As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case of Egypt illustrates some (...) divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

In spite of a renewed interest in the relationship between spirituality and managerial thinking, the literature covering the link between Islam and management has been sparse – especially in the area of ethics. One potential reason may be the cultural diversity of nearly 1.3 billion Muslims globally. Yet, one common element binding Muslim individuals and countries is normative Islam. Using all four sources of this religion’s teachings, we outline the parameters of an Islamic model of normative business ethics. We explain (...) how this ethics model seeks to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders, and discuss its enforcement mechanisms. This Islamic approach to business ethics is centered around criteria that are in common with stakeholder theory such as justice and balance, and includes unique additional criteria such as trust and benevolence. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has generally been recognized as corporate pro-social behavior aimed at remediating social issues external to organizations, while political CSR has acknowledged the political nature of such activity beyond social aims. Despite the growth of this literature, there is still little attention given to gender as the starting point for a conversation on CSR, ethics, and the Global South. Deploying critical insights from feminist work in postcolonial traditions, I outline how MNCs replicate gendered neocolonialist discourses and perpetuate exploitative (...) material dependences between Global North/south through CSR activities. Specifically, I address issues of neocolonial relations, subaltern agency, and ethics in the context of gendered global division of labor through the exemplar of Rana Plaza and its aftermath. In all, I offer new directions for CSR scholarship by attending to the intersections of gender, ethics, and responsibility as they relate to corporate actions in the Global South. (shrink)

Research on economic inequality has largely focused on understanding the relationship between organizations and inequality but has paid limited attention to the role of institutions in the creation and maintenance of inequality. In this article, we use insights from the caste system—an institution that perpetuates socio-economic inequalities and limits human functions—to elaborate on three elements of economic inequality: uneven dispersions in resource endowments, uneven access to productive resources and opportunities, and uneven rewards to resource contributions. We argue that economic inequalities (...) persist because these three different elements of inequality feed from and reinforce each other. Our study underscores the potential of the caste lens to inform research on economic inequality as well as organizational theory and practice. (shrink)

Income inequality in the US has now reached levels not seen since the 1920s. Management, as a field of scholarly inquiry, has the potential to contribute in significant ways to our understanding of recent inequality trends. We review and assess recent research, both in the management literature and in other fields. We then delineate a conceptual framework that highlights the mechanisms through which business practice may be linked to income inequality. We then outline four general areas in which management scholars (...) are uniquely positioned to contribute to ongoing research: data and description, organizational dynamics, collective action, and value flows and tradeoffs. To stimulate future research, we highlight a number of relevant research questions and link these questions to existing management research streams that could be leveraged to address them. (shrink)

We argue that there is a neo-colonial knowledge regime operating in business ethics. This knowledge regime engages in systematic epistemic violence of exclusion and distortion against indigenous alternative knowledge formations from the Global South. Thus, the question posed for the business ethics field from a critical perspective is how to ethically respond and challenge this situation of power and domination. We propose the idea of epistemic healing as an ethical critical response for reversing epistemic violence in business ethics. Epistemic healing (...) requires identifying and then calling back to the center of discussion in business ethics knowledge traditions of the other that it has excluded and made peripheral. We illustrate this principle of epistemic healing in the context of Islamic business ethics given that it contains epistemic violence against Islam, particularly Sufism, an important knowledge tradition of the Muslim other from the Global South. Breaking silence on the neocolonial knowledge regime operating in the construction of business ethics, introducing the concept of epistemic healing, and illustrating the latter’s fecundity in advancing debate in business ethics while also helping reverse the field’s epistemic violence against alternative knowledge commitments and resources of the other from the Global South are the important contributions of this paper. (shrink)

This study examines the effect of directors’ human and social capital on the level of corporate social responsibility disclosures by drawing on insights from a resource-based view. It also investigates the effect of chief executive officer power on this relationship. Data were obtained from annual reports of companies listed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange in Bangladesh from 2005 to 2013. We employ outside directors’ experiences and expertise as a proxy for board capital and measure CEO power using a ‘power index’ (...) that comprises CEO duality, ownership, tenure and family CEO status. Results show that board capital is positively associated with CSR disclosure levels; however, CEO power is negatively associated with CSR disclosures and reduces the effect of board capital on CSR disclosures. Thus, we conclude that although board capital can improve CSR practices, CEO power can also inhibit these practices. (shrink)

