Ethics are of interest to business scholars because they influence decisions, behaviors, and outcomes. While scholars have increasingly shown interest in business ethics as a research topic, there are a mounting number of studies that examine ethical issues at the organizational level of analysis. This manuscript reports the results of a systematic review of empirical research on organizational ethics published in a broad sample of business journals over a 33-year period. A total of 184 articles are analyzed to reveal gaps (...) in the literature and, subsequently, lead to suggestions for future research; this is done in an effort to stimulate and perpetuate high quality research that more broadly impacts business scholars and practitioners. (shrink)

Innovation ecosystems are formed by interconnected firms that coalesce in interdependent networks to jointly create value. Such ecosystems rely on the norm of reciprocity—the give-and-take ethos of sharing knowledge-based resources. It is well established that an ecosystem firm can increase its competitive advantage by increasing interconnectedness with partners. However, much research has focused heavily on the positive role of inbound openness or ‘taking’ resources from ecosystem partners. The positive role of outbound openness or ‘giving’ resources to ecosystem partners remained less (...) explored and often misunderstood as eroding competitive advantage. We address this gap by first developing a conceptual model about the mediating role of inbound openness and outbound openness in the relationship between a firm’s ecosystem interconnectedness and competitive advantage. We then test this model on a large sample (_n_ = 794 managers) from Silicon Valley (USA) and Macquarie Business Park (Australia). Results indicate that outbound openness is a more important mediator than inbound openness for ecosystem firms seeking competitive advantage. Our findings suggest that the effect of outbound openness goes beyond merely generating tit-for-tat reciprocity to generating strategic benefits in their own right. The study adds to knowledge about the ethics of innovation ecosystems by showing that outbound openness to partners improves competitive advantage. Ecosystem firms, thus, do well by doing good when they increase their outbound openness. (shrink)

Purpose of the article Knowledge has been considered as the strategic assets and become the source of competitive advantage in organizations. Knowledge management thus receives the extraordinary attention from the top management. Many organizational factors have influences on knowledge management practices. This paper attempts to explore the empirical relationship between knowledge management and organizational culture in the specific situation of China’s commercial banking industry. Methodology/methods The relationship between knowledge management and organizational culture is quantitatively investigated by surveying bank managers. The (...) scale of SECI modes is used to measure knowledge management process and the scale of Denison Organizational Culture Survey is used to measure organizational culture. We explore the underlying relationship by employing the statistical analyses such as correlation, regression and structural equation modeling. Scientific aim The research aims at testing the relationship between knowledge management and organizational culture, and furthermore if there exist linkages between cultural traits and SECI modes. Findings The results of the empirical study confirm the great and positive effect that organizational culture has on knowledge management. Different cultural traits contribute to different SECI modes. Conclusions For obtaining successful knowledge management practices in organizations, it is better to concern about the relationship between knowledge management and organizational culture. The limitation in the paper is the sampling size, which will be solved by an industry-wide survey in our future research. (shrink)

Using a sample of multinational firms in Germany, we develop and empirically examine a model to test the effects of ethical climate and its antecedents on purchasing social responsibility (PSR). Our results show different effects of benevolence dimensions of ethical climate on PSR: employee-focused climate has no effect, but community-focused climate is a significant driver of PSR. The results also show that top management ethical norms and code of conduct implementation impact PSR directly as well as indirectly through ethical climate.