Feldman (Organization Science 11(6): 611–629, 2000) describes the striving mechanism as a mode of routine change driven by successful organizational routines. Striving describes a process by which organization members gain a better understanding of the ideals undergirding their actions. In turn, this insight drives changes within routines. In this paper, I argue that the rational actor model, especially as articulated in Donald Davidson’s (1963) theory of action, is unable to account for the striving mechanism of endogenous routine (...) change identified by Feldman (Organization Science 11(6): 611–629, 2000). Drawing upon Brewer’s (2011) criticisms of propositional theories of desire, the account of meta-language intentional attitudes developed by List and Pettit (2011), and MacIntyre’s (2007) theory of social practices, I introduce an expanded framework for conceptualizing agency at the individual level, and aggregation at the organization level, that better accounts for the striving mechanism as a process of endogenous routine change. (shrink)

The paper explores the topic of organizational routines from a philosophical vantage point to see how the philosophy of action may help improve its understanding in organizational research. The main goal is to show the distinctive complexity of the intentional picture of routines. In this respect, the paper clarifies the interrelations between psychological habits and routines and describes similarities and differences between them. It also highlights the special place of mindfulness as a psycho-cognitive mechanism of (...) action meta-control in intentional explanations of routine complexity. (shrink)

There is an impressive literature on organizational capacities that enable specific types of performance, but no work has been done on whether such capabilities extend to an organizational capacity for trustworthiness (CFT). This paper introduces the notion of a capacity for trustworthiness (CFT) defined as the collective capability of the organization to produce positive signals of trustworthiness to stakeholders. The antecedents to the CFT are bundles of organization routines that enable the firm to manifest trustworthiness and balance (...) attending to both financial and relational goals. The consequences of a high CFT are outcomes and behaviors that are congruent with pivotal stakeholder expectations and are, therefore, trust inducing. A process model is offered that outlines how an organization’s routines and CFT change in response to feedback and pressure and increase or decrease stakeholders’ trust. Implications for the management of stakeholder relations, trust repair, and the management of organizational systems are reviewed. (shrink)

This study explores the integration of data journalism within three European legacy news organisations through the lens of organisational structure and professional culture. Interviews with data journalists and editors suggest that professional routines resonate with established data journalism epistemologies, values, and norms that appear to be constitutional for an inter-organisational data journalism subculture. At the same time, organisational structure either integrates the journalistic subculture by increasing levels of complexity, formalisation, and centralisation or rejects it by not accommodating it structurally (...) or culturally. The three data teams work along epistemologies of computer-assisted reporting, investigative journalism, and data journalism but differentiate themselves through nuanced understandings of data journalism practice, driven by individual journalists. After a structureless episode, one team sets itself apart as it diverges from data-driven routines and orients itself towards technological and interdisciplinary interactive journalism. The findings show an interdependence of individual efforts, varying conceptualisations of data journalism practice, and interplay between organisational structure and professional culture. (shrink)

This special issue of Science, Technology, & Human Values contains articles concerned with ethics in and around scientific practice. These articles ask how organizational routines both produce and diffuse concerns about the risks and benefits of scientific research and products, and why context remains elusive in formal ethical analysis. These cases are from diverse settings, with several touching on issues of economic inequality and participation in scientific research. Each article describes in some way how cultural and institutional configurations (...) shape ethical thinking and the distribution of goods and harms in science. (shrink)

Ethical problems with stakeholder relationships sometimes occur because organizational members are operating out of narrowly scripted organizational routines that do not include an explicit ethical component. In this article we describe methods of single-loop, double-loop, and triple-loop action learning that aim at helping organizational members develop understandings that incorporate conscious ethical considerations in stakeholder relationships. We describe the extent to which these methods achieve "second-order" change in the direction of ethical stakeholder relationships, give examples of the (...) use of each of the methods, and we consider their strengths and limitations for achieving the desired change. (shrink)

