Corporate psychopaths, identifiable as ruthlessly unethical leaders in business, have regularly appeared throughout recent history. However, in this current paper, we explore what may be the World’s earliest identified corporate psychopath operating within a multinational company: the ‘Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie’ (the VOC or Dutch East India Company). As a merchant manager with what is regarded as the World’s first multinational shareholder-owned corporation, Jeronimus Cornelisz assumed command of approximately 200 survivors who were shipwrecked from the flagship Batavia on route to Jakarta. Cornelisz changed the membership of his ruling council of four to appoint his fellow mutinous plotters and thereby guarantee his rule. From the historian Mike Dash’s account and other historical records, it is clear that Jeronimus Cornelisz established an authoritarian, tyrannical form of leadership known as psychopathic leadership. This current paper reviews the events through the lens of a theory of business ethics and leadership called corporate psychopathy theory and identifies Cornelisz as a prototypical primary or corporate psychopath. This extends corporate psychopathy theory historically by showing evidence of corporate psychopathy from 1629. This also gives further insights into the ruthlessness and greed of early European colonial expansion into Asia. Additionally, evidence is provided supporting corporate psychopathy theory by demonstrating the applicability of the idea that corporate psychopaths adopt a common ‘modus operandi’ involving the establishment of a culture of fear across organisations, time and geographies. Findings support corporate psychopathy theory by showing that unethical businesspeople can and do reach senior leadership positions. Additionally, theory is extended by delineating the manner in which these psychopathic leaders defend and maintain their positions. Support is also given by current findings to leadership commentators, from Plato through to Bass and others, who stress the importance of virtue ethics and character for leadership effectiveness and behaviour. This underlines the need for human resource personnel to pay attention to the characters and morals of those selected for senior leadership.
This study is to observe whistleblowing as a moral and contextual process shaped by the interaction of individual moral agency, institutional power, and cultural legitimacy. The study adopts a qualitative interpretive approach using in-depth interviews across multiple functional areas in three Indonesian cities. Empirical patterns were first synthesised into the “Moral Processing Model of Whistleblowing Intentions”, which explains how individuals negotiate competing obligations to truth, loyalty, self-preservation, and public responsibility when deciding whether to report wrongdoing. Further analysis led to the Model of Moral-Contextual Whistleblowing, which conceptualises integrity-driven, conflict-driven, resistance-driven, and suppressed whistleblowing patterns. Together, these models demonstrate that whistleblowing and silence emerge through the interaction of moral agency, institutional power, and cultural legitimacy rather than through simple risk calculations or intention-based reasoning. So, this study advances whistleblowing literature by moving beyond instrumental and intention-based models.
This study examines how legal and regulatory frameworks in emerging economies, with a particular focus on Vietnam, govern corporate responsibility and the ethical limits of business and human rights (BHR) governance. We argue that while the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) provide an essential governance framework for corporate responsibility, the implementation of human rights due diligence inevitably depends upon procedural mechanisms that cannot, by themselves, fully capture the ethical responsiveness required by the vulnerability of affected stakeholders. By analyzing Vietnam’s legal framework, regulatory reforms, and major corporate scandals, we identify a persistent gap between regulatory intent and ethical outcomes, showing how governance tends to center organizational accountability while diffusing responsibility away from vulnerable groups. To explain this gap, we mobilize Levinasian ethics as a theoretical intervention, revealing a blind spot in contemporary BHR governance: the translation of ethical responsibility into procedural forms that can obscure vulnerability and sideline rightsholders. Theoretically, we introduce a Levinasian relational ethics lens that complements existing BHR governance by illuminating the ethical limits of procedural approaches to human rights due diligence. Empirically, we undertake a comparative analysis of selected governance instruments across the United States, China, and Vietnam to examine how different institutional arrangement’s structure responsibility toward vulnerable stakeholders. Finally, we propose an empathy duty as a normative governance principle that guides the interpretation and implementation of existing legal and governance obligations, thereby strengthening the ethical orientation of BHR governance through continuous responsiveness to vulnerable stakeholders.
