Responsible leadership's challenges, outcomes, and practices : an investigation through two lenses

Abstract

This thesis is comprised of two studies. The first study is aimed at providing a point of reference and another of guidance for future research on the topic of responsible leadership by exploring its challenges, outcomes and practices. The second study is aimed at pinpointing the practices the socially responsible human resource practices due to the lack of information on the subject as concluded in the first study. A systematic review of the literature, originally adopted from the medical sciences but also used in management and leadership studies, was conducted in the first study to integrate research in an organized, translucent and reproducible manner. The final sample of 46 empirical and conceptual studies were scientifically screened and synthesized. Content analysis of the Worlds Best Multinational Workplaces websites was performed to extract the human resource practices offered by these multinational corporations. The final sample constituted of 23 companies whose websites were exhaustively covered and data extracted was scientifically synthesized. The synthesis in the first study revealed that balancing stakeholder needs, personal characteristics, and organizational structures are the main challenges against responsible leadership, whereas financial benefits, employees related benefits, and reputational gains among others are the main outcomes. Practices pinpointed, while scarce, are represented in nurturing a stakeholder culture, and engaging employee-related, and human resource responsible functions. The scarcity of practices in the literature, as concluded in the first study, initiated the second study. The synthesis in the second study allowed the categorization of the human resource practices into three main themes: employment, diversity and inclusion, and CSR (Corporate social responsibility) and HR (Human resource) interface. Compensation and benefits, training and development, recruitment, company culture, and safety related practices were the main employment practices extracted. Diversity recruitment, training for diversity enrichment, and employee resource groups were the main practices discussed under the Diversity and Inclusion themes. CSR-HR interface related practices were disclosed by a majority of the corporations. These studies contributed to the development of responsible leadership and social responsible human resource practices.