Journals
Authors:
Klimczak, K. M. (Autor de correspondencia); Hadro, D.; Meyer, Marcel
Journal:
ACCOUNTING IN EUROPE
ISSN:
1744-9480
Year:
2024
Vol.:
20
N°:
3
pp.
281 - 303
Sustainability reporting is rapidly developing in the European Union - from voluntary Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) disclosure over to mandatory non-financial reporting (NFR), then over to Economic, Social and Governance (ESG) - with the ambition of becoming as important as financial reporting. This paper investigates whether executives act as change agents in this process by setting a tone at the top, and how their communication changes as time progresses. We use methods from computational corpus linguistics to analyze commentaries by companies listed at the Warsaw Stock Exchange between 2017 and 2021. Results show how top managers are not aligned with the sustainability transition. Their commentaries are bluntly positive and lack performance information. Over time, change and environmental challenges gain attention. In sum, executives appear to respond primarily to investor needs. While showing respect to stakeholders, they avoid setting goals and reporting effects. Effective regulation may bring about the necessary change.
Journal:
JOURNAL OF HUMAN VALUES
ISSN:
0971-6858
Year:
2024
Vol.:
30
N°:
1
pp.
7 - 14
Journal:
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
ISSN:
1664-1078
Year:
2023
Vol.:
13
pp.
977750
This article presents the Positive Leadership Action Framework (PLAF) to structure Positive Leadership (PL). The novelty of the PLAF is that it incorporates the connections of PL to positive outcomes (financial and economic performance and social well-being) and organizational virtuousness. Also, it acknowledges its conditional nature on the virtues to achieve flourishing within the organization and society at large. We argue that the leader's actions function as the engine for positive change within the organization, bridging the gap between individual virtues and organizational virtuousness and creating a feedback loop among both. To develop a positive organization, a leader needs to create positive assumptions among (and about) coworkers, positively impact the personal and professional development of employees, and balance positive formal and informal conditions at work. To do so, it is a sine qua non condition that the positive leader fosters his/her personal development by exercising the virtues and developing practical wisdom. In this way, the positive leader automatically provides followers with a vision of the final end towards the common good and achieves to set his/her organization on a pathway towards excellence.
Journal:
BUSINESS ETHICS, THE ENVIRONMENT & RESPONSIBILITY
ISSN:
2694-6416
Year:
2023
Vol.:
32
N°:
2
pp.
544 - 554
In the leadership literature of the past 100 years or so, rhetoric has been a topic for a long time and ethics was introduced some 30 years ago. However, the three topics, leadership, rhetoric, and ethics, have not been connected. This is astonishing because when ethical leadership made its comeback, scholars acknowledged the debt that ethical leadership owes to Aristotelian ideas. For Aristotle, leadership, ethics, and rhetoric were inseparable: without ethics, there could neither be good leadership nor rhetoric, and rhetoric was the bridge from leader to follower and back. Aristotle is known as the practical philosopher and we argue that closing this major lacuna in leadership theory, would be beneficial for practice too and would help prevent Theranos-like scandals. The lacuna lies in what some call a Machiavellian view of leadership and rhetoric: both are regarded as amoral tools to achieve given ends. Aristotle would bristle at that idea. Both, leadership and rhetoric, to be good, must aim at the noble. The noble is not dictated by a heroic despot nor by a selfless saint but is understood by a leader because s/he is a socially embedded individual. We argue that leadership should be understood as personal development, that organisational rules must not inhibit virtue, that leadership is more about listening than talking, that synthesising that which is heard is central, and finally, that the common, not the collective, good is the goal of leadership.
Authors:
Rego, A. (Autor de correspondencia); Cavazotte, F.; Cunha, M. P. E.; et al.
Journal:
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT
ISSN:
0149-2063
Year:
2021
Vol.:
47
N°:
5
pp.
1155 - 1184
Four studies (a vignette-based experiment conducted in Portugal and Brazil, a two-wave multisource field study in Portugal, a three-wave field study in the United States, and a multisource field study in Portugal), in which conscientiousness, a "rival" of grit, was controlled for, provide theoretical and empirical evidence for a model testing what (e.g., grit in leaders), why (e.g., employee self-attributed grit), and when (e.g., leader support) grit supports thriving at work. First, gritty employees are more likely to thrive. Second, conveyed leader grit (i.e., grit as perceived by employees) predicts employee grit. Third, conveyed leader grit and leader self-attributed grit are conceptually different, and although the two relate positively with employee self-attributed grit, the former is a better predictor of employee self-attributed grit. Fourth, leader support operates as a boundary condition, in that the indirect association of conveyed leader grit with employee thriving is stronger when the leader is perceived as supportive. Our research also indicates that the concept of grit is more textured than habitually considered and that more attention must be paid to the boundary conditions of its development and impact.
Journal:
MANAGEMENT RESEARCH
ISSN:
1536-5433
Year:
2020
Vol.:
18
N°:
3
pp.
