Values and attitudes toward social and environmental accountability : a study of MBA students

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Journal of Business Ethics

Publication Date

4-1-2007

Volume

71

Issue

4

First Page

381

Last Page

394

Keywords

Environmental accountability, MBA students, Personal values, Social accountability

Abstract

Efforts to promote corporate social and environmental accountability (SEA) should be informed by an understanding of stakeholders' attitudes toward enhanced accountability standards. However, little is known about current attitudes on this subject, or the determinants of these attitudes. To address this issue, this study examines the relationship between personal values and support for social and environmental accountability for a sample of experienced MBA students. Exploratory factor analysis of the items comprising our measure of support for SEA revealed two distinct factors: (1) endorsement of the general proposition that corporations and executives should be held accountable for the social and environmental impacts of their actions; and (2) agreement that the government should adopt and enforce formal SEA standards. Our findings indicate that the universalism value type is positively associated with general support for SEA, but not with support for government enforcement of accountability standards. In addition, we found that gender has a significant impact on support for government enforcement of SEA standards.

DOI

10.1007/s10551-005-3893-y

Print ISSN

01674544

E-ISSN

15730697

Publisher Statement

Copyright © Springer 2007

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Additional Information

Paper presented at the Symposium on Political Theory of Organization, Mar, 2005, San Francisco, California.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Fukukawa, K., Shafer, W. E., & Lee, G. M. (2007). Values and attitudes toward social and environmental accountability: A study of MBA students. Journal of Business Ethics, 71(4), 381-394. doi: 10.1007/s10551-005-3893-y

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