Business Leadership, Ethical Values and Corporate Social Responsibility
In recent times, there has been huge concern on the issue of ethical leadership in the corporate world. Researchers have increasingly shifted their attention towards identifying what could be driving costly unethical behaviour in organizations. Organizations leadership stresses short-term result while disregarding the long-term implications of their actions. The result has been scandals and accounting frauds. Companies such as Enron, WorldCom (Knights and O’Leary, 2005), and Nortel executives (manipulating recovery earnings of post-dot-com in order to earn bonuses), are host of failure in ethical leadership that have threatened many senior management position and the financial survival of several companies. Some organizations lack authentic leaders who can exhibit leadership behaviour codes such as self-control, abstinence from egotistic self-interest and greed. How could such smart individuals get involved in such costly misconduct? This is the question on the lips of leaders and stakeholders of all area of public life in the wake of corporate scandals and the debacles of educational policy in the 21st century first years.
This week’s journal article findings reveal that recent ethical failures arise from modern-day concerns with symbolic and material success, which dwell in an eventual pre-occupation with the self (Knights and O’Leary, 2005). The ethics and morality of the 21st century workplace is result of the (minds of) leaders of the organization (the behaviour they model and the policies they establish). Knights and O’Leary (2005; 2006) states that business educators also fail to infuse the skills required to reverse the past 20 years trend whereby companies routinely have put their self-interests above of the society’s interests.
In Nigeria, the country has been knocked hard by the recent global financial meltdown. There have been recorded failures of many public and private sector organizations. Undoubtedly, the failure has been blamed on
This week’s journal article findings reveal that recent ethical failures arise from modern-day concerns with symbolic and material success, which dwell in an eventual pre-occupation with the self (Knights and O’Leary, 2005). The ethics and morality of the 21st century workplace is result of the (minds of) leaders of the organization (the behaviour they model and the policies they establish). Knights and O’Leary (2005; 2006) states that business educators also fail to infuse the skills required to reverse the past 20 years trend whereby companies routinely have put their self-interests above of the society’s interests.
In Nigeria, the country has been knocked hard by the recent global financial meltdown. There have been recorded failures of many public and private sector organizations. Undoubtedly, the failure has been blamed on
References: Eugene, G. (2010) SEC - Okereke-Onyiuke to Stand Down, Council Dissolved [Online] http://allafrica.com/stories/201008050142.html (Accessed September 8, 2011) Knights, D., & O’Leary, M. (2005) ‘Reflecting on corporate scandals: the failure of ethical leadership’, Business Ethics: A European Review, 14(4), pp. 359–366, [Online] Available at UOL e-library (Accessed September 8, 2011) SaharaReporters (2010) Former MD of Oceanic Bank, Cecilia Ibru, Convicted Of Bank Fraud [Online] http://saharareporters.com/news-page/former-md-oceanic-bank-cecilia-ibru-convicted-bank-fraud (Accessed September 8, 2011) Shenkar, O. & Luo, Y. (2007) International business. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications