Abstract
The recent crisis in a prominent German car manufacturer generated by unethical leadership practices has brought into sharp focus, once again, the need for radical and fundamental ethical transformation among members of capitalism’s leadership elite. The divide between ethics and business needs to be closed and to do this effectively in a globalized world, cross-cultural aspects of moral sentiment need to be better understood. The current paper contributes to the extant literature in this regard by describing and analyzing cross-cultural aspects of German and South African student’s ‘sympathy’ towards business ethical phenomena, using Adam Smith’s ‘Theory of Moral Sentiment’ as a theoretical framework and qualitative methods. The paper constructs a heuristic device based on Adam Smith’s theoretical framework and then proceeds to empirically analyze the theory by investigating German and South African student moral sentiments towards specific ethical leadership behaviors. The study indicates that while there is general cross-cultural homogeneity in moral approbation among students for fundamental aspects of ethical leadership behavior, nuanced custom-based differences emerge from the qualitative analysis. Following Adam Smith, fine grained differences in moral sentiment arising from ‘custom’ are evident. Thus, although ethicality of specific leadership behavior is found to be viewed similarly by both groups of students, significant nuanced differences arise in German students who emphasize intellectual autonomy over the conservatism favored by their South African counterparts. Practical aspects of these findings are briefly discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker, J. L., & Sengupta, J. (2000). Additivity versus attenuation: The role of culture in the resolution of information incongruity. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 9, 67–82.
Broom, A., & Willis, E. (2007). Competing paradigms and health research. In M. Saks & J. Allsop (Eds.), Researching health: Qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. London: Sage.
Brown, M. E., Trevino, L. K., & Harrison, D. A. (2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117–134.
Bryman, A. (2008). Social research methods. London: Oxford University Press.
Cozma, I. F. (2011). The relation between globalization and personal values across 53 countries and 28 years. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Tennessee. Retrieved October 15, 2014, from http://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/1175.
Cresswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative inquiry and research design choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Draucker, C. B., Martsolf, D. S., Ratchneewan, R., & Rusk, T. B. (2007). Theoretical sampling and category development in grounded theory. Qualitative Health Research, 17(8), 1137–1148.
Economist. (2015). Dirty secrets. September 28–30.
Elo, S., Kääriäinen, M., Kanste, O., Pölkki. T., Utriainen, T., & Kyngäs, H. (2014). Qualitative content analysis: A focus on trustworthiness. Sage Open January–March, 1–10.
Eyles, C. (2009). A grounded theory study of homeopathic practitioners’ perceptions and experiences of the homeopathic consultation. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, University of Southampton.
Ferber, R. (1977). Research by convenience. Journal of Consumer Research, 4, 57–58.
Gelfand, M. J., Bhawuk, D. P. S., Nishii, L. H., & Bechtold, D. J. (2004). Individualism and collectivism. In R. J. House, P. J. Hanges, M. Javidan, P. W. Dorfman, & V. Gupta (Eds.), Culture, leadership, and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Ghauri, P., & Gronhaug, K. (2002). Research methods in business studies: A practical guide. London: Pearson.
Hardcourt, W. (2014). The future of capitalism: A consideration of alternatives. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 38, 1307–1328.
Higginbottom, G. M. (2004). Sampling issues in qualitative research. Nurse Researcher, 12, 7–19.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences: International differences in work related values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture’s consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions, and organizations across nations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
House, R. J., Hanges, P. M., Javidan, M., Dorfman, P., & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, leadership and organizations: The GLOBEStudy of 62 societies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Inglehart, R. (1990). Cultural change in advanced industrial societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kam, C. D., Wilking, J. R., & Zechmeister, E. J. (2007). Beyond the “Narrow Data Base”: Another convenience sample for experimental research. Political Behavior, 29(4), 415–440.
Kirkman, B. I., Lowe, K. B., & Gibson, C. B. (2006). A quarter century of culture’s consequences: A review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede’s cultural values framework. Journal of International Business Studies, 37(3), 285–320.
Kyngäs, H., Elo, S., Pölkki, T., Kääriäinen, M., & Kanste, O. (2011). Sisällönanalyysi suomalaisessa hoitotieteellisessä tutkimuksessa (The use of content analysis in Finnish nursing science research). Hoitotiede, 23(2), 138–148.
