According to the origin of the word "humanism" and the concept of humanitas where the former comes from, management could be called humanistic when its outlook emphasizes common human needs and is oriented to the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent. A first approach to humanistic management, although quite incomplete, was developed mainly in the middle of the 20th century. It was centered on human motivations. A second approach to humanistic management sprang up in (...) the 80's and centered on organizational culture. This implied a wider approach to the human condition while taking into account the influence of culture on behaviors and decisionmaking, but it is incomplete, too. There is a third approach to humanistic management, which is still emerging, that considers a business enterprise as a real community of persons. That means promoting unity and favoring the acquisition of human virtues. This humanistic management approach is a real challenge in order to achieve a higher moral quality in management, human virtues among people and more efficient organizations. (shrink)

Researchers in all management specialties have discussed and investigated the important role values play in personal and organizational phenomena. However, because research on values has been performed in a wide range of social science disciplines and at different levels of analysis, much of thiswork has been uninformed by other work and is neither well integrated nor systematized, resulting in a great deal of confusion concerning the topic. This article attempts to add order and clarity to this area of research by (...) proposing a framework of values research based on level of analysis and by cataloguing and reviewing the vast theoretical and empirical research in light of this framework. It concludes with a critique of the extant literature and recommendations for further research. (shrink)

Abstract:Alasdair Maclntyre (1984) asserts that the ethical systems of the Enlightenment (formalism and utilitarianism) have failed to provide a meaningful definition of “good.” Lacking such a definition, business managers have no internal standards by which they can morally evaluate their roles or acts. Maclntyre goes on to claim that managers have substituted external measures of “winning” or “effectiveness” for any internal concept of good. He supports a return to the Aristotelian notion of virtue or “excellence.” Such a system of virtue (...) ethics depends on an interrelationship of the community, one’s roles in that community, and the virtues one needs to perform that role well. This article develops Maclntyre’s concept of virtue ethics and shows how this paradigm fits well with existing theories about organizational behavior. (shrink)

An extensive work has been done on corporate social responsibly practices that mainly emphasized the larger firms within developed nations. Nonetheless, still work is needed to observe the importance of CSRPs’ and ethical cultural practices in terms of sustainable competitive performance that garnered far less attention by the existing literature. This study explores the impact of CSRPs on SACP with the mediating role of ECL from SMEs of two emerging nations, i.e., China and Pakistan based on stakeholders’ theory and practices. (...) The results using SEM affirmed the positive linkages of CSRPs—environment responsibility, community responsibility, customers' responsibility, suppliers responsibility, employee responsibility, and Govt. rules & regulations’ responsibility —on SACP. It found that CSRPs have positive relationships with ECL whereas ECL further positively correlated with SACP in the context of both countries. The findings revealed the positive mediating influence of ECL between CSRPs and SACP, respectively. This study furnishes insightful information for management on how firms may achieve sustainable performance by incorporating ethical cultural practices and corporate social responsibility practices as the strategic tools. The study reports numerous implications for management together with lines for future directions. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to suggest that one of the dominant modes of thought in our society is a profound mistrust and misunderstanding of the role of business. A dominant myth in society is that business occupies the moral low ground, separate from ethics or a moral point of view. This position is characterized as the “business sucks” story, and the essay shows how the enactment of this story underlies business thinking among managers and business theorists. The essay (...) concludes with a suggestion to rethink and reinvent this story along more realistic and more empowering lines. Values based capitalism, or stakeholder capitalism, offers a better way to understand the complex role that business does and should play in modern society. (shrink)

This article examines the extent to which diversity characteristics and stakeholder role influence individuals’ corporate social orientation (CSO). Our findings indicate that one’s relationship to the organization as well as diversity, gender, and race influence one’s CSO. Specifically, we found that employees’ greatest concern was economic whereas customers had a stronger ethical orientation. The results also suggest that women as well as Black employees and customers place more emphasis on whether an organization is fulfilling its discretionary responsibilities than do males (...) and Whites. A model using the concept of value congruence is presented to guide future research. (shrink)

