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This paper aims to provide a framework that might be used to tackle the multifaceted challenges facing humanity, which are increasing in seriousness and complexity. The Millennium Project had identified such challenges, and over time periods until and including 2050, which pose the question, how would societies cope with these challenges averting any disastrous results? contemplating the suggested ethical principles, and the three central beliefs of “end-based”, “rule-based” and “care-based”. In some cases, individuals might not be blamed to think that “it is only a miracle” that might save humanity.

This paper, through the use of literature review, intends to provide an insight into these challenges, the suggested ethical principles and the three central beliefs, providing brief overview of the concept “miracle” leading to discussion on ethical mindsets, its components and their dimensions.

Concluding with framework for the way forward tackling these challenges.

The limitation of this paper might lie in the fact that it is only a conceptual paper, but it calls on researchers to conduct further research using the suggested framework.

This might seem to be forward thinking, but it is a call for researchers to conduct more research in this area, and for governments to fund such research, to allow for the establishment of a method to refine the mindsets of individuals around the world to change into “ethical”, and thus, the world becomes better equipped to face and reduce the challenges and threats that are being faced by the world.

Community citizenship behaviors (CCBs) of employees help organizations to promote a socially conscious image. However, there is still a significant gap in the knowledge as to how to foster CCBs amongst employees. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether ethical leadership, as a prosocial leadership approach, fosters CCBs amongst employees, both at work and when they leave the office, through enhancing their prosocial motivation.

Data were collected from 160 employees across 48 small- and medium-sized enterprises in China. Multi-level modeling using maximum likelihood estimation in MPlus was utilized to analyze the two-level model simultaneously and the significance of the multi-level indirect effects was tested using the Monte Carlo method with 20,000 replications.

Counter to the expectations, the authors found that although ethical leadership increased employees’ prosocial motivation, this only translated to higher levels of employees’ CCBs at work, but not once they left the office.

The findings suggest that ethical leaders play a critical role in developing the prosocial motivation of employees and encouraging them to engage in CCBs that are supported by the organization. To that end, organizations should consider hiring leaders with high levels of ethical leadership and provide ethical leadership training to senior management.

The authors make a theoretical contribution by explaining the process by which ethical leaders influence employees to engage in CCBs, addressing calls to understand how social learning theory can be used to understand how people learn to become socially responsible.

The purpose is to propose a structure for corporate value statements, which is useful as an underlying organizing principle that makes them more comprehensible, and at the same time identifies values that can serve as criteria for strategic decision‐making.

The main approach is theoretical development of value categories. It is followed up by an empirical investigation of value statements on corporate web pages to see if the proposed principles are applicable.

The paper proposes a comprehensive value system that consists of three main value categories juxtaposed on the same level: Core values prescribe the attitude and character of the organization. They are often found in sections on code of conduct, values statement, or credo. Protected values are protected through rules, standards and certificates. They are mostly found in sections concerning health, environment and safety. Created values are the values that stakeholders, including the shareholders, expect in return for their contributions to the firm. They are often found in sections on objectives and always in the annual report.

The empirical research is limited to companies listed on two stock exchanges. Further research should include other types of organizations.

It is hoped that the proposed value system can contribute to making corporate value statements more comprehensible and useful for strategic decision‐making.

It is believed to be a new idea to propose a holistic value system for value communication that can incorporate all values.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of Chinese executives' preferred ethical ideologies and Machiavellianism on their perceived appropriateness of negotiation tactics as they operate in a nation transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy.

A self‐administered survey of a sample 300 Chinese managers with budgetary and personnel responsibilities in Tianjin, China was obtained for the purpose of the present study. A series of regression analyses were conducted to test the proposed relations.

Results from the regression analyses provided partial confirmations for the proposed relationships. Idealism influenced perceptions of false promises, traditional competitive bargaining, and attacking an opponents' network. Perceptions of traditional competitive bargaining, attacking an opponent's network, and inappropriate information gathering were significantly influenced by relativism. Machiavellianism influenced perceptions of traditional competitive bargaining and misrepresentation of information.

Given the existing impediments to sampling and data collection in China, the sampling method used is non‐probabilistic, which calls for consideration of the results as exploratory. The present study's sample is drawn from the Northeastern region of China and since ethical beliefs and orientation in China varies by region, the results of the present study cannot be generalized to the total population of China.

The present study aims to provide the following contribution. First, as most studies in the negotiation ethics literature are focused in Western cultural contexts, this study attempts to fill this gap by investigating the negotiation ethical values of executives from Eastern culture. Second, global firms' executives can better understand the ethical mindset of their Chinese counterparts and utilize this knowledge to efficiently and effectively manage the negotiation process with their counterparts in this important market. Third, public policymakers and researchers can also benefit from this study by understanding the external validity and the degree of ethnocentrism of not only their own code of ethics but also the validity of a universal code of ethic.

This chapter examines the linkage between strategy and ethics in business.

We examine the implicit assumptions underlying the “business‐as‐war” versus the “business as value creation” models of business strategy. Drawing on the work of sociologists, we lay out the consequences those implicit assumptions have on the conduct of business.

We find that the “business‐as‐war” mindset sees corporations as sovereign states engaged in battle against other sovereign states, while the “value creation” mindset sees corporations as institutions engaged in an ongoing journey toward realizing potential, both in terms of capability and service. We further show how these two mindsets evoke different moral systems – a “guardian syndrome” for the “business‐as‐war” mindset and a “commercial syndrome” for the “value creation” mindset. Since both mindsets represent legitimate, though divergent moralities, we conclude that the recent crises in American business do not reflect the lack of morality or ethics. Rather, they reflect an application of an inappropriate morality/ethic dictated by the wrong model of business strategy.

