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Blessing or curse? The link between firm CSR practices and leaders’ unethical decisions: The mediating role of moral cognition

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Abstract

When a firm actively engages in CSR practices, does the leader always make ethical decisions? Drawing on social cognitive theory and the ethical decision-making literature, we develop a model to explain how a leader makes unethical decisions in an active CSR-practicing environment. Specifically, we argue that a firm's CSR practices do not necessarily translate into the leader's ethical decisions, and on the contrary, it may lead to the opposite. The relationship between a firm's CSR practices and its leader's unethical decisions is mediated by the leader's moral cognitive process (moral licensing and moral imagination) toward the firm's CSR practices, and this relationship is further moderated by the leader's altruistic values. Results from multi-method studies largely support our predictions.

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Funding

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72172049, 72272059), and Philosophy and Social Science Research Project of Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (No. 2023SJYB0342).

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  1. Department of Business Administration, School of Business, Nanjing Audit University, Nanjing, People’s Republic of China, 211815

    Leying Wang

  2. Department of Management, Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire, 10 Garrison Ave., Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    Jun Li

  3. Department of Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property, School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, 430074

    Yiyuan Mai & Zhuxin Ye

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  1. Leying Wang
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  2. Jun Li
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  3. Yiyuan Mai
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  4. Zhuxin Ye
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Correspondence to Jun Li.

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Wang, L., Li, J., Mai, Y. et al. Blessing or curse? The link between firm CSR practices and leaders’ unethical decisions: The mediating role of moral cognition. Asia Pac J Manag (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-023-09920-6

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