The problem this paper addresses is network based, systematic tax extortion. Four key extortion system elements are considered which expose corruption links between political, administrative and judicial bodies. Based on action‐learning theory, a number of intervention methods for resisting and reforming systematic tax extortion are considered. The strengths and limitations of the methods are considered in the context of a number of case studies. Since the problem of tax extortion is more network based and systematic than it is isolated and (...) individual, any successful method of intervention must target network processes rather than isolated individual behaviours. What appears particularly promising is a social movement‐based combination and sequence of methods that includes dialogue among reformers about system‐level problems, win‐win alliances with instrumental allies, and win‐lose methods against selected opponents to extortion reform. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay responds to Patricia Werhane’s 1994 Ruffin Lecture address, “Moral Imagination and the Search for Ethical Decision-making in Management,” using institutional theory as an analytical framework to explore conditions that either inhibit or promote moral imagination in organizational problem-solving. Implications of the analysis for managing organizational change and for business ethics theory development are proposed.

Until relatively recently, Jacques Derrida was seen by many as nothing more than the high priest of Deconstruction, by turns stimulating and fascinating, yet always somewhat disengaged from the central political questions of our time. Or so it seemed. Derrida's "political turn," marked especially by the appearance of Specters of Marx, has surprised some and delighted others. In The Politics of Friendship Derrida renews and enriches this orientation through an examination of the political history of the idea of friendship pursued (...) down the ages. Derrida's thoughts are haunted throughout the book by the strange and provocative address attributed to Aristotle, "my friends, there is no friend" and its inversions by later philosophers such as Montaigne, Kant, Nietzsche, Schmitt and Blanchot. The exploration allows Derrida to recall and restage the ways in which all the oppositional couples of Western philosophy and political thought--friendship and enmity, private and public life--have become madly and dangerously unstable. At the same time he dissects genealogy itself, the familiar and male-centered notion of fraternity and the virile virtue whose authority has gone unquestioned in our culture of friendship and our models of democracy. The future of the political, for Derrida, becomes the future of friends, the invention of a radically new friendship, of a deeper and more inclusive democracy. This remarkable book, his most profoundly important for many years, offers a challenging and inspiring vision of that future. (shrink)

Through network diagrams and sustained narrative, sociologist Randall Collins traces the development of philosophical thought from ancient Greece to modern ...

Abstract:Statutory approaches toward whistle-blowing currently appear to be based on the assumption that most observers of wrongdoing will report it unless deterred from doing so by fear of retaliation. Yet our review of research from studies of whistle-blowing behavior suggests that this assumption is unwarranted. We propose that an alternative legislative approach would prove more successful in encouraging valid whistle-blowing and describe a model for such legislation that would increase self-monitoring of ethical behavior by organizations, with obvious benefits to society (...) at large.A defense contractor’s inspectors used improper calibration standards when inspecting missile parts and other military products, used noncertified inspectors when inspecting such products, and used employees without top-secret clearance to work on classified projects. This created potentially life-threatening products as well as potential compromises of military secrets.Quality-control officials on the Trans Alaska Pipeline were threatened with physical harm, demoted, and spied on in an effort to force them not to turn in negative reports or report problems. As a result, the likelihood of damaging oil spills due to improperly built and maintained equipment is heightened.A major corporation allegedly initiated an analysis of the cost savings that would result from circumventing or reducing compliance with health, safety and environmental standards. Two officers who objected to this noncompliance cost/benefit analysis were subsequently fired. (shrink)