic CSR, the role of virtue ethics and moral theory in corporate culture, environmental sustainability and vision-driven CSR. Focusing on a European perspective, the book heuristically explores an alternative model for the integration of CSR, innovation dynamics and economic success driven by intrinsic values rather than extrinsic post-decision rationalisations.

This book explores the role of integrity in business and discusses why all leaders seek to have it. The author argues that it is less about 'having' integrity as an attribute, and more about practising it. The Practice of Integrity in Business examines how taking responsibility for ideas, values and practices, as well as accountability and wider creative responsibility for sustaining business, all contribute to the perceived integrity of an organization or business leader. Providing methods through which integrity can be learned, the author demonstrates the importance of practice, learning, dialogue and developing a narrative in forming the basis of trust. The book offers a view of integrity in which ideas, values and practice come together to make business and social sense, and to form the basis of mutual challenge and creativity.

Does it pay for businesses to act morally? This book attempts to answer this question. Taking a positive approach, it demonstrates that, under certain conditions, organizations can act responsibly and profitably at the same time. It elaborates on these conditions and provides evidence for the assumed positive relation between responsibility and profitability. The author uses analysis of the acceptance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies across Europe, the consequences of CSR on motivation, commitment and absenteeism, and organizational responsibility and the bottom of the pyramid as evidence that organizations can be profitable and responsible at the same time. Uniquely taking an organizational perspective on CSR, scholars and students of business ethics will find this impressive book to be an invaluable resource. Business professionals will also find plenty of important information in this admirable compendium.

This book brings together a number of important essays on the intersection of servant leadership and social entrepreneurship, examining them through a shared focus on 'the will to serve'. This combination bears out the insight that inspiring social and economic leaders are able to transform a conflictual human settlement into a collaborative and caring human community. The book seeks to answer the question of whether we can induce from their 'way of doing things' a model of civic entrepreneurship and leadership that can inspire people in profit, non-profit and public organizations. It also examines the extent to which the will to serve is compatible with the will to maximize profit or the will to gain economic, political or religious power. Furthermore, it asks how far different spiritual traditions create different models and examples of servant leadership and social entrepreneurship. This book will be of interest to researchers working in the fields of business ethics, business spirituality and corporate social responsibility.

Today's organizational environment is characterized by high levels of cross-cultural, cross-national, and cross-religious communication, conflict, collaboration, and commerce. This environment produces myriad encounters between individuals who embrace different ideologies, religions and spiritual practices. As such, unanswered (and even unasked) questions about management, spirituality, and religion abound. This book, seeks to advance our understanding by asking the big questions. Blessed are Those Who Ask the Questions: What Should We be Asking About Management, Spirituality, and Religion in Organizations? is intended to be provocative in nature. Its chapters address novel ways that leadership, organizations, and organizational stakeholders mutually impact each other by their similarities and differences in religious, spiritual, and ideological traditions, cultures, and practices. Interdisciplinary in nature and firmly grounded in scholarly literature, this book identifies and maps out bold new trajectories for advancing the study of management spirituality, and religion (including but going far beyond Western, Christian conceptualizations of religion). Sometimes universal, sometimes quite specific, this volume identifies unexplored, underexplored, or unresolved issues in the field and proposes new streams of research. Diverse conceptual, empirical, theoretical, and critical treatments that honor a variety of inquiry styles and research methods push the boundaries of MSR research.

This book examines the changing reciprocal relationships between corporations and their various social obligations over the very long term - from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Chapters from emerging and established business historians assess the full range of social obligations that corporations held historically. By adopting an innovative methodological approach that is long-term and comparative, this book offers a challenge to the literature on corporate history and will be of interest to researchers and academics in the field of finance and business history.

Islamic Business Finance is based on strong ethical regulations as suggested by Islamic Literature, such as the Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet of Islam, and could be considered as a subclass of the wider subject of ethical standards in business. This book highlights the basic principles of Islamic Business ethics and their implication in today's global business environment. It highlights the most important features of Islamic banking and finance in relation to the core principles of Shariah law. It is the most comprehensive book to date, in terms of the number of Quranic verses and traditions of the Prophet relating to this subject, which are interspersed throughout the text. It explains how ethics are defined both in general terms and within the context of an Islamic perspective. In addition, it provides a logical interpretation of Islamic principles of business ethics, while keeping in view thethrough the use of contemporary business practices. Topics such as digital currencies, money laundering, etc. are discussed at length. This book also discusses the new and emerging ethical issues faced by business and industry globally. This book will be a valuable reference guide for students, teachers and researchers of Islamic banking and finance.

