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Leadership Discourse, Culture, and Corporate Ethics: CEO-speak at News Corporation

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  • Joel Amernic
  • Russell Craig

Abstract

We explore the language of leadership of global media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2010, the year before the phone-hacking scandal in the UK came to public attention. Subsequent public enquiries in the UK exposed unethical conduct by staff of News Corporation, a global corporation whose Chairman and CEO was Rupert Murdoch. We focus on the ethical climate fashioned by ‘A Letter from Rupert Murdoch’ that appeared in the opening pages of the annual report of News Corporation for the year ended 30 June 2010. Plausibly, Murdoch’s discourse in that letter helped condition the inapt, unethical conduct of News Corporation staff. We highlight the cultural and ethical signs that were embedded in Murdoch’s letter and which reflected the company’s tone at the top and ethical values. We identify signs of a perverse leadership thinking that possibly help explain the inappropriate cultural values and ethical behaviours that were revealed subsequently in evidence presented to public inquiries. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:118:y:2013:i:2:p:379-394
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1506-0
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Clive R. Boddy, 2011. "The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Corporate Psychopaths, chapter 14, pages 163-166, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Niamh M. Brennan & John P. Conroy, 2013. "Executive hubris: the case of a bank CEO," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 26(2), pages 172-195, February.
    3. Russell Craig & Joel Amernic, 2011. "Detecting Linguistic Traces of Destructive Narcissism At-a-Distance in a CEO’s Letter to Shareholders," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(4), pages 563-575, July.
    4. Clive Boddy, 2011. "The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial Crisis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 255-259, August.
    5. Joel Amernic & Russell Craig, 2010. "Accounting as a Facilitator of Extreme Narcissism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 79-93, September.
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    Cited by:

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    2. 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).
    3. Power, Sean Bradley & Brennan, Niamh M., 2022. "Accounting as a dehumanizing force in colonial rhetoric: Quantifying native peoples in annual reports," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    4. Amernic, Joel & Craig, Russell, 2017. "CEO speeches and safety culture: British Petroleum before the Deepwater Horizon disaster," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 61-80.
    5. 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.
    6. Elisabeth Albertini, 2016. "An inductive typology of the interrelations between different components of intellectual capital," Post-Print hal-02139769, HAL.
    7. 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).
    8. Beattie, Vivien, 2014. "Accounting narratives and the narrative turn in accounting research: Issues, theory, methodology, methods and a research framework," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 111-134.
    9. E. Julie Hald & Alex Gillespie & Tom W. Reader, 2021. "Causal and Corrective Organisational Culture: A Systematic Review of Case Studies of Institutional Failure," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 457-483, November.
    10. Helena Liu, 2017. "The Masculinisation of Ethical Leadership Dis/embodiment," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 144(2), pages 263-278, August.
    11. George Ferns & Kenneth Amaeshi & Aliette Lambert, 2019. "Drilling their Own Graves: How the European Oil and Gas Supermajors Avoid Sustainability Tensions Through Mythmaking," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 201-231, August.
    12. Hald, Julie & Gillespie, Alex & Reader, Tom W., 2021. "Causal and corrective organisational culture: a systematic review of case studies of institutional failure," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 106537, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Gianni Onesti & Riccardo Palumbo, 2023. "Tone at the Top for Sustainable Corporate Governance to Prevent Fraud," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(3), pages 1-16, January.
    14. Ariail, Donald L. & Khayati, Amine & Shawver, Tara, 2021. "Perceptions by employed accounting students of ethical leadership and political skill: Evidence for including political skill in ethics pedagogy," Journal of Accounting Education, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
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