Despite their potential significance, bio-ecological determinants of ethical and sustainable business behavior have been largely unexplored in business ethics research. This study examines the impact of pathogen stress—a bio-ecological factor that has been shown to be critical for human attitudes, intentions, and behaviors—on firms’ environmental sustainability practices. Pathogen stress refers to the prevalence of a broad spectrum of infectious agents, including viruses, bacteria, protozoa, and helminths, that threaten human health and survival. We theorize that higher levels of pathogen stress negatively affect firms’ adoption of environmental sustainability practices. Analyzing data from nearly 20,000 firms across 37 countries using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys and a country-level pathogen stress index, we observe that firms in contexts with higher pathogen prevalence are less likely to adopt environmental sustainability practices. To elucidate the underlying causality, we employ an experimental vignette design that identifies two mediating psychological mechanisms: a temporal mechanism (heightened short-term orientation) and a relational mechanism (increased ingroup trust bias). We discuss the implications of the results for business ethics research and suggest several future research avenues to improve the understanding of bio-ecological factors for ethical and sustainable firm decision-making, strategies, and behaviors.

The institutional perspective on corporate social responsibility (CSR) has discussed two diametrically opposed hypotheses about how institutional context influences CSR. Whereas the mirror hypothesis suggests that CSR is stronger in institutional contexts with stringent CSR-related regulations, the substitute hypothesis posits that CSR is stronger in weakly regulated contexts. Drawing on the micro-CSR literature, we propose that examining individual CSR motivation can help to better understand the effect of institutional context on CSR because it makes focusing on substantively motivated CSR possible, and it can shed light on the hitherto neglected psychological moderators in this relationship. We conducted three studies, obtaining results indicating that institutional trust is an important moderator of the institutional effect on individual CSR motivation. Overall, we found the highest individual CSR motivation when regulatory stringency and institutional trust were high, supporting the mirror hypothesis. However, in contexts of low institutional trust, this positive effect of a strong institutional context was reduced or even reversed. Our study contributes to the literature on the institutional perspective on CSR, micro-CSR, and institutional theory, and it has important practical implications for CSR management.

Organizational purpose has recently gained great popularity in research and practice. However, the development of this nascent research field has struggled with definitional ambiguity, the lack of a measurement instrument and little empirical testing of potential outcomes. In our paper, we first introduce and define the multidimensional construct of perceived organizational purpose, which sheds light on the individual and subjective experiences of organizational purpose. Second, building on our construct definition, we develop and validate a four-dimensional Perceived Organizational Purpose Scale. Third, we disentangle the related yet differentiated concepts of perceived organizational purpose and meaningful work and theorize how substantial knowledge in the field of meaningful work can be transferred to the relatively new and untested field of perceived organizational purpose. Fourth, we critically elaborate and empirically test the relationship of perceived organizational purpose with employee job satisfaction, subjective wellbeing and work-life conflict.

Stricter business regulation regarding human rights and environmental misbehavior is a promising approach for a transition to a more just and sustainable economy. A major crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can strongly affect how individuals form their legitimacy beliefs about this kind of regulation. However, the current literature proposes two opposing effects of crises on the legitimacy beliefs about business regulation. The system justification theory suggests that the pandemic will lead to a decline in the legitimacy perceptions because individuals are highly risk averse and status-quo supporting, when they feel threatened. Conversely, the moral identification theory implies a positive effect of COVID-19 on regulatory legitimacy beliefs because a global problem, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, increases the identification with global humanity and thereby the motivation to help people in distant countries for which stricter business regulation would be most helpful. We conducted four studies to test the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on citizens’ legitimacy perceptions of stricter business regulation. We differentiate between propriety and validity beliefs based on multilevel legitimacy theory to understand the full spectrum of legitimacy beliefs. Consistent with the system justification theory, we find that the propriety beliefs declined during the pandemic. However, the pandemic had a positive effect on validity beliefs. The bias blind spot effect explains the divergence of the validity beliefs from propriety beliefs. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the change of legitimacy beliefs, which consist of propriety and validity beliefs, during a crisis. We contribute to the theory of legitimacy as perception, system justification, and citizens’ support for a more sustainable future.

