Unethical Leadership: Current Theoretical Trends and Conceptualization

AbstractArticle offers theoretical insights into current trends in delineation of unethical leadership. Eclecticism in the respective scientific discourse is significant. The term “leadership” is being accompanied by various adjectives like “narcissistic”, “destructive”, “toxic”, dark”, “bad”, “dysfunctional”, “Machiavellian”, or “self-protective”. Confusion of terms contributes to the development of concepts that mutually overlap to a large extend, which does not benefit to clarification of the respective concept or to subsequent application of related connotations in managerial praxis. In this context, we explore influential conceptions of unethical leadership and based on their critical analysis we specify several theoretical problems that are not reflected adequately in current scientific discourse. Deriving from this analytical inquiry, we propose a new conceptualization of unethical leadership that aims to bridge relevant concepts and to overcome their drawbacks

Are Managers in Slovakia Ethical Leaders? Key Findings on the Level of Ethical Leadership in the Slovak Business Environment

Ethical leadership is a highly relevant and up-to-date topic in management studies because it represents a genuine key to improved work environment. To date, there was a considerable lack of empirical data on this specific leadership approach especially in the Central and Eastern European part of the world. This article represents an original and novel contribution to the respective field with preliminary results of an extensive ethical leadership research in the Slovak business environment carried out on the sample of 810 managers. Based on exploratory research design, results point out that ethical leadership is just moderately embedded in the current Slovak management practice and leaders do not utilize the full potential of ethics management tools at workplace. Still, there are some interesting commonalities and differences in the level of ethical leadership across the Slovak sample regarding the regional company location, company ownership, and company size

On the risks of implementation of codes of ethics in academic environment

The paper deals with the analysis of the implementation process of code of ethics into an academic workplace. The paper aims at delineating basic practical advice, how to carry out the implementation in order to be successful. The paper aspires for identification of potential mistakes regarding the process of implementation. It should serve as a manual for accomplishment regarding code of ethics as a specific tool for institutionalization of ethical conduct within a university workplace. It should provide academic personnel with useful information on what risks should be anticipated when implementing a code of ethics. As it is vital to behave in concordance with certain ethical principles, norms and values in the academic workplace, we assume that the code of ethics can serve as a supportive instrument. Its acceptance is influenced by diverse personal as well as situational variables. Hence, to be able to prepare and implement one unifying value regulator into the daily operations for diverse personalities within one workplace is a complex task to accomplish.Straipsnis analizuoja etikos kodeksų diegimo į akademinį gyvenimą procesus. Apibūdinamos pagrindinės praktinės problemos, parodant, kaip sėkmingai realizuoti šiuos procesus. Kartu siekiama identifikuoti potencialias klaidas. Straipsnis gali atlikti vadovo vaidmenį formuojant etikos kodeksą kaip ypatingą, specifinę priemonę, institucionalizuojančią etišką elgesį universitetinėje institucijoje. Juo siekiama suteikti akademiniam personalui naudingą informaciją apie tai, į kokias rizikas reikia atsižvelgti, diegiant etikos kodeksą. Akademiniame gyvenime labai svarbu laikytis tam tikrų etikos principų, normų ir vertybių, o etikos kodeksas gali būti veiksminga priemonė siekiant tai įgyvendinti. Jo priėmimą determinuoja skirtingi personaliniai bei situaciniai kintamieji, todėl turi būti sprendžiama kompleksinė užduotis, kaip organizacijai pasiruošti ir sėkmingai įdiegti į kasdieninę praktiką, visus darbo veiksmus vieną bendrą vertybių reguliavimą skirtingiems subjektams toje pačioje institucijoje. Straipsnio autorės didžiausią dėmesį sutelkia į valstybinių universitetų etikos kodeksų kūrimo bei diegimo principus. Savo supratimą apie tokius procesus jos grindžia teorinėmis žiniomis bei moksline literatūra, taip pat savo asmenine patirtimi diegiant etikos kodeksus įmonėse bei vertinant organizacinę kultūrą. Straipsnyje autorės daro prielaidą, jog, viena vertus, universitetai sukuria tinkamą intelektualinę aplinką etikos kodeksui sukurti ir diegti. Tačiau, kita vertus, yra daugybė ypatingų veiksnių, galinčių sulėtinti ar net visiškai sustabdyti etikos kodekso diegimo procesą universitete. Šių rizikos faktorių suvokimas yra būtinas visiems, kas ketina diegti etikos kodeksus konkrečių universitetų sąlygomis

Theoretical foundations of the Bratislava School of Business Ethics

The aim of this article is to explain the key theoretical foundations of business ethics as a social scientific and academic discipline that was established and further developed at the Faculty of Management at Comenius University in Bratislava. The authors of this article refer to this school of thought as the “Bratislava School of Business Ethics” with the intention of pointing out its relative autonomy in research and higher education in the Slovak academic environment

Unethical practices in the Slovak business environment: Entrepreneurs vs. the State?

