I refer to the social embodiment of creative intelligence as creative democracies. Today’s world pose great challenges and serious threats to human life and cannot be faced by just having new ideas or more knowledge and thoughts. Today’s world requires the power to face the unknown, a key feature of intelligence. Hence the urgent need of societies to mutate into creative democracies. We need to begin with a strong base. We need an understanding and development of human life from its (...) foundations and the simplicity of its origin in the creative freedom of reality and its intra-active intelligence, the power of all humans in our global world to meet and share meaning and interests. This essaysuccinctly highlights their foundations, prefaced by three cautionary reflections. (shrink)

«Així doncs, qualsevol activitat que emprenem, la nostra acció més quotidiana, ens demana un esforç de la voluntat. En la consagració de les nostres forces a véncer totes les dificultats que se’ns presenten a diari ens determinen a nosaltres mateixos. Solament hem de vigilar de no cedir en el nostre afany de superació. Perquè si el treball que tenim per davant al llarg d’una existència el deixàvem de colp algun dia per algun motiu sobtat, això seria com una mort en (...) vida, com una rendició. Però no podem renunciar a ser nosaltres mateixos, sinó que ens hem de guanyar pas a pas, dia a dia». (shrink)

This essay explores human collective intelligence as the creative force shaping our lives. By collective I mean that intelligence lies in its interaction, in relationship. Intelligence is beyond the individual or the collective. I focus on one of its two levels: the intelligence of need, which centres on fulfilling humanity’s needs and interests and is crucial to economic processes. Business are central to the current way of living, hence, from its good working depends human wellbeing With the rapid growth of (...) human populations and nature’s limited resources, we must cultivate a frugal intelligence of need that moves away from viewing economic growth as synonymous with prosperity. As Socrates said: “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” My goal is to show that the effective operation of the intelligence of need for everyone’s benefit requires it to work in harmony with a foundational yet often overlooked intelligence, which I call the intelligence of freedom, or liberating intelligence. The reforms of the intelligence of need, in particular of the economy, usually proposed are insufficient to ensure wellbeing for all. We need the awakening of the liberating intelligence, the intelligence of freedom, beauty and love, on which I will insist along this essay. (shrink)

The notion of implicature has been a matter of discussion since Grice put it forward. He proposed a schema to explain how implicatures are generated and inferred, but the key condition it contains has been surprisingly overlooked. Davis detected it and named it determinacy, though for him this requirement raises several problems that make the whole Gricean theory of implicature untenable. I claim that, although the determinacy condition is flawed, it still captures a crucial mechanism of how implicatures are interpreted. (...) I attempt to recover this requirement under the relevance theory approach and show that, unlike the determinacy condition, the strength condition does not face the problems Davis formulates. Keywords: implicature, determinacy, strength, Cooperative Principle, principle of relevance, Gricean theory, relevance theory. (shrink)

The employee owned company (EOC) might be the ideal blend of capitalism and communitarianism that vitalizes the global economy. EOCs – based on the concepts of employee participation and control – have sprung up in the United Kingdom, some parts of the European Union, the United States, Japan, and the former Eastern Bloc countries. Research has shown that they are able to compete effectively with more traditional companies. However, in addition to the pressures of business competition, EOCs face two other (...) key problems as they strive to survive: (1) degeneration and (2) human nature and the abuse of power. After introducing the idea of the EOC and describing briefly these two key problems, this article presents seven recommendations for sustaining employee owned companies. These recommendations – grounded in sound organizational theory and the writings of experts in the field of employee ownership – are offered as hypotheses to be examined empirically by future researchers. (shrink)

Animal welfare and the ethical issues it raises have been discussed intensively for a couple of decades. The emphasis has been on the direct effects of housing and husbandry, but more attention is now being given to problems originating in selective breeding. European attempts to adjust animal welfare legislation to deal with these problems have been largely unsuccessful, but the fact that selective breeding can introduce welfare problems continues to place an ethical responsibility on the animal breeding industry. Since breeding (...) decisions are made centrally and, increasingly, internationally, strategic change is only likely to occur if it is embedded in an international agreement of some kind. The aim of this paper is to describe the key ethical issues facing animal breeding and assess the suggestion that the breeding industry itself can deal with ethical issues by means of an ethical code. Results from recent projects involving commercial breeding enterprises are presented. (shrink)

