National business ideology and employees’ prosocial values

Miriam Muethel, Martin Hoegl and K Praveen Parboteeah
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Miriam Muethel: WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany
Martin Hoegl: WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar, Germany
K Praveen Parboteeah: Management Department, University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, USA

Journal of International Business Studies, 2011, vol. 42, issue 2, 183-201

Abstract: Employees’ prosocial values have been shown to foster helping, cooperating, and volunteering behaviors, which in turn increase firm performance. However, despite the importance of prosocial values, there is a general neglect of this area in the international arena. As more trade occurs globally, interest in cross-cultural prosocial values is growing. We therefore build on socialization theory and introduce national business ideology as a country-level determinant of employees’ prosocial values. We thus argue that transformational leadership and professional altruism are key elements of a national business ideology's stimulation of employees’ prosocial values, while corporate corruption is considered to be an impediment. Based on 19,026 individuals from 17 countries, our cross-level analyses point to the national business ideology explaining national-level variances above and beyond cultural aspects. Results support our hypothesis that national business ideology, including transformational leadership and professional altruism, is positively related to employees’ prosocial values. The hypothesis on corporate corruption, however, was not supported. Instead, results indicate that employees apply rationalization strategies to justify corruption. With prosocial values being important for organizational performance as well as social welfare in general, we thus draw attention to socialization processes in national corporate work contexts.

Date: 2011
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