Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DOI 10.1007/s10551-013-2032-4
Received: 30 October 2012 / Accepted: 19 December 2013 / Published online: 21 January 2014
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
J. Marcus (&)
School of Administrative Studies, Faculty of Liberal Arts &
Professional Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street,
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
e-mail: marcus@yorku.ca
H. A. MacDonald L. M. Sulsky
Faculty of Business Administration, Memorial University of
Newfoundland, St. Johns, NL A1B 3X5, Canada
e-mail: hmacdonald@mun.ca
L. M. Sulsky
e-mail: lsulsky@mun.ca
KLD
UI
VVI
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Method
Setting, Sample and Procedure
We conducted the current research using a broad student
sample at a mid-sized university in Southwestern Ontario,
Canada, and included both undergraduate and graduate students. Although there are well-known problems associated
with using student samples in organizational research, in this
case a student sample is justified in that we are testing a withinperson behavioural process linking an individuals core values
and the corporate actions they are likely to support or engage
in. As stated earlier, our choice to examine corporate actions
propensity as opposed to a direct measure of corporate actions
corresponds to the wide breadth of actions that we wanted to
sample across the sustainability domains. The outcome variable of behavioural propensity keeps our analysis strictly
within-person, and as such students represent a valid sample
with which to initially test our hypotheses.
Participants were enroled in a variety of academic programs including business, social work, sociology, environmental studies and geography. The business students included
in the sample participated through an established research
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Predictor Measures
Economic, Social, and Environmental Values
We wanted participants to provide insight into their values
without directly asking about their personal values. This is
because directly probing values has the potential to
increase social desirability bias, whereby respondents
report the values they think they should have or would like
to have as opposed to the values they truly hold (Meglino
and Ravlin 1998). To help circumvent this problem, economic, social and environmental values were measured
using a policy-capturing method, which is a within-person
idiographic regression-based technique commonly used to
understand how individuals differentially weight informational cues (Aiman-Smith et al. 2002; Zedeck 1977). A
policy-capturing method allows for an implicit assessment
of respondent values and overcomes a number of limitations with the normative and ipsative techniques commonly
used to measure values (Meglino and Ravlin 1998). In
related research (Marcus and Sulsky 2011) this measure
has also been found to show convergent and discriminant
validity with the economic and stakeholder values measures used by Sully de Luque et al. (2008).
To further minimize the possibility that individuals
would think consciously about their values, the policycapturing procedure was masked as an organizational ratings task and respondents were provided with a series of
organizational profiles containing triple-bottom-line performance information. In all, respondents rated 68 organizational profiles including four duplicate profiles that
allowed for an assessment of intra-rater reliability. For each
hypothetical organization both descriptive and numerical
ratings (or cues) were provided for each of the economic,
social and environmental dimensions, and respondents
were then asked to provide global evaluations based on
those cues (see Appendix B). Cue values were experimentally manipulated across the profiles to create a fullycrossed design. By regressing respondent judgements on
the cue values, this fully-crossed design allowed for an
unambiguous assessment of the degree to which each cue
contributed to the overall respondent ratings (Karren and
Barringer 2002). Because individuals pay attention to the
cues that they feel are most important when rating the
organizations, the resultant beta weights were interpreted
as measures of respondents underlying values.
We employed two versions of the policy-capturing
survey with the second version being a simple split-half
reversal of the question ordering. The two versions were
equally distributed in the sample. Average R2 for the entire
sample was 0.77 and was the same for both versions of the
survey indicating highly consistent responding across versions and that the linear model did a good job of capturing
467
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Control Measures
Previous research has shown that individual values may
significantly relate to various demographic variables
(Meglino and Ravlin 1998; Warr 2008). As such, we
assessed a number of demographic factors including gender, age, work experience and nationality, and used them as
control variables in subsequent analyses. Given that students from different programs of study may hold different
value orientations, we also included program enrolment as
a control variable, distinguishing between students in
business, social work/sociology and environmental studies/
geography programs.
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J. Marcus et al.
Environmental values
3.35
7.75
2.58
3.63
6.68
Social concern
Environmental strength
Environmental concern
Controversial industries
Control industries
0.64
0.15
0.09
Business
Social work/sociology
Environmental studies/geography
0.01
-0.25***
Controversial industries
Control industries
-0.62***
Environmental concern
Environmental strength
Social concern
Social strength
Economic concern
Economic strength
Balanced values
Environmental values
Social values
0.11
0.68
Work experience
Nationality
Gender
Age
8.14
Social strength
0.52
22.38
3.12
Economic concern
Control variables
7.89
Economic strength
-0.71
0.47
Social values
Balanced values
0.48
0.48
Economic values
0.28***
0.35***
0.32***
12
-0.11
0.35***
-0.24***
-0.01
0.15*
0.32***
0.22***
-0.14*
-0.28***
-0.33***
0.18**
-0.39***
0.35***
-0.30***
-0.23***
0.59***
11
-0.21***
-0.43***
0.50***
-0.05
-0.23***
-0.42***
-0.30***
0.30***
0.42***
0.44***
-0.33***
0.48***
-0.30***
0.31***
0.42***
-0.03
-0.64***
-0.64***
0.42***
10
0.28
0.36
0.48
0.46
0.31
0.50
5.70
2.38
2.78
1.88
1.40
1.82
1.34
1.70
1.6
0.46
0.13
0.12
0.19
SD
0.44***
13
0.32***
0.08
-0.32***
0.05
0.09
0.24***
0.05
-0.15*
-0.30***
-0.36***
0.34***
-0.31***
0.20***
-0.17**
-0.19***
Table 1 Means, standard deviations and zero-order correlations of main study variables and control variables
0.15**
14
-0.09
-0.19**
0.13*
-0.09
-0.02
0.05
-0.12*
0.03
-0.05
-0.13*
0.13*
-0.06
0.12
-0.11
0.30***
0.30***
0.17**
0.05
0.27***
0.10
0.08
15
-0.10
-0.48***
0.43***
-0.01
-0.26***
-0.27***
-0.26**
16
0.01
-0.34***
0.29***
-0.10
-0.12*
-0.40***
-0.25***
0.26***
0.46***
0.68***
-0.40***
0.73***
-0.48***
17
0.03
0.21***
-0.19***
-0.04
0.05
0.36***
0.16**
-0.04
-0.27***
-0.50***
0.66***
-0.51***
18
-0.08
-0.40***
0.47***
-0.08
-0.15**
-0.48***
-0.29***
0.32***
0.55***
0.72***
-0.48***
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J. Marcus et al.
