IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ann/journl/v19y2016i4p23-37.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unethical Behaviour of Organisations from a Social Network Perspective. A Literature Review

Author

Listed:
  • Kalina Grzesiuk

    (John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland)

Abstract

One of the distinctive features of contemporary organisations is their interconnectedness. Relationships between companies are usually analysed on the basis of social network relationships between them. The research question this article aims to answer concerns the influence of being part of an interorganisational network on the occurrence and consequences of unethical behaviour. This paper covers three main areas of research regarding this topic. Firstly, the role networks play in the initiation, evolution, and consequences of wrongdoings. The main problem taken into consideration in this part of the article is identifying network factors which increase and mitigate the propensity of organisations to deceive their partners. Two main types of such determinants include relational and structural factors. The first group usually involves features such as the strength of ties, the symmetry/asymmetry of ties, and the status of partners. The latter includes such variables as structural holes, centrality, density and the cohesiveness of the network. The second area covered in this article concerns how misconduct behaviours spread throughout the network of interorganisational ties. This phenomenon might resemble a social or emotional contagion occurring in social networks. The effects of unethical acts on the network are the main interest of the third part of this paper. Usually, the consequences of wrongdoing by one of the interconnected partners include a change in the quality of the related partners, modifications in the structure of the network, and an alteration of its prominence and cohesion. In conclusion, there are some suggestions for lines of inquiry in the area of unethical behaviour from the social network perspective in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Kalina Grzesiuk, 2016. "Unethical Behaviour of Organisations from a Social Network Perspective. A Literature Review," Annales. Ethics in Economic Life, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, vol. 19(4), pages 23-37, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ann:journl:v:19:y:2016:i:4:p:23-37
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.annalesonline.uni.lodz.pl/archiwum/2016/2016_4_grzesiuk_23_37.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jamie Collins & Klaus Uhlenbruck & Peter Rodriguez, 2009. "Why Firms Engage in Corruption: A Top Management Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 89-108, June.
    2. Ashkanasy, Neal M. & Windsor, Carolyn A. & Treviño, Linda K., 2006. "Bad Apples in Bad Barrels Revisited: Cognitive Moral Development, Just World Beliefs, Rewards, and Ethical Decision-Making," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 449-473, October.
    3. Jared Harris & Philip Bromiley, 2007. "Incentives to Cheat: The Influence of Executive Compensation and Firm Performance on Financial Misrepresentation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(3), pages 350-367, June.
    4. Alexander, Cindy R, 1999. "On the Nature of the Reputational Penalty for Corporate Crime: Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 489-526, April.
    5. Bilian Ni Sullivan & Pamela Haunschild & Karen Page, 2007. "Organizations Non Gratae? The Impact of Unethical Corporate Acts on Interorganizational Networks," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 18(1), pages 55-70, February.
    6. Drover, Will & Wood, Matthew S. & Fassin, Yves, 2014. "Take the money or run? Investors' ethical reputation and entrepreneurs' willingness to partner," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 723-740.
    7. Franziska Zuber, 2015. "Spread of Unethical Behavior in Organizations: A Dynamic Social Network Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 151-172, September.
    8. Coyle-Shapiro, Jacqueline A-M. & Shore, Lynn M, 2007. "The employee-organization relationship: where do we go from here?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4887, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Jonathan M. Karpoff & D. Scott Lee & Valaria P. Vendrzyk, 1999. "Defense Procurement Fraud, Penalties, and Contractor Influence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(4), pages 809-842, August.
    10. Mooweon Rhee & Pamela R. Haunschild, 2006. "The Liability of Good Reputation: A Study of Product Recalls in the U.S. Automobile Industry," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 101-117, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hall, Jeremy & Martin, Ben R., 2019. "Towards a taxonomy of research misconduct: The case of business school research," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 414-427.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Carole L. Jurkiewicz & Robert A. Giacalone, 2016. "Organizational Determinants of Ethical Dysfunctionality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 136(1), pages 1-12, June.
