Special Issue: Business and Society in the Age of COVID-19
Nancy Kurland, Erica Steckler & Melissa Baucus
Spring 2022
Business and Society Review, 127(S1): 145-367
Business and Society in the Age of COVID-19: Introduction to the Special Issue
Nancy B. Kurland, Melissa Baucus, Erica Steckler
March 2022
Business and Society Review, 127(S1): 147-157
This article introduces the eight articles and three invited essays that comprise the special issue: Business and Society in the Age of COVID-19. In doing so, it also surveys COVID-19-related research in the Business & Society field, revealing five themes.
Introduction & Edited Volume - Alternative Theories of the Firm
Edited By Michael Pirson, David M. Wasieleski, Erica Steckler
2022
Chapter in Pirson, Wasilieski & Steckler (Eds.) Alternative Theories of the Firm, an edited volume in the Humanistic Management Series. Routledge Publishers: New York
Introduction & Edited Volume - Advancing the Sustainable Development Goals
Andrew Ward & Erica Steckler
2022
Chapter in Ward and Steckler (Eds.) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an edited volume in the World Scientific Encyclopedia of Business Sustainability, Ethics & Entrepreneurship, World Scientific Publishing, pp. 1-11
Cultivating Organizations as Healing Spaces: A Typology for Responding to Suffering and Advancing Social Justice
Reut Livne-Tarandach, Erica Steckler, Jennifer Leigh & Sara Wheeler-Smith
December 2021
Humanistic Management Journal, 6: 373-404
Historic inequities exacerbated by COVID-19 and spotlighted by social justice movements like Black Lives Matter have reinforced the necessity and urgency for societies and organizations to bring healing into focus. However, few integrated models exist within management and organization scholarship to guide practice. In response, our focus aims to unpack how organizations can become healing spaces. This paper offers a holistic definition of healing as the foundation for a new conceptual model of organizations as healing spaces.
A Relational Approach to Moral Development in Societies, Organizations, and Individuals
Michael F. Mascolo, Allison DiBianca Fasoli, David Greenway
December 2021
Integral Review, 17(1): 37–68
This research explores a relationist view of morality in business activity. The moral relationist view suggests that morality emerges from the discursive action that occurs between people as they negotiate questions of “what ought to be”. Moral judgement and action are guided by the tensions between rights, virtue, and care. The moral relationalist approach to business is explored through an in-depth analysis of the moral mindsets of three entrepreneurs who integrate moral concerns into their business practices in different ways.
A Simulation Game that Motivates People to Act on Climate
Juliette N. Rooney-Varga, Eduardo Fracassi, Travis Franck, Florian Kapmeier, Carolyn McCarthy, Karen S. McNeal, Nicole Norfles, Kenneth Rath, John D. Sterman
2021
World Scientific Encyclopedia of Climate Change, Vol 3, Chapter 29: 231-243
Many scientific reports have warned about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked climate change, with the latest international report calling for emissions of climate pollutants to reach net zero by around 2050 (IPCC, 2018). Limiting warming to 1.5°C could save more than 100 million people from water shortages, as many as 2 billion people from dangerous heatwaves, and the majority of species from climate change extinction risks (IPCC, 2018; Warren et al., 2018). The actions taken to achieve these climate outcomes would generate benefits of more than $20 trillion while easing global economic inequality (Burke et al., 2018). Scientists make it clear that it is physically possible to meet these goals using today’s technologies (Holz et al., 2018). Yet emissions of climate pollutants continue to grow, reaching a new record high in 2018 (Jackson et al., 2018). Clearly, scientific evidence has failed to spark needed climate action.