Research on organizational purpose has gained great popularity in recent decades. Practitioners and scholars anticipate organizational purpose as a potential solution for the issues of solely profit-driven business. However, critical perspectives and empirical studies are scarce to validate the optimistic prospects. In our study, we critically elaborate and empirically test the outcomes of organizational purpose on employee job satisfaction and subjective well-being. We theorize and empirically show that organizational purpose does not always have positive consequences for employees’ job related and general well-being, particularly, if they seek too much meaning through their work and therefore neglect their work-life balance. In our paper, first, we develop a multi-dimensional construct definition of organizational purpose based on a systematic literature review. Second, building on our theoretical construct definition, we develop and validate a four-dimensional organizational purpose scale. Third, we disentangle the related yet differentiated concepts of organizational purpose and meaningful work to theorize how the substantial knowledge in the field of meaningful work can be transferred to the relatively new and untested field of organizational purpose. Fourth, our study provides a rigorously tested critical perspective on the potential outcomes of organizational purpose, which results in a more complex discussion of managerial implications.

Previous research has advanced scholarly understandings of legitimacy formation at the individual level, yet has not taken into account that individuals develop their legitimacy beliefs in communication activities with others. Our study seeks to address this shortcoming by advancing a dialogical approach which construes legitimacy formation as an outcome of social interaction. We study the legitimacy formation process in the context of a deliberation experiment where we asked participants to discuss in small groups a controversial topic (i.e., the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative). Before and after the deliberation we measured participants’ legitimacy beliefs, as well as their behavioral intentions to assess the degree to which these variables changed during the deliberation. Additionally, we manipulated the level of agreement within the deliberation groups to understand how group consensus affects the impact of deliberation on legitimacy formation. Overall, we find that deliberation results in a stronger change of legitimacy beliefs and behavioral intentions if participants deliberate in a low compared to a high consensus group. Our study contributes to legitimacy theory by conceptualizing and empirically testing legitimacy formation as a dialogical process. Moreover, we present and apply the deliberation experiment as a promising novel method for testing cause-and-effect relationships in the process of legitimacy formation.

Prior literature proposes two opposing hypotheses of how national regulations could influence CSR motivation. The mirror hypothesis suggests that corporations will be more motivated to invest in CSR if there are strong and well enforced national CSR-related regulations because such institutional settings pressure CSR not only by direct regulations but also with normative pressures important for an organization’s reputation and legitimacy. On the contrary, the substitute hypothesis proposes that there will be more CSR motivation in countries of lax CSR-related regulations because corporations would feel the need to fill the institutional void or to avoid stricter regulations in the future. We apply a multi-method design focusing on the micro-foundations of CSR motivation to further examine and resolve this contradiction. Specifically, we examine how institutional regulations affect individual-level CSR motivation and elaborate on the role of trust in regulating institutions as a crucial psychological variable in this process. We find that explicit CSR motivation is generally high in laxly regulated contexts but can be equally high in stringently regulated contexts if the trust in regulatory institutions is high. With our findings, we underline and clarify the strong role of regulatory institutions on CSR and the crucial role of trust in regulatory institutions in this process. We discuss theoretical and practical contributions for CSR management, the field of business and society, as well as international business.

The public value concept is highly popular among practitioners and researchers, yet, to further test and develop the construct it needs more diversity in empirical research. We aim to contribute to future empirical public value research by providing a new public value scale based on Meynhardt's conceptualization of public value. Conducting two empirical surveys with highly representative samples, we have developed and validated a twelve-item public value scale. Additionally, we applied the scale to empirically test what distinguishes public value from adjacent constructs, such as CSR or reputation, and to examine its explanatory power regarding important client/customer outcomes. The scale will allow future research to test extant public value hypotheses more thoroughly than before by using survey or experimental research designs. Practitioners can use the scale to gain a deeper understanding of public evaluation.

We examine the cognitive and motivational process underlying the effect of consumers’ conservatism on their corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions of irresponsible versus responsible companies. Building on political psychology and system justification theory, we identify and test market system justification (MSJ) as a motivated social cognition underlying ideological differences in CSR perceptions and reactions. Using four empirical studies, we find that the relatively high MSJ of conservatives (compared to that of liberals) results in less critical CSR perceptions of irresponsible companies and, thus, in less penalizing reactions. Moreover, we find that conservatism influences CSR perceptions of irresponsible companies more strongly than of responsible companies because MSJ affects only perceptions of market behaviors that threaten notions of fair markets (i.e., low CSR). The results improve predictions of consumers’ perceptions and reactions to responsible and irresponsible companies.

