Corruption, Social Responsibility, Reputation, and the Environment: A Philosophical Infusion to Non-market Business Strategies

There is something to say about living life following your heart. There is often a practicality that weighs on life decisions, but when one can weave their path despite that pressure, one can hope to find joy. Stelios Zyglidopoulos has done exactly that. A person who pursues a passion rather than settles for the banal, Stelios has made his mark as a leader in strategic management research; a pursuit that has taken him around the world—living, learning, and teaching in five countries, speaking three languages, and earning four master’s degrees, including one in Philosophy. And with a prolific publication record and proven academic excellence over almost twenty years, Stelios is just getting started.

In this next chapter of his academic career, Stelios joins the Sprott team as Professor, Strategic Management, ready to dig into emerging and highly impactful research in this arena—infusing unique and invaluable philosophical and sociological lenses into his research. Stelios’ research umbrella includes projects that explore the more intangible or non-market aspects of business strategies such as reputation, legitimacy, and corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Specifically, Stelios is intrigued with understanding how firms manage corruption, reputational consequences during corporate crises, how companies in developing countries can expand internationally and leverage CSR effectively, and emerging research that is aimed to help environmental entrepreneurship ventures succeed and thrive.

One vein of Stelios’ research examines why and how corruption persists in the Greek public sector—research that makes important contributions to the understanding of normalization theories that explain how and why corruption is “accepted” and ingrained into the routines and frameworks of organizations. A topic close to Stelios’ heart, as a person born and raised in Greece, Stelios understands the implicit complexities of corruption, its implications for limiting economic prosperity, and has a passion to contribute to solutions.

Stelios’ findings provide unique insights into why members of organizations turn a blind eye to corruption, particularly when it happens overtly. Stelios and colleagues offer a novel “fourth pillar” to normalization theories: Tolerance. Non-corrupt players often know corruption occurs, but because of systemic malfeasance feel nothing can be done, even though they strongly disapprove of it.

Stelios and his team termed this phenomenon “second-order normalization” and one that manifests and can be explained through both an agent-focused and structure-focused tolerance of corrupt behaviour. In other words, there is a learned helplessness by both those directly involved and by bystanders that ensues because of entrenched structural and systemic problems. These insights provide new ways of thinking to social order within an organization and help decision-makers implement strategies and policies to mitigate corruption and help bystanders speak up against corrupt players.

What’s more, with the integration of digitization into public systems—processes that were previously pen-and-paper methods (and therefore easy targets for corruption)—Stelios is keen to understand its impacts; ongoing work that investigates if and how the implementation of digitization could mitigate corruptive behaviour.  

Stelios’ concurrent research investigates how corporations in developing countries, looking to expand internationally, leverage their CSR to maximize success. With CSR, a mainstay and necessary pillar of strategic management, it is critical for corporations to not only be authentically accountable for their environmental and social impact, but to leverage their reputation in this area effectively. Conversely, when firms overlook important social values and desires and have a “blind spot” to decision making, it can negatively impact performance and profitability. “Reputation is everything, especially now when CSR is so critical to management strategies. A “good foot forward” can improve legitimacy and reputation as firms expand into new countries where social impact matters.”

Stelios’ most recent venture is perhaps his most passionate. Stelios recognizes that it is essential to incorporate sustainability into business strategies—a vision that aligns with Sprott’s core values on environmental practice and pedagogy. Moreover, Stelios believes there are many opportunities to implement solutions with existing business frameworks that will help entrepreneurs capitalize on creating a sustainable and environmentally conscious businesses. Stelios also believes it can be a win-win; innovators can profit, and so can the environment.

Stelios is keen to delve into the research that will reveal the barriers entrepreneurs face during start-ups of environmentally impactful ventures—and how they can overcome them and scale up effectively from proof-of-concept to the next level growth. Stelios sees that sustainable entrepreneurship is not just about the owner and the consumer; there are relationships with other key constituents that will determine if the business can succeed:

Sprott is thrilled to welcome Stelios as a member of the team—an academic passionate about research—injecting a purest perspective and a breadth of experience and insights that infuses invaluable philosophical, sociological, and environmental perspectives to the research arena. A person and academic that stays true to his heart.