Currently, an emphasis is being placed on the integration of ethical issues into the business curriculum. This paper investigates the viability of using student group interaction to induce an upward movement in the stages of moral development as advanced by Kohlberg. The results of a classroom experiment using graduate business law students suggest that formulating groups that mix stages of moral development can provide a robust environment for upward movement. In addition, the results suggest strategies for formulating effective groups, based (...) upon entry levels as measured by the Defining Issues Test. (shrink)

Ethical considerations, especially those religiously driven, play a significant role in shaping business conduct and priorities. Profit levels and earnings constitute an integral part of business considerations and are relevant and closely linked to prevailing ethics. In this paper, Islamic prescriptions on profit maximization are introduced. Islamic business ethics are outlined as well. It is suggested that while Islamic teaching treats profits as reward for engaging in vital activities necessary for serving societal interests, profit maximization is not sanctioned and therefore (...) should not be the goal of ethically guided business ventures. (shrink)

Based on case studies and qualitative interviews conducted with 40 stakeholders in five SMEs, or so called Anatolian tigers, in Turkey, this article has explored what collective spirituality and Turkish Islamic business ethics entail and how they shape organizational values using diverse stakeholder perspectives. The study has revealed six emergent discourses around collective spirituality and Islamic business ethics: Flying with both wings; striving to transcend egos; being devoted to each other; treating people as whole persons; upholding an ethics of compassion; (...) and leaving a legacy for future generations. These discourses are organized around three themes of collective spirituality, respectively: Transcendence, connectedness, and virtuousness. (shrink)

The paper develops a critique of the prevailing essentialist and homogenizing approach to business ethics that dominates the field with regard to Islam and proposes a constructivist perspective to the study of religion. It demonstrates the possibilities of this approach with the study of hizmet, a community business network from Turkey that has established itself in over 130 countries over the last 20 years. The implications for business ethics from the study of this movement is that the notion of corporate (...) social responsibility needs to be adjusted in order to accommodate the hizmet approach but that there are limits to this adjustment due to gender and labor rights considerations. The paper sees itself as a contribution to an alternative approach for Islamic business ethics very much in need of further development and encourages further research along these lines. (shrink)

This article examines the contribution of one Islamic scholar, Fetullah Gülen to the debate about the meaning and practice of responsibility. It analyses Gülen’s thinking in terms of three inter-connected modes of responsibility: relational accountability, moral agency and liability. This view of responsibility is contrasted with major western philosophers such as Levinas, Buber and Jonas, Islamic tradition and the major views about corporate responsibility, including stakeholder theory. The role of dialogue in embodying the three modes of responsibility is then analysed. (...) The social responsibility practice of business leaders who are part of Gülen’s Hizmet Movement is briefly surveyed to illustrate the embodiment of responsibility. This focuses on the contribution of business to education and peace building, and includes the example of Zaman Daily. (shrink)

The expropriation of marginalized women’s labor is a key issue in business ethics in these times of global outsourcing and informal work arrangements. This has led to a transnational advocacy movement for securing the labor rights of homeworkers, who are poor women working on piece-rate contracts out of their homes. Drawing on materialist feminism, our paper critically explores the homeworker network in Pakistan, that was set up as part of a global push by international institutions and networks to localize the (...) issue across geographies. Our focus is the national women’s NGO that leads advocacy efforts on the issue in the country and its relationship with other actors. Through fieldwork spanning 3 years we find that the network employs a top-down ‘us versus them’ approach in advocacy and mobilization. The race-to-the-bottom between the network’s national and district-level actors for donor funding further undermines prospects for developing indigenous narratives of resistance. The network, while mission bound to enhance the collective agency of its constituency, has depoliticized what should have been a class-based feminist struggle. From a materialist perspective, we conclude that the NGOized network rests upon and feeds off of its constituency, creating an additional layer of primitive accumulation over the workers it represents. (shrink)

International marketing practices, embedded in a strong ethical doctrine, can play a vital role in raising the standards of business conduct worldwide, while in no way compromising the quality of services or products offered to customers, or surrendering the profit margins of businesses. Adherence to such ethical practices can help to elevate the standards of behavior and thus of living, of traders and consumers alike. Against this background, this paper endeavors to identify the salient features of the Islamic framework of (...) International Marketing Ethics. In particular, it highlights the capabilities and strengths of this framework in creating and sustaining a strong ethical international marketing culture. At the heart of Islamic marketing is the principle of value-maximization based on equity and justice (constituting just dealing and fair play) for the wider welfare of the society. Selected key international marketing issues are examined from an Islamic perspective which, it is argued, if adhered to, can help to create a value-loaded global ethical marketing framework for MNCs in general, and establish harmony and meaningful cooperation between international marketers and Muslim target markets in particular. (shrink)