Although it has acquired an extraordinary social diffusion, entrepreneurial education has a certain lack of definition associated with its conceptualisation and meaning. It seems clear that entrepreneurial education is linked to the economic sphere, but it is not limited to the productive sector. The idea of entrepreneurial education has been progressively enriched, being linked to the development of skills for personal growth and social progress. Further clarification of the meaning and scope of entrepreneurial education is, therefore, needed. Thus, it is (...) relevant to analyse entrepreneurial identity in the context of personal identity via the theoretical–explanatory investigation of a model developed in two phases. A critical analysis leads us to study the different factors that intervene in the configuration of this identity in an attempt to construct a systemic map of entrepreneurial action. Between the private and the public, entrepreneurs seek new ways of facing the challenges of our times, trying to find new ways of regenerating the links between individuals and institutions and with society in general. In this sense, we show how entrepreneurial educational ecosystems acquire relevance insofar as they consider the subject as the principle of action rather than merely the result of various contextual factors. (shrink)

Scholars are increasingly examining how formal leaders of organizations _change_ moral norms. The prominent accounts over-emphasize the role of rational persuasion. We focus, instead, on how formal leaders successfully break and thereby create moral norms. We draw on Dreyfus’s ontology of cultural paradigms and Williams’s moral luck to develop our framework for viewing leader-driven radical norm the change. We argue that formal leaders, embedded in their practices’ grounding, clarifying, and organizing norms, get captivated by anomalies and respond to them by (...) taking moral risks, which, if practically successful, create a new normative order. We illustrate the framework with Churchill’s actions in 1940 and Anita Roddick’s Body Shop. Last, we discuss normative orders, when ordinary leaders change norms, evil, and further research. (shrink)

This article focuses on the perception of the importance of business ethics among Czech and Slovak entrepreneurs (this includes business owners and managers) within the SME sector. The comparison is based on an analysis of the approach to business ethics according to a set of parameters, namely company size, years in business, and the gender and education of the entrepreneurs. Empirical research was conducted in 2020 on a sample set consisting of 454 respondents in the Czech Republic and 368 respondents (...) in Slovakia. The most important outcome of the research was the finding that business ethics is considered extremely important in both countries. The research results not only revealed that just over 90% of Czech entrepreneurs and 88% of Slovak entrepreneurs within the SME sector agreed that they should take into account the moral and ethical consequences of their decisions, but that the structure of their answers was very similar. Also, of interest were the findings that women were more aware of business ethics than their male counterparts, as were those entrepreneurs who possessed a higher education over those with a secondary education. (shrink)

By synthesizing the argumentation theory of new rhetoric with research on heuristics and motivated reasoning, we develop a conceptual view of argumentation based on reasoning motivations that sheds new light on the morality of decision-making. Accordingly, we propose that reasoning in eristic argumentation is motivated by psychological (e.g., anxiety reduction) or material (e.g., vested interests) gains that do not depend on resolving the problem in question truthfully. Contrary to heuristic argumentation, in which disputants genuinely argue to reach a practically rational (...) solution, eristic argumentation aims to defeat the counterparty rather than seeking a reasonable solution. Eristic argumentation is susceptible to arbitrariness and power abuses; therefore, it is inappropriate for making moral judgments with the exception of judgments concerning moral taboos, which are closed to argumentation by their nature. Eristic argumentation is also problematic for strategic and entrepreneurial decision-making because it impedes the search for the right heuristic under uncertainty as an ecologically rational choice. However, our theoretical view emphasizes that under extreme uncertainty, where heuristic solutions are as fallible as any guesses, pretense reasoning by eristic argumentation may be instrumental for its adaptive benefits. Expanding the concept of eristic argumentation based on reasoning motivations opens a new path for studying the psychology of reasoning in connection to morality and decision-making under uncertainty. We discuss the implications of our theoretical view to relevant research streams, including ethical, strategic and entrepreneurial decision-making. (shrink)

This article takes a novel approach to explaining the causes of unethical behavior in organizations. Instead of explaining the unethical behavior of employees in terms of their bad organization, this article examines how a good organization can lead to employees’ unethical behavior. The main idea is that the more ethical an organization becomes, the higher, in some respects, is the likelihood of unethical behavior. This is due to four threatening forces that become stronger when an organization becomes more ethical. These (...) forces are the upward, downward, backward, and forward forces. Each of these forces is illustrated with two effects and each effect is explained by a specific theory. The effects are the effects of the gold digger, high-jump bar, retreating-cat, forbidden-fruit, cheese slicer, moving-spotlight, repeat-prescription, and keeping-up appearances. This paradox of ethics, when goodness breeds badness, opens new research directions. (shrink)