PhD Defence: Franziska Barbara Zuber
In her dissertation ‘Looking at the Others. Studies on (Un)ethical Behavior and Social Relationships in Organizations’, ERIM’s Franziska Barbara Zuber explores how social relationships matter for a person’s ethical or unethical behavior in an organization.
Franziska defended her dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Friday, 9 December 2016 at 11:30. Her supervisor was <link people muel-kaptein>Prof. Muel Kaptein. Other members of the Doctoral Committee were <link people marius-van-dijke>Prof Marius van Dijke (Erasmus University Rotterdam), <link people steffen-giessner>Prof. Steffen Giessner (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Prof. Carmen Tanner (University of Zurich and Zeppelin University), and Prof. Slawomir Magala (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
About Franziska Barbara Zuber
Franziska Zuber was born on 1 August 1983 in St.Gallen, Switzerland. In 2002, she started her studies in economics at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, during which she spent exchange terms at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland and at the University of Toronto, Canada. In 2007, she graduated from University of St.Gallen with a Master of Arts in Economics with honors, and an award-winning Master’s thesis on economic crime. Keeping with the topic of her Master’s thesis, she joined the Forensic department of KPMG AG in Zurich, Switzerland, in the same year. At KPMG AG, she conducted investigations into cases of fraud and non-compliance for clients, and advised them on fraud prevention and compliance management for more than eight years. Over time, she was gradually promoted to the position of Senior Manager. In 2016, she left the consulting industry to join Swissgrid AG as Compliance Officer, where she is responsible for the company’s compliance management system.
In 2010, while working at KPMG AG, she started her doctoral studies at Rotterdam School of Management as an external candidate. She has published in the Journal of Business Ethics.
Thesis Abstract
This dissertation asks how social relationships matter for a person’s ethical or unethical behavior in an organization. Two observations motivate this question. First, in organizations, the network of formally prescribed and informally emerging social relationships with others constitutes the distinctive context for the behavior of the individuals. Second, (un)ethical behavior is inherently social in that the consideration of other persons is at the heart of ethics. Four independent studies each answer a specific question derived from this overarching question. The first study explores the role of social relationships in the process of spread of unethical behavior by developing a dynamic actor-oriented social network analysis framework. The second study focuses on the role of social relationships as conduits for information about unethical behavior, and empirically compares observer-reports on unethical behavior to self-reports. The third study empirically analyzes how unethical behavior by peers, which defines the descriptive norms, interacts with the formal rules, which constitute the injunctive norms, to influence individuals’ unethical behavior. The fourth study examines philosophical views which conceive social relationships as the source of ethical obligations to formulate a normative core for an individual-oriented version of stakeholder theory. Taken together, the results of this research show that social relationships can foster as well as impede unethical behavior depending on their specific constellation and on perceptions of their nature; that they are affected by unethical behavior; and that attempts to prevent unethical behavior in organizations are unlikely to be successful unless social relationships are taken into consideration.
Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images