Die Gemeinwohl-Bilanz ist ein Instrument zur Messung des Gemeinwohlbeitrages von Unternehmen. Mithilfe einer bevölkerungsrepräsentativen Studie in Deutschland nähern wir uns der Frage nach der demokratischen Legitimation des Gemeinwohlverständnisses dieser Bilanz. Insgesamt spiegeln sich die Grundzüge des Gemeinwohlverständnisses auch in der deutschen Bevölkerung wider, doch bestehen auch Differenzen bezüglich der intendierten Trennschärfe, Vollständigkeit, Definitionstiefe und Gleichgewichtung der Gemeinwohl-Werte.

Even though there is a visible development towards more responsible consumer behavior, many consumers seem to neglect their responsibility within markets. We argue that this neglect might be based on consumers’ ideologies concerning the market. Past research found ideologies to build a major motivational and cognitive base for people’s behavior. In our research, we focused on the fair market ideology that captures consumers’ system justification of markets. Specifically, we assumed that consumers who indulge in higher levels of the fair market ideology would neglect information about companies’ irresponsibility to further reinforce their market justification and would, therefore, consume less responsibly. Three empirical studies confirmed the initial hypothesis that the fair market ideology has a major impact on responsible consumer perception, intention, and behavior.

Der derzeitige wissenschaftliche Diskurs zeigt zwei wichtige, teilweise aber widerspruchliche, Funde zum subjektiven Wohlbefinden auf. Einerseits gibt es Studien, die zeigten, dass die Erlebnisintensitat besonders wichtig fur das subjektive Wohlbefinden ist (Diener, Sandvik, & Pavot, 1990). Anderseits gibt es auch Studien, die starke Zusammenhange zwischen Erlebnishaufigkeit und subjektivem Wohlbefinden fanden (Bhattacharjee & Mogilner, 2014). Daher war das Ziel der Studie, zunachst diese Dualitat von Erlebnisintensitat versus –Haufigkeit und deren Beziehung zum subjektiven Wohlbefinden weiter zu beleuchten. Zusatzlich wurde untersucht, ob sich diese Beziehung bei gewohnlichen versus besonderen Ereignissen unterschied und wie Alter, offentliche Selbstaufmerksamkeit und der regulatorische Fokus diese beeinflussen. Um die Wirkung von Intensitat und Haufigkeit von Ereignissen auf subjektives Wohlbefinden sowie die wichtigsten Einflussvariablen in diesem Prozess zu untersuchen, wurde eine Onlinestudie mit 199 Teilnehmer_Innen durchgefuhrt. Eine Halfte der Teilnehmer_Innen beschrieb dabei ein personliches besonderes Ereignis, das sie auf Facebook posteten und die andere Halfte beschrieb ein personliches gewohnliches Ereignis, das sie auf Facebook posteten. Wie angenommen, stand Ereignishaufigkeit sowie Ereignisintensitat in einem signifikanten Zusammenhang mit subjektivem Wohlbefinden. Interessanter Weise war der Zusammenhang von Ereignishaufigkeit und subjektivem Wohlbefinden am starksten bei besonderen Ereignissen. Bei gewohnlichen Ereignissen war der Zusammenhang zwischen Ereignisintensitat und subjektivem Wohlbefinden hingegen am hochsten. Wie erwartet hatten Alter und offentliche Selbstaufmerksamkeit einen signifikanten Einfluss auf die Ereignisintensitat: Altere Individuen mit hoherer offentlicher Selbstaufmerksamkeit erlebten (vor allem besondere) Ereignisse intensiver. Der Promotionsfokus beeinflusste hingegen die Ereignishaufigkeit der besonderen als auch gewohnlichen Ereignisse. Der Praventionsfokus moderierte den Einfluss von Ereignishaufigkeit positiv und den Einfluss von Ereignisintensitat negativ auf subjektives Wohlbefinden. Bei der Interpretation der Ergebnisse sollte allerdings auf das spezifische Sample und die limitierte Varianz von Ereignisintensitat und –Haufigkeit aufgrund der Methode geachtet werden.