IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v12y2022i2p21582440221097377.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

CSR and CEO’s Moral Reasoning in the Automotive Industry in the Era of COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Beatriz Garcia-Ortega
  • Javier Galan-Cubillo
  • Blanca de-Miguel-Molina

Abstract

This paper assesses whether and to which extent the COVID-19 pandemic, which represents a scenario of high moral intensity, is influencing the moral reasoning of top CEOs (chief executive officers) in the paradigmatic case of the automotive industry and how this moral reasoning relates to their CSR response to the crisis and their CSR plans in the long run. To this end, we took the CEO letters before and after the pandemic outbreak of the top 15 automotive companies, and applied Weber’s method to conduct a moral reasoning categorization, along with an examination of their CSR approach and initiatives. The results show a predominant moral paralysis among these CEOs, where positive reactions addressed are philanthropic in nature and more likely to be a transient response to the crisis, rather than a sustained long-term improvement of their CSR rooted in a significant moral approach enhancement. Furthermore, CEOs at the lowest stages of moral reasoning, primarily focused on their own business and immediate stakeholders, are less likely to highlight these philanthropic initiatives. The outcome evidences the convenience of addressing CSR from the lens of moral reasoning, and it further draws the attention of the scientific community, companies and their top management, stakeholders, and society to the relevance of investigating and considering the moral reasoning of top management in large corporations and its implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Beatriz Garcia-Ortega & Javier Galan-Cubillo & Blanca de-Miguel-Molina, 2022. "CSR and CEO’s Moral Reasoning in the Automotive Industry in the Era of COVID-19," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:21582440221097377
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440221097377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440221097377
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440221097377?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kaptein, Muel & Wempe, Johan, 2002. "The Balanced Company: A Theory of Corporate Integrity," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199255511.
    2. Stefan Tengblad & Claes Ohlsson, 2010. "The Framing of Corporate Social Responsibility and the Globalization of National Business Systems: A Longitudinal Case Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(4), pages 653-669, June.
    3. Sara Rodriguez-Gomez & Maria Lourdes Arco-Castro & Maria Victoria Lopez-Perez & Lazaro Rodríguez-Ariza, 2020. "Where Does CSR Come from and Where Does It Go? A Review of the State of the Art," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Ralph Jackson & Charles Wood & James Zboja, 2013. "The Dissolution of Ethical Decision-Making in Organizations: A Comprehensive Review and Model," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 233-250, August.
    5. He, Hongwei & Harris, Lloyd, 2020. "The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility and marketing philosophy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 176-182.
    6. Randall Dodd, 2003. "Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron. By Robert Bryce, with a foreword by Molly Ivins," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(4), pages 106-109.
    7. Appel Mahmud & Donghong Ding & Md. Morshadul Hasan, 2021. "Corporate Social Responsibility: Business Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, January.
    8. Weber, James, 1991. "Adapting Kohlberg to Enhance the Assessment of Managers’ Moral Reasoning," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 293-318, July.
    9. Magalie Marais, 2012. "CEO rhetorical strategies for corporate social responsibility (CSR)," Post-Print hal-02523052, HAL.
    10. Blanca de-Miguel-Molina & Vicente Chirivella-González & Beatriz García-Ortega, 2016. "Corporate philanthropy and community involvement. Analysing companies from France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 50(6), pages 2741-2766, November.
    11. Yi-Hui Ho & Chieh-Yu Lin, 2016. "The Moral Judgment Relationship Between Leaders and Followers: A Comparative Study Across the Taiwan Strait," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(2), pages 299-310, March.
    12. Timothy J. Quigley & Donald C. Hambrick, 2015. "Has the “CEO effect” increased in recent decades? A new explanation for the great rise in America's attention to corporate leaders," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(6), pages 821-830, June.
    13. Russell Craig & Joel Amernic, 2018. "Are there Language Markers of Hubris in CEO Letters to Shareholders?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(4), pages 973-986, June.
    14. Joel Amernic & Russell Craig, 2013. "Leadership Discourse, Culture, and Corporate Ethics: CEO-speak at News Corporation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 379-394, December.
    15. Mark S. Schwartz, 2016. "Ethical Decision-Making Theory: An Integrated Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(4), pages 755-776, December.
    16. Anne Toppinen & Vasylysa Hänninen & Katja Lähtinen, 2015. "ISO 26000 in the assessment of CSR communication quality: CEO letters and social media in the global pulp and paper industry," Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 11(4), pages 702-715, October.
    17. Van Alstine, James & Barkemeyer, Ralf, 2014. "Business and development: Changing discourses in the extractive industries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 4-16.