How do managers think about the relationship between the pursuit of economic success and ethical demands? This paper presents the main results of a qualitative-empirical study (Ulrich and Thielemann, 1992). The range of thinking patterns displayed by Swiss managers in this field of tension is elucidated and typologized. The results are then compared with those yielded by other studies on managerial ethics. Although the comparisons reveal essential parallels, the findings of previous investigations are interpreted in a considerably different manner. In (...) particular it is shown that, on the strength of a systematic conception of the fundamental problem of business ethics, the frequently heard assertion that the vast majority of managers are ethical opportunists must be revised. The internationally prevailing thinking pattern among managers does not prove to be ethical opportunism or even cynicism buteconomism, i.e. theethical conviction that economically appropriate actionin itself is ethically good as such. (shrink)

Abstract:This article argues that the important organizational values to study are organizational moral values. It identifies five moral values (honest communication, respect for property, respect for life, respect for religion, and justice), which allow parallel constructs at individual and organizational levels of analysis. It also identifies dimensions used in differentiating organizations’ moral values. These are the act, actor, person affected, intention, and expected result. Finally, the article addresses measurement issues associated with organizational moral values, proposing that content analysis is the (...) appropriate measurement technique to be used for an organization-level conception of moral values. (shrink)

Excellence and frontier research have made inroads into European research policymaking and structure political agendas, funding programs and evaluation practices. The two concepts travelled a long way from the United States and have derived from contexts outside of science. Following their conceptual journey, we ask how excellence and frontier research have percolated into European science and higher education policies and how they have turned into lubricants of competition that buttress an ongoing reform process in Europe.

Students’ attitudes towards plagiarism and academic misconduct have been found to vary across national cultures, although the relationship between national culture and students’ perceptions of plagiarism policy remains unexplored. Student survey data (n = 1757) from the UK, Czechia, Poland and Romania were analysed for differences in students’ perceptions of three specific aspects of plagiarism policy – access, support and detail – at their respective universities. Considered through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the study found significant differences between the (...) UK and the three Eastern European countries for all measures except students’ awareness of the penalties applied for plagiarism. Low ‘power distance’ and high ‘individualism’ were related to positive perceptions of plagiarism policy and process. The findings suggest that institutional plagiarism policy and procedures need to be responsive to the unique characteristics of national cultural context. (shrink)

We attempt in this paper to define a new field of study for philosophy: philosophy of management. We briefly speculate why the interest some managers and management writers take in philosophy has been so little reciprocated and why it needs to be. Then we suggest the scope of this new branch of philosophy and how it relates to and overlaps with other branches. We summarise some key matters philosophers of management should concern themselves with and pursue one in some detail. (...) We conclude with an invitation. (shrink)

Students’ attitudes towards plagiarism and academic misconduct have been found to vary across national cultures, although the relationship between national culture and students’ perceptions of plagiarism policy remains unexplored. Student survey data from the UK, Czechia, Poland and Romania were analysed for differences in students’ perceptions of three specific aspects of plagiarism policy – access, support and detail – at their respective universities. Considered through the lens of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, the study found significant differences between the UK and the (...) three Eastern European countries for all measures except students’ awareness of the penalties applied for plagiarism. Low ‘power distance’ and high ‘individualism’ were related to positive perceptions of plagiarism policy and process. The findings suggest that institutional plagiarism policy and procedures need to be responsive to the unique characteristics of national cultural context. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Through systematic case analyses of much-discussed social media cases, both negative aspects and best practices of social media use are revealed. Ethical theory is applied to these cases as a means of analysis to reveal the moral principles associated with each case. Four cases are analyzed, ranging from bad to arguably innovative. Based upon comparing the moral principles upheld or violated, descriptive ethics are used to infer normative ethical guidelines to govern the use of social media. Fifteen ethical guidelines derived (...) from the cases and normative moral theory are offered as a way to begin a discussion that leads to a deeper understanding of ethics in the burgeoning realm of digital engagement. (shrink)

When this study was initiated in 2008, the concept of family social capital was new to the family business discipline. This paper summarizes in-depth qualitative research grounded in owning family experience to understand the nature and source of owning family social capital. _Exploratory research_ began with roundtable discussions among family business owners, advisors, and researchers to understand how owning families sustain positive relationships characteristic of family social capital. These discussions revealed that some family business owners rely on their family faith (...) to sustain and establish ethical norms. A follow-up review in the family studies literature revealed that many families rely on family faith practices and faith-based narratives to reinforce ethical norms that strengthen family relationships. Based on these findings, researchers developed hypotheses to guide additional research. Four owning families affiliated with different Christian denominations participated in _in-depth qualitative research_ that supports hypotheses. Interviews and archival data revealed very similar faith-based practices, beliefs, and values across the four owning families. And additional qualitative evidence indicated positive connections between values-based family social capital and family owner succession, business performance, and community support. Theoretical relationships derived from qualitative data are summarized in a Faith-Based Values Theory of Family Business. (shrink)