LeCompte, M. D., & Goetz, J. P. (1982). Problems of reliability and validity in ethnographic research. Journal of Educational Research, 52, 31–60.
Lucas, J. W. (2003). Theory-testing, generalization, and the problem of external validity. Sociological Theory, 21, 236–253.
Lynch, J. G, Jr. (1982). On the external validity of experiments in consumer research. Journal of Consumer Research, 9, 225–239.
Marshall, C., & Rossman, G. B. (1995). Designing qualitative research. London: Sage.
McWilliams, A., & Siegel, D. (2001). Corporate social responsibility: A theory of the firm perspective’. Academy of Management Review, 26(1), 117–227.
McWilliams, A., Siegel, D., & Wright, P. M. (2006). Corporate social responsibility: Strategic implications. Journal of Management Studies, 43(1), 1–18.
Mencl, J., & May, D. R. (2009). The effects of proximity and empathy on ethical decision making: An exploratory investigation. Journal of Business Ethics, 85, 201–226.
Merriam-Webster. (2014). The free dictionary. Retrieved October 10, 2014, from http://www.merriam-ebster.com/dictionary/culture.
Mook, D. G. (1983). In defense of external invalidity. American Psychologist, 38, 379–387.
Morse, J. M. (2007). Sampling in grounded theory. In A. Bryant & K. Charmaz (Eds.), The Sage handbook of grounded theory. London: Sage.
Peterson, R. A., & Merunka, D. R. (2014). Convenience samples of college students and research reproducibility. Journal of Business Research, 67, 1035–1041.
Polit, D. F., & Beck, C. T. (2012). Nursing research: Generating and assessing evidence for nursing practice. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Quazi, A. M., & O’Brien, D. (2000). An empirical test of a cross-national model of corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(1), 33–51.
Ralston, D. A., Egri, C. P., Furrer, O., Kuo, M.-H., Li, Y., Wangenheim, F., et al. (2014). Societal-level versus individual-level predictions of ethical behavior: A 48-society study of collectivism and individualism. Journal of Business Ethics, 122, 282–306.
Rubin, A., & Babbie, E. R. (2009). Research methods for social work (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Books/Cole, Cengage Learning.
Rubin, H., & Rubin, I. (2005). Qualitative interviewing: The art of hearing data (2nd ed.). London: Sage.
Senge, P. M. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and craft of the learning organization. New York: Random House.
Smith, A. (1759 [1976]). The theory of moral sentiments (A. L. Macfie & D. D. Raphael, Eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Steel, P., & Taras, V. (2010). Culture as a consequence: A multi-level multivariate meta-analysis of the effects of individual and country characteristics on work-related cultural values. Journal of International Management, 16, 211–233.
Streiner, D. L., & Norman, G. R. (1989). Health measurement scales: A practical guide to their development and use. New York: Oxford University Press.
Strobel, M., Tumasjan, A., & Welpe, I. (2010). Do business ethics pay off? The influence of ethical leadership on organizational attractiveness. Journal of Psychology, 218(4), 213–224.
Swartz, S. H. (1999). A theory of cultural values and some implications for work. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 48(1), 23–47.
Szmigin, I., & Rutherford, R. (2013). Shared value and the impartial spectator test. Journal of Business Ethics, 114, 171–182.
Thyer, B. A. (2001). Reliability and validity in qualitative research. In The handbook of social work research methods (pp. 273–293). Sage (Online). Retrieved August 5, 2012, from http://srmo.sagepub.com/downloadsmodoc.form.
Triandis, H. C. (1990). Cross-cultural studies of individualism and collectivism. In J. Berman (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation, 1989 (pp. 41–133). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Waldman, D. A., Sully de Luque, M., Washburn, N. T., & House, R. J. (2006). Cultural and leadership predictors of corporate social responsibility values of top management: A GLOBE study of 15 countries. Journal of International Business Studies, 37, 823–837.
Werhane, P. H. (1991). Adam Smith and his legacy for modern capitalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the Editor, Dr. D. Poff, for her helpful suggestions in improving the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Coldwell, D.A.L. Custom and Moral Sentiment: Cross-Cultural Aspects of Postgraduate Student Perceptions of Leadership Ethicality. J Bus Ethics 145, 201–213 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2951-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2951-3