    18. Elaine Doyle & Jane Frecknall Hughes & Barbara Summers, 2013. "An Empirical Analysis of the Ethical Reasoning of Tax Practitioners," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 325-339, May.
    19. Beatriz García-Ortega & Blanca de-Miguel-Molina & Javier Galán-Cubillo, 2019. "Examining CEOs’ Moral Reasoning in the Automotive Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-24, October.
    20. repec:eme:aaaj00:09513570010353738 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Martina Sukitsch & Sabrina Engert & Rupert J. Baumgartner, 2015. "The Implementation of Corporate Sustainability in the European Automotive Industry: An Analysis of Sustainability Reports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(9), pages 1-28, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Beatriz García-Ortega & Blanca de-Miguel-Molina & Javier Galán-Cubillo, 2019. "Examining CEOs’ Moral Reasoning in the Automotive Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-24, October.
    2. Ali Zackery & Joseph Amankwah-Amoah & Zahra Heidari Darani & Shiva Ghasemi, 2022. "COVID-19 Research in Business and Management: A Review and Future Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-32, August.
    3. David Benjamin Billedeau & Jeffrey Wilson & Naima Samuel, 2022. "From Responsibility to Requirement: COVID, Cars, and the Future of Corporate Social Responsibility in Canada," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-16, May.
    4. Feng Xu & Cam Caldwell & Verl Anderson, 2016. "Moral Implications of Leadership - Transformative Insights," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 6(3), pages 76-85, March.
    5. Li, Yi-Na & Li, Yan & Chen, Haipeng (Allan) & Wei, Jiuchang, 2023. "How verbal and non-verbal cues in a CEO apology for a corporate crisis affect a firm’s social disapproval," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    6. NAHAR Hairul Suhaimi & MOHAMAD Maslinawati, 2023. "Academic Research Responses To Covid-19: The Corporate Social Responsibility Perspective," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 18(1), pages 171-197, April.
    7. Jingchen Zhao, 2021. "Reimagining Corporate Social Responsibility in the Era of COVID-19: Embedding Resilience and Promoting Corporate Social Competence," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-28, June.
    8. Tiberiu Foris & Alina Simona Tecău & Camelia-Cristina Dragomir & Diana Foris, 2022. "The Start-Up Manager in Times of Crisis: Challenges and Solutions for Increasing the Resilience of Companies and Sustainable Reconstruction," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-20, July.
    9. Feng Xu & Cam Caldwell & Verl Anderson, 2016. "Moral Implications of Leadership - Transformative Insights," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 6(3), pages 76-85, March.
    10. Alexander Leischnig & Arch G. Woodside, 2019. "Who Approves Fraudulence? Configurational Causes of Consumers’ Unethical Judgments," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 713-726, September.
    11. Yuan Zhi Seah, 2021. "COVID-19 and Its Effects on Attitudes toward Opportunity-Motivated Entrepreneurship: Before and after Lockdown," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-13, August.
    12. Sankay Oboh, Collins, 2020. "The Influence Of Perceived System Of Justice, Magnitude Of Consequences And Social Consensus On Ethical Decision-Making Among Professional Accountants In Nigeria," International Journal of Contemporary Accounting Issues-IJCAI (formerly International Journal of Accounting & Finance IJAF), The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), vol. 9(2), pages 46-73, September.
    13. Sharif Mohammad Aqabna & Mehmet Aga & Huthayfa Nabeel Jabari, 2023. "Firm Performance, Corporate Social Responsibility and the Impact of Earnings Management during COVID-19: Evidence from MENA Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-20, January.
    14. Runesson, Emmeli & Samani, Niuosha, 2023. "Goodwill or “No-will”: Hubris in the tone at the top," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1).
    15. Muel Kaptein, 2023. "A Paradox of Ethics: Why People in Good Organizations do Bad Things," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 184(1), pages 297-316, April.
    16. Ourvashi Bissoon, 2018. "Corporate social responsibility in Mauritius: an analysis of annual reports of multinational hotel groups," Asian Journal of Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-19, December.
    17. Moriuchi, Emi & Takahashi, Ikuo, 2022. "The role of perceived value, trust and engagement in the C2C online secondary marketplace," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 76-88.
    18. Margaret Oppenheimer & Helen LaVan & William Martin, 2015. "A Framework for Understanding Ethical and Efficiency Issues in Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Litigation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(3), pages 505-524, December.
    19. Changping Zhao & Juanjuan Sun & Yun Zhang, 2022. "A Study of the Drivers of Decarbonization in the Plastics Supply Chain in the Post-COVID-19 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(23), pages 1-20, November.
    20. Xie, Junyi & Ifie, Kemefasu & Gruber, Thorsten, 2022. "The dual threat of COVID-19 to health and job security – Exploring the role of mindfulness in sustaining frontline employee-related outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 216-227.

    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:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:21582440221097377. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.