To cope with the already large, and ever increasing, amount of information stored in organizational memory, “forgetting,” as an important human memory process, might be transferred to the organizational context. Especially in intentionally planned change processes (e.g., change management), forgetting is an important precondition to impede the recall of obsolete routines and adapt to new strategic objectives accompanied by new organizational routines. We first comprehensively review the literature on the need for organizational forgetting and (...) particularly on accidental vs. intentional forgetting. We discuss the current state of the art of theory and empirical evidence on forgetting from cognitive psychology in order to infer mechanisms applicable to the organizational context. In this respect, we emphasize retrieval theories and the relevance of retrieval cues important for forgetting. Subsequently, we transfer the empirical evidence that the elimination of retrieval cues leads to faster forgetting to the forgetting of organizational routines, as routines are part of organizational memory. We then propose a classification of cues (context, sensory, business process-related cues) that are relevant in the forgetting of routines, and discuss a meta-cue called the “situational strength” cue, which is relevant if cues of an old and a new routine are present simultaneously. Based on the classification as business process-related cues (information, team, task, object cues), we propose mechanisms to accelerate forgetting by eliminating specific cues based on the empirical and theoretical state of the art. We conclude that in intentional organizational change processes, the elimination of cues to accelerate forgetting should be used in change management practices. (shrink)

Organizational learning, at the broadest levels, as it has come to be understood within the organization theory and management literatures, concerns the experientially driven changes in knowledge processes, structures, and resources that enable organizations to perform skillfully in their task environments (Argote and Miron–Spektor, 2011). In this chapter, we examine routines and capabilities as an important micro–foundation for organizational learning. Adopting a micro–foundational approach in line with Barney and Felin (2013), we propose a new model for explaining (...) how routines and capabilities play a causal role in transforming experience into repertoires of (actual or potential) organization–level behavior. More specifically, we argue that routines and capabilities are built out of capacities for shared – both joint and collective – intentionality (Tomasello, 1999, 2014; Bratman, 1999a, 2014) that enable individuals to engage in complex forms of collaboration in conjunction with multiple layers of scaffolds that encompass material and symbolic resources, social processes, and cultural norms and practices (Weick, 1995; Hutchins, 1995; Clark, 1997, 2008; Orlikowski, 2007). In short, we outline what we call the ‘scaffolded joint action’ model and suggest its potential as a micro–foundation of organizational learning. (shrink)

Religion is intrinsically social, and hence irretrievably organizational, although organization is often seen as the darker side of the religious experience--power, routinization, and bureaucracy. Religion and secular organizations have long received separate scholarly scrutiny, but until now their confluence has been little considered. This interdisciplinary collection of mostly unpublished papers is the first volume to remedy the deficit. The project grew out of a three-year inquiry into religious institutions undertaken by Yale University's Program on Non-Profit Organizations and sponsored by (...) the Lilly Endowment. The scholars who took part in this effort weree challenged to apply new perspectives to the study of religious organizations, especially that strand of contemporary secular organizational theory known as "New Institutionalism." The result was this groundbreaking volume, which includes papers on various aspects of such topics as the historical sources and patterns of U.S. religious organizations, contemporary patterns of denominational authority, the congregation as an organization, and the interface between religious and secular institutions and movements. The contributors include an interdisciplinary mix of scholars from economics, history, law, social administration, and sociology. (shrink)