The harms associated with tobacco use are well established. As a regulatory requirement, tobacco companies must display warning labels on cigarette packaging to disclose these harms. However, warning labels conflict with companies’ commercial interests, potentially raising questions about their integrity and leading to negative perceptions of tobacco companies, such as accusations of hypocrisy. This study examines how warning labels on cigarette packaging influence public perceptions of tobacco companies, offering a new perspective on their negative corporate image. The results indicate that warning labels that include behavioral guidance for quitting smoking (e.g., contact information for cessation support) are perceived as more effective than those that only provided health risk information. Companies using the more effective labels are associated with a more socially responsible corporate image, rather than being viewed as hypocritical. These findings suggest a reconsideration of the role warning labels play in shaping perceptions of tobacco companies and offer actionable insights for places, such as Japan, where text-only labels remain in use.
Widespread greenwashing and information asymmetry significantly undermine consumer trust in sustainable markets. This research investigates the psychological processes through which Responsible AI signals influence green shopping behavior. Grounded in signaling theory, the study utilizes a quantitative design with a sample of 442 digital commerce customers in Vietnam. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Results reveal that transparency, unbiasedness, accountability, explanation quality, and accuracy constitute five conceptually distinct Responsible AI signals that enhance perceived diagnosticity and trust. These factors subsequently drive green purchase intentions and actual behaviors. A significant finding is the hyperopia paradox, where a strong orientation toward the future negatively moderates the relationship between intention and behavior. This indicates that excessive self control can lead consumers to delay sustainable purchases. Theoretically, the study shows that responsible AI serves as a verification mechanism to reduce perceived risk. Practically, the findings suggest that platforms should implement transparent AI models, while regulators should develop ethical frameworks to support Sustainable Development Goals.
This study proposes the Cognitively and Morally Contingent Theory of Planned Behavior (CMC-TPB) to explain when the intention-behavior link in sustainable consumption holds. Rather than treating media literacy and moral disengagement as parallel predictors, CMC-TPB positions them as the cognitive and moral preconditions under which TPB-based intention formation remains credible. Green purchase intention is then more likely to translate into buying behavior when enactment is supported by efficacy beliefs and cohort-linked consumption conditions. We test CMC-TPB using survey data from 317 Vietnamese consumers in a media-saturated, collectivist emerging market where responsibility for sustainable consumption is often diffused across individuals, families, firms, and regulatory actors. The data were analyzed using PLS-SEM with mediation, moderation, and multi-group comparisons across Generation Z and Generation Y. Results show that media literacy significantly reduces moral disengagement and strengthens green purchase intention, while moral disengagement undermines intention formation. Green purchase intention strongly predicts green buying behavior, and indirect effects support the proposed cognitive-moral pathways. Boundary analyses further show that perceived consumer effectiveness strengthens intention enactment, while generational differences emerge primarily in intention-behavior consistency: this link is stronger among Generation Y than Generation Z, although the moderating effect of perceived consumer effectiveness does not differ significantly across cohorts within the shared collectivist context. The study advances TPB-based ethics and sustainability research by specifying the cognitive-moral contingencies under which intention becomes action and clarifies when and for whom TPB works in sustainable consumption. It also offers actionable implications for anti-greenwashing communication and targeted media-literacy interventions.
In the dynamic marketplace of online retailing, it is essential for marketers to employ effective and efficient marketing communications to attract new customers and retain the existing customers. However, online retailers sometimes choose deceptive marketing communications which adversely affect the profitability of the retailers as well as customer loyalty. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomena of deceptive communication in online retailing context. The study employed qualitative approach and collected primary data from young consumers aged between 18 and 34 through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The findings of the study resulted in development of a two-dimensional typology of deceptive communication types and focal domains. A process model of the aftereffects of deceptive marketing communication and a “Deceptive Communication Framework” are also proposed, explaining how customer post purchase behaviour emerges from deceptive communication. The study provides propositions for future research and suggests policy guidelines for safeguarding the interests of the consumer.
