Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

The need for ethical leadership in navigating today’s complex, global and competitive organisations has been established. While research has confirmed the importance of ethical leaders in promoting positive organisational and employee outcomes, scant research has examined the antecedents of ethical leadership. Furthermore, there has been a call for further examination of leadership models, particularly indigenous leadership models. Responding to these issues, this study suggests Māori leaders’ values add insights into enhancing ethical leadership. Three studies confirm the role of Māori values (...) and ethical leadership. Study one, based on kaupapa Māori research methods, is an exploratory 22-interview study of Māori leaders and identifies five values, as common to successful indigenous leaders. In study two, 249 employees rate their leaders on these five dimensions in relation to their ethical leadership and exchange relationships. Structural equation modelling shows strong support for the distinct nature of the five values and their positive influence on ethical leadership perceptions and quality exchange relationships. Study three, on 122 employees, reinforces the findings of study two—and demonstrates that LMX predicts job outcomes both indirectly and directly, with humility and collectivism also directly predicting outcomes. Our findings suggest that indigenous leaders’ values enhance perceptions and outcomes of ethical leadership for employees. (shrink)

The question we pose in this paper is: How can wisdom and its inherent drive for integration help information systems in the development of practices for responsibly and ethically managing and using big data, ubiquitous information and algorithmic knowledge and so make the world a better place? We use the recent financial crises to illustrate the perils of an overreliance on and misuse of data, information and predictive knowledge when global Information Systems are not wisely integrated. Our analysis shows that (...) the global financial crisis was in part caused by a serious lack of integration of information with the larger context of social, cultural, economic and political dynamics. Integration of all the variables in a global and information hungry industry is exceptionally difficult, and so “exceptionality” of some kind is needed to make sufficient integration happen. Wisdom, we suggest, is the exceptionality needed to lead successful integration. We expect that a wisdom-based shift can lead to more organizationally effective and socially responsible Information Systems. (shrink)

This article investigates agency as a way of being and acting in sustainability leadership. Our primary aim is to enhance understanding of agentic strategies that facilitate transcending systemic complexities in sustainability leadership. We make a distinction in our analytical approach by drawing from Emirbayer and Mische’s conceptualisation of agency as ‘an interactive process of reflexive transformation and relational pragmatics, a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past, oriented towards the future and enacted in the present’ . We (...) add ontological sources of agency to these dynamics which interact with habit, imagination, judgement and learning in the transformation of social systems. This approach underpins our model ‘Dynamic Interactions of Agency in Leadership’ , an integrative framework for analysing agency in sustainability leadership. We examine the efficacy of our framework in higher education initiatives in which sustainability aspirations, aims and actions are envisioned, articulated and mobilised. We conclude by offering further avenues of research in sustainability leadership designed to advance this burgeoning field and contribute to bridging the gap between sustainability challenges and our abilities to solve them. (shrink)

This article argues that abstract knowledge in the form of formally developed theory plays an increasingly important role in the economy and in financial innovation in particular.knowledge is easily reified, and this is an aspect of knowledge work that is insufficiently researched. In this article, we problematize reification of abstract knowledge in financial innovation from wisdom, ethics, and social network analysis perspectives. This article, therefore, considers the composition and structures of financial innovation networks that help avoid reification by building ethicality (...) through social practice wisdom. Finally, we discuss future directions that empirical ethics research can take. (shrink)

Business scholars have recently proposed that the virtue of personal wisdom may predict leadership behaviors and the quality of leader–follower relationships. This study investigated relationships among leaders’ personal wisdom—defined as the integration of advanced cognitive, reflective, and affective personality characteristics (Ardelt, Hum Dev 47:257–285, 2004)—transformational leadership behaviors, and leader–member exchange (LMX) quality. It was hypothesized that leaders’ personal wisdom positively predicts LMX quality and that intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration, two dimensions of transformational leadership, mediate this relationship. Data came from (...) 75 religious leaders and 1–3 employees of each leader (N = 158). Results showed that leaders’ personal wisdom had a positive indirect effect on follower ratings of LMX quality through individualized consideration, even after controlling for Big Five personality traits, emotional intelligence, and narcissism. In contrast, intellectual stimulation and the other two dimensions of transformational leadership (idealized influence and inspirational motivation) did not mediate the positive relationship between leaders’ personal wisdom and LMX quality. Implications for future research on personal wisdom and leadership are discussed, and some tentative suggestions for leadership development are outlined. (shrink)

Western economically driven instrumental ethics fuel the dominant institutional logic in many business schools and are associated with the negative social and environmental situation widely linked to the mode of global development. Other ethical framings have been subordinated, marginalized, or denied. Through the explicit commitment of prominent international certifying bodies of management education, educators, researchers, and practitioners will be encouraged to give increasing effect to the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The PRME is a United Nations‐led, institution‐level mechanism for (...) reorienting the direction of business schools and for increasing both educator and student capacities to contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable mode of development globally. We propose greater emphasis be given to various forms of relational ethics from which to guide the functional aspirations of institutions. We explore the creative opportunity for institutional change by contrasting the prevailing Western economically driven instrumental institutional logic with indigenous ethical framings. We draw upon Seo and Creed's conceptual framework of institutional change to discuss two films—Mann v. Ford and Waste = Food—to bring greater attention to the generative potential of indigenous perspectives in institutional praxis. Our examples could equally invite an application of other systems of relational ethics that have been overshadowed by the current domination of economic instrumentalism in almost all realms of decision making. We conclude by providing some teaching resources that can be used or adapted for geographical‐ or disciplinary‐specific attention to the issues we raise. (shrink)

The premise of this paper is that the fear of foolishness is essential to wisdom. Unfortunately, leaders are often conditioned to suppress fear in favor of confidence. However, wise leaders fear foolishness while foolish leaders are fearless. Leaders fall into traps and hit walls that result in fallacies. It is the recognition of these fallacies and the fear of their consequences that compel leaders to seek wisdom. This paper relies on protection motivation theory, the balance theory of wisdom, the imbalance (...) theory of foolishness, and the WICS model of leadership to caution leaders of foolishness so that wisdom can be developed. Specifically, the fear of foolishness is proposed as the motivating factor for the pursuit of wisdom. In doing so, the literatures of wisdom and fear are reviewed and the appraisal process of the fear of foolishness and the coping mechanisms to address foolishness are elaborated on. The protection motivation of the fear of foolishness can fundamentally change leader behaviors and attitudes for the sake of wisdom and individual, organizational, and societal well-being. (shrink)

This study contextualizes business leaders’ perspectives on business-society interaction through the theoretical lens of wisdom. Morally effective interaction between business and society relies on shared perceptions of expected values grounded in leaders’ virtuous behavior. Through empirical fieldwork across industries in a developing society, the article documents how local business leaders perceive wise leadership in dealing with socially complex problems. Using grounded theory, we inductively developed a model of wisdom, executive wisdom, that identifies 14 characteristics of wisdom, located in three groups: (...) technē, wise decisions, and virtuous disposition. The findings broaden the view of the complex nature of wise decision-making in the business-society context. (shrink)