An Ethical Perspective on Corporate Leadership in Emerging Economy Contexts: Setting the Scene for Future Research

Abstract

Due to the lack of effective formal institutions, emerging economies appear to be a particularly challenging environment for corporate leadership to adopt ethical values and practices. This chapter presents a critical narrative account of extant literature addressing: 1) the ethical components of leadership in a philosophical perspective, 2) ethical challenges of leadership in an emerging economy context, and 3) the extent to which existing empirical research has captured such ethical challenges. The chapter then suggests a future research agenda adopting an integrated, multiple-perspective view on leadership ethics; a multi-level analysis linking microprocesses of leadership and macro-, institutional effects such as CSR; a greater emphasis on qualitative and longitudinal studies of leadership in international business settings, as they address the dynamic nature of emerging economy contextual reality.