In this paper we aim to contribute to the recent debate on non-empirical theory confirmation by analyzing why scientists accept and trust their theories in the absence of clear empirical verification in social sciences. Given that the philosophy of social sciences traditionally deals mainly with economics and sociology, organization theory promises a new area for addressing a wide range of key questions of the modern philosophy of science and, in particular, to shed a light on the puzzling question of non-empirical (...) theory assessment, acceptance, corroboration and development. Although institutional theory of organizations cannot be directly tested and evaluated via empirical data, this theory nevertheless became a dominant theory of organization-environment relations and most organizational researchers routinely use it as a standard theoretical framework for making sense of empirical findings. We analyze the trajectory of institutional theory development and proliferation and argue that it enjoys its current status of the standard theory of organizational sociology because (1) it is flexible enough to account for most organizational processes and phenomena; (2) it has suppressed existing alternative theories that are less flexible; (3) because scientists do not tend to look for alternatives for once winning theory and (4) due to the dysfunctional requirement to “develop theory” in top journals in organization and management studies. Finally, we argue that “a too-much-plasticity effect”, has a negative impact on institutional theory in the long run. It is explained why, despite the dominant position in organizational research, institutional studies cannot be regarded as a normal science while the progress of this theoretical problem is rather an illusory effect then a growth of knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, we analyze the relationship between the main dimensions of organizational structure (i.e., formalization, centralization, and complexity) and ecological responsiveness in a sample of 109 firms in the European air passenger transport industry. Broadly confirming our hypotheses, the results show that high formalization of routine tasks favors ecological responsiveness. Structures characterized by high decentralization and low complexity also favor ecological responsiveness. Furthermore, decentralization has a significant, positive relationship with ecological responsiveness among firms with low vertical complexity. Overall, (...) the results indicate that organizational structure plays a major role in ecological responsiveness. (shrink)

Objectives Medical futility at the end of life is a growing challenge to medicine. The goals of the authors were to elucidate how clinicians define futility, when they perceive life-sustaining treatment (LST) to be futile, how they communicate this situation and why LST is sometimes continued despite being recognised as futile. Methods The authors reviewed ethics case consultation protocols and conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 physicians and 11 nurses from adult intensive and palliative care units at a tertiary hospital in (...) Germany. The transcripts were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Results Futility was identified in the majority of case consultations. Interviewees associated futility with the failure to achieve goals of care that offer a benefit to the patient's quality of life and are proportionate to the risks, harms and costs. Prototypic examples mentioned are situations of irreversible dependence on LST, advanced metastatic malignancies and extensive brain injury. Participants agreed that futility should be assessed by physicians after consultation with the care team. Intensivists favoured an indirect and stepwise disclosure of the prognosis. Palliative care clinicians focused on a candid and empathetic information strategy. The reasons for continuing futile LST are primarily emotional, such as guilt, grief, fear of legal consequences and concerns about the family's reaction. Other obstacles are organisational routines, insufficient legal and palliative knowledge and treatment requests by patients or families. Conclusion Managing futility could be improved by communication training, knowledge transfer, organisational improvements and emotional and ethical support systems. The authors propose an algorithm for end-of-life decision making focusing on goals of treatment. (shrink)

This study expands theoretical understanding of organizational misconduct through qualitative analysis of widespread deceptive sales practices at a large U.S. life insurance company. Adopting a symbolic interactionist perspective, this research describes how a set of taken-for-granted interpretive frames located in the organization’s culture created a worldview through which deceptive sales practices were seen as normal, acceptable, routine operating procedure. The findings from this study extend and modify the dominant theoretical ‘pressure/opportunity’ model of organizational misconduct by proposing that the (...) process engine driving misconduct is not amorally rational organization members, but rather is organizational members acting on socially constructed views of the organization that normalize misconduct. (shrink)

The day-to-day work of clinical ethics consultants and healthcare ethics committees can easily become overly routine. Too much routine, however, comes with a risk that morally important practices will be reduced to mere bureaucratic formalities, while practitioners become desensitized to ethically significant distinctions between cases. Clinical ethics consultation and organizational ethics must be set within the broader social and cultural context of the healthcare environment. This practice requires looking beyond mere legal compliance and the routinely false assumption that there (...) are unambiguous ethical norms that easily govern clinical ethics and hospital policy formation. Together the essays in this issue of HEC Forum challenge readers to rethink taken-for-granted assumptions regarding patient care, physician obligation, clinical ethics consultation, and organizational ethics. (shrink)