First published in 1979. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the last several months, several major disciplines have started their initial reckoning with what ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) mean for them – law, medicine, business among other professions. With a heavy dose of humility, given how fast the technology is moving and how uncertain its social implications are, this article attempts to give some early tentative thoughts on what ChatGPT might mean for bioethics. I will first argue that many bioethics issues raised by ChatGPT are similar (...) to those raised by current medical AI – built into devices, decision support tools, data analytics, etc. These include issues of data ownership, consent for data use, data representativeness and bias, and privacy. I describe how these familiar issues appear somewhat differently in the ChatGPT context, but much of the existing bioethical thinking on these issues provides a strong starting point. There are, however, a few “new-ish” issues I highlight – by new-ish I mean issues that while perhaps not truly new seem much more important for it than other forms of medical AI. These include issues about informed consent and the right to know we are dealing with an AI, the problem of medical deepfakes, the risk of oligopoly and inequitable access related to foundational models, environmental effects, and on the positive side opportunities for the democratization of knowledge and empowering patients. I also discuss how races towards dominance (between large companies and between the U.S. and geopolitical rivals like China) risk sidelining ethics. (shrink)

At the start of the 21st century, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) seems to have great potential for innovating business practices with a positive impact on People, Planet and Profit. In this article the differences between the management systems approach of the nineties, and Corporate Social Responsibility are analysed.An analysis is structured around three business principles that are relevant for CSR and management systems: (1) doing things right the first time, (2) doing the right things, and (3) continuous improvement and innovation. (...) Basically CSR is focussing on the second principle, and management systems focus on the first. However, CSR is very likely to build on the management systems as well.From a CSR point of view, the existing generation of management systems with their focus on rational control (= doing things right) can only be of limited use in the development of CSR. However, the preventive rationalities of management systems are important. Values and the principle doing the right things is extremely relevant for CSR. This goes far beyond the present generation of ISO type management systems; opportunities stem from building on TQM approaches like the EFQM Business Excellence model. Continuous improvement and innovation is a permanent challenge underlying the two other business principles, and requires both individual and organisational learning processes. In the present generation of management systems, continuous improvement mainly addresses rational prevention, barely the value aspects of business.For the further development and implementation of CSR, each of the three business management principles are vital. There is a need for a new generation of management systems that addresses the values at stake in strategic decision-making, both at company level and in the behaviour of individuals, while the rationalities of prevention and anticipation are still relevant. In both directions more emphasis for continuous learning and innovation will be needed.CSR is likely to trigger the development of management systems in the directions mentioned. This will support companies to be credible and transparent in improving the performance with respect to people, planet and profit. (shrink)

Whereas previous studies have criticized low-quality products for inadequate safety, this paper considers only safe products, and it examines the ethics of designing and selling low-quality products. Product quality is defined as suitability to a general purpose. The duty that companies owe to consumers is summarized in the Consumer-Oriented Process principle: “to place an increase in the consumer’s quality of life as the primary goal for producing products.” This principle is applied in analyzing the primary ethical justifications for low-quality products: (...) availability and applicability. Finally, a low-quality product should be designed afresh, not by altering an existing high-quality product. (shrink)

Sustainability reporting has become a well-entrenched practice in the mining sector. Failure to adequately live up to societal expectations is now considered a significant threat to the viability of the industry. There is general agreement that broad endorsement of standards for nonfinancial disclosure supports mining companies to improve their image, while conflicts persist. Because sustainability reports “speak” on behalf of sustainably operating organizations and may create socio-political effects, we explore the symbolic nature of SR. We conceive of SR as a (...) performative practice to research how it interferes with the world that it seeks to represent. Our case study research suggests that conformity with global templates is not an end in itself but might create below-compliance effects if a common interest in mining is developed in local arenas that avoids clarification of impacts and maintains ambiguity over responsibility. (shrink)

