This article intends to define a Global Spirituality Index with a holistic perspective and attempts to look at some socio-economic indicators of Spirituality. It also attempts to find a relationship between crimes, such as perceived levels of corruption and violence such as homicides, and various aspects of Spirituality.

The purpose of this research is to extend prior research testing the premise that small deviations from ethical behavior lead to even larger deviations from ethical behavior. This study examines the association between a person’s willingness to bribe a police officer to avoid being issued a speeding ticket with their views on inappropriate behavior of corporate executives. Our sample of 528 participants comes from Colombia (90), Ecuador (70), South Africa (131) and the United States (237). As part of our data (...) gathering, we controlled for social desirability response bias in the responses of the students who participated in our study. Our data indicate significant differences between the views of the students from Colombia, Ecuador, and South Africa when compared to the views of the students from the United States. The analysis indicates that, for all four dilemmas, the most significant variable was the belief about how ethical it was to pay a bribe to avoid a traffic ticket. In addition, in three of our four dilemmas, Paulhus’ Impression Management Subscale, which measures social desirability response bias, was the second most significant variable. Finally, in three of the four dilemmas, the students from Colombia, Ecuador and South Africa thought the actions described in the dilemmas were less ethical than the students from the United States. (shrink)

The goal of this study was to introduce a model explaining how managers' attitudes, subjective norms, attributions, and the individualism-collectivism cultural dimension affect the way managers' deal with employee bribery in organizations. Twenty-six internal and external attributions related to bribery were identified through a series of structured interviews with 65 subject matter experts. These attributions, together with the other variables in the model, were evaluated by 354 Ecuadorian managers. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that attitudes and external attributions significantly predicted managers' (...) intentions to discipline employees who accepted a bribe. In addition, external attributions mediated the relationship between individualism-collectivism and intent to discipline corrupt employees. Implications for the management of bribery in Latin American organizations are discussed. (shrink)

Rankings of countries by perceived corruption have emerged over the past decade as leading indicators of governance and development. Designed to highlight countries that are known to be corrupt, their objective is to encourage transparency and good governance. High rankings on corruption, it is argued, will serve as a strong incentive for reform. The practice of ranking and labeling countries "corrupt," however, may have a perverse effect. Consistent with Social Labeling Theory, we argue that perceptual indices can encourage the loss (...) of needed investment and, thus, contribute to higher rates of corruption within unfavorably ranked countries. In effect, corruption indices may inhibit foreign direct investment, the effect of which is to encourage the status quo in terms of corruption ranking. Using an experimental study design, we test the effects of country corruption rankings on the assessment of country investment desirability and find ranking exposure causes shifts in country investment desirability for 10 of 12 countries studied. These findings suggest that corruption rankings, which are based on perceptions of corruption, may cause country isolation and a reduction in legitimate means of investment. (shrink)

The globalizations of capital markets in the last 20 years has led to a historic degree of financial integration in the world. It is clear, however, that globalization is not conducive to a complete homogeneity of financial markets and institutions. Among others, one element of diversity is the importance of the impact of corruption in emerging countries. Corruption decreases the credibility of financial institutions and markets. Scandals and unethical behavior in financial institutions erode confidence in such firms. Relying on neoinstitutional (...) literature, this article focuses on the link between corruption and organizational isomorphism in financial institutions in emerging countries. Therefore, our aim is to examine the institutional reasons for corruption in financial institutions in emerging countries. Our structural equation model is based on empirical research in financial institutions in emerging countries. A questionnaire was administrated to 70 top executives of financial institutions in 18 different emerging countries. (shrink)

Based on neo-institutional literature, this article aims to show the influence of organizational isomorphism on corruption. The focus is institutional explanations of corruption. Our model is based on empirical research in Russia at the end of the 1990s. A face-to-face questionnaire was conducted with 552 top executives in private firms across various economic sectors. We used the structural equation model Partial Least Squares, PLS, technique to test our hypotheses. The developed model provides an integrated approach to the study of the (...) relationship between corruption and organizational isomorphism. Our empirical data from firms in Russia allowed us to test various theoretical hypotheses concerning the influence of organizational isomorphism on corruption. Our emphasis is on the influence of competitive and institutional isomorphism on corruption. (shrink)

With the expansion of multinational corporations (MNCs), the alarming upsurge in widely publicized and notable corporate scandals involving MNCs in emerging markets has begun to draw both academic and managerial attention to look beyond home market practices to the pressing concern of CSR in emerging markets. Previous studies on CSR have focused primarily on Western markets, reserving limited discussions in addressing the issue of MNC attitudes and CSR practices in their emerging host markets abroad. Despite this incongruity in academic response (...) to CSR in emerging markets, managers of multinational companies continue to face mounting and most often conflicting pressures to weigh among multiple strategic CSR responses in emerging markets. Such a task is often further complicated by the complexity of varying business norms and standards, regulatory environments, and stakeholder demands for CSR across national boundaries. With such a challenge in mind, I attempt to examine the explanatory factors in leading MNCs, otherwise recognized for accountability and integrity in their home markets, to employ inconsistent or negligent practices under CSR pressure in Chinese emerging economy. Preliminary findings reveal that discrepancies exist in how MNCs perform in CSR in home countries versus in host countries. While MNCs do have much to improve, the institutional environment in the emerging market, including the legal framework and the ethical culture, also needs to be improved by the host country governments, the industry associations, and local firms. Meanwhile, media interest and journalists, NGOs, third party monitors, industry stakeholders as well as consumer advocacy groups can raise the visibility of MNC's contradictory practices between their origin nations and countries with emerging economies and offer the pressures and incentives for MNCs to amend their ethical short-comings. This article also suggests implications for both theory and practice. (shrink)