Organizational values determine the behaviour and norms expected in the organization. The more similar the attitude, the way of thinking and the value system among organizational members the stronger the culture is. The characteristics of personality can be well modelled with the concept of self-evaluation. The purpose of this article is to create a theoretical framework that reveals the relationships between self-evaluation dimensions, organizational values and employees’ commitment dimensions. Based on the results, affective commitment is supported by (...) a high level of self-esteem and self-efficacy through the organizational values such as collaboration, trust, affiliation, achievement, autonomy, competition and growth. In contrast, professional commitment is supported by a high level of locus of control and emotional stability, through the organizational values such as routinization, attention to details, formalization, support, communication and consistency. The conclusions of the theoretical model can... (shrink)

Representing organizational reality in conceptual models is an important part of IS practice. In this paper we expose and challenge the taken-for-granted ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin common accounts of conceptual modeling, using process modeling as an example. We argue that, due to an implicit commitment to a dualist ontology and representationalist epistemology, much literature regards the elicitation and representation of reality in the course of modeling as largely unproblematic. We draw on Martin Heidegger's holistic philosophy to give (...) an alternative analysis that brings to the fore challenges in 1) eliciting knowledge of routine activities, 2) capturing knowledge from domain experts and 3) representing organizational reality in authentic ways. As a result we come to see modeling as a practice that performs particular realities rather than simply representing a given reality. We hope to initiate a critical discussion on the implications of the current philosophical grounding of conceptual modeling. (shrink)

Workforce education forms one of the core aspects of organizational learning which aims for performance as well as efficiency. Learning is goal-oriented in business organizations. Organizations' activities are highly-oriented towards customer satisfaction. Organizations learn from practice and delivery of services to meet consumer needs and necessities. Perfection, efficiency and smart practices define today's multinational organizational culture. But how do the multinational organizations achieve such perfections in their business operations? This paper addresses this issue by linking teleological aspects of (...) learning and practice to performance, adoption of routines, and learning-induced adaptation in order to explain how they achieve "perfection" in practice and operations. Further, the paper attempts to study a particular aspect of organizational (teleological perfectionism) process by modeling scenarios which define goal oriented organizational learning and adaptation, and underpins how such teleological processes effectively benefit organizations in the long run. Conclusions drawn up from an example being modeled in this paper suggest that teleology, or teleological dynamics play significant role in shaping today's organizations and help explain some (or high) degree of perfectionism in their operations. (shrink)

This article explores the issue of rebuilding an organization’s reputation following an ethical scandal. We divide our discussion into four parts. First, we discuss the concept of reputation. We note its relevance to today’s organizations, offer several contemporary definitions along with highlighting its benefits and downsides. In the second section, we offer the work of anthropologist, Victor Turner, on social drama along with other views on organizational efforts to rebuild their reputation to include reputation management routines. In the (...) third section, Turner’s redressive actions are integrated with Edgar Schein’s leadership mechanisms for building or changing culture to provide further understanding of organizational efforts to rebuild reputation following ethical scandals. Finally, in the fourth section of the article, we extend the integration of the Turner and Schein work with single- and double-loop redressive actions for rebuilding reputation. (shrink)

We study how an organization’s error-management climate affects organizational members’ beliefs about other members’ willingness to report errors that they discover when chance of error detection by superiors and others is extremely low. An error-management climate, as a component of the organizational climate, is said to be “high” when errors are accepted as part of everyday life as long as they are learned from and not repeated. Alternatively, the error-management climate is said to be an “error averse” climate (...) when discovery of errors invokes the laying of blame on those admitting to or found committing errors. We examine the effects of this error-management climate in a professional services environment where uncorrected errors may have severe consequences and discovery of work errors is crucial for organizational success. We find that error-management climate affects organizational members’ beliefs about what other members will report about discovered self-made errors, with a high error-management (versus error averse) climate leading to greater reporting willingness. We also find a significant interaction with a key contextual variable, error type (conceptual or calculation), that suggests the effect is more significant for conceptual errors than calculation errors. Our findings suggest that an organization’s error-management climate is an important factor in promoting ethical behavior of employees, especially junior employees, carrying out routine tasks whose failure to report errors discovered incidental to those tasks may have severe implications for their organizations. (shrink)

