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Ethical Climate and Purchasing Social Responsibility: A Benevolence Focus

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Abstract

Using a sample of multinational firms in Germany, we develop and empirically examine a model to test the effects of ethical climate and its antecedents on purchasing social responsibility (PSR). Our results show different effects of benevolence dimensions of ethical climate on PSR: employee-focused climate has no effect, but community-focused climate is a significant driver of PSR. The results also show that top management ethical norms and code of conduct implementation impact PSR directly as well as indirectly through ethical climate.

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Notes

  1. For the purpose of this article, we define purchasing social responsibility as ‘purchasing activities that meet social and ecological responsibilities expected by society’ (Carter and Jennings, 2004). Furthermore, our research does not include ‘traditional’ unethical practices (e.g., corruption and bribing) that is related to another well-established research stream (e.g., Browning and Zabriskie 1983; Dubinsky and Gwin 1981).

  2. When talking about code of conducts, we do not refer to supplier code of conducts which have been widely addressed in research (Preuss 2009). Instead, we integrate internal code of conducts which is also referred to as code of ethics, ethical policy, business principles that broadly influence employee behaviour to a larger extent than external codes (Mijatovic and Stokic 2010; Schwartz 2001).

  3. The standardized coefficients provided by PLS were converted to unstandardized coefficients by multiplying the standardized coefficients by the standard deviation of the dependent variable (Y) and dividing them by the standard deviation of the independent variable (X).

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Carsten Reuter and Philipp Goebel for their work in collecting the data for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Louvain School of Management/CORE, Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL), 34 Voie du Roman Pays, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Constantin Blome

  2. EBS Business School, Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 3, 65189, Wiesbaden, Germany

    Constantin Blome

  3. Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, 6000, Kolding, DK

    Antony Paulraj

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  1. Constantin Blome
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Correspondence to Constantin Blome.

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We acknowledge the great effort of Carsten Reuter and Philipp Goebel in collecting the empirical data of this study.

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Blome, C., Paulraj, A. Ethical Climate and Purchasing Social Responsibility: A Benevolence Focus. J Bus Ethics 116, 567–585 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1481-5

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