How the interplay of top management with corporate and societal governance structures explains corporate wrongdoing

高层管理人员与企业和社会治理结构的相互作用如何解释企业的不当行为

基本信息

批准号：
2078689
负责人：
金额：
--
依托单位：
University of Cambridge
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Studentship
财政年份：
2018
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2018 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2078689
关键词：
How interplay top management corporate

项目摘要

Corporate wrongdoing (CW) is highly relevant for management researchers and practitioners because it harms both firms and their stakeholders. CW refers to corporate behaviour that is labelled as wrongful by social-control agents, such as the state, because it is deemed to be illegal, unethical, or socially irresponsible (Greve, Palmer, & Pozner, 2010; Palmer, 2012).CW refers to a firm engaging in activities that negatively affect stakeholders and are considered a violation of ethical norms. This might include, for example, financial fraud, human rights violations, corruption, or environmental pollution. CW comes at a serious cost to all parties attached. First, it harms a firm's stakeholders. Second, though often conducted with the intention of benefitting the firm, CW can lead to a variety of negative firm outcomes, such as increased financial risk or loss of legitimacy. Third, CW can lead to serious financial and legal consequences for those individuals engaged in it. In light of these harmful consequences, the question of what determines whether a firm engages in CW is of paramount importance. Most research on CW in the management literature focuses on the macro and meso levels, explaining CW through different influences in the firm environment (e.g., competitive dynamics) and through attributes of the firm (e.g., ownership and board composition). The micro level of analysis is still a "blind spot" of current research. As a result, most explanations of CW are universalistic regarding the role of managers: they implicitly assume that managers will react homogeneously to macro and meso influences, engaging in wrongdoing when certain conditions are present. Therefore, as of now, we know little about how the individual differences between the people at the top of the organizations influence whether firms commit CW. To address this, the project will examine the relationship between top management psychological characteristics, such as values and moral identity, and CW. In doing so, it aims to explore the microfoundations of CW, thus shifting the current conversation towards an important but neglected direction. In my dissertation I study the overarching question of when and CW happens. Hereby, I advance the perspective of wrongdoing as a normal - instead of an abnormal - phenomenon. Most common explanations of wrongdoing focus on wrongdoing as an "abnormal" phenomenon caused by the presence of extreme factors or distorted processes (Palmer, 2012). They explain wrongdoing as a rational choice based on aberrant preferences ("bad apples") or as a result of organizational cultures contaminated by perverse norms ("bad barrels"). However, managers navigating the line between right and wrong in an organizational context face such "significant behavioural and cognitive challenges", that it is important to consider the normal side of corporate wrongdoing (Palmer, 2012, p. 8). That means studying when and how wrongdoing happens as a result of the actions of normal, boundedly rational and boundedly ethical, people embedded in common organizational structures. Following this direction, my dissertation poses the research question of: How does corporate wrongdoing arise from the interplay of the human side of top managers with the corporate and societal governance structures that they operate in? Hereby, the human side of top managers includes personality, cognition, and the social dynamics of decision making in the upper echelons. Corporate governance structures refers to those structures that are typical in modern corporations, such as boards, compensation, and others. Societal governance structures refers to social control agents - that is, those organizations in the environment of corporations that have varying degrees of legitimacy and authority to label corporate behaviour as wrongful, such as the state, professional societies, interest groups, and the media.

公司不当行为（CW）与管理研究人员和从业人员高度相关，因为它会损害公司及其利益相关者。 CW指的是社会控制代理人（例如国家）将其标记为不法行为的公司行为，因为它被认为是非法，不道德或社会上不负责任的（Greve，Greve，Palmer和Pozner，＆Pozner，2010; Palmer，2012年）。CW涉及一项企业从事企业的影响，从而对利益造成企业进行负面影响，并违反了违规企业的违法行为，正常地违反了正式的正常侵犯。这可能包括例如，金融欺诈，侵犯人权，腐败或环境污染。 CW对所附的所有各方都有巨大的代价。首先，它会损害公司的利益相关者。其次，尽管经常为了使公司受益而进行，但CW可以导致各种负面的公司结果，例如增加财务风险或合法性损失。第三，CW可能会对那些参与其中的人产生严重的财务和法律后果。鉴于这些有害后果，什么决定公司参与CW的问题至关重要。管理文献中对CW的大多数研究都集中在宏观和中间水平上，通过在公司环境中（例如竞争动态）和公司属性（例如所有权和董事会组成）中的不同影响来解释CW。微观分析仍然是当前研究的“盲点”。结果，大多数CW的解释在管理人员的作用上都是普遍主义的：他们隐含地假设管理人员会对宏观和中索影响均匀地反应，在存在某些条件时进行不当行为。因此，截至目前，我们对组织顶部人民之间的个体差异如何影响公司是否犯下CW。为了解决这个问题，该项目将研究高层管理心理特征（例如价值观和道德身份）与CW之间的关系。这样一来，它旨在探索CW的微观基础，从而将当前的对话转移到一个重要但被忽视的方向上。在论文中，我研究了何时和CW发生的总体问题。在此，我提出了正常的不法行为的观点 - 而不是异常 - 现象。不法行为的最常见解释集中在不当行为上是由于存在极端因素或扭曲过程引起的“异常”现象（Palmer，2012年）。他们将不当行为解释为基于异常偏好（“不良苹果”）的理性选择，或者是由于被不良规范污染的组织文化（“坏桶”）的结果。但是，管理人员在组织环境中驾驶对与错之间的界线面临着这种“重大的行为和认知挑战”，因此考虑公司不法行为的正常方面很重要（Palmer，2012，第8页）。这意味着研究何时以及如何通过正常的行为，有限理性的和有条理的道德，人们嵌入了共同的组织结构中。遵循这个方向，我的论文提出了一个研究问题：企业不当行为是如何源于高层管理人员与他们所运营的公司和社会治理结构的人类方面的相互作用？因此，高级管理人员的人类方面包括人格，认知和上层梯队决策的社会动态。公司治理结构是指在现代公司（例如董事会，薪酬等）中典型的结构。社会治理结构是指社会控制代理人 - 也就是说，在公司环境中的那些组织具有不同程度的合法性和权威，以将公司行为标记为不法行为，例如国家，专业社会，利益集团和媒体。