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This chapter focuses on the normative importance of what attitudes our actions express to others. Business is not conducted in a vacuum – rather, it is conducted against a background schema of social meaning. This chapter argues that the public meaning of our actions, what our actions express, is normatively important. The piece imports familiar norms regarding expressions from interpersonal morality to business ethics, such as those surrounding insult, blame, and gratitude. It argues that many of ethicists’ gripes across a range of business ethics topics – from disproportionate compensation to immoral investing – can fruitfully be analyzed from an expressive perspective.

Pursuit of meaning is at the heart of much of organizational life. It has implications for how different organizational stakeholders associate value to various organizational initiatives. Research on meaning has generally shown that effort increases meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities by organizational stakeholders. The authors build on and advance this research by offering theory and experimental evidence showing that effort, particularly at high levels, results in enhanced meaning and favorable valuation when effort does not threaten the focal stakeholders' resources through expectation disconfirmation.

Three experimental studies are designed and conducted in this research. In one study, the authors replicate prior research findings that establish labor generally increases meaning and favorable valuation. In the two subsequent studies, the authors test the proposed hypothesis in this research and check for robustness of the empirical analysis.

The authors find that any internalized threat to the focal stakeholder's resources coupled with a high exertion of effort decreases, rather than increases, meaning and favorable valuation of and willingness to pay for economic activities.

The theory and empirical evidence in this research advance the understanding of how organizational stakeholders may associate effort-induced meaning with various economic activities in counter-intuitive ways. The findings also highlight the importance of recognizing and shaping the expectations of organizational stakeholders in influencing willingness to pay in organizational settings.

To justify fully the inclusion of a business ethics course in the business school curriculum, it is necessary that the course achieve four goals. Yet two of these goals are not even addressed in the business ethics texts used today in business ethics courses. The other two goals are addressed in business ethics texts, and research indicates these goals are achievable. The best way to realize these attainable goals is to incorporate the teaching of ethics into regular business courses.

The purpose of this paper is to encourage a discussion of the implementation of management control systems (MCSs) in the MCS-strategy relationship. Borrowing from the literature on software development, the authors propose two archetypes of MCS implementation – waterfall and agile – and employ them to understand how the MCS-strategy fit unfolds over time.

The authors empirically ground the archetypes on two exploratory case studies based on the collection of extensive qualitative data.

The authors show that MCSs change not only in relation to strategy, but also in response to an autonomous source: implementation. These two implementation archetypes differ in their degrees of specification, in the ways in which the transitions among their implementation phases occur and in the sources and ways in which their feedback loops affect the MCSs; however, both shed light on the dynamic dimension of fit and show that the fit should be assessed over time.

The two archetypes are derived from two exploratory cases. Further research may both strengthen the framework by testing the validity of the archetypes for a wider set of empirical cases and enrich the framework by investigating the determinants of agile and waterfall MCS implementation.

The introduction of MCS implementation to the determinants of fit or misfit provides practitioners with a further interpretation and an action driver for fit or misfit. MCS implementation should be coordinated with the pace of change of strategy and should be changed in relation to the possibility for an organisation to move from a process- to a people-centred system (or vice versa).

The authors propose two archetypes of MCS implementation, both of which support the empirical interpretation and theoretical reconceptualisation of the concept of the MCS-strategy fit in terms of dynamic fit.

Aims to illustrate the extent to which the concept of sustainable management can be grounded in a new appreciation of customer satisfaction, to set out the concept of sustainable management based on business ethical considerations on corporate social responsibility, and to distinguish it from similar concepts. Its rationale lies in the figure of the generalised customer.

The generalised customer stems from a combination of stakeholder theory and sociological role theory. The stakeholder theory discusses the different stakeholder roles from an organisational perspective, whereas the sociological role theory views essentially the same roles and relationships from the individual's perspective. Focus lies in the personal preferences and attitudes accompanying the different roles one person plays in society – as a consumer, father, or member of Amnesty International.

A first attempt to put these roles and relationships in a sustainability context – providing an impression of all possible needs, wants, and expectations a company can expect from its customers. This notion alters marketing's view of the customer and brings about a new understanding of customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction must be seen in a more holistic, multidimensional perspective in future. Companies succeeding in taking this step towards sustainable management will raise their profile among customers, differentiate themselves from the competition, and achieve legitimacy vis‐à‐vis society.

The combination of two, often opposing, theoretical genres related to consumer behaviour and the examination of the phenomenon “the customer” from both perspectives, offering a new species of customers in addition to homo economicus.

Research has so far not approached the contents of corporate code of ethics from a strategic classification point of view. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a framework of classification and empirical illustration to provide insights into the strategic approaches of corporate code of ethics content within and across contextual business environments.

The paper summarizes the content analysis of code prescription and the intensity of codification in the contents of 78 corporate codes of ethics in Australia.

The paper finds that, generally, the studied corporate codes of ethics in Australia are of standardized and replicated strategic approaches. In particular, customized and individualized strategic approaches are far from penetrating the ethos of corporate codes of ethics content.

The research is limited to Australian codes of ethics. Suggestions for further research are provided in terms of the search for best practice of customized and individualized corporate codes of ethics content across countries.

The framework contributes to an identification of four strategic approaches of corporate codes of ethics content, namely standardized, replicated, individualized and customized.

The principal contribution of this paper is a generic framework to identify strategic approaches of corporate codes of ethics content. The framework is derived from two generic dimensions: the context of application and the application of content. The timing of application is also a crucial generic dimension to the success or failure of codes of ethics content. Empirical illustrations based upon corporate codes of ethics in Australia's top companies underpin the topic explored.

The purpose of this paper is to see to what extent Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutic philosophy could be used to unveil how corporate discourse about financial crimes (in codes of ethics) is closely linked to the process of understanding.

Corporate ethical discourse of 20 business corporations will be analyzed, as it is conveyed within their codes of ethics. The companies came from five countries (USA, Canada, France, Switzerland and Brazil). In the explanatory study, the following industries were represented (two companies by industry): aircrafts/trains, military, airlines, recreational vehicles, soft drinks, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, beauty products, telecommunications and banks.

Historically-based prejudices in three basic narrative strategies (silence, chosen items and detailed discussion) about financial crimes are related to the mindset, to the basic outlook on corporate self-interest or to an absolutizing attitude.

The historically-based prejudices that have been identified in this explanatory study should be analyzed in longitudinal studies.

The historically-based prejudices that have been identified in this explanatory study should be analyzed in longitudinal studies. Historically-based prejudices could be strengthened by the way corporate codes of ethics deal with financial crimes. They could, thus, have a deep impact on the organizational culture in the long-run.

The paper analyzes the way corporate codes of ethics use given narrative strategies to address financial crimes issues. It also unveils historically-based prejudices that follow from the choice of one or the other narrative strategy.

This article reviews research published in secular management journals that examines what the world’s largest religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, and Islam) say about management. In terms of how religion informs management, the literature identifies two basic means: (1) written scriptures (e.g., Analects, Bible, Quran) and (2) experiential spiritual practices (e.g., prayer, mindfulness). In terms of what religion says about management, the emphasis tends to be either on (1) enhancing, or (2) liberating mainstream management. Studies based on scriptures typically either enhance or liberate management, whereas empirical research based on spiritual disciplines consistently point to liberation. Implications are discussed.