A major challenge in global sales research is helping managers understand sales ethics across countries. Addressing this challenge, our research investigates whether a few demographic variables and psychographic variables reduce unethical sales behaviors (USBs) in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. Further, using literatures associated with business ethics, national culture, and customer orientation advocacy, we hypothesize why sales managers should expect similarities and differences in USBs between countries. We tested hypotheses using a sales contest scenario and six USBs, examining survey responses (...) from 948 business-to-business salespeople of a multinational company’s sales force in Canada, Mexico, and the USA. The results reveal that several psychographic variables (such as commitment, relationship to sales manager, and achievement need) affect salespeople’s tendency to engage in USBs differently in each country. In addition, business ethics, individualism, and customer orientation advocacy associated with each country can be used to anticipate similarities and differences in USBs between countries. This research offers important theoretical contributions and implications for more effectively managing sales forces and reducing USBs across countries. (shrink)

Why is it so plausible that business organisations in contemporary society use values in their communication? In order to answer this question, a sociological, system theoretical approach is applied which approaches values not pre-empirically as invisible drivers for action but as observable semantics that form organisational behaviour. In terms of empirical material, it will be shown that business organisations resort to a communication of values whenever uncertainty or complexity is very high. Inevitably, value semantics are applied in organisations first when (...) the speakers are uncertain about which stakeholders to whom they have to address or when different stakeholder groups have to be addressed simultaneously ; second, when the identity of the organisation has to be described; and third, when future strategic options that cannot be expressed by quantitative terms have to be communicated. Values accordingly play a role in organisational practice when certain aspects are indeterminate. Therefore, they are a means for organisations to communicate under fuzzy circumstances. On the basis of these findings, new approaches to value management can now be formulated. (shrink)

In this paper, we draw upon the emerging view of strategic cognition and issue salience and show that CSR giving has evolved into more than an altruistic response to being asked for support, to one which is embedded in the strategic frames of management and which supports organizational identity. The managerial action as a result of such strategic cognition suggests that modern organizations are seeking to develop CSR giving processes that provide them with a competitive advantage. We draw on the (...) resource-based view of organizations and the VRIO framework to provide the theoretical foundations for our argument that CSR implementation in the form of corporate giving to charities can be developed as a dynamic capability. This can provide a competitive advantage by allowing organizations to manage key stakeholder relationships more effectively with benefits which could lead to increased organizational productivity and the ability to execute strategy more effectively. We interview CSR implementation managers from large organizations in Australia and find that the CSR giving process in many firms is evolving into a more sophisticated and strategically motivated process with expectations of a return. Central to this evolution is the appointment of a CSR implementation manager who acts as a boundary spanner between the organization and its key stakeholders. We posit that this corporate investment in their role and supporting structures can lead to the better management of stakeholders by organizations through the dynamic capability of the CSR giving process. We develop a table of best practise to help guide managers entering this sphere. (shrink)

Corporate entrepreneurs -- described in the academic literature as those managers or employees who do not follow the status quo of their co-workers -- are depicted as visionaries who dream of taking the company in new directions. As a result, though, in overcoming internal obstacles to reaching their professional goals they can often walk a fine line between clever resourcefulness and outright rule breaking. A framework is presented as a guideline for middle managers and organizations seeking to impede unethical behaviors (...) in the pursuit of entrepreneurial activity. This paper examines the barriers middle managers face in trying to be entrepreneurial in less supportive environments, the ethical consequences that can result, and a suggested assessment and training program for averting such dilemmas. We advise companies that embrace corporate entrepreneurship: (1) establish the needed flexibility, innovation, and employee initiative and risk-taking; (2) remove the barriers that the entrepreneurial middle manager may face to more closely align personal and organizational initiatives and reduce the need to behave unethically; and (3) include an ethical component to corporate training which will provide guidelines for instituting compliance and values components into the state-of-the-art corporate entrepreneurship programs. (shrink)

