THE POSITIONING OF GLOBAL 500 FIRMS’ VIRTUOUS CHARACTER: AMERICA, EUROPE AND ASIA

May 20, 2008
Faculty and Doctoral Seminal
Dr Rosa Chun, Manchester Business School

Rosa Chun is Professor of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility at Manchester Business School in England. There, she founded the MSc in Corporate Communications and Reputation Management. She has published extensively on the topics of virtue ethics and corporate reputation in leading journals including Harvard Business Review, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Business Ethics, and Corporate Reputation Review. In addition, she serves on the board of the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management.

Rosa Chun’s presentation to SFU’s faculty and doctoral students focused on the ethical positioning of Fortune global 500 firms. Based on ethical statements of the world’s leading firms, Rosa constructed perceptual maps situating firms relative to each other in terms of their ethical values. Her results were interesting in that they showed that American firms placed most value on issues relating to Courage (using words like ‘success’ and ‘performance’), while European firms favoured the characteristics of Integrity and Empathy. Asian firms were found positioned closer to the values of European firms than US firms.