The cross-cultural literature is reviewed and integrated together with attitude theories, thereby outlining a model through which certain values influence the intervening variables that ultimately lead managers to tolerate employee bribery. The case of Latin America is employed to illustrate how regionally dominant cultural values may shape managers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control, which in turn affect tolerance of employee bribery. A series of research propositions and practical recommendations are derived from the model.

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for constructing a diffusion index of changes in overall perceptions with respect to corruption. The corruption diffusion index we construct lies between 0 (the greatest overall deterioration in corruption perceptions) and 100 (the greatest overall improvement in corruption perceptions) with 50 (no change in corruption perceptions) as the critical reference. The proposed methodology is applied to the 2010/2011 global corruption barometer survey data. Possible refinements of the proposed methodology to capture the potentially (...) multi-dimensional nature of corruption and the practical challenges associated with the empirical implementation are discussed. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

This article studies the effects of social institutions on organizational corruption at the societal level by focusing on the possible interactions between the institutional pillars that have been identified in past research. Based on these three institutional aspects or pillars, this article tests the interactive effects of social institutions among societies throughout the world. The results suggest that the three institutional pillars have significant interactive effects on organizational corruption at the societal level. A discussion of the implications of the research (...) findings for researchers and practitioners is given. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze representations of scholarly output for the purpose of identifying corrupt practices. Accordingly, the components of output—price, quantity, and time—are examined. A key part of the analysis is recognizing the unique role that the scholarly community plays in scholarship and the implications this has for the roles of groups other than the scholarly community. Finally, a survey of students indicates that particular representations of scholarly output are viewed by students as unethical.

Frequent and open interaction between venture capitalists and entrepreneurs is necessary for venture capital investments to occur. Increasingly, these investments are made across jurisdictions. The vast majority of these cross-border investments are carried out in a syndicate of two or more VCs, indicating the effects of intra-industry networks needing further analysis. Using China as a model, we provide a novel multidimensional framework to explain cross-border investments in innovative ventures across developed and emerging economies. By analyzing a unique international dataset, we (...) examine worldwide venture capital investment flows from 2000–2012 and consider the effects of geographical, cultural, and institutional proximity as well as institutional and relational trust. We find trust to mitigate the negative effects of geographical and cultural distance, where institutional trust is more relevant for investments in emerging economies, and relational trust is more relevant for investments in developed economies. (shrink)

Does national success with an emerging technology require ethical sacrifices? This question is considered through the simultaneous consideration of ethics, investment, and outcomes in the nine jurisdictions that are making the largest investments in nanotechnologies—an important emerging technology. It is found that while ethical environment has no notable effect on pure and applied research, a more positive ethical environment is associated with measures associated with invention and commercialization. In summary, a race-to-the-top supports invention and commercialization of emerging technologies. A critical (...) finding as it suggests that issues such as corruption and regulation could be critical in limiting the extraction of social and economic benefit from emerging technologies (like nanotechnologies). (shrink)

An increasing number of global policy regimes are intended to influence international business practices, but their effectiveness is uncertain. This article presents a conceptual framework for understanding the effectiveness of regimes, with seven propositions. The case of the evolving global anticorruption regime is described and used to test the propositions. Two key conclusions are (a) the difficulty of the problem being addressed is a key factor in limiting regime effectiveness and (b) this problem, as well as others, can be addressed (...) in part by careful development of formal regime policies. Implications for scholarship and practice are presented. (shrink)

This paper extends the discussion of business ethics by examining the issue of corruption, its definition, the solutions being proposed for dealing with it, and the ethical perspectives underpinning these proposals. The paper’s findings are based on a review of association, think-tank, and academic reports, books, and papers dealing with the topic of corruption, as well as the pronouncements, websites, and position papers of a number of important global organizations active in the fight. These organizations include the World Bank, the (...) International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Transparency International, USAID, the United Nations, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. Our discussion departs from prior analyses by adopting a Foucaultian theoretical framing and by incorporating insights found in the virtue ethics literature. Implications are provided for international business organizations. (shrink)

Based on a questionnaire survey, this study is the first to systematically focus on Mongolian managers' perceptions of BE. As such, this paper (1) examines Mongolian managers' views of BE, (2) compares BE perceptions in Mongolia to those in the USA, Japan and Korea, and (3) identifies differences and similarities between the four national groups. We find that unethical practices exist and are quite common in Mongolia, where nearly half of the respondents have experienced ethical conflicts during their career. These (...) conflicts mostly arose in relation to respondents' superiors and colleagues and were related to fairness or discrimination. The results indicate that in their (un)ethical decision-making, Mongolian mangers are situational, but also place importance on the behaviour of their superiors. Finally, situational questions revealed that unlike respondents from the other three national groups, Mongolian managers do not see a significant difference between their own BE attitudes and those of an average manager. (shrink)