Theories of organization and management have offered several concepts and models which indicate that organizational values are an important factor for running organizations successfully. A still unexplained question concerns the creation of balanced organizational values, which can support the achievement of several different and even conflicting goals of modern organizations. To explore balanced organizational values in contemporary business practice, we tested different models of organizational values on a sample of Fortune 100 companies. Research results demonstrate that none of the proportions/ratios (...) of balance proposed by the main models of organizational values from existing literature possesses/presents the ideal balance that is currently pursued in the business field. As a conclusion, a new model of balanced organizational values is proposed. (shrink)

The author argues that a continuing effort to avoid self-deception is the pre-requisite to any ethical analysis; that this effort cannot be altogether successful; that it is Iikely to even be dysfunctional in a variety of organizational contexts, perhaps particularly in the context of corporate middle management, but that it ought not therefore be ignored. It is contended that business ethicists should be committed to making the difficulties associated with self-scrutiny explicit. Finally, it is argued that in order to do (...) that Ilegitimately for the corporation, university based business ethicists must be willing to face up to parallel difficulties in the university generally and in the school of business in particular. (shrink)

Given present criticisms of contemporary education and leadership practices, this article investigates the ways in which the basic concepts of state freedom and bureaucracy stifle ethics and social justice in educational leadership practices through the philosophical framework of Emmanuel Levinas. By investigating Levinas’ ‘an-archy’, the definition of ethics and justice in school leadership can be reframed towards responsibility to otherness rather than individual freedom. The anarchical ethic of pure responsibility to the Other suggests that educational leaders should prioritize specific acts (...) of responsibility over general actions based on the assumptions of traditional state education. Aspects of transactional, transformational, and social justice leadership are critiqued from this perspective. (shrink)

Although most of us know that human beings cannot and should not be replaced by computers, we have great difficulties saying why this is so. This paradox is largely the result of institutionalizing several fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of both trustworthy objective and moral knowledge. Unless we transcend this paradox, we run the increasing risks of becoming very good at counting without being able to say what is worth counting and why. The degree to which this is occurring (...) is the degree to which the computer revolution is already over — and the degree to which we human beings have lost. (shrink)

This article explores the influence that an organisation's corporate values have on employees' behaviour and values both within and outside the work environment. In particular, it focuses on the impact of these values on the personal buying behaviour of employees. The empirical research was undertaken within a case study organisation that produces wine in Spain and involved interviews with senior management, an analysis of company documentation, as well as group discussions with employees supported by an employee survey. The article argues (...) that an organisation's corporate values influence not only its employees' behaviour within the work environment, but also impacts on their global values system outside of the work environment. In particular, this was evident within the employees' buying behaviour practices in relation to supplier loyalty and environmental concern. This has implications for business ethics as an organisation's value system may go beyond the purely business context. Organisations need to be aware of their impact on employees' behaviour outside of the work environment; this is particularly the case for multinational companies working across many cultures. (shrink)

This article examines spiritual growth and the business career. Rather than a certain decline into workaholism or materialism, the world of business becomes a necessary step on the path of enlightenment, through the transcendant philosophical models of the Hindu householder and the Native American Medicine Wheel.The householder concept, including mastering the material world and the resulting spiritual growth, stresses the importance of action, also a criterion for success in business. Current views, based on studies of modern life, Judaic thought, and (...) Christian beliefs, add further dimension to this executive's model of enlightenment. (shrink)

The news reminds us almost daily that the truth is apparently not highly valued by many in business. This paper develops two prescriptive standards — the Expectation and Reputation guidelines — that may help businesspeople avoid violating clearly accepted truth standards. The guidelines also assist in determining whether truth is required in circumstances where honesty seems in conflict with the practical demands of business. A discussion of why, when and how these guidelines may be applied to facilitate truth-telling by business (...) organizations follows, along with illustrative examples. (shrink)

This article explores the normative assumptions about the self that are implicitly and explicitly embedded in critiques of organisational control. Two problematic aspects of control are examined – the capacity of some organisations to produce unquestioning commitment, and the elicitation of ‹false’ selves. Drawing on the work of Rom Harré, and some examples of organisational-self processes gone awry, I investigate the dynamics involved and how they violate the normative expectations that we hold regarding the self, particularly its moral autonomy and (...) authenticity. The article concludes by arguing that, despite post-structuralist challenges, some notion of a ‹core’ or ‹real’ self still holds salience for employees negotiating their identities within regimes of control. The assumptions and expectations surrounding this aspect of self are also a pivotal element in the western intellectual tradition that promotes and enables critique. (shrink)