Community gardens are of increasing interest to scholars, policymakers, and community organizations but there has been little systematic study of community garden management at a broad scale. This study complements case study research by revealing shared experiences of community garden management across different contexts. In partnership with the American Community Gardening Association, we developed an online questionnaire. Results from 445 community garden organizations across the US and Canada reveal common themes as well as differences that are particularly significant across different (...) organizational sizes. The findings suggest that organizers see multiple benefits, and respondents confirmed recent expansion of gardening efforts. Analysis then focuses on challenges, which are closely related to garden management. We address garden losses as well as challenges to routine operation. Key challenges included funding, participation, land, and materials. We developed a typology based on organization size, to reveal distinctions between small organizations (serving 1 garden), medium-sized organizations (2–3 gardens), large organizations (4–30 gardens) and very large organizations (31 or more gardens). These categories shed light on different needs for funding, land, material, and participation. Together, this analysis suggests that community gardens can be linked through the work it takes to sustain them rather than specific causes or outcomes. Community gardens can be better integrated into local food systems through analysis of how people involved with this work navigate these shared processes. (shrink)

This paper proposes that Hannah Arendt’s book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil furnishes both philosophical and empirical elements to understand not only the Nazi crimes but also cases of wrongdoing by and within current organizations. It is suggested that Arendt provides three relevant standpoints to how wrongdoing is banalized within organizations: a critique of bureaucratic administration, an account of the role of interactive socialization, and a reflection on the cognitive and meaning-attribution processes. Arendt originally connected (...) these three dimensions to thoughtlessness, understood as a process of routinization in which organizations discourage critical thinking, personal responsibility, and reflection about the ultimate meaning and consequences of actions and decisions. As opposed to this, thoughtfulness is proposed as an approach based on meaningful pursuit within organizations to avoid some of the normative, cognitive, and routine elements that encourage, justify, and reproduce the banalization of misconduct. (shrink)

BackgroundThe introduction and wide application of non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) has triggered further evolution of routines in the practice of prenatal diagnosis. ‘Routinization’ of prenatal diagnosis however has been associated with hampered informed choice and eugenic attitudes or outcomes. It is viewed, at least in some countries, with great suspicion in both bioethics and public discourse. However, it is a heterogeneous phenomenon that needs to be scrutinized in the wider context of social practices of reproductive genetics. In different countries (...) with their different regulatory frameworks, different patterns of routines emerge that have different ethical implications.This paper discusses an ethics of routines informed by the perspectives of organizational sociology and psychology, where a routine is defined as a repetitive, recognizable pattern of interdependent organizational actions that is carried out by multiple performers. We favour a process approach that debunks the view – which gives way to most of the concerns – that routines are always blindly performed. If this is so, routines are therefore not necessarily incompatible with responsible decision-making. Free and informed decision-making can, as we argue, be a key criterion for the ethical evaluation of testing routines. If free and informed decision-making by each pregnant woman is the objective, routines in prenatal testing may not be ethically problematic, but rather are defensible and helpful. We compare recent experiences of NIPT routines in the context of prenatal screening programmes in Germany, Israel and the Netherlands. Notable variation can be observed between these three countries (i) in the levels of routinization around NIPT, (ii) in the scope of routinization, and (iii) in public attitudes toward routinized prenatal testing.ConclusionAn ethics of routines in the field of prenatal diagnostics should incorporate and work with the necessary distinctions between levels and forms of routines, in order to develop sound criteria for their evaluation. (shrink)

Leaders working in diverse spheres of societal influence including medicine, healthcare, public health, legal services, education, and business are increasingly interested in the potential role of mindfulness practice for experiencing, appreciating and living their lives more fully at work and at home. The discipline of mindfulness meditation practice may offer leaders an effective means of actualizing in their lives an enhanced ability to know themselves more directly and, also, to learn how to use, in skillful ways, both the routine and (...) extraordinary work-related demands and challenges they face as a means of cultivating latent yet innate human qualities necessary for effective leadership. Based upon direct experience as a leader facing a significant, protracted crisis, the author details his experience of integrating mindfulness practice into his life and leadership-related decision-making. (shrink)

This paper examines the discursive construction of collective identity in several feminist organizations, as a way of shedding new light on the debate over essentializing or totalizing terms in contemporary feminist/postmodernist theory. We argue that while this debate is about language, it has remained largely untouched by the insights of a discursive approach. The latter as we take it up here treats language as irremediably strategic or interested. In contrast, the feminist argument over essentializing terms appears to hold to a (...) correspondence version of language, a position which limits the debate in fatal ways. Part 1 reviews the argument that terms such as women, feminist and feminist identity are essentializing discourses which dominate by silencing difference. Part 2 then considers the way one such concept – feminist identity – is actually constructed and used in the routine talk of members of feminist organizations. In Part 3 we draw out the implications of a discursive approach to such terms for the feminist/postmodernist debate. (shrink)

This conceptual article draws on structuration theory and social identity theory to isolate firm-internal institutionalization processes as antecedents and drivers of corporate political strategizing. Path dependencies in corporate routines and actors' knowledgeability about these path dependencies are singled out as primary factors structuring strategic decision making within the firm. The concepts of path dependency and knowledgeability, respectively, refer to the institutional and cognitive dimension of corporate political strategizing. These two dimensions come together in actors' identities. Identities on their turn (...) shape managers' recognition of policy issues and the interpretation of issue salience relative to corporate interests. Thus, the article argues that institutional features of competitive environments precipitate in processes of identity building and preference formation and are reproduced through organizational routines and practices within the firm. (shrink)

Voluntary certifications, such as Forestry Stewardship Council in the forestry sector, are used to manage sustainable and socially responsible practices in firms. Even though the certifications are based on standards, it has been reported that adopting firms are nothing but a homogeneous cohort of adopters and in fact differ in their approaches to the certification. In this paper, we conceptualize firms’ approach to certification and link the approaches to various aspects of certification. Using an inductive approach and deriving our data (...) from multiple case studies from forestry FSC certification, we argue that firms’ approach to certification is explained by their development of absorptive capacity, alignment of their organizational routines and their engagement in negotiations with FSC. We also argue that these approaches affect firm’s benefits from certification, their level of adherence to the requirements of the certification and their likelihood to withdraw from the certification. We discuss our findings in view of the literature on absorptive capacity, institutional literature and the literature on collective action and also discuss the implications of the study to voluntary certification literature in general. (shrink)

The extensive literature on the Learning Organisation proposes that a competitive advantage can be achieved through the systematised generation and application of knowledge. Consequently, much of the debate concerns the processes, routines and organisational features that a firm should adopt to learn more, and faster, than its competitors. Less attention is given to understanding the nature of the knowledge that is created by these Learning Organisations. We hold that the topic is more important than its current weight in the (...) literature because the performance claims of the models proposed critically depend upon the newly acquired knowledge replacing ignorance or knowledge with less utility. In this paper we explore the nature of knowledge that Learning Organisation theory seeks to create by articulating implicit epistemological assumptions found within the literature. We show that the capacities of each epistemology to help an organisation reject falsehood and make greater use of its knowledge are critically undermined by these very routines. The paper concludes by highlighting the importance of a sceptical epistemology and outlines a process that would strengthen doubting behaviour. (shrink)

This paper investigates how early career academics interpret and respond to institutional demands structured by projectification. Developing a ‘frame analytic’ approach, it explores projectification as a process constituted at the level of meaning-making. Building on 35 in-depth interviews with fixed-term scholars in political science and history, the findings show that respondents jointly referred to _competition_ and _delivery_ in order to make sense of their current situation. Forming what I call _the project frame_, these interpretive orientations were legitimized by various (...) class='Hi'>organizational routines within the studied departments, feeding into a dominant regime of valuation and accumulation. However, while the content of the project frame is well-defined, attempts to align with it vary, indicating the importance of disciplines and academic age when navigating project-based careers. Furthermore, this way of framing academic work and careers provokes tensions and conflicts that junior scholars try to manage. To curb their competitive relationship and enable cooperation, respondents emphasized the outcome of project funding as ‘being lucky.’ They also drew on imagined futures to envision alternative scripts of success and worth. Both empirically and conceptually, the article contributes to an understanding of academic career-making as a kind of pragmatic problem-solving, centered on navigating multiple career pressures and individual aspirations. (shrink)

Background: Due to the major changes occurring in the demographic composition of the world’s population, the number of older individuals is increasing, which puts pressure on the healthcare systems in many different countries. The involvement of volunteers and family members may become necessary to fulfil a patient’s needs for follow-up treatments and long-term care in their homes. Aim: This study aimed to explore how nurses and physicians experienced and addressed ethical challenges when they dealt with relatives in what have traditionally (...) been one-on-one consultations at two Norwegian hospital outpatient clinics. Research Design and Methods: A total of eight nurses and two physicians from two different hospitals participated in individual in-depth interviews. The transcribed interviews were analysed using an eclectic approach called ‘bricolage’ inspired by Kvale and Brinkmann. We combined cross-case thematic and theoretical normative analyses. Ethical considerations: The principles of voluntariness, confidentiality, withdrawal and anonymity were respected throughout the research process. In addition, the Norwegian Social Science Data Services approved this study. Findings: The findings showed that respect for a patient’s autonomy was used as an argument for delimiting the relatives’ access to the patient’s consultations. We found that there were insufficient routines in place for inviting and involving relatives in the patient consultations in the outpatient clinics. Discussion: The traditional Western attitudes towards the principles of patient autonomy will likely be challenged due to the growing need for family involvement in the care of a patient in the future. Conclusion: This study’s description of the nurses and physicians’ interpretations of ‘patient autonomy’ as a phenomenon uncover the need for systematic ethical deliberation in the clinical setting. On an organisational level, there is a strong indication of the need to discuss the routines that are in place to invite the next of kin to participate in such patient’s healthcare consultations. (shrink)

Many epistemological terms, such as investigation, inquiry, argument, evidence, and fact were established in law well before being associated with science. However, while legal proof remained qualified by standards of ‘moral certainty’, scientific proof attained a reputation for objectivity. Although most forms of legal evidence continue to be treated as fallible ‘opinions’ rather than objective ‘facts’, forensic DNA evidence increasingly is being granted an exceptional factual status. It did not always enjoy such status. Two decades ago, the scientific status of (...) forensic DNA evidence was challenged in the scientific literature and in courts of law, but by the late 1990s it was being granted exceptional legal status. This paper reviews the ascendancy of DNA profiling, and argues that its widely-heralded objective status is bound up with systems of administrative accountability. The ‘administrative objectivity’ of DNA evidence rests upon observable and reportable bureaucratic rules, records, recording devices, protocols, and architectural arrangements. By highlighting administrative sources of objectivity, this paper suggests that DNA evidence remains bound within the context of ordinary organisational and practical routines, and is not a transcendent source of ‘truth’ in the criminal justice system. (shrink)

This study investigates the impact of firms’ legacy institutional imprints on its engagement in corporate misconduct. We discover that a closed economic regime’s protectionist policies inscribe imprints in the form of opaque organizational routines and cause incumbent firms to develop competitive limitations. Utilizing the theoretical principles of the organizational imprinting theory, this research attests to the endurance of corruptive routines and argues that the degree of closed economy imprints increases firms’ engagement in income-increasing earnings management in (...) the post-liberalization period. Furthermore, we find that the impact of imprints is weakened by firms’ choices on international exposure and internal innovation. By utilizing the historical data on Indian economic policies from 1956 to 1991 and analyzing a sample of 18,432 firm-year observations for 2,396 listed Indian manufacturing firms from 1997 to 2007, we find support for our hypotheses. (shrink)

Background: The global COVID-19 pandemic has imposed challenges on healthcare systems and professionals worldwide and introduced a ´maelstrom´ of ethical dilemmas. How ethically demanding situations are handled affects employees’ moral stress and job satisfaction. Aim: Describe priority-setting dilemmas, moral distress and support experienced by nurses and physicians across medical specialties in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Norway. Research design: A cross-sectional hospital-based survey was conducted from 23 April to 11 May 2020. Ethical considerations: Ethical approval granted (...) by the Regional Research Ethics Committee in Western Norway (131421). Findings: Among the 1606 respondents, 67% had experienced priority-setting dilemmas the previous two weeks. Healthcare workers who were directly involved in COVID-19 care, were redeployed or worked in psychiatry/addiction medicine experienced it more often. Although 59% of the respondents had seen adverse consequences due to resource scarcity, severe consequences were rare. Moral distress levels were generally low (2.9 on a 0–10 scale), but higher in selected groups (redeployed, managers and working in psychiatry/addiction medicine). Backing from existing collegial and managerial structures and routines, such as discussions with colleagues and receiving updates and information from managers that listened and acted upon feedback, were found more helpful than external support mechanisms. Priority-setting guidelines were also helpful. Discussion: By including all medical specialties, nurses and physicians, and various institutions, the study provides information on how the COVID-19 mitigation also influenced those not directly involved in the COVID-19 treatment of patients. In the next stages of the pandemic response, support for healthcare professionals directly involved in outbreak-affected patients, those redeployed or those most impacted by mitigation strategies must be a priority. Conclusion: Empirical research of healthcare workers experiences under a pandemic are important to identify groups at risks and useful support mechanisms. (shrink)

Various kinds of alcohol and drug testing, such as preemployment, routine, and for-cause testing, are commonly performed by employers. While healthcare organizations usually require preemployment drug testing, they vary on whether personnel will be subjected to further testing. Recently, a call has gone out for postincident testing among physicians who are involved in serious, preventable events, especially ones leading to a patient's death. This article will offer a number of counterarguments to that proposal and discuss an alternate approach: that health (...) institutions can better improve patient safety and employees’ well-being by implementing an organizational policy of “speaking up” when system operators notice work behaviors or environmental factors that threaten harm or peril. The article will conclude with a description of various strategies that facilitate speaking up, and why the practice constitutes a superior alternative to mandatory alcohol and drug testing in the wake of serious, harm-causing m.. (shrink)

BackgroundPublic Safety Personnel are routinely exposed to human suffering and need to make quick, morally challenging decisions. Such decisions can affect their psychological wellbeing. Participating in or observing an event or situation that conflicts with personal values can potentially lead to the development of moral injury. Common stressors associated with moral injury include betrayal, inability to prevent death or harm, and ethical dilemmas. Potentially psychologically traumatic event exposures and post-traumatic stress disorder can be comorbid with moral injury; however, moral injury (...) extends beyond fear to include spiritual, cognitive, emotional or existential struggles, which can produce feelings of severe shame, guilt, and anger.ObjectiveThis scoping review was designed to identify the extant empirical research regarding the construct of moral injury, its associated constructs, and how it relates to moral distress in firefighters, paramedics, and police officers.MethodsA systematic literature search of peer-reviewed research was conducted using databases MEDLINE, EMBASE, APA PsychInfo, CINHAL PLUS, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and Google Scholar