Editorial: Green banking, spirituality and ethics in organizations, and social banking and economics

Citation

Rendtorff, J.D. (2024), "Editorial: Green banking, spirituality and ethics in organizations, and social banking and economics", International Journal of Ethics and Systems, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 453-455. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOES-08-2024-322

Welcome to Issue 40.3 of the International Journal of Ethics and Systems. In this issue, we are happy to present articles about green banking and economics, spirituality and ethics in organizations and on Islamic banking and social economics. Contributions come from many different countries, including Pakistan, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, Germany, Vietnam, India, Malaysia and the USA.

A contribution from Pakistan addresses the efforts of environmentally responsible banks to focus on green banking in favor of customers. With environmental crisis including pollution and global warming, it is important that banks improve business ethics with green banking. This research demonstrates the importance of consumer-related activities regarding trust and legitimacy of green initiatives in banking. The paper is based on data gathered from interviews with banking personnel, analyzed through complex quantitative methodology. The research outcome is that consumer green trust, as well as perceived quality and satisfaction is very important for the environmental legitimacy of green banking. Thus, dialogue with consumers and clients is essential for development of green banking.

A study from Indonesia also demonstrates the importance of green banking practices to perceive trust, value and satisfaction. In Islamic banking it is important to develop a concern for green banking to follow the spirit of Islamic economics and ethics. When there is increased perceived value and satisfaction, there is a strong increase in credibility and legitimacy of banking. The method was structural equation modeling. The results of this research were that green banking improves customer loyalty and satisfaction and that customers highly value green banking as important in the Islamic banking industry.

A research contribution concerning the relation between rural tourism and environmental change in the context of native societies in South Africa focuses on leadership in developing alternative and responsible tourism and ecotourism for sustainable communities. This research is based on document analysis, reading of narrative literature, qualitative interviews and focus groups with concentration on topics of tourism in the age of ecological concern and climate change. The article proposes responsible and sustainable tourism as important for avoiding environmental damage, destruction of nature and other effects of irresponsible tourism. Thus, the article promotes creative and sustainable tourism that focusses on ethical responsibility and respect for nature and biodiversity.

A contribution with authors from Turkey and Germany discusses the possibility of a heterodox economic and Islamic economic alternative in relation to the destruction of the environment in main-stream economics. Since mainstream economics takes economic growth as its main objective, it has difficulties with a friendly relation to the environment. In contrast to this, heterodox economics and Islamic economics contain alternative conceptions of the relation to the environment, which may help to solve the economic problems of the environmental crisis. Based on literature review and theoretical research on environmental economics with regards to respect for the planet, the authors propose a new model of economics based on heterodox and Islamic economics. This approach integrates social and ecological justice in the dealing with the environment and the future of the planet. With this it goes critically beyond the market focus on individual economic rationality in mainstream economics. It turns out that Islamic economics has many elements of heterodox economic thinking that can help to give direction to sustainable development beyond mainstream concepts of economic growth.

From the ethics of environmental business and economics we turn toward discussions of spirituality and ethics in leadership and management. A study from Vietnam discusses the role of karmic beliefs in social entrepreneurship. Karmic beliefs are related to ethics and morals and have been integrated in leadership studies, but there is little research on the role of karmic beliefs in social entrepreneurship. The paper is based on sample research on university students from Vietnam with entrepreneurial intentions. It turns out that karmic beliefs are important as foundations of ethics in social entrepreneurship. Individual entrepreneurs who have karmic beliefs are much more ethically mature with empathy, moral engagement and involvement. Therefore, karmic beliefs are essential for ethics of entrepreneurship, and it is important to have active karmic beliefs in ethical reflections on social entrepreneurship.

The value of spiritual leadership for organizational culture can be demonstrated by a study of spiritual leadership, interpersonal justice and voice behavior in relation to employee’ commitment to stay in organizations. A study from India investigates the role of spiritual leadership in facilitating the intention to stay of employees in the organization. It turns out that spiritual leadership contributes to a sense of motivation and interpersonal justice among employees. This research was based on a questionnaire to frontline employees in the tourism and hospitality industry in India. The results were that spiritual leadership had a very good impact on the wellbeing of the employees in terms of voice and interpersonal justice. Thus, spiritual leadership has a very good impact on the ethical culture of organizations.

Spirituality and well-being in organizations can also be analyzed through the lens of a stimulus–organism–response framework. This is the topic of an empirical study from India. Here the aim is to look of the spirituality in the e-service quality. The study investigated customer behavioral intention to uphold services through perception of the quality of the services. With the methodology of stimulus-response research the study provided an integrated framework to look at the e-satisfaction between the moderator and the customer. The results of this research were that an important factor of satisfaction with e-services was focus on spirituality and well-being. E-service quality can be developed through the establishment of a high stage of spirituality and well-being among customers. This insight is important for managers dealing with e-services.

Somewhat following up on the discussion of spirituality in leadership, researchers from the USA investigates the ascription of responsibility in layoffs of personnel in companies, based on employee performance. The focus is the role ethical decision-making in relation to the processes of layoffs. In this context, the topic of blame plays an important role. The paper is based on surveys with students who were given a case with a layoff situation. This was the basis for discussion of moral intensity, moral judgment and moral intent and the reasons given to justify the layoffs. The interview results were further analyzed with multiple regression analysis. The findings showed that moral judgment and moral intent plays an important role in attribution of responsibility to personnel in the context of layoffs in companies. This study contributes to the clarification of ethical decision-making in business.

The remaining articles deal with Islamic banking and Islamic economics. A contribution from Indonesia and Pakistan proposes a comprehensive presentation of the literature on barriers to Islamic banking through a bibliometric analysis of different research contributions on Islamic banking in Scopus from 2007 to 2022. The analysis of the literature on the barriers to Islamic banking demonstrates that the literature on Islamic banking concentrates on barriers related to efficiency of products and service quality, behavioral barriers related to awareness, religiosity, trust and intentions and personal factors related to Islamic bank customers. This research demonstrates a flourishing literature on Islamic banking which is dealing with the practical and theoretical challenges to Islamic banking in turbulent times.

An additional study from the perspective of Islamic economics and social responsibility is a study of Waqf-based qardhul hassan financing preference in Malaysia. This exploratory study proposed by authors from the USA and Malaysia proposes to look on waqf-based qardhul hassan financing which can be defined as a generous or benevolent loan that that is sponsored by philanthropic funds created by money from philanthropic doners. This research is based on interview with doners about their donation preferences. It turns out that the doners were motivated by benevolence and interest in promoting the good for community. The results also demonstrate an interest by doners to follow the sustainable development goals to promote well-being and the good for community. In this context, partnerships are also appreciated to increase the efficiency of the donations.