China’s rapidly industrializing pre-prepared food sector is experiencing a profound crisis of public confidence. State policies and market enthusiasm have accelerated industrial expansion, yet they coexist with persistent consumer skepticism about the health, transparency, and authenticity of industrialized meals. This distrust cannot be reduced to a single cause; it reflects a complex interaction among regulatory intent, media representation, and everyday moral judgment. To explore these dynamics, this study employs a multi-method qualitative approach combining policy analysis, mainstream media framing analysis, consumer discourse analysis, and semi-structured interviews with industry practitioners. The findings reveal a persistent misalignment across the industry communication chain. At the policy level, regulatory frameworks prioritize industrial promotion while maintaining strategic ambiguity. Mainstream media reinforce this by emphasizing economic efficiency, while food companies focus on procedural compliance and profit optimization. In contrast, consumer perceptions are guided by embodied experience and collective memories of food safety crises, leading to a preference for sensory authenticity and skepticism toward industrial processes. The study argues that sustainable transformation of China’s food system requires more than technical regulation. It demands greater coherence between governance frameworks and public expectations for transparency, emotional connection, and cultural legitimacy.
This paper studies the relationship between business ethics, ESG practices, and financial support, and their impacts on the performance of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in Vietnam. The research model incorporates variables of ESG practices within the context of business ethics. The study employs primary data collected from 219 respondents and applies exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and partial least squares - structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the proposed hypothesis of the research model. The results indicate a significant influence of business ethics and financial support on ESG practices. Furthermore, social and environmental practices are found to be significantly associated with business performance. The findings also reveal differences in environmental, social, and governance practices based on employee size among MSMEs in northern and southern Vietnam. These insights provide important managerial implications for business managers, policymakers, and educational institutions in promoting ESG practices and supporting MSME development.
The present study examines the impact of Buddhist values on agripreneurship and sustainability, with a mediating effect of market orientation. The study is carried out in Bhutan and the Sikkim state of India, employing 287 farmers, and utilised the GET2 Test Scale to assess entrepreneurial orientation, which considers five main parameters: Calculated Risk-Taking, Creative Tendency, Locus of Control, Need for Autonomy, and Need for Achievement. This study employs Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using SmartPLS 4 to investigate the relationships among Buddhist values, Entrepreneurial Orientation, Sustainability, and Market Orientation. The results reveal that Buddhist values exert a statistically significant direct influence on sustainability across all samples, with comparatively stronger effects observed in Bhutan compared to India. Buddhist values also demonstrate a modest but significant influence on entrepreneurial orientation in India and the pooled sample, while the relationship is not significant in Bhutan. Notably, Buddhist values exhibit a strong and statistically significant association with market orientation across all contexts. Furthermore, market orientation significantly influences sustainability and partially mediates the relationship between Buddhist values and sustainability. Results suggest that incorporating Buddhist values into entrepreneurship training and policy frameworks can enhance sustainable production and consumption while promoting and retaining sustainable livelihoods. The study further recommends that targeted entrepreneurial training for farmers should focus on balancing sustainability and farm economics and positioning them as exemplars of alternative development models. The present study addresses a timely need for culturally focused models of entrepreneurship that reflect the ethical frameworks of farmers in Buddhist-majority Himalayan regions.
This study examines the adequacy and implementation of health and hygiene regulations under the Bangladesh Labour Act 2006 (BLA 2006) in the garment supply chain, with reference to relevant International Labour Organization (ILO) standards. Beyond regulatory compliance, the research considers the ethical implications of workplace governance, particularly how legal implementation relates to workers’ dignity, moral responsibility, and expectations of ethical business conduct in global supply chains. The study is grounded in socio-legal theory, drawing on the distinction between Law-in-Books and Law-in-Action and Sally Falk Moore’s concept of Semi-Autonomous Social Fields (SASF) to examine how formal rules interact with workplace practices. Using a mixed-methods design, the research combines doctrinal legal analysis with empirical data from garment workers’ surveys, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews with industry representatives and regulatory officials. The analysis indicates that several provisions of BLA 2006 remain limited when compared with ILO benchmarks and that implementation varies across factories. Survey responses also suggest an association between perceived compliance and worker satisfaction. These findings highlight the ethical importance of aligning legal compliance with commitments to worker dignity and responsible labour governance.
