In response to the responsible research in business and management (RRBM) movement, more and more management scholars are conducting studies to identify responsible behaviors at the organizational and individual levels, in advanced and emerging markets. The collection of articles published in this issue provides a glimpse of this effort, starting with a paper reviewing the literature (173 journal articles) on corporate social irresponsibility in business, pointing out its antecedents and consequences, as well as the moderating factors that can reduce it. More importantly, this paper identified a promising future agenda to advance this stream of research (Tan, Wu, & Zhong, 2024).
Following that, Qu, Fu, Tu, and Shadnam (2024) studied responsible leadership using a case approach in which in-depth interviews were conducted among 9 highly regarded Chinese business executives and 92 stakeholders with whom they were familiar. It is revealed that in China, it is the leaders' moral character that guides them to define and take responsibility for themselves, their employees, companies, and external stakeholders. The authors call it ‘responsible leadership with Chinese characteristics’, emphasizing the moral traditions of the Chinese culture in defining responsibility.
Connecting responsible behavior with dissent voting by board directors, Zhang, Liu, and Zhong (2024) focused on directors' board interlocking network centrality, which can supplement their existing information set and facilitate reputation spillover, to study their dissent on boards. The authors found supporting evidence for a positive relationship between network centrality and dissent voting, and such a relationship was weaker when firm transparency was higher, and/or there was more media mention of a director, demonstrating information and reputation mechanisms, respectively. Furthermore, as green innovation represents a responsible behavior that helps emerging market firms obtain regulatory and social legitimacy in host countries, it positively predicts their export performance. Using a panel dataset populated by 254 Chinese listed manufacturing companies from 2011 through 2017, Shu, Zhao, Yao, and Zhou (2024) showed that relationship.
To stretch a little, CEOs' international experience in advanced market economies may be viewed as a responsible behavior, because it helps them overcome managerial myopia and facilitate their firms' investment horizons in a transitioning economy. Ge, Muller, Gong, and Qian's (2024) study of a matched sample of 204 Chinese CEOs during the period 2002–2019 revealed that was indeed the case. Moreover, while we all know that mask-wearing is an individual responsible behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bai, Liu, and Guo (2024) found that mask-wearing also enabled workers to adopt more authentic emotional displays, which in turn decreased their emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, such an effect was stronger for those with more frequent face-to-face interaction.
I am hopeful that more responsible behaviors and practices in organizations will be identified in 2024, the dawn of a new era when more advanced technology and artificial intelligence start to permeate the workplace. I thank every author, reader, reviewer, and editor for your support of MOR!
With gratitude,