Building Consensus for Ambitious Climate Action Through the World Climate Simulation
Juliette N. Rooney-Varga, Margaret Hensel, Carolyn McCarthy, Karen McNeal, Nicole Norfles, Kenneth Rath, Audrey H. Schnell, John D. Sterman
November 2021
Earth's Future, 9(12), ISSN: 2328-4277 Online ISSN: 2328-4277
Can a game that combines an interactive computer model with an engaging role-play motivate climate action? We find that the widely used World Climate simulation does just that – and reaches people across the sociopolitical spectrum. In a sample of more than 2,000 participants, we find pre- to post-simulation gains in climate change knowledge, sense of urgency, and intent to act. The game is an effective way to engage people across the sociopolitical spectrum. Participants with conservative values that are often associated with dismissal of human-caused climate change make greater gains in urgency than others. Simulations like World Climate may be a promising way to reduce polarization and build support for climate action.
An Analysis of the Mission Drift in Microfinance
Shakil Quayes
August 2021
Applied Economics Letters, 28(15): 1310-1316
The study shows empirical evidence that microfinance lenders have continued to provide loans to poor households and female borrowers over the last two decades, despite the rapid expansion in the industry.
Fair Trade Coffee and Inclusive Globalization: A Metamorphosis of Institutional Entrepreneurship
Rong Zhu, Sunny Li Sun, Ying Huang
April 2021
Multinational Business Review, 29(2), ISSN: 1525-383X
Initiated by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) over half a century ago, fair trade has successfully evolved from a regional business discourse to a global social movement within international trade. In the matter of fair trade coffee, this global social movement has transformed the traditional coffee trade structure of inequality and unfairness into a conglomerate of international institutions that embrace equity and inclusivity.
The Corporate Governance of Environmental Sustainability: A Review and Proposal for More Integrated Research
Ruth V. Aguilera, J. Alberto Aragón-Correa, Valentina Marano, Peter Tashman
February 2021
Journal of Management, 47(6): 1468-1497
This article reviews the existing literature on how characteristics of a firm’s corporate governance (board of directors' composition, ownership structure) influence how it manages its environmental practices and impacts on the natural environment, identifies gaps in that literature and proposes future research to fill those gaps.
Why Do Firms Participate in Voluntary Environmental Programs? A Meta-Analysis of the Role of Institutions, Resources, and Program Stringency
Peter Tashman, Svetlana Flankova, Marc van Essen, Valentina Marano
February 2021
Organization & Environment, 35(1): 3-29
This study meta-analyzes existing research on voluntary environmental programs to better understand how the stringency of these programs impacts the likelihood that firms will join them to improve their impacts on the natural environment.
Globalization and Affordability of Microfinance
Sunny Li Sun, Hao Liang
January 2021
Journal of Business Venturing, 36(1), ISSN 0883-9026
MFIs embody both social logic and market logic with regard to provision of affordable microfinance loans. While Social globalization increases the affordability of microfinance, economic globalization has a U-shaped relationship with the affordability of microfinance.
Spoiled Milk: A Chinese Mother’s Struggle and the Rebuilding of Trust in State Dairy Enterprises
Yuli Wang, Erica Steckler, W. Michael Hoffman
September 2020
Business and Society Review, 125(3): 289-309
Recent research has highlighted the importance of cultivating the ethical climate of a firm with implications for ethical decision making and consumer confidence. However, there are important lessons still to be gleaned from firms responsible for generating ethical failures. Based on a case study of the Sanlu melamine milk powder scandal in China, this article analyzes the key factors that have affected consumer confidence in Sanlu and highlights main reasons for Chinese consumers’ continued distrust of state dairy enterprises. We explore the causes of business distrust in the Sanlu case from the perspective of Chinese product consumers. We further recommend solutions to repair a crisis of consumer confidence and trust in the domestic dairy industry by considering these stakeholders’ perspectives.
Determinants of Social Outreach of Microfinance Institutions
Shakil Quayes, George Joseph
June 2020
International Review of Applied Economics, 35(3-4), Capitalism: An Unsustainable Future?: 540-550
Microfinance Institutions in common law (British legal system) countries have better outreach of lending to the poor and female borrowers than microfinance institutions in code law (Napoleonic) countries.
The Socioecological Systems Framework, COVID-19 and Organizations
Peter Tashman
April 2020
Organizations and Natural Environment (ONE) Division of AOM
Business sustainability researchers provide insights and solutions for the Covid-19 pandemic and for other natural environmental disasters and stressors.
Price? Quality? Or Sustainability? Segmenting by Disposition Toward Self-other Tradeoffs Predicts Consumers’ Sustainable Decision-Making
Spencer M. Ross, George R. Milne
March 2020
Journal of Business Ethics, 172: 361-378
In this article, we segment consumers by their perceptions of fairness, predict how the market segments align with self-interested and collective-interested product attributes in the context of sustainable consumption. Our predictive model finds self-oriented consumers more likely to make purchase decisions weighted toward price and quality, while collectively-oriented consumers are more likely to make purchase decisions weighted toward sustainability.
A Natural Resource Dependence Perspective of the Firm: How and Why Firms Manage Natural Resource Scarcity
Peter Tashman
January 2020
Business & Society, 60(6): 1279-1311
This article develops a theory of how and why firms manage natural resource scarcity in ways that either make them more sustainable or exacerbate their negative impacts on the natural environment.
Dignity and the Process of Social Innovation: Lessons from Social Entrepreneurship and Transformative Services for Humanistic Management
Michael Pirson, Mario Vázquez-Maguirre, Canan Corus, Erica Steckler & Andrew Wicks
December 2019
Humanistic Management Journal, 4(2): 125-153
In this paper we advance inquiry into human dignity in relation to the theory and practice of social entrepreneurship and innovation in a two-fold manner. First, we explore how concepts from the literatures of human dignity and humanistic management can inform and enrich social entrepreneurship and innovation. Second, we examine case studies of social entrepreneurship and innovation to refine how we think about and operationalize notions of human dignity.
Adapting to Grand Environmental Challenges Through Collective Entrepreneurship
Jonathan P. Doh, Peter Tashman, Mirko H. Benischke
November 2019
Academy of Management Perspectives, 33(4)
This explores how entrepreneurship aimed at solving pressing global environmental issues such as climate change can become more effective when undertaken by cross-sectoral partnerships of firms, government agencies and non-governmental organizations.
Challenging Ourselves to Change Business-as-Usual
Erica Steckler & Rita Jacome
August 27, 2019
Manila Times Business Op-Ed
Being Your True Self at Work: Integrating the Fragmented Research on Authenticity in Organizations
Sandra E. Cha, Patricia Faison Hewlin, Laura Morgan Roberts, Brooke R. Buckman, Hannes Leroy, Erica L. Steckler, Kathryn Ostermeier and Danielle Cooper
July 2019
Academy of Management Annals, 13(2): 633-671
In tandem with a surge of public interest in authenticity, there is a growing number of empirical studies on individual authenticity in work settings. However, these studies have been generated within separate literatures on topics such as authentic leadership, emotional labor, and identity management, among many others, making it difficult for scholars to integrate and build on the authenticity research to date. To facilitate and advance future investigations, this article reviews the extant empirical work across 10 different authenticity constructs.
The Glass Pyramid: Informal Gender Status Hierarchy on Boards
Lívia Markóczy, Sunny Li Sun, Jigao Zhu
July 2019
Journal of Business Ethics, 168: 827–845
Even female directors enter the corporate board, their status ranking is 81.48% of one position lower than that of male directors in China. We called this gender status hierarchy as "The Glass Pyramid".
Viewpoint: Our Business Schools Must Teach Better Ethics
Elissa Magnant & Erica Steckler
June 13, 2019
Boston Business Journal Op-Ed
Harnessing the Potential of Gamification in Humanistic Management Teaching: Games for Change Insights and Learning Experiences
Jennifer Leigh, Erica Steckler, Whitney Ennis
2018
Chapter in Pirson and Bachani (Eds.) Humanistic Management: Social Entrepreneurship and Mindfulness, Volume II: Foundations, Cases, And Exercises, in Laasch (Ed.) Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Collection. New York: Business Expert Press
A Humanistic Ontology for Responsible Management
Michael Pirson & Erica Steckler
December 2018
Chapter in Weber and Wasieleski (Eds.) Business and Society 360, Vol. 3. Emerald Publishing Limited, pp. 295-322
The Role of Mindfulness and Subjective Well-being on College Campuses
George R. Milne, Shalini Bahl, Spencer M. Ross, Kunal Swani
November 2018
Marketing and Humanity: Discourses in the Real World, ISBN: 1-5275-1850-7, ISBN13: 978-1-5275-1850-6, pgs 8-22
Walking the Walk or Talking the Talk? Corporate Social Responsibility Decoupling in Emerging Market Multinationals
Peter Tashman, Valentina Marano, Tatiana Kostova
August 2018
Journal of International Business Studies 50: 153–171
This study explores why multinational enterprises from emerging markets tend to overstate their efforts to protect social and environmental interests on their sustainability reports.
