Chair of Business Ethics and Management Control
Chair ofBusiness Ethics and Management Control
Business Ethics and Management Control are two essential functions in a company. While Business Ethics, in particular Corporate Social Responsibility, embeds social, moral or sustainability goals within the company, Management Control has been established as one of the central functions across several departments in management which has mainly to ensure the orientation for economic success of all company employees.
We relate our research and teaching to academics and practitioners. Therefore, our research on Corporate Social Responsibility is part of the SustBusy Research Center of ESCP. Additionally, one link to practice is our collaboration with the standing working group of Shared Services in the Schmalenbach Association. We prefer methodology pluralism in research that adopts flexibly to different questions; here we also consider the intersection between Controlling and CSR. We apply diverse teaching methods in our courses. Regular lectures and case studies presented by professionals illustrate the practical relevance of both areas to our students.
- Prof. Dr. Rolf Brühl
The team
SustBusy Research Center
In cooperation with 15 other ESCP members from France, Italy and Berlin, a new research center on issues of sustainability in business and society arises under the scientific direction of Prof. Dr. Sylvie Geisendorf.
ESCP has a considerable number of professors who are involved in research on and teaching of sustainability issues. The new research center "Business and Society - Towards a Sustainable World" (SustBusy), whose office is located at the Chair of Environment and Economics in Berlin provides a common roof for these related activities. The individual and group-related research projects cover a wide area of research issues. Company-specific issues, development of a sustainability culture, implementation of a sustainability strategy or sustainable supply chains are covered as well as CSR reporting, socially responsible investment, social issues of an anti-consumption lifestyle and economic analysis of environmental policy instrument effects, accounting for behavioural economic findings. The special feature of the research center is thus the broadly-based position of its members and its high potential for synergies. There are two main links between our approaches where the the projects might benefit from each other. First there are several projects on the company and reporting level which could exchange information on sustainability culture or strategy as well as CSR reporting. Second, the projects on company, consumer and financial market level would benefit from a link to the political/regulation side as well as this research could profit from empirical results on the behaviour of the respective agents.
We are excited that SustBusy allows even closer cooperation and coordination of our activities. In this sense: Sustainable success!Schmalenbach Association
The "Schmalenbach-Gesellschaft für Betriebswirtschaft e.V." in its present structure was founded in 1978 with the amalgamation of two long-standing business economics societies - the "Schmalenbach Society for the Advancement of Research in Business Economics and Business Practice", Cologne, and the "German Society for Business Economics", Berlin. 1 schmalenbach-gesellschaft_1a
The activities of both societies date back to the beginning of the twentieth century, notably to the efforts of Prof. Eugen Schmalenbach, one of the most distinguished German business economists. His main goal was to develop business economics into an applied science by creating a close link between economic theory and practice.
The SG is the oldest association concerned with business administration in Germany. It is a registered institution and as such non-profit oriented and moreover politically independent. The SG counts both business economists and executive personnel among its members. They have joined the society in order to promote Schmalenbach's idea of bridging the gap between research institutions and enterprises.
The dialogue between science and business is at the centre of the society's work. Its goal is to provide businessmen with facts and information on the latest scientific findings as promptly as possible. Business economists in turn are encouraged to examine urgent practical problems which require scientific investigation.
Teaching
We offer the following courses:
Master in
Management(MIM)
- International Management Control
- Corporate Social Responsibility
Master in
International Sustainability Management
- Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Specialised Master®
Sales 4.0 - Master in International Sales Management
- Business Ethics
- Management Control and Management Accounting
Research
Research approach
The three dimensions of the research cube show the research profile of the chair. The first dimension illustrates the basic characteristic of the research at the chair: Business administration is understood as social and behavioural science.
Research topics
Responsibility and Accountability
Responsibility and accountability are like Siamese twins. If one is responsible, we expect him to account for his actions. Accountability therefore also considers questions about who is ascribed responsibility. We build on a model which illustrates how responsibility is assigned and how this process relates to the account giving of actors. This model allows for statements about characteristic account patterns. We tested this model by examining the communication of banks after the financial market crisis. Several other projects are dedicated to the question of how organizations answer to negative events. Accountability is a central concept consulted in these projects.
Organizational Legitimacy
In recent years many corporations report about their social activities. In our research we assume that this communication is intended to influence the attitude of the companies’ important stakeholders. Currently, the focus of our research is on the judgment of organizational legitimacy. For many years institutional scholars have focused on organizational legitimacy as core of their research. However, investigations about the how individual judgements of stakeholders are formed are missing.
In a first study we applied an experimental design. In a between subject design participants were asked to judge different corporate social activities (with and without additional benefits for the corporation). Our results show how the motives that are attributed to company are related to corporate credibility and legitimacy.
Management Control Systems
In an international project management control systems within a variety of countries (e.g. Europe, Australia and Canada) are investigated. Crucial components of management control systems are described and explained within their respective context. In this project several research questions are addressed. In a sub-project we investigate whether cultural values, e.g. according to Hofstede or GLOBE, have impact on the design of management control systems. Belgium, Germany, Canada and Poland are involved as subjects of the study. In a further subproject, we investigate how such values affect the design of performance management systems.
Shared Service Center
In recent years large corporations have begun to form new organizational entities: shared service center. Shared service center assume tasks from other decentralized organizational departments. Most prominent are shared service center that are focused on Finance, HR, accounting and IT. The accompanying consequences of these massive organizational changes are currently underexplored.
The current status of the shared service center research is shown in a first publication. Current projects focus on the success factors and the implementation of shared service center.
Publications
Find an overview
Academic Articles
2023
Disentangling the black box around CEO and financial information-based accounting fraud detection
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS, 93(9), 1591–1628
Chapters
2023
Misstrauen. Eine interdisziplinäre Bestandsaufnahme
In: Psychologie von Risiko und Vertrauen. Wahrnehmung, Verhalten und Kommunikation, Jörn Basel und Philipp Henrizi Springer, 269-299
Academic Articles
2022
On the responsibility of corporate actors for human rights in the supply chain
MANAGEMENT-REVUE, 33, 60-83
Academic Articles
2022
The use of management controls in different cultural regions: an empirical study of Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Nordic practices
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT CONTROL (FORMERLY: ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PLANUNG UND UNTERNEHMENSSTEUERUNG), 33 (3), 273–334
Academic Articles
2022
Do firms' political capabilities increase their R&D investments?
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, 22(1), 108-124
Conference Proceedings
2022
From One to Many: A Taxonomy of Abductive Inferences in Organization Science
Academy of Management (AOM)
Academic Articles
2021
Shared service implementation in multidivisional organizations
JOURNAL OF GENERAL MANAGEMENT, 46 (2), 73-90
Books
2021
Wie Wissenschaft Wissen schafft
UTB GmbH
ESCP Impact Papers
2021
Fighting for democracy: Companies’ sustainable investments in the political arena
ESCP Impact Papers, 2021-37-EN
Academic Articles
2020
Ahead of the game: Antecedents for the success of shared service centers
EUROPEAN MANAGEMENT JOURNAL, 38(3), 477-488
Team and contact
