L. Heres

How to measure integrity violations. Towards a validated typology of unethical behavior

Abstract To develop governance that is both effective and ethical, scholars study the causes and effects of unethical behavior as well as the policies and systems that thwart such behavior. However, there is much inconsistency and incoherence in the demarcation of different types of unethical behaviors. To enable conceptual clarity and improved measurement we present here a validated typology of unethical behaviors – that is, integrity violations. Differentiating between such types of violations not only reveals insightful variation in the frequency and acceptability of these violations but also shows how leadership styles and organizational culture have varying effects on these different unethical behaviors.

Taming diversity: an exploratory study on the travel of a management fashion

Purpose – Originating from the USA in the early 1990s, diversity management has been “imported” to Europe to become a fashionable practice in many business organizations. The aim of this paper is to provide further insight into whether and how the diversity management discourse challenges and replaces existing local discourses on equality and diversity, and how diversity management is given content and meaning in a specific local context.Design/methodology/approach – Statements on diversity, diversity management and equality on both the Dutch and the international websites of ten leading companies in the Netherlands are analyzed.Findings – The analysis shows that translations of diversity management may in fact not actually replace existing local discourses, but rather leave the existing local discourse more or less intact and alter the original diversity management discourse to fit into this local discourse.Originality/value – This paper offers some important lessons for management practice.

What's the Difference? Ethical Leadership in Public, Hybrid and Private Sector Organizations

Is there one best practice for ethical leadership? Studies suggest that the publicness of an organization can have important implications for leadership. Yet research on ethical leadership generally assumes that one ethical leadership style should fit all types of organization alike. This study explores the validity of that assumption by using qualitative interviews to unravel similarities and differences in how Dutch public, hybrid and private sector managers conceive ethical leadership. The results suggest that most aspects of ethical leadership may be transferable across public and private sectors. However, in comparison with their private sector counterparts, the managers operating in public and hybrid sector organizations placed greater value on being altruistic, showing concern for the common good, and being responsive, transparent and accountable to society at large. Moreover, whereas public and hybrid sector managers considered explicit and frequent communication about ethics to be a key component of ethical leadership, most of the private sector managers preferred communication strategies in which ethics was more implicitly embedded in discussions of, for instance, ‘the business model’ or ‘customer relationships’. The results suggest further research on the contingencies of ethical leadership views and practices across different types of organizations is warranted.

Giddens à la Carte? Appraising empirical applications of Structuration Theory in management and organization studies

There is an increasing interest in the application of Structuration Theory in the fields of management and organization studies. Based upon a thorough literature review, we have come up with a data-set to assess how Structuration Theory has been used in empirical research. We use three key concepts of this theory (duality of structure, knowledgeability, and time-space) as sensitizing concepts for our analysis. We conclude that the greatest potential of Structuration Theory for management and organization studies is to view it as a process theory that offers a distinct building block for explaining intra and interorganizational change, as exemplified through concepts such as routine, script, genre, practice, and discourse.