Amartya Sen’s critique of ethics-neutral economics raises critical questions about how university education shapes future professionals’ ethical orientations. This study investigates the influence of economics education on student values in India, addressing a significant gap in business ethics research dominated by North American and European contexts. A cross-sectional quantitative study of 632 undergraduate and master’s students from University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University compares Economics students with Language and Literature students as controls. Using self-administered questionnaires and multiple regression analysis, the findings reveal that economics students exhibit significantly higher self-enhancement values (power, achievement) and lower self-transcendence (universalism, benevolence, spirituality) and openness to change (self-direction, stimulation). Uniquely employing Schwartz’s value theory with culturally significant dimensions like spirituality, this research provides one of the first large-scale empirical studies examining how economic education intersects with dharmic frameworks in a major Asian economy. While the cross-sectional design cannot distinguish between self-selection and indoctrination effects, and the sample is limited to two premier universities, the findings underscore the urgent need for curriculum reforms to cultivate more ethically-aware professionals. Future research should employ longitudinal designs across diverse institutions to enhance generalizability and deepen understanding of values formation in economics education.
This paper examines the impact of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) power and Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) on the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of commercial banks. The sample includes 31 Vietnamese banks from 2010 to 2023. This study uses the Generalized Method of Moments dynamic approach to address heteroscedasticity, autocorrelation, and potential endogeneity issues. The findings demonstrate a positive relationship between the CEO’s power and CSR. Conversely, banks with extensive ESOP programs tend to make employees more focused on short-term profits and stock prices, thereby reducing their motivation to invest in CSR activities. Furthermore, powerful CEOs moderate the association between ESOP and CSR. Our findings align with Agency Theory, Managerial Entrenchment Theory, and Temporal Orientation Theory. These findings provide managerial implications for developing sustainable CSR in emerging economies.
In the backdrop of rising unethicality in the corporate world and business schools. This study explores the value-behaviour gap among MBA students in ethically significant contexts. Some studies, based on observed unethical behaviours assume that students' moral values are flawed and advocate for ethics education in business schools (Christensen et al., 2007; Ghoshal, 2005). Others adopt a value preference approach, finding that MBA students often prioritize achievement and competitiveness, linking these to self-interest and ethical conflict (Lan et al., 2010; Lameris et al., 2023). However, both perspectives fail to examine whether students’ moral values are genuinely tainted or remain intact.—an issue this study addresses. This qualitative research used narrative and content analysis. Data were collected from 56 MBA students through supervised classroom sessions. The study found a significant misalignment between MBA students' stated values and their actual unethical behaviours across academic, personal, and professional contexts. Some students also redefined moral values like loyalty and helpfulness to justify misconduct, indicating twisted or deviant morality. These behaviours were influenced by moral disengagement, peer dynamics, and socio-cultural norms, rather than an outright absence of moral values. The findings call for deeper reflection on value-behaviour gaps and suggest expanding Bandura’s moral disengagement framework by revealing context-specific disengagement pathways such as trivializing rules, invoking resource scarcity and framing misconduct as part of youthful experimentation.
This study examines how individualized employment practices—specifically idiosyncratic deals (i-deals)—generate moral tension when introduced into collectivist organizational contexts. Drawing on comparative qualitative data from five Japanese and Vietnamese organizations, we explore how the individualized logic of i-deals intersects with collectivist values of harmony, equality, and relational obligation. Our findings reveal that i-deals do not simply produce fairness concerns; instead they activate deeper moral struggles over what constitutes legitimate distinction in the workplace. We identify three organizational mechanisms that help reconcile this tension: (1) cultural framing that situates i-deals within shared moral narratives, (2) relational practices that re-embed individual benefits into collective purposes, and (3) institutional transparency that sustains trust across status boundaries. These mechanisms form a culturally grounded model of “moral channeling,” showing how organizations reinterpret individualization through collective ethics. This research contributes to i-deals theory, cross-cultural management, and organizational ethics by demonstrating how collectivist organizations in Asia navigate the moral complexity of individualization without eroding cooperative foundations.