While the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities of small firms have been analysed to some extent, their engagement in international networks relating to CSR is less understood. Most of these networks primarily address the needs of multinational corporations. Surprisingly, however, the number of small firms participating in such institutions has substantially increased over recent years. But what is the reason for this new interest of SME in institutional forms of CSR? Based on a qualitative empirical study of German small firms' participation in the most prominent CSR institution, the UN Global Compact, this book explores the drivers for small firm participation. The motivations are complex and do not follow the same hierarchical order associated with large business behaviour. Rather, reasons for institutional engagement suggest a heterarchical structure, where alignment is contingent upon factors such as individual CSR perception, self-conception or social environment. The book explains why small firms prefer to engage in sustainable development within institutionalised forms of CSR rather than act in isolation, and provides recommendations on how to support and thus increase SME participation in institutionalised forms of civic engagement.

Humanistic management has been part of a growing conversation about a different approach to management that contributes to dignity in the workplace and better organisations overall. The theoretical concepts have mostly derived from developed countries. This book seeks to redress the balance and looks at the development and application of the concepts, approaches and models of inequality, corruption, poverty, and uncertainty in the context of Latin America. The book provides a comprehensive overview of what is happening in Latin America in terms of Humanistic Management and the promotion of the Sustainable Development Goals. The first section describes the development of Humanistic Management by reviewing two different schools that have strongly influenced the discipline: the Montreal School and the Saint Gallen School. Humanistic Management is then presented as a model that can be used by scholars and practitioners in Latin America. The third part aims to explore how Humanistic Management has been, and could be, implemented across different organizations and business sectors in Latin America. Part four examines the implications of Humanistic Management for external stakeholders such as customers and consumers, suppliers, community, government, and universities. Finally, the conclusion provides new approaches to Humanistic Management for Latin America. Humanistic Management in Latin America will serve as a key reference and resource for teachers, researchers, students, experts and policy makers, who want to acquire a broad understanding of social responsibility and business across the world.

In this original collection of essays, a group of distinguished scholars critically examine the ethical dimensions of business using the Kantian themed business ethics of Norman E. Bowie as a jumping off point. The authors engage Bowie's influential body of scholarship as well as contemporary themes in business, including topics such as: the normative foundations of capitalism; the applicability of Kantian ethics, virtue ethics, and pragmatism in normative business ethics; meaningful work; managerial ethics; the ethics of high leverage finance capitalism; business ethics and corporate social responsibility; and responsibility for the natural environment. The contributors to this volume include both scholars sympathetic to Bowie's Kantian business ethics and scholars critical of that perspective. As one of the foundational figures in the establishment and legitimization of the study of business ethics as a field of scholarship, Bowie casts a long shadow over the field. Over the last thirty years he has applied a distinctive, Kantian approach to the analysis of problems in business ethics and his work has had a substantial impact on a wide range of theory and scholarship in the field. Bowie argues in his work that economic value is not the only value that should inform managers, executives, and policymakers when making both business policy decisions and everyday management decisions. He utilizes a Kantian framework to support the position that additional values - such as human dignity and rational consistency - should inform business practice and influence managerial decision-making. He also shows that business practices that include these additional values are consistent with sound management theory and that such businesses can be financially successful. This volume of scholarly essays will be of considerable interest to students and scholars working in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and organization studies. Contributors: D.G. Arnold, N.E. Bowie, J.B. Ciulla, M.A. Cohen, C.T. Dang, R.T. De George, J.R. DesJardins, J.W. Dienhart, R. Duska, R.E. Freeman, J.D. Harris, R.P. Nielsen, S.J. Reynolds, J. Smith, P.H. Werhane

