Responsible leadership and the reflective CEO: resolving stakeholder conflict by imagining what could be done

In light of grand societal challenges, most recently the global Covid-19 pandemic, there is a call for research on responsible leadership. While significant advances have been made in recent years towards a better understanding of the concept, a gap exists in the understanding of responsible leaders...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Pless, Nicola 1966- (Author) ; Sengupta, Atri (Author) ; Wheeler, Melissa A. (Author) ; Maak, Thomas 1964- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2022
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 180, Issue: 1, Pages: 313-337
Further subjects:B cross-sector collaboration
B Responsible Leadership
B Corporate social responsibility
B Social Justice
B Business Ethics
B Grand societal challenges
B Moral Imagination
B Sustainable Development
B Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
B Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
B Indigenous communities
B Emerging country multinational
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:In light of grand societal challenges, most recently the global Covid-19 pandemic, there is a call for research on responsible leadership. While significant advances have been made in recent years towards a better understanding of the concept, a gap exists in the understanding of responsible leadership in emerging countries, specifically how leaders resolve prevalent moral dilemmas. Following Werhane (1999), we use moral imagination as an analytical approach to analyze a dilemmatic stakeholder conflict (between indigenous communities in rural India and an emerging market multinational enterprise headquartered in the same country) through the lense of different responsible leadership mindsets and in light of different ethical principles and moral background theories. Based on this analysis, we arrive at a tentative moral judgement, concluding that the instrumental approach is morally inferior and recommending the integrative approach as the morally superior choice. In the subsequent discussion—focussed on what "could" (instead of "should") be done, we apply the integrative script and use moral imagination as a pathway for generating morally justifiable solutions. Through this analysis, we provide novel insights on how to apply an integrative responsible leadership approach to a stakeholder conflict situation, using the single case study to expand the responsible leadership discussion to emerging markets.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04865-6