Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of thiswork has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by (...) proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. (shrink)

The trend toward increased levels of business interconnectedness in the value chain has clouded the issue of responsibility for business practices. Firms havehistorically denied responsibility for many questionable practices by suggesting that such acts were committed somewhere else in the value chain and that, because they are separated by an arm’s length transaction, they are not responsible. Emerging evidence suggests that in light of the interconnected and networked business environment, the arm’s length defense is growing less effective. We discuss the (...) practical realities that firms are facing in the highly networked environment and offer examples of each. We also offer practical guidance about each example within a total responsibility management framework. (shrink)

This research seeks to extend the literature of trust by examining whether the amount of trust that employees have in their supervisors is contingent upon the ethical system of belief utilized by their immediate supervisors. To help answer this question, it is hypothesized that employees have a greater degree of trust in immediate supervisors practicing the deontological ethical system of belief than in those practicing the teleological ethical system of belief. This study begins the search for the moral frameworks that (...) are the antecedents of trust in immediate supervisors. The results indicate that practicing a deontological approach to ethics may stimulate a greater degree of employee trust in immediate supervisors than a teleological approach; therefore, the ethical system of belief held by immediate supervisors affects his or her employees. (shrink)