This chapter serves executives by advocating a strategic mindset that that is more conducive to ethical business activity, and at the same time, is better suited to meeting the profit imperative and pressure from Wall Street. This chapter serves policy makers by showing that ethical reforms are unlikely to be effective if they simply add stiffer penalties without “changing the game” that executives are playing.

This research applied Homer and Kahle's (1988) theoretical framework, which describes the hierarchical relations of personal values, attitude and behavior to test the moderated mediation model. The major focus of this study was to evaluate how individual characteristics such as fashion involvement and materialism influenced the formation of socially responsible attitudes and ethical fashion purchasing intentions. By focusing on fashion aficionados and materialists, this research examines each step of the hierarchical model by exploring the relation between values and attitude and evaluating the attitude–behavior gap. The main finding highlights the critical role that attitude plays in ethical fashion consumption.

Different sets of latent models with each ethical quality such as ethical concern and ethical obligation were tested to explore if those consumer characteristics had any moderating effects on both front-end (IV-M) and back-end (M-DV) relations of Homer and Kahle's (1988) hierarchical model.

Both ethical values failed to instill a socially responsible mindset in individuals who were heavily immersed in fashion or materialism. Once such attitudes were formed, however, those who were fashion-conscious or materialistic were more likely to purchase ethical apparel than those who were less interested in fashion or materialism.

Previous research has mainly identified external or situational factors that create the attitude or intention and behavior gap in ethical consumption. Given the lack of understanding about psychological factors in understanding the gap, this study added to the literature by identifying fashion involvement and materialism as critical factors positively influencing attitude and behavioral intention associations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore conceptualizations of mindset across disciplines with particular attention to scholars’ care in defining and operationalizing the construct of mindset. Theories of mindset have witnessed increased attention through a variety of disciplines for their applicability as processes with the potential to influence individual and/or organizational outcomes. Exploration of mindset conceptualizations and characterizations reveal substantial divergences.

This conceptual paper generally examines the utilization of mindset constructs via a multidisciplinary review of literature and specifically details three mindset theories (implemental and deliberative, global and growth and fixed mindsets) to illuminate such disparities.

This paper categorizes the significant variations of the mindset construct and research via three distinct streams. Each stream highlights knowledge as instrumental in the mindset construct; however, the ways in which varying aspects of knowledge, knowledge mechanisms or knowledge as a component of an individuals and/or organization’s identity correspond to the inherent presuppositions of varying articulations of mindset theory and praxis.

Effectively influencing an individual and/or organization’s mindset necessitates an accurate assessment of the mindset construct. Further, evaluating the applicability of mindset research and/or feedback from a consultant warrants attention to the assumptions undergirding the mindset construct.

Generally, mindset studies and theories have scantly attended to both the historical development of mindset research as well as divergences in the research record within and across disciplines. This paper attempts to address this deficiency. Further, this paper appears to be the first attempt to compare and identify varying conceptualizations and characterizations of mindset theory and, therefore, identifies previously unidentified assumptions.

As both workplace and personal interactions increasingly move into online discussions, the impact of various technological devices (such as cell phones and laptops) on behaviors and decisions must be better understood. This study aims to assess whether tasks done on cell phones or laptops prompt more deception for the sake of personal gain in decisions and negotiations, based on the associations held about each device.

Four empirical studies plus a single-study meta-analysis explore the rates of self-serving deceptive behavior based on the type of device used in decision-making tasks (ultimatum-game bargaining and negotiations).

Results show that using a laptop prompted more self-serving behavior than using a cell phone. Follow-up studies suggest that the dominant associations that people hold with each device – professional ones for the laptop and personal ones for cell phone – may help drive this effect.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to establish a link between technological device and behavioral outcomes in negotiations, even when the exact format of the information sent and received is identical (i.e. text-only format). The findings have implications for selecting devices for important negotiations and decisions, as some may promote more ethical behavior than others.

Ethical duties or obligations of HRM practitioners are questioned and explored. Differing conceptions of HRM ethical duties seem to have arisen from differing values assumptions and social constructions of the employment relationship. HRM education and development programs must do a better job of exposing students to these contrasting values assumptions as well as helping students develop the ethical change skills necessary to act more successfully upon their moral values and perceived ethical duties.

This paper aims to understand how accountants in Sri Lanka perceive the effect of religiosity on ethical decision-making. Sri Lanka is a highly religious country, but it also has a high level of corruption, so understanding ethical decision-making in this context is important for the accounting profession.

Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 40 accountants in Sri Lanka with decision-making roles. Virtue ethics theory and content analysis were used to analyse the interview data and categorise accountants' responses into themes using an interpretive methodology.

This paper identifies three ways in which religiosity can influence accountants’ ethical decision-making. Firstly, through a faith in the beliefs of their religion; secondly, through awareness of religious prescriptions and virtues; and thirdly, through a commitment towards religious practices and rituals. However, the findings show that religiosity does not always influence the ethical decision-making of accountants because of pervasive corruption, which is a cultural norm in contemporary Sri Lanka. Thus, it is evident that there is an interrelationship between religious and cultural environments which can influence ethical decision-making.

While the religiosity of accountants can support ethical decision-making, the findings of this paper show that the cultural norm of corruption can mediate this connection as the evidence shows that accountants with a strong religious background, irrespective of their religion, may still act unethically when corruption is a cultural norm.