Discussion
0.19***
Environmental studies/geography
Coding for dummy variables: gender (male = 0, female = 1); work experience (0 = \5 years, 1 = 5 years or more); nationality (0 = other, 1 = Canadian)
-0.43***
-0.58***
0.18**
0.13**
-0.12*
-0.14**
0.06
-0.08
0.43***
0.61***
0.18**
Social work/sociology
-0.37***
-0.29***
-0.24***
0.32***
0.08
-0.32***
-0.48***
-0.37***
0.34***
0.36***
-0.29***
Business
0.45***
0.65***
0.11*
0.03
0.18**
-0.05
0.05
0.05
-0.05
-0.15**
-0.13*
0.19*
0.04
Work experience
Nationality
0.22***
-0.23***
-0.20
-0.19***
-0.48***
-0.42***
-0.30***
0.33***
0.20***
Gender
Age
Control variables
-0.09
-0.07
17
16
15
14
13
12
11
10
9
Table 1 continued
123
-0.16**
18
-0.14**
470
-0.517***
-0.134
Social work/Sociology
Environmental studies/Geography
Standard error
Degrees of freedom
1.32
271
Adjusted R2
12.12***
0.28
0.19
-0.154*
-0.063
0.096
0.045
Social values
Environmental values
0.164
-0.005
0.217
-0.034
0.038
-0.028
-0.275***
-0.042
0.021
0.201***
DR
Economic concern
0.305**
Economic values
Step 2
0.079
-0.088
-0.073
0.136
-0.032
Nationality
0.032**
0.277***
DR
Economic strength
Criterion variable
Business
Work experience
Age
Gender
Step 1
Predictors
1.26
271
0.20
7.89***
0.058***
0.167***
DR
0.073
0.297***
0.064
0.283***
0.076
0.011
-0.054
-0.097
-0.102
-0.087
Social strength
1.46
271
0.35
15.77***
0.050***
0.318***
DR
-0.092
-0.155*
0.062
0.082
-0.027
0.258*
0.013
0.118
-0.077
-0.285***
Social concern
1.27
271
0.18
7.04***
0.042**
0.165***
DR
0.003
0.091
0.234***
0.217**
0.037
0.011
0.054
-0.099
-0.143
-0.012
Environmental strength
1.51
271
0.31
13.80***
0.054***
0.283***
DR2
-0.216**
-0.144*
-0.063
0.076
0.042
0.328*
-0.021
0.078
-0.095
-0.248***
Environmental concern
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J. Marcus et al.
Strong
economic
values
(n = 58)
Balanced
values
(n = 53)
SD
SD
Economic strength
8.61
1.13
8.45
1.01
Economic concern
4.04
1.63
3.24
1.72
2.51*
Social strength
7.44
1.70
8.17
1.52
-2.38*
Social concern
4.65
1.75
3.91
1.71
2.27*
Environmental strength
6.88
1.52
7.65
1.51
-2.68**
Environmental concern
Controversial industries
4.01
5.37
1.93
2.90
2.87
4.09
1.81
2.62
3.21**
2.25*
Control industries
7.34
2.14
7.12
2.23
0.54
0.80
Two-tailed tests
* p \ 0.05, ** p \ 0.01
Table 4 Mean differences between male and female groupsa
Variable
Male
(n = 144)
Female
(n = 138)
SD
SD
Economic values
0.569
0.179
0.402
0.182
7.81*
Social values
0.445
0.132
0.527
0.111
-5.64*
0.440
-0.748
0.145
0.512
0.505
-0.701
0.110
0.418
-4.22*
-0.86
Economic strength
8.365
1.209
7.474
1.850
5.37*
Economic concern
3.836
1.698
2.474
1.435
8.07*
Social strength
7.620
1.448
8.635
1.164
-7.20*
Social concern
4.264
1.700
2.535
1.510
10.07*
Environmental strength
7.269
1.484
8.186
1.176
-6.37*
Environmental concern
3.416
1.864
1.839
1.568
8.52*
Controversial
industries
5.019
2.585
2.378
2.322
10.07*
Control industries
7.262
2.175
6.165
2.461
4.40*
Environmental values
Balanced values
Two-tailed tests
* p \ 0.001
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475
Social-Concern
1.
2.
Appendix A
Sample Items from the Corporate Actions Propensity
Measure
Environmental-Strength
1.
Economic-Strength
2.
1.
2.
Environmental-Concern
1.
Economic-Concern
2.
1.
2.
I would endorse corporate actions that maximize shortterm profit (e.g., quarterly, yearly), even if that might
jeopardize long-term returns.
I can imagine supporting policies that compromise
shareholder returns if it resulted in a better financial
outcome for me.
Appendix B
Partial Instructions and Sample Policy-Capturing
Scenarios
Social-Strength
Instructions
1.
2.
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