This paper critically analyses one of the unexpected results of qualitative research aimed at detecting the presence of unethical business practices in Slovakia. The authors seek to find out why entrepreneurs participating in this research do not take responsibility for the development of business ethics and why, in their primary reflections on unethical practices in the Slovak business environment, have they shifted it almost completely to the State level (1), and whether their attitude is morally justified (2). The main theoretical foundation in the following analysis is the theory of development of business ethics on three levels (micro, mezzo and macro), also known as the “subject-matter of business ethics” approach. The paper discusses attitudes of the research sample, including Slovak entrepreneurs and company representatives, towards the State, and the consecutive critical reflection of their opinions shows that businesspersons tend to give up on their own proactive approach to the development of business ethics and position themselves in the role of an “expectant” instead of a “creator” of ethical standards in society. Furthermore, the paper points out that businesses lack ethical self-reflection in relation to corruption, more precisely, they lack reflection of their place in the corrupt relationship with the State. Given these findings, the paper concludes that an essential basis for the long-term development of business ethics in our country is the establishment of partnerships between the State and business entities, while recognizing the place of nongovernmental democratic institutions

Ethical-economic dilemmas in business education

The main purpose of the article is to support the idea of institutionalizing business ethics education at all business schools. Further, the article stresses the importance of using ethical-economic dilemmas in business ethics education. It argues that business students should learn that managerial work is too complex to make do with expertise and experience and help them to acquire the skill of ethical reflection of economic activity. Solving ethical-economic dilemmas in business ethics courses helps to develop cognitive skills in considering economic or managerial problems on the basis of ethical and economic interaction. In order to support the main purpose stated above, we aimed at getting a picture of how respondents assess and solve an ethical-economic dilemma. Hence, this article presents results of an empirical investigation of the ethical decision-making (EDM) process on a sample of Slovak students of Management

Differences in Occurrence of Unethical Business Practices in a Post-Transitional Country in the CEE Region: The Case of Slovakia

This study aims to contribute to the understanding of unethical practices in business and asks whether certain types of organizations are considerably more exposed to unethical business practices than others are. Drawing from the tenets of institutional theory, the paper investigates the occurrence of unethical practices in different organizational “fields”, namely the industry sector (with focus on Finance and Construction), company membership in professional networks, company ownership (public/private), and company age. The method of stratified random sampling by proportional allocation is used to establish the sample (n = 1295), composed mostly of company owners and higher managers. Results show that, in general, the industry sector, membership in professional networks, and company age are associated with significant variance in the perceived incidence of unethical practices, whereas company ownership has no significant effect in this regard. More specifically, the construction sector is significantly more exposed to unethical practices than other sectors in the sample, while the finance sector is not. Companies with membership in professional networks report a significantly lower occurrence of unethical practices. Young companies are significantly more exposed than their more mature counterparts; however, here the effect of company size must be accounted for. The research was conducted in one of the former CEE block countries—Slovakia. Given their common communist past and comparable peripeties with the transition process, these findings might be useful for understanding business ethics issues in a wider context of the CEE region

Reasons of Unethical Business Practices in Slovakia: The Perspective of Non‑Governmental Organizations’ Representatives

After the fall of communism, the first non‑governmental organizations (NGOs) were established in Slovakia in the 1990’s. Since then, our NGOs have played an important role in promoting business ethics even though it was originally not part of their primary mission. Given that, we held semi‑structured interviews with the leaders of nine prominent Slovak NGOs to identify the perceived causes of unethical practices occurring in the Slovak business environment. The results of this qualitative research suggest that our respondents connect the causes of unethical actions in business mainly with the macro‑level of society, that is with the way the State with its institutions and authorities operate. Out of ten identified causes of unethical business practices, our respondents assigned five to the macro‑level, while they linked three reasons to the mezzo‑level with unethical conduct of companies and two to the micro‑level with unethical decisions of individuals. Since the government has taken measures to create a more ethical business environment recently, it is now up to companies to realize they hold the joint responsibility for the state of the Slovak society and to concentrate more on what they can do for their part in favor of the development of business ethics

Values oriented leadership – conceptualization and preliminary results in Slovakia

The paper builds on the current trend in scholarly literature that reflects leadership from an ethical perspective. It introduces a new conceptualization of the values oriented leadership (VOL) and based on results of a pilot study, it informs on the level of VOL in the Slovak business environment and on systematic differences in VOL related to multiple individual and organizational factors. Contrary to the literature, results show that the VOL does not differ substantially between female and male leaders. Furthermore, this study adds to the current leadership ethics research also in that it includes two rarely investigated factors – the “length of leader-follower cooperation” and the “frequency of leader-follower interaction”. Both show an effect on the perceived VOL level; the theorized positive correlation with the frequency of leader-follower interaction is confirmed, nevertheless, somewhat surprisingly, results imply that the length of leader-follower cooperation affects negatively leader’s perceived ethicality at work. This study proves also differences in VOL based on regional company location and company size, with leaders in small companies rated significantly lower in VOL than leaders in large companies. The difference in VOL between leaders in Slovak-owned and foreign-owned companies is not established. Yet, compared to the private sector, this study confirms significantly lower VOL in the state-owned companies