Social media has become crucial in an individual’s life, it influences one’s life in many ways such as ‘how one communicates’, ‘consuming information’, and ‘how one interacts with the others. However, the emergence of dark patterns interface design tactics that secretly ensure assistance to service providers at the user’s expense. It surely has raised ethical and psychological issues. The study explores the occurrence and effect of dark patterns on social media users, and its critical ethical implications. Using a netnographic analysis of user generated content on popular online platforms (Reddit, YouTube and blogs) and coding through the lens of the Persuasive System Design (PSD) model, identifies a toxic three stage causal pathway. The stages begin with 1) Cognitive and Behavior Manipulation where deceptive designs induce decision fatigue and exploit cognitive biases. This leads to 2) Emotional Distress, characterized by acute feelings of worry, frustration and betrayal. Finally, frequent exposure causes 3) Trust and Autonomy Erosion, a long-term loss of user trust and sense of control. In contrast to macro level regulatory research, this paper presents a micro level framework for interpreting and countering these dark designs trends at their inception. We argue that ethical design requires a paradigm shift: interfaces should be made to render design more cognitively transparent, affective harm must be adopted as a primary success metric and “micro trust” healing mechanisms should be implemented to restore user agency. The results provide researchers, designers and business leaders with a clear model of harm and road map toward more ethical, trustworthy digital environments.
This article employs a descriptive-analytical approach to examine the evolution of anthropological paradigms from the Aristotelian definition of the human as a “rational animal” to the concept of the “Ḥayeh Motaleh” (Divine-Lived Being) in Islamic philosophy. It argues that this conceptual transition, which originated in the thought of al-Farabi and Avicenna and reached its culmination in the works of Mulla Ṣadra, Ṭabatabaei, and Javadi Amoli, signifies a profound transformation in the metaphysical and teleological foundations of human self-understanding. While the “rational animal” paradigm, centered on instrumental rationality and anthropocentrism, reduces nature to a mere “resource” and underpins the contemporary environmental crisis, the “Ḥayeh Motaleh” paradigm, grounded in principles such as the “primacy of existence,” “substantial motion,” and the “transcendent unity of being,” establishes an ontological respect for nature and humanity’s responsibility as divine vicegerent. This paper demonstrates that this transcendent paradigm not only offers a fundamental solution to the environmental crisis but also, by providing the foundations for a “Theomorphic Management” and an “Ontological Social Responsibility,” supplies a transformative framework for business ethics and corporate governance.
Despite efforts to increase gender diversity, women remain underrepresented in STEM leadership. While work–life policies and gender attitudes are evolving, traditional explanations such as the glass ceiling and stereotype mismatch remain influential in explaining this persistence. To investigate, we conducted focus group interviews with fifteen women leaders at an engineering firm in South Korea, a country where growing expectations for women’s economic participation coexist with enduring Confucian norms. The leaders acknowledge organizational efforts to reduce discrimination and support careers alongside family, yet such efforts rarely extend to leaders, whose roles inherently require near-continuous availability, accountability for team outcomes, and frequent work–life spillover. Women who succeed often rely on strong but fragile external support systems, including family and caregivers. We characterize STEM leadership as a “greedy” role that disproportionately limits opportunities for women seeking work–life balance, making leadership itself a structural barrier. This conceptualization is important because leadership roles carry organizational responsibility and influence high-level decisions, making them uniquely problematic. Leadership in STEM is a “greedy role,” demanding constant availability and long, inflexible hours. Women leaders individually navigate balancing greedy leadership roles with family responsibilities. Greedy leadership roles reduce women’s representation in leadership, resulting in less influence in high-level decision-making. Structural changes are needed to make leadership roles sustainable for women.
Tax compliance is a cornerstone of fiscal responsibility, yet the impact of corruption scandals on voluntary tax compliance remains underexplored. Building on Psychological Reactance Theory and complemented by Institutional Trust Theory, this research explores how skepticism, perceived hypocrisy, and moral anger shape voluntary tax compliance among young Indonesian taxpayers during an ongoing boycott in February 2023. While previous research has focused primarily on individual-level drivers of tax behavior, this study highlights the role of perceived institutional legitimacy. Through a survey of 294 valid responses captured in the natural context of the boycott, the study authentically reflects public emotions and controversy, free from artificially induced moral outrage. The findings reveal that skepticism is a key driver influencing voluntary tax compliance, while moral anger moderates the relationship between perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) and compliance behavior. Contrary to conventional expectations, skepticism regarding tax institutions' CSR had minimal impact on young taxpayers' willingness to comply with tax regulations. By integrating psychological reactance theory and Institutional Trust Theory into the Indonesian tax compliance landscape, this research positions skepticism as a pivotal factor and highlights moral anger as a critical moderator, offering fresh insights into tax compliance dynamics. These findings contribute to both academic discourse and policymaking in taxation and fiscal governance.