How and why could some stories be construed as sacred in organizations, and what functions does the sacred have in organizational values work? Research has shown how values can be made formative of a range of organizational purposes and forms but has underscored their performative, situated, and agentic nature. We address that void by studying the sacred as a potentially salient yet under-researched realm of values work. Drawing on an ethnographic case study of a faith-based health care organization and the (...) ethical philosophy of Paul Ricoeur, we describe how the sacred is figured in two sets of tales that were lived and told with surprising intensity and consistency: the parable of the Good Samaritan and the tale of the legacy bestowed by the organization’s founder. We theorize how this figuring of the sacred in story and in action recasts values work from a centralized and unitary process to a two-way learning dialectic between the ongoing creative imitation of action and narrative. Values in the shape of stories of the sacred do not achieve their meaning as unchangeable cores or sanctioned beliefs. Rather, they come to life in a process of ongoing moral inquiry that co-evolves with moral agencies. In the latter regard, the sacred primarily becomes manifest in everyday work in the form of questioning and creative acts of care. People become moral agents when they feel and respond to the sacred in the call of the other. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of supervisor support on the relationship between the need to be unique and the innovative behavior. People not only strive to belong to a group but also want to be unique from others and feel exceptional. Individuals’ innovative behavior is one of the things that makes them feel different from other people. Because developing a new idea, supporting this idea, putting this idea into practice, and the positive achievements of (...) this idea distinguish people who exhibit innovative behavior from others. It depends on the behavior of supervisors whether people who break away from typical practices and procedures to feel unique and special continue to act in innovative ways. In this context, it is vitally essential for supervisors to support people who display innovative behavior. The research was conducted on employees working in the education sector in Mersin. We employed the confirmatory factor analysis to examine the fitness of the model and moderation was tested. As hypothesized, the need to be unique had a significant and positive effect on innovative behavior. This finding is consistent with existing literature and thus advance knowledge on need to be unique and innovative behavior, particular in education sector. Nonetheless, it has been determined that supervisor support doesn’t have a moderator role on the relationship between the need to be unique and innovative behavior. Although there are some researches in the literature on consumer experiences about the need to be unique and innovative behavior, but literature on education section is sparse and still long way to go to evaluate its’ reflections on the workplace. (shrink)

In this article we take the use of examples as a means to explore the processes of persuasion and consensus-construction involved in the legitimation of popular management knowledge. Examples, as concrete instances or events used to substantiate a wider argument, have been variedly regarded in different research traditions. Classical logic and rhetoric have considered them an inferior form of argument, useful for pedagogic or public debate but inadequate for higher forms of thought. This spirit still permeates much psychological research on (...) communication, where the great persuasive import of examples has been contrasted with more scientific and formal resources for argumentation. Considered in this light, the contingent and episodic nature of examples seems to make them cognitively inferior to explicit statements of general rules. However, various strands of research on the nature of scientific knowledge have shown that implicit forms of knowledge are an integral part of scientific expertise. Examples may thus be more central to disciplinary thought than the conventional normative view seems to allow. In this spirit, we explore the use of examples in a hotly contested field, that of popular discourse on business and management. The profusion of examples in this kind of writing has been often noted, and almost as often criticized. We seek to explore more fully how these examples are deployed, examining the discursive devices that mark examples within the development of the text, their function as rhetorical moves, and their role in presenting arguments that are never otherwise made explicit. (shrink)

Many destructive business leaders drive their companies into bankruptcy and dissolution, never to be heard from again in the business press. However, it is useful to study these organizations to prevent the same, or similar destructive business from taking on, and destroying, additional businesses. In this article, we describe one type of organization that follows the model of religious cults, which we call secular business cults. Building on Padilla et al., we describe an SBC toxic triangle of (1) Padilla et (...) al.'s societal factors, (2) additional business factors, and (3) antisocial actors that set the stage for the SBC's emergence. We then describe the characteristics of the SBC's operations, such as an ultrastrong culture, formalized manipulation, manipulative hierarchical relationships, competition, and operations efficiency tools, and the frequent overcommunication of deceptive messages. It is our hope that this unique perspective on organizations will inspire research into an overlooked area of unethical behavior in businesses today. In our Part II paper on the topic, we intend to extend the idea of SBCs to manipulative businesses, which are essentially reorganized, well‐established and legally‐complying revisions of SBCs, and then to manipulative industries and societies. (shrink)

Having taught management ethics for several years, I have been repeatedly frustrated by the practical mismatch between management problems and moral philosophy…. Unless we can connect ethical theory more closely with management practice, we may be dressing our business curriculum windows with philosophical finery but failing to meet the urgent need for clarity of thought in management ethics.