The Italian Cooperative Sector is amongst the largest in the world comprising over 60,000 cooperatives from all sectors of the economy directly employing 1.3 million people. Cooperatives created close to 30 percent of new jobs in Italy between 2001 and 2011 demonstrating that democratic cooperative enterprises can successfully operate in a market economy combining economic success and social responsibility. These offer a viable alternative to profit maximising enterprises and an opportunity to create a more pluralist and democratic market economy. The Growth of Italian Cooperatives: Innovation, Resilience and Social Responsibility comprehensively explains how the Italian cooperative sector has managed to compete successfully in the global economy and to grow during the global financial crisis. This book will comprehensively explain how the Italian cooperative movement has managed to grow into a large successful network of cooperatives. It will examine the legislative framework and their unique business model that allows it to compete in the market as part of a network that includes central cooperative associations, financial and economic consortia, and financial companies. It will explore cooperative entrepreneurship through a discussion of the formation of cooperative groups, start-ups, worker-buyouts and the promotion of entirely new sectors such as the social services sector. Finally, The Growth of Italian Cooperatives examines how cooperatives have managed the GFC and how their behavior differs from private enterprises. It will also analyze the extent to which cooperatives compete while still uphold the key cooperative principles and fulfil their social responsibility. This book is an interdisciplinary study of cooperative development and is designed to inform members of the academic community, government, public policy makers and cooperative managers that are primarily interested in economic democracy, economics of the cooperative enterprise, cooperative networks and economic development, cooperative legislation, democratic governance, job creation programs, politics of inclusion and how wealth can be more equitably distributed.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored longstanding fissures in China's business relationships with the West. If the West is going to develop a relationship of mutual trust and improve business relations with China in the coming decades, it is imperative to understand how to engage with Chinese thinking on ethics in business-this book explains how. Government officials, businesspeople, and business-ethicists have trouble communicating about issues in ethics, policy, and business across the China-West divide. This book shows how to overcome the us-versus-them mindset plaguing China-West relations by presenting to Western audiences an easy-to-understand yet deeply informed primer on core ideas and perspectives in Chinese cultural and philosophical thought. The book considers original texts of Chinese philosophy and religion, and applies principles from those writings to three business-ethics topics of enduring interest to business executives, government officials, and academics, namely, the protection of intellectual property, assurance of product safety and quality in the pharmaceutical supply chain, and human rights. This book is a must-read for those who want to forge constructive relationships with their Chinese counterparts based on mutual trust and understanding. The book is specifically relevant to business executives, but it should also be of interest to policymakers, educators, and students who seek to communicate more effectively with their Chinese counterparts, in particular about difficult and contentious business, policy, and ethical issues.

This book examines the management of multiple goals in organizations especially in today's increasingly turbulent business environment. In this book, authors develop a novel concept of goal polychronicity, wherein organizations may attend to multiple goals simultaneously, rather than mono-chronically through sequential attention. This book further investigates the impact of internal organizational control systems and external environmental turbulence on multiple goals management. Empirical evidence is drawn from in-depth interviews of top executives and large-scale survey of top executives from four countries (US, Australia, China, and Israel). The book enriches the understanding of multiple goals and provides evidence-based recommendations to researchers and practitioners in managing multiple goals.

Japanese management styles and their relationship to Japanese business success have been aridly studied and analysed in the West, but rarely do Western observers understand fully the importance of cultural and historical factors in the Japanese economic miracle. This book provides a unique insight into the unseen world of Japanese business by intertwining the history, growth and performance of ASICS, a major Japanese corporation, with the life of its remarkable founder, Kihachiro Onitsuka and the dramatic and complex changes in Japanese life, economy and culture since the end of the Second World War. First published in 1988, this title is part of the Bloomsbury Academic Collections series.

This book argues that ethical leadership without a theological foundation is lacking a firm foundation. It begins with a critical assessment of ethical leadership as a leadership theory, showing how ethics and theology became separated, creating the space for ethical leadership outside of theology. Nevertheless, the author argues that ethical leadership without a biblical basis is weak, though one need not be religious to embrace the leadership principles of biblical theology. Unfolding Christology, anthropology, eschatology, and contextualized leadership as four key aspects of biblical theology for ethical leadership, this book will appeal to those studying leadership, business, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The interaction between a company and its stakeholder environment explains a key part of corporate behavior. This is because the level of social acceptance that the company achieves affects consumer trust, employee commitment, and access to credit or support from suppliers. This book examines these relationships to discover the best way to align corporate behaviour with the interests, values and preferences of stakeholders. It features contributions on topics such as marketing, emerging technologies, women in entrepreneurship, sports and tourism.

This book makes an important contribution to the recent evolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) that are human-centred and socially desirable, environmentally sustainable, and ethically acceptable. It introduces the concept of moral, equitable and environmental limits in the ICT domain and proposes a Slow Tech approach to face the challenges of these limits, laying out a set of principles that can be applied in real-life business settings. With the launch of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the growing interest in the circular economy, Slow Tech and ICT - A Responsible, Sustainable and Ethical Approach is a timely tool for forward-thinking businesses.