    2. Gabbioneta, Claudia & Greenwood, Royston & Mazzola, Pietro & Minoja, Mario, 2013. "The influence of the institutional context on corporate illegality," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 484-504.
    3. Nadine Gatzert & Joan T. Schmit & Andreas Kolb, 2016. "Assessing the Risks of Insuring Reputation Risk," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 83(3), pages 641-679, September.
    4. Gatzert, Nadine, 2015. "The impact of corporate reputation and reputation damaging events on financial performance: Empirical evidence from the literature," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 485-499.
    5. Stephen J. Smulowitz & Didier Cossin & Alfredo De Massis & Hongze (Abraham) Lu, 2023. "Wrongdoing in Publicly Listed Family- and Nonfamily-Owned Firms: A Behavioral Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1233-1264, July.
    6. Cai, Wenjing & Jiang, Fuxiu & Ma, Jia, 2023. "The peer effect of penalty against firm leaders," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    7. Daphne W. Yiu & Yuehua Xu & William P. Wan, 2014. "The Deterrence Effects of Vicarious Punishments on Corporate Financial Fraud," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(5), pages 1549-1571, October.
    8. Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff, 2020. "The Trust Triangle: Laws, Reputation, and Culture in Empirical Finance Research," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 217-238, May.
    9. Li, Changhong & Li, Jialong & Liu, Mingzhi & Wang, Yuan & Wu, Zhenyu, 2017. "Anti-misconduct policies, corporate governance and capital market responses: International evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 47-60.
    10. Asghar Afshar Jahanshahi & Alexander Brem & Amitab Bhattacharjee, 2017. "Who Takes More Sustainability-Oriented Entrepreneurial Actions? The Role of Entrepreneurs’ Values, Beliefs and Orientations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-19, September.
    11. Mark Davis & Marcus Cox & Melissa Baucus, 2021. "Managerial Aspirations and Suspect Leaders: The Effect of Relative Performance and Leader Succession on Organizational Misconduct," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 123-138, June.
    12. Massimo G. Colombo & Benedetta Montanaro & Kourosh Shafi, 2024. "Dancing with Strangers? Initial Trust and the Formation of Initial Ties Between New Ventures and Corporate Venture Capitalists," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 48(5), pages 1223-1265, September.
    13. Li, Ge & Cheng, Yuxiang, 2024. "Impact of environmental, social, and governance rating disagreement on real earnings management in Chinese listed companies," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Dan Amiram & Zahn Bozanic & James D. Cox & Quentin Dupont & Jonathan M. Karpoff & Richard Sloan, 2018. "Financial reporting fraud and other forms of misconduct: a multidisciplinary review of the literature," Review of Accounting Studies, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 732-783, June.
    15. Zhou, Jian & Yu, Jianglong & Lei, Xiaodong, 2024. "Do sanctions imposed on peers have a deterrence effect on related-party transactions of observing firms? Evidence from Chinese listed firms," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. Daniel L. Gamache & Cynthia E. Devers & Felice B. Klein & Timothy Hannigan, 2023. "Shifting perspectives: How scrutiny shapes the relationship between CEO gender and acquisition activity," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(12), pages 3012-3041, December.
    17. Franco Mariuzzo & Peter Ormosi & Zherou Majied, 2019. "Public and reputational sanctions: The case of cartels," Working Paper series, University of East Anglia, Centre for Competition Policy (CCP) 2018-06v3, Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    18. Karpoff, Jonathan M & Lott, John R, Jr & Wehrly, Eric W, 2005. "The Reputational Penalties for Environmental Violations: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(2), pages 653-675, October.
    19. JP Vergne & Georg Wernicke & Steffen Brenner, 2018. "Signal Incongruence and Its Consequences: A Study of Media Disapproval and CEO Overcompensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(5), pages 796-817, October.
    20. George I. Kassinis & Adam A. Kay & Giorgos Papagiannakis & Pavlos A. Vlachos, 2022. "Stigma as Moral Insurance: How Stigma Buffers Firms from the Market Consequences of Greenwashing," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(8), pages 2154-2190, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unethical behaviours; network; interorganisational relationships; social networks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M10 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - General
    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ann:journl:v:19:y:2016:i:4:p:23-37. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joanna Dzionek-Kozlowska (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/welodpl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.