The value of a company’s ethical reputation has become a focal point for management researchers. We seek to join this conversation and extend the research centered on a firm’s ethical reputation. We accomplish this by shifting our focus away from its impact on external stakeholders to its impact on internal stakeholders. To this end, we rely on signaling theory to explain why a firm’s ethical reputation matters to its employees in an effort to bridge the macro–micro research gap. Across two (...) studies, we propose and demonstrate that a firm’s ethical reputation impacts employee subjective career success in form of career opportunities and work–life balance. Given our signaling theory framework, we also identify and explain when two industry-level characteristics operate as boundary conditions that distort a firm’s ethical reputation signaling properties. Specifically, the results demonstrate that a firm’s ethical reputation is positively related to employees’ perceptions of career opportunities and work–life balance. The results of our studies also demonstrate that the relatively high levels of industry competition and industry regulation weaken the positive impact of a firm’s ethical reputation on career opportunities and work–life balance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Due to the confinement imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic situation, companies adopted remote work more than ever. The rapid rise of remote work also affected local life and many employers introduced or extended their telework activities because of the associated advantages. However, despite the evident positive benefits, some employees were pressured to work remotely while ill. This evidence brought new challenges to the presenteeism literature. This article investigates how individual, economic/societal, and organizational/sectorial/supervisory-related variables can moderate the role of a contagious (...) disease, such as the COVID-19, in explaining presenteeism behavior. Moreover, the current research presents a multi-level conceptual model to describe how a new construct of remote-work presenteeism behavior mediates the relationship between different post pandemic health conditions and future cumulative negative consequences. The authors suggested that the widespread pervasive adoption of remote work because of COVID-19 has important implications for the presenteeism literature and opens avenues for further research. (shrink)

Background Medical ethics deals with the ethical obligations of doctors to their patients, colleagues and society. The annual reports of Sri Lanka Medical Council indicate that the number of complaints against doctors has increased over the years. We aimed to assess the level of knowledge, attitude and practice regarding medical ethics among doctors in three teaching hospitals in Sri Lanka. Methods A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted among doctors using a pre-tested self-administered, anonymous questionnaire. Chi Squared test, and ANOVA test (...) were used to identify the significance of association between level of knowledge and selected factors. Results Most doctors had a poor level of knowledge on medical ethics, with postgraduate trainees showing significantly higher level of knowledge. The average knowledge on medical ethics among doctors was significantly different between the three hospitals. Over 95% had a favourable attitude towards gaining knowledge and advocated the need for training. The majority indicated awareness of unethical practices. 24.6% of respondents stated that they get a chaperone ‘sometimes’ during patient examination while 3.5% never do. The majority responded that they never accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies in recognition of their prescribing pattern. 12–41% of doctors participated in the study acknowledged that they ‘sometime’ engaged in unethical practices related to prescribing drugs, accepting gifts from pharmaceutical companies and when obtaining leave. Conclusion Most doctors had a poor level of knowledge of medical ethics. Postgraduate trainees had a higher level of knowledge than other doctors. The majority showed a favourable attitude towards gaining knowledge and the need of training. Regular in-service training on medical ethics for doctors would help to improve their knowledge on medical ethics, as well as attitudes and ethical conduct. (shrink)

Global soft law, multistakeholder norms, the business practices and policies of leading companies, the expectations of...

This study was conducted in Serbian companies on licensed engineers and in its first part included a total of 336 licensed engineers who voluntarily completed the questionnaires about their ethical orientation and attitudes toward corruption and in the second part 214 engineers who participated in the first survey, who voluntarily evaluated their company’s business operations characteristics. This study has clearly shown that there is a direct significant influence of the engineer’s ethical orientations and attitudes toward corruption on their evaluation of (...) the characteristics of their respective companies regarding business operations. This research also clearly shows that only engineers with a strong deontological orientation, low ethical subjectivity, and strong readiness to fight corruption, low corruption acceptance and high awareness of corruption can successfully fight corruption, improve the business operations of their companies and make beneficial changes to society. Otherwise, they should be considered as corruption perpetrators, not just as its victims. (shrink)