The contention of this paper is that the marketing concept is but one aspect of a philosophy of business referred to by the authors as the framework for organizational success. This framework maintains that the marketing concept must work together with good management approaches and with ethical business practices in order to satisfy the needs and wants of the various publics of the organization — customers, employees, suppliers, society — and, in the long run, ensure the satisfaction of the needs (...) of the organization itself. The authors propose that focusing on one concept, and ignoring the other two aspects, is not likely to promote organizational success. (shrink)

The objective of this paper is to discuss some of the foundational issues centering around the question of integrating education in human values with professional engineering education: its necessity and justification. The paper looks at the efforts in ‘tuning’ the technical education system in India to the national goals in the various phases of curriculum development. The contribution of the engineering profession in national development and India’s self-sufficiency is crucially linked with the institutionalization of expertise and the role of morality (...) and responsibility. This linkage can be created through a proper understanding of the social role of the profession—what motivates the professionals and what makes professional life meaningful. Value education facilitates the process of moral maturity and the development of a ‘holistic’ mindset. This paper deals with the need to create such a mindset, the human values associated with it and gives examples of efforts to impart such education through ‘action-oriented’ programmes introduced in some institutes of engineering in India. (shrink)

Women are making a substantial impact on the employment market, both in terms of overall numbers as well as by appointment to male-dominated organizational roles. Research on women in leadership positions within organizations has concentrated on two main foci. Firstly, the identification of relevant individual and organizational characteristics and secondly, on the impact of these variables on the women in management roles. This paper presents the findings from a series of studies in relation to these broad dimensions.

Abstract:Western business philosophy is rooted in the concepts of free enterprise, free markets, free choice. Yet freedom has its limits. Nature itself imposes constraints. In the state of nature each business must try to accomplish everything autonomously and ward off the attacks of rivals. These activities cost the business a great deal of freedom. The social contract emerges from such anarchy to increase the freedom available to all members of society. It does so by setting limits on individual freedom which (...) actually increase the overall amount of freedom available within the system. The Social Equation presents a relational model of this contract to show how overall freedom is increased in a state of society. In so doing, the obligations which society places on businesses to produce beneficial goods and services is developed. Next, the complex relationship between socially enforced constraints and social moral constraints is examined, showing that social moral constraints increase freedom more than do enforced constraints. This work concludes with proposed uses of the Social Equation as a heuristic for business ethics. (shrink)

While health promotion is widely acknowledged as a practice field where multidisciplinary teamwork is important, within nursing's discipline‐specific literature, a strong argument can be discerned regarding the profession's belief that it has a clear and unique role to play in that field. Yet rarely is this unique role, how it arises, and specifically how its effects are to be demarcated, attended to within the discipline‐specific literature. Two philosophical perspectives on science are presented and we demonstrate the extent to which these (...) two perspectives influence nursing scholarship, including nursing practice within the field of health promotion. We then go on to argue that, for nurses to sustain their claim to a unique and important contribution within health promotion, clear articulation of the philosophical premises underpinning practice methodologies is warranted. Specifically we argue the importance of such clarity within the context of an analysis of the discourse of multidisciplinary practice as a strategy for avoiding confronting the ways in which bio‐medical authority has already significantly demarcated how health promotion practice can proceed. (shrink)

An organizational culture can be defined as "Organizational Humanizing Culture" if it presents the following features: (1) recognition of the person in his or her dignity, rights, uniqueness, sociability and capacity for personal growth, (2) respect for persons and their human rights, (3) care and service for persons around one, and (4) management towards the common good versus particular interests. Current findings and generalized experience suggest that an organizational culture with these features tends to bring about trust and associability, which (...) are basic elements for social capital (a sort of asset embedded in the relationships of individuals, communities, networks or societies). (shrink)

Plato’s programme for establishing his ideal state involved propagating two foundation myths for it, described by Socrates as a “noble lie”, which were designed to persuade its citizens to embrace the classes of society to which they had been assigned, and their roles within them, contentedly and in harmony with their fellow citizens. Because most citizens were judged incapable of understanding the truth about the most important matters, the rulers of the ideal state were authorised to tell them whatever stories, (...) true or false, would induce them to behave well. Advocates of the management of corporate culture similarly emphasise the potency of story-telling and myth-making in inducing employees to adopt the beliefs, values and assumptions that corporate leaders consider desirable for both corporate performance and employee wellbeing. There are similarities between Plato’s programme for his ideal state and the programmes recommended by advocates of the management of corporate culture. There are also similarities between them in the ethical questions that they raise. Do corporate leaders have the moral authority to shape people’s beliefs, values and assumptions in the ways that these programmes entail? Are the outcomes to which those programmes lead really beneficial for all those who are affected by them? Even assuming that those outcomes are beneficial, how likely are the strategies proposed for realising them to be successful? Literature that explores these ethical issues is sparse, and this paper argues that it is doubtful whether any of these questions can be answered decidedly in the affirmative. (shrink)

The background of the article is Marxism's lack of a notion of management. The article suggests that anyone rethinking capitalism should pause for a moment to check on the evidence for such a notion. It seems necessary because today's theory of capitalism can no longer be content with a structural theory of the conflict between capital and labour, but must integrate a poststructural, or operational, theory of how capitalism is sustained on a day-to-day basis by organized projects in networks. The (...) article develops a notion of `management by strata', which is matched to the traditional role of hierarchies, and a notion of `management by ties', which is tuned to the newly discovered role of hierarchies in networks. The method used in the article is a theoretical study based on the sociological theories of social systems and networks. (shrink)

Textbooks and manuals on management suggest that managers are heroes who deal with difficult problems of collective adaptation and change. American films are similarly built on the premise of a hero confronted with extremely difficult situations. What if this hero figure promoted for so long in both management literature and the American film industry was the same at the structural level? This paper will attempt to clearly define the ethical performance of heroes that is perhaps shared by the imagination industry (...) and the workplace on the long run. We shall follow this picture of a hero-leader in the ethics of business and cinema through a large corpus of movies and writings on management and provide a set of six features for examining both, a common heroic structure we shall call the Hero-Leader Matrix. (shrink)

The article explores the complex and multi-dimensional relationship between organization and discourse, using interview data and written documents collected within banks in Sweden, Germany and Britain. The first part of the analysis, which examines the extent to which the organizations studied can be said to form discourse units in their own right, shows that management ideas, norms and values seem to have a considerable impact on bank discourse. Although the discourse found in different banks naturally has many features in common, (...) each organization is found to be created at least partly differently by its discourse. Analyses of sender markings, expressive illocutions and expressions of thanks to the staff show how discourse is part of the construction of an organizational culture in relation to ideas concerning leadership, hierarchy, centralization etc. The second part of the analysis focuses on the role of the national community in the formation of an organization. An analysis of the bank images disseminated in spoken discourse and documents points to differences which could be attributed to national cultural patterns. The interview data further show how much effort is devoted to internally and externally disseminated images; this could be seen as a sign of an awareness among management of the decisive role of the spoken and written word for their company. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that transnational as well as national political demands and expectations on the educational field are contributing to produce four ideological-based educational leadership discourses in the literature. In order to conceptualize these discourses, we turn to the work of Schmidt and Zizek. On that basis we identify four dominant educational leadership discourses: a personhood-based discourse, a profession-based discourse, a standard-based discourse, and a resource-based discourse. These discourses have—as we will show—various consequences for the way we think (...) and talk about education and educational leadership in our age. Using examples that stem from a project about educational leadership in Danish upper secondary school, we will illustrate how educational leaders’ beings and doings are ‘regulated’ by these discourses, which place them in a tension field where different and conflicting fantasies seem to be played out. Then, we will discuss how these fantasies can be challenged and how we can think and speak more intellectually about education and educational leadership. By using the term intellectual we are referring to educational leaders’ ability as human beings to critically reflect on their contemporary doings and beings within and beyond the existing social order. Hopefully this can help them to establish new ways for discussing not only what educational leadership is and should be about, but also what it could be about. (shrink)