Foundations of Responsible Leadership: Asian Versus Western Executive Responsibility Orientations Toward Key Stakeholders

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Michael A. Witt, Günter K. Stahl

2016 Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 136 Issue 3 Article Cited by 100 Quartile

Abstract

Exploring the construct of social-responsibility orientation across three Asian and two Western societies (Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States), we show evidence that top-level executives in these societies hold fundamentally different beliefs about their responsibilities toward different stakeholders, with concomitant implications for their understanding and enactment of responsible leadership. We further find that these variations are more closely aligned with institutional factors than with cultural variables, suggesting a need to clarify the connection between culture and institutions on the one hand and culture and social-responsibility orientations on the other. © 2015, The Author(s).

Affiliations

INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore, 138676, Singapore; Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, Vienna, 1020, Austria