Should businesses engage in moral talk when it becomes profitable? Due to their particular position of visibility, it is reasonable to acknowledge that businesses have specific moral duties. Some might argue that companies ought to help abandon morally repugnant norms by providing examples of alternative behaviors through advertisements. However, the moral talk of businesses might unexpectedly reinforce repugnant norms and increase social tensions in a polarized society. Then, the duty of the companies is not fulfilled when they engage in moral (...) talk. In polarized societies, the positional duty of businesses implies decreasing the risk of social conflict. It is not clear how to do that, yet I argue that if businesses use moral talk with mass marketing strategies, they would strive to shape impartial moral messages aiming to find points of moral convergence among polarized moral positions, which might mitigate social polarization. I call this duty the imperative of doux commerce. (shrink)

Distributed agile teams are increasingly employed in organizations, partly due to the increased focus on digital transformation. However, research findings about the performance of such teams appear to be inconsistent, calling for more research to investigate the conditions under which distributed agile teams may thrive. Given that task coordination is particularly challenging when team members are not co-located, the present study investigates the roles of the two types of task interdependence, i.e., initiated versus received task interdependence. Survey results from 191 (...) participants working in distributed agile teams within three companies in Norway confirm our hypotheses. Specifically, we show that high initiated task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of others, while received task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of self, and that both subsequently result in higher team performance in distributed agile teams. Thus, we argue that each type of task interdependence contributes in a unique way to team performance in distributed agile teams. (shrink)

Under the banner of “data for good,” companies in the technology, finance, and retail sectors supply their proprietary datasets to development agencies, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to help solve an array of social problems. We focus on the activities and implications of the Data for Climate Action campaign, a set of public–private collaborations that wield user data to design innovative responses to the global climate crisis. Drawing on in-depth interviews, first-hand observations at “data for good” events, intergovernmental and international organizational (...) reports, and media publicity, we evaluate the logic driving Data for Climate Action initiatives, examining the implications of applying commercial datasets and expertise to environmental problems. Despite the increasing adoption of Data for Climate Action paradigms in government and public sector efforts to address climate change, we argue Data for Climate Action is better seen as a strategy to legitimate extractive, profit-oriented data practices by companies than a means to achieve global goals for environmental sustainability. (shrink)

