The Espoused Values of MNEs Operating in Colombia: Their Ethical Orientation and Stakeholder Consideration
ISBN: 978-1-78441-295-1, eISBN: 978-1-78441-294-4
Publication date: 28 January 2015
Abstract
Purpose
To study the values espoused by top MNEs operating in Colombia, through their vision and mission statements, in order to interpret their ethical orientation and to examine their concern toward diverse stakeholders.
Design/methodology/approach
Content analysis – an analytical framework was crafted from the literature review, while allowing room for emergent phenomena. Thus a combination of deduction and induction was enacted.
Findings
Most values are either teleologically oriented or grounded in deontological values, with a significant amount of values that could be related to a virtue ethics. Regarding stakeholders, narrow definitions tend to prevail.
Research limitations
The comparability of the vision and mission statements could be affected because sometimes they are offered at the national level and others at corporate level.
Practical implications
By offering a critical regard at the values that are publicly espoused by some of the most influential companies in Colombia, we enhance the comprehension of the prevailing ethical environment and the compatibility with the principles of the Global Compact.
Originality/value
We have studied key actors in a growing emerging market, which could advance Global Compact principles. Besides we have crafted a pedagogic and systemic prism through which values can be taught and thought. Thus, the methodological and theoretical framework facilitates subsequent empirical research, both in comparative and longitudinal ways.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgment
My greatest gratitude goes to EAFIT who granted me time and resources to conduct this research. I also had the privilege of being nourished by the dialogues with colleagues and several groups of students, with whom we have observed the behavior of MNEs and discussed the importance of philosophical reflection in order to enrich business ethics.
On special terms I want to thank the students, Juliana Castro and Natalia Raigoza, who helped to download and keep track of the MNEs’ information publicly available on the web sites, and to Maria José Gaviria, a very dynamic and clever assistant at our school, who has served as proof reader, and to my colleague Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez, who has always encouraged me to keep combining research with the rest of my activities.
Citation
Castrillón-Orrego, S. (2015), "The Espoused Values of MNEs Operating in Colombia: Their Ethical Orientation and Stakeholder Consideration", The UN Global Compact: Fair Competition and Environmental and Labour Justice in International Markets (Advances in Sustainability and Environmental Justice, Vol. 16), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 175-198. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-503020140000016023
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited