As women advance into leadership roles, the gender discrimination they face is a pressing issue that demands attention from a business ethics perspective. This paper considers the downstream consequences of such gender discrimination on their subordinates. Previous research indicates that women leaders in male-dominated organizations often face gender bias, which may prompt them to distance themselves from their gender identity as a coping mechanism (self-group distancing behavior). By integrating concepts from management, psychology, and business ethics, we investigate the following research (...) question: What are the downstream consequences of gender discrimination experienced by women leaders on their subordinates? We hypothesize that women leaders’ self-group distancing responses create uncertainty belonging among women subordinates, which leads to adverse outcomes such as decreased leadership aspirations and increased turnover intentions. Our results suggest that when a woman leader engages in self-group distancing because of gender discrimination, women subordinates experience reduced feelings of belonging, increased differentiation, diminished leadership aspirations, and heightened turnover intentions. In contrast, male subordinates’ sense of belonging, differentiation, leadership aspirations, and turnover intentions do not significantly differ when a woman leader engages in self-group distancing behavior. (shrink)

Gender role congruity theory emphasizes the ubiquity of male-typed leadership schemas as barriers to female leaders’ career development (i.e., descriptive stereotypes); however, the expectation of female leaders’ fulfilling their gender role (i.e., prescriptive stereotypes) has received limited attention. Extending this line of research, we propose the concept of female-typed leadership schemas and suggest that the (mis)match between female CEOs’ gender-stereotyped behavioral differences (agentic vs. communal) and female-typed leadership stereotypes helps explain the prescriptive gender stereotypes that women face in the CEO (...) post-succession stage. Using data from 251 female CEO succession events at publicly listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2007 to 2017 in China, we found that the risk-taking behaviors of new female CEOs may lead to a perceived mismatch between prescriptive gender-stereotyped expectations and the actual behaviors of female CEOs as top leaders, increasing their likelihood of being dismissed during the post-succession process. Moreover, gender inequality beliefs in local contexts and adverse selection at the time of succession amplify the gender-stereotyped attribution. This study contributes to the female leadership and ethics literature by developing a comprehensive theoretical framework to test how female-typed leadership stereotypes hinder the career development of women in top executive positions. (shrink)

This study explores the business ethics education literature published between 1982 and 2021. A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of 862 scholarly articles spanning 40 years of research on business ethics education revealed a thematic shift in the literature. Whereas older articles were predominantly concerned with ethics, relatively newer articles mainly focus on addressing the broader concept of sustainability. A content analysis of the 25 most locally cited articles between 1987 and 2012 identified two main research streams: (a) integration (...) of business ethics into business school curricula and (b) the pedagogical approaches and tools used to teach business ethics. An additional content analysis of the 15 most locally cited articles published between 2016 and 2021 revealed that discussions related to integration and pedagogical approaches and tools were still ongoing in the literature, albeit with a focus on sustainability-related concepts such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). Building upon our findings and existing literature, we develop a framework that we refer to as Transforming Ethics Education in Business Schools (TEEBS), which we argue may help business schools reclaim the ‘ethics’ in business ethics education. (shrink)

Corporate governance (CG) is a key area of management with important implications for business ethics. The interface of CG and business ethics is populated with rich intellectual debates on the role of ethics in governance from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Within these debates, the relationship between CG and outcomes for business and society, and the role of CG structures and processes and their comparative aspects across institutional settings are discussed. Despite a proliferation of research at the interface of CG and ethics, (...) we observe that an engagement with topics, methodologies, and expected outcomes drawing on established frames and theories of CG tends to the ignoring or even the preclusion of an explicit engagement with debates in business ethics. Through this VSI, we as section editors showcase previously published papers in the Journal that proactively explore the explicit linkages and interfaces between CG and ethical societal challenges, with the aim of inspiring further such CG research. (shrink)

The teaching of ethics in teacher education programs is crucial for fostering the moral and ethical development of prospective teachers and shaping them into ethical role models for future students. This study, employing qualitative case study research, gathered data from undergraduates in teacher education programs to explore the best approaches for ethics education. It found that combining digital and case-based pedagogical methods, fostering an open-minded attitude among lecturers, and implementing a blend of Socratic and active learning techniques leads to the (...) most favorable outcomes. Additionally, continuous formative assessment throughout the academic year is essential. To cultivate a teaching workforce with strong ethical and moral values, undergraduate courses in ethics and morality should be thought-provoking, integrating real-life cases with a mix of digital and tangible resources. The ethics course lecturer should not only serve as a role model and exhibit a caring disposition but also use effective teaching methodologies. The paper details key themes and categories for successful ethics instruction and offers specific recommendations. (shrink)

Although there is now a substantial body of literature exploring the effects of language diversity in international management contexts, little attention has been paid to the ethical dimensions of language diversity at work. This conceptual paper draws on the concept of epistemic injustice in order to explore how language, and in particular corporate language policies, may act as a source of epistemic injustice within the workplace. It demonstrates how language competence affects credibility judgements about a speaker, and also considers how (...) corporate language policies can create situations of hermeneutic injustice, in which marginalised groups are denied the vocabularies to understand their own experiences. Finally, ways in which such epistemic harms can be reduced are discussed, and the possibilities for management education to create epistemically responsible managers are highlighted. (shrink)

Climate change is an ethical and moral challenge of a global scale due to its potentially catastrophic implications for human welfare. Understanding forces that drive corporate adaptation to climate change is an important research topic in business ethics. In this paper, we propose that shareholder climate-related proposals could be a catalyst for corporate innovations in technologies mitigating climate change. Our results, based on the analysis of US firms, indicate that corporations respond positively to these proposals by producing more climate-related patents (...) and citations. We also uncover potential casual channels of influence. Further, we find that corporate governance moderates the documented effects. These proposals lead to a more efficient and valuable innovation output, but lower firm performance in the short term. The real effect that shareholder proposals have on innovation gains clarity in the context of climate change, contributing to the discussion of investor “voice.”. (shrink)