At the present stage, it is becoming more and more important for large companies to maintain their own impeccable reputation. Western companies have been introducing and developing compliance systems for quite a long time, and now Russian companies are also concerned about the development of such systems. Compliance strengthens the company’s reputation, which gives it another competitive advantage in the market. The purpose of the article is to study trends and prospects for the development of compliance in Russia, the problems (...) of its implementation in Russian companies. The paper provides a theoretical analysis of the concept and essence of compliance in the activities of companies, the features and components of compliance systems. Compliance systems and the work of compliance services were studied on the example of 50 large companies that were surveyed in March 2020. It was determined that less than half of the companies have such services; the full independence of such services is not always fully ensured; the capabilities of these services to perform compliance functions are not fully used and the most popular area of compliance is anti-corruption compliance. Prospects for further research are related to the study of the development of compliance in Russia, including the introduction of advanced foreign experience in Russian companies. The applied value of the material lies in the systematisation of information on the trends in the development of compliance in Russia at the present stage. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Vagaries and Vicissitudes of WarRichard W Sams III remember standing in the kitchen of our home on Camp Pendleton—a United States Marine Corps base in Southern California—listening to National Public Radio (NPR) and doing dishes in the fall of 2002. President Bush announced to the world that he was considering a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq on the pretext of Saddam Hussein harboring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Three (...) months later, as a Navy Family Physician, I deployed with a surgical company in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Reflecting on the situation with a like-minded close friend, I was not sure— would this be a just war? A necessary war? In my mind, it did not rise to the level of conscientious objection, yet the rightness of invading another country with all the anticipated death and destruction was not clear.En route to Kuwait, we laid over in Spain. While fixed to a TV in a holding area, I watched the Secretary of State make a case to the United Nations (UN) and the world that removing Hussein from power would protect us from mobile anthrax labs that could kill tens of thousands. I thought to myself, Either he is absolutely right, and we are protecting our country and the rest of the free world, or he is terribly mistaken and we are embarking on a disaster.As we trained, prepared, and waited in our tents to invade, we listened to the news on “Voice of America” with a hand crank radio. Thousands of citizens from nations around the world protested. Pope John Paul II, a man well acquainted with the tragedy of war, even spoke out about the planned invasion. “War is not inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.” He admonished our leaders that war needed to be the very last option. As a man of faith, I was troubled by his resolute, thoughtful opposition to the crusade I was embarking on. As the day of the invasion approached, scud missiles flew over our camp and we scurried into bunkers, day and night, with our gas masks donned to protect us from possible WMD attacks. In March, with the announcement of a “shock and awe” missile attack on Hussein’s palace, the invasion commenced.Within a day of flying by helicopter into enemy territory to set up a surgical company, the fog of war set in. A series of mass casualties streamed in from nearby Nasiriya. We received dozens of injured enemy combatants and American soldiers. Most troubling were the civilians. An entire extended family fleeing for their lives stumbled into an Iraqi minefield meant for us: a mother dead, the men with shrapnel wounds, and an aunt lost both of her legs. Then there was the little boy. By doctrine, our leaders reassured us we would not care for children. Yet, out of instinct, the field corpsmen scooped up all injured, including children, and [End Page 170] brought them to us. The five-year-old’s legs were blown to bits. We had no pediatric supplies. The anesthesiologist heroically intubated the child’s tiny airway with a urinary catheter and placed an adult IV. The surgeons corrected the wounds the best they could. Hours later, in futility, we performed chest compressions on his tiny mangled body.A day later, the worst sandstorm in a decade struck the area. We struggled to keep the patient-filled tents erect. A Marine appeared on the scene out of the darkness (you could not see beyond your nose in the storm) exclaiming we were going to condition one—lock and load our weapons due to an imminent threat. As healthcare professionals, Geneva Conventions dictated we were to use weapons only in self-defense. We chambered our 9-millimeter pistols to defend our patients and ourselves while Marines formed a defensive perimeter. I thought to myself, Great I’m gonna be shot up and die during a freaking sandstorm in Iraq. Hours later, we were told to stand down. The threat was not from approaching enemy combatants but from shepherds running from the crossfire. I had a small nervous breakdown, sleep deprived and under duress... (shrink)

The ongoing discourse on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) recognises two positions canvassed extensively in literature. These positions have crystallised in the agency theory and the stakeholder theory. The agency theory holds the proposition to be true that the social responsibility of business is profit maximisationand that the duty of the business executive or manager is to produce result for his employer(s) namely, the board of directors and the shareholders. The stakeholder theory, on the other hand, avers that beyond the board (...) of directors and the shareholders of a company there are a large number of stakeholders that are affected by the operations of a firm; and that these stakeholders deserve some gestures of goodwill and solidarity from business organisations, which in turn would impact positively on their operations. A third position often glossed over in this arena which I propose to canvass is what I choose to call the “obligatory theory” of corporate social responsibility which simply states that a business organisation is duty-bound or obligated to be socially responsible to the environment of operation. (shrink)

Whether Social Media Companies (hereafter, SMCs) such as Twitter and Facebook limit speech is an empirical question. No one disputes that they do. Whether they “censor” speech is a conceptual question, the answer to which is a matter of dispute. Whether they may do so is a moral question, also a matter of dispute. We address both of these latter questions and hope to illuminate whether it is morally permissible for SMCs to restrict speech on their platforms. This could be (...) part of a larger argument, when we do not explicitly offer here, that states ought not to forbid SMCs from censoring. We do not focus on legal statutes or precedent. We argue that nonstate actors can (as a conceptual matter) and may (as a moral matter) impede the freedoms of others to express themselves. That is, barring rare emergencies, nonstate actors may censor individuals even when states may not. (shrink)

Within the corporate social responsibility research field, the construct of organizational reputation has been extensively scrutinized as a crucial mediator between the firm CSR engagement and valuable organizational outcomes. Yet, the existing literature on organizational reputation suffers from substantive divergence between the studies in terms of defining the construct’s domain, dimensional structure, and the methodological operationalization. The current study aims to refine the organizational reputation construct by reconciling varying theoretical perspectives within the construct’s definitional landscape, suggesting a holistic but parsimonious (...) triadic view on the organizational reputation construct for customer stakeholders. Based on commonly used extant organizational reputation measures, we theoretically and empirically develop the customer-based triadic organizational reputation scale and position it as a superordinate multidimensional construct influencing three distinct first-order dimensions: product and service efficacy, societal ethicality, and market prominence. Results show that the proposed triadic conceptualization of organizational reputation is theoretically defensible, and the resulting scale is cross-culturally generalizable and performs well compared with existing, longer measures of organizational reputation. Together, the organizational reputation model developed here suggests that, for cognitive economy and functional efficiency, customers will access a second-order reflective model of organizational reputation as the default implicit attitude, which in turn will activate reflections of the implicit attitude in the form of first-order dimensions. (shrink)

The recent data controversy with Facebook highlights the tech industry as a whole was utterly unprepared for the backlash it faced as a result of its business model of selling user data to third parties. Despite the predominant role that technology plays in all of our lives, the controversy also revealed that many tech companies are reactive, rather than proactive, in addressing crises. This book examines society's failure to manage technology and its resulting negative consequences. Mitroff argues that the "technological (...) mindset" is responsible for society's unbridled obsession with technology and unless confronted, will cause one tech crisis after another. This trans-disciplinary text, edgy in its approach, will appeal to academics, students, and practitioners through its discussion of the modern technological crisis. (shrink)

A company called Biojewellery has proposed to take a sample of bone tissue from a couple and to grow this sample into wedding rings. One of the ethical problems that such a proposal faces is that it implies surgery without medical need. To this end, only couples with a prior need for surgery are being considered. This paper examines the question of whether such a stipulation is necessary. It is suggested that, though medical need and the provision of health and (...) wellbeing is overwhelmingly the warrant for surgical intervention, there is no reason in principle why other, non-medical, projects such as jewellery creation might not also warrant surgical intervention. Implicitly, this line of thought forces us to consider the proper place of surgical intervention—that is, to ask what surgeons are for. (shrink)

The Coal Seam Gas extraction industry is developing rapidly within the Surat Basin in southern Queensland, Australia, with licenses already approved for tenements covering more than 24,000 km2. Much of this land is used for a broad range of agricultural purposes and the need for coexistence between the farm and gas industries has been the source of much conflict. Whilst much research has been undertaken into the environmental and economic impacts of CSG, little research has looked into the issues of (...) coexistence between farmers and the CSG industry in the shared space that is a farm business, a home and a resource extraction network. We conducted three workshops with farmers from across a broad region undergoing CSG development to explore farmers’ perceptions of some of the issues arising from large scale land use change. Workshops explored the importance of place identity and landscape aesthetics for farmers, farmers’ acceptance and coping with change, and possible benefits from off-farm income. We found that farmers believed that place identity was not well understood by CSG staff from non-rural backgrounds and that farmers struggled to explain some concerns because of the different way they interpreted their landscape. Furthermore, high staff turnover, and the extensive use of contractors also impacted on communications. These factors were the cause of much frustration and farmers felt that this has led to severe impacts on mental health and wellbeing. Farmers felt that a change in culture within the CSG companies will be required if engagement with farmers is to improve and that efforts to employ local people in these communications was helping this. The workshops also identified a range of issues perceived by farmers arising from increased traffic volumes, impacts to mental health and wellbeing, place identity and loss of water resources for farmers. Finally, it was suggested that scientists and agricultural industry groups will need to work closely with farmers to develop understanding of these emerging issues and to develop solutions that are timely and relevant. (shrink)