263 - 284
Purpose The purpose of this study is to discuss the advantages and challenges of using virtuous language in business. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a theoretical exploration based on a literature review and philosophical analysis that uses a quantitative study from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as its starting point. Findings This study argues that neo-Aristotelian leadership and positive leadership explain why companies whose financial filings use value-laden language that stresses the higher purpose of the organisation to outperform companies whose reports use the language of profit maximisation. While neo-Aristotelian leadership is based on Aristotle's Rhetoric, positive leadership is primarily influenced by research results from Positive Psychology and Positive Organizational Scholarship. The two approaches to leadership highlight something that conventional business research largely ignores, namely, the role of values as drivers of human behavior and the importance of character in leadership. Both research streams indicate that it is possible for organisations to do well and do good because they are seen as groups of value-driven individuals. Thus, using virtuous/positive communication is a possible means to do well financially and to (re-)humanize the business world of tomorrow. Research limitations/implications The BHI study investigates the outcomes of written language only; thus, it does not consider oral communication. Moreover, there is no "perfect level" of virtuous language in corporate environments. We should not expect the same precision in ethics as in mathematics. Practical implications By way of explaining how to best use virtuous language in a business context, this study helps business practitioners to do good and well. Social implications This study offers a pathway to (re-)humanize tomorrow's world of business, which is once again subjugating humanity to imagined technological imperatives. Originality/value By deliberating the benefits and possible downsides of using virtuous language in a business environment, this paper advances a topic that has recently gained considerable attention but is still in need for more research.
Journal:
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES-REVUE CANADIENNE DES SCIENCES DE L ADMINISTRATION
ISSN:
0825-0383
Year:
2019
Vol.:
36
N°:
3
pp.
390 - 403
Virtuous leadership is crucial for advancing leadership ethics. By comparing Positive Leadership and its notion of virtuousness with neo¿Aristotelian leadership based on virtue, this article sheds light on this research field. We expound on the differences and commonalities between the two and present possibilities of how they can enrich each other and further ethical leadership theory. Our findings concern the purported Aristotelian roots of virtuousness, the relative strengths and weaknesses of the positive and the neo¿Aristotelian approaches, and the interplay between technical skills and ethical excellence in leadership. We propose the adoption of practical managerial tools and procedures from Positive Leadership, making them dependent upon the virtues to achieve flourishing within organizations and society at large.
Journal:
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ETHICS
ISSN:
0167-4544
Year:
2018
Vol.:
153
N°:
1
pp.
245¿264
This paper critically reviews and discusses the concept of organizational virtuousness as presented in positive organizational scholarship (POS). It identifies Kim S. Cameron, David S. Bright, and Arran Caza as the most influential researchers within this field and portrays commonalities, differences, and inconsistencies among the various notions of organizational virtuousness offered in positive organizational literature throughout the last 15 years. While the commonalities refer to attributes, levels of analyses, outcomes, and methodology, the variances concern the locus of residence, the priority of outcomes, indicators, supporting features and the virtues included in positive organizational virtuousness. The analysis further discusses the strengths and weaknesses of these differences and stresses the challenges which the POS movement needs to face in order to clarify its definition of organizational virtuousness and, maybe, converge on one unified meaning. Finally, these challenges are summarized and linked to future research proposals which offer potential ideas on how to further develop the concept of positive organizational virtuousness.
Journal:
BUSINESS ETHICS: A EUROPEAN REVIEW
ISSN:
0962-8770
Year:
2015
Vol.:
24
N°:
S2
pp.
S175 - S197
This article investigates the meaning of doing good and doing well in positive business. It examines the relationship between the two expressions and discusses their relevance, shedding new light on the significance of `positive¿ in positive business and positive organizational scholarship (POS). Thus, this article illuminates the ultimate end of positive states and practices. `Positive¿ primarily represents values and assumptions. These lead to the creation of beneficial situations and marked improvements, which put individuals and organizations on an upward trajectory toward achieving excellent functioning, assuring profitability in addition to sustainability and social well¿being. Doing well, with reference to economic performance and profits, is partly constitutive of doing good. This presents a new approach regarding the role of economic outcomes in positive business and POS. It means that financial criteria do not have priority. Profits are considered vital and necessary, but the final `raison d'être¿ of positive states and practices is the overall well¿being of the stakeholders.
National and regional funding
Title:
La Gobernanza de las prácticas ambientales, sociales y gobierno (ASG): El papel del propósito, la ética, el cumplimiento y la innovación (Govesg)
Project reference:
PID2021-124151NA-I00
Principal Investigator:
Luiz Ricardo Kabbach De Castro, Dulce María Redín Goñi
Funding organisation:
AGENCIA ESTATAL DE INVESTIGACION
Programme/Call:
2021 AEI Proyectos de Generación del Conocimiento
Starting date:
01/01/2022
Ending date:
31/12/2024
Amount awarded:
80.041,50€
Other Funds:
Fondos FEDER