Small-Dollar Credit Lending: The Effect of Financial Burden on Personal Asset Misvaluation
Sommer Kapitan, Spencer M. Ross, David H. Silvera
June 2018
Journal of Consumer Affairs, 53(3): 946-974
Consumers facing financial hardship are vulnerable when it comes to overvaluing their assets to get pawn, payday, or other types of small-dollar credit loans. We find that when hardship consumers have an other-focused orientation when borrowing, this tends to reduce their overvaluing of assets.
Authenticity and Corporate Governance
Erica Steckler & Cynthia Clark
May 2018
Journal of Business Ethics, 155(4): 951-963
Although personal attributes have gained recognition as an important area of effective corporate governance, scholarship has largely overlooked the value and implications of individual virtue in governance practice. We explore how authenticity—a personal and morally significant virtue—affects the primary monitoring and strategy functions of the board of directors as well as core processes concerning director selection, cultivation, and enactment by the board. While the predominant focus in corporate governance research has been on structural factors that influence firm financial outcomes, this paper shifts attention to the role of authenticity and its relationship to individual board member qualities and collective board activities. We explore how authenticity has the potential to influence board dynamics and decision making and to enhance transparency and accountability.
Balancing Self/Collective-Interest: Equity Theory for Prosocial Consumption
Spencer M. Ross, Sommer Kapitan
February 2018
European Journal of Marketing, 52(3/4): 528-549, ISSN: 0309-0566
Prior research has approached consumer sustainability from a more values or attitudinal paradigm. We theorize sustainable consumption can be segmented according to consumers' sensitivity to equity (fairness) in marketplace exchange, such that Entitleds are more self-oriented, Benevolents are more collective-oriented, and Equity Sensitives fall somewhere in the middle.
Do I Care? Pathological Apathy in the Context of Sustainable Consumption
Spencer M. Ross, Paula Dootson
December 2017
Back to the Future: Using Marketing Basics to Provide Customer Value, Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science, Nina Krey and Patricia Rossi, eds., Springer, 509-520
Consumer apathy to issues is not uncommon, but there has been little knowledge about the effects of apathy on sustainability. We measure consumers self-reported psychological apathy and find that apathy has a negative effect on sustainable consumption.
Self-Sustaining Practices of Successful Social Change Agents: A Retreats Framework for Supporting Transformational Change
Erica L. Steckler & Sandra Waddock
December 2017
Humanistic Management Journal, 2(2): 171-198
We advance a framework of three types of “retreats” – reflective, relational, and inspirational – that social change agents can use to sustain themselves through challenges inherent in their work. Retreats are defined as intentionally crafted spaces that provide opportunities for reflective practices, relational presence, and inspirational resources. The retreats framework is based on the experiences of a set of successful social entrepreneurs who have played a prominent role in establishing new organizations at the intersection of business in society. We bridge ideas of humanistic management, integral practice, and positive organizational scholarship to identify and detail the personal practices that enable social change agents to fortify themselves as they work toward establishing new institutions and successfully implementing impactful work over time.
Escaping the Iron Cage: Liabilities of Origin and CSR Reporting of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises
Valentina Marano, Peter Tashman, Tatiana Kostova
April 2017
Journal of International Business Studies, 48: 386–408
This article explores why multinational enterprises from emerging markets use sustainability reporting to earn trust and acceptance with stakeholders and industry partners in other global locations.