The problem of unwelcome epistemic company refers to the problem of encountering agreement with your beliefs from an unwelcome source, such as someone who is known to form unreliable beliefs or have values you reject. Blanchard (2023) and Levy (2023) argue that when we encounter unwelcome agreement, we may have reason to reduce our confidence in our matching beliefs. I argue that unwelcome epistemic company rarely provides reasons to reduce our confidence, and apparent successes at improving our beliefs using unwelcome (...) company are explained by extraneous factors. Seeing why unwelcome agents are rarely evidence our belief is false requires making a distinction between two kinds of agents who regularly form false beliefs: unreliable agents and anti-reliable agents. While unreliable agents are common, they are uninformative. While anti-reliable agents would be informative, they are incredibly rare. Unwelcome agents are also rarely evidence that we have formed our own beliefs via an unreliable process, unless we have independent evidence that we are relevantly similar to them. This is hard to obtain given that unwelcome agents, by definition, have values and methods of forming beliefs that we do not find appealing. Moreover, attempts to use unwelcome company to improve our beliefs are likely to make our beliefs worse off in a number of ways. I argue we should adopt a policy of ignoring unwelcome company, letting them have little impact on our confidence in our beliefs. (shrink)

Organisational politics traditionally gets a ‘bad press’. It has generally been under-researched mainly because of concerns about image. Managers dislike discussing subjects such as organisational politicking, believing that it reflects badly on themselves as managers and on their organisation and they cling to a purely rationalist model of decision-making. Sometimes, even the presence of politics is denied. But, as this paper argues, while some managers may claim to have no taste for politics they readily engage in it and justify it. (...) The processes of managing organisational change more often than not result in conflict and resistance, requiring political engagement in response. This paper analyses political activities in the context of change, using an ethical decision-tree to examine practical cases. It presents them in the managers’ own terms and assesses them against three criteria: utility, rights and justice. The findings raise questions about how managers themselves construe ethical behaviour and about the adequacy of the criteria they use. There is room for further research in this area and analysis of the ethical frameworks used to evaluate what managers do. (shrink)

Background: Surveillance technology such as tag and tracking systems and video surveillance could increase the freedom of movement and consequently autonomy of clients in long-term residential care settings, but is also perceived as an intrusion on autonomy including privacy. Objective: To explore how clients in residential care experience surveillance technology in order to assess how surveillance technology might influence autonomy. Setting: Two long-term residential care facilities: a nursing home for people with dementia and a care facility for people with intellectual (...) disabilities. Methods: Ethnographic field study. Ethical considerations: The boards representing clients and relatives/proxies of the clients were informed of the study and gave their written consent. The clients’ assent was sought through a special information leaflet. At any time clients and/or proxy were given the option to withdraw from the study. The research protocol was also reviewed by a medical ethics committee. Findings: Our findings show a pattern of two themes: (1) coping with new spaces which entailed clients: wandering around, getting lost, being triggered, and retreating to new spaces and (2) resisting the surveillance technology measure because clients feel stigmatized, missed the company, and do not like being “watched.” Conclusion: Client experiences of surveillance technology appear to entail a certain ambivalence. This is in part due to the variety in surveillance technology devices, with each device bringing its own connotations and experiences. But it also lies in the devices’ presupposition of an ideal user, which is at odds with the actual user who is inherently vulnerable. Surveillance technology can contribute to the autonomy of clients in long-term care, but only if it is set in a truly person-centered approach. (shrink)

Opportunistic behaviors are considered ethically and strategically troublesome since they disrupt otherwise mutually beneficial relationships. Previous literature has shown that firms attempt to protect their investments from opportunism by generating a large amount of patented marginal innovations in domains central to their industry. However, this approach may generate some ethical dilemmas by preventing firms and societies from more radical, collaborative, and much-needed environmental progress. We extend the environmental innovation literature using strategic and ethical lenses to analyze the potential of an (...) alternative, divergent way to provide financial opportunities for a focal firm without aiming to prevent innovative opportunities for competitors. Our longitudinal analysis of 6768 environmental patents from 59 large companies worldwide in the electrical components and equipment industry shows that high levels of innovation intensity, environmental scope, bargaining power, and environmental expertise increase the incidence of patented environmental innovations related to domains in which industry competitors are less focused (i.e., technological divergence). We also show a positive relationship between this divergence and market-based firm performance. Our results suggest that pursuing innovative divergence to avoid opportunism may make ethical and market sense and we also identify the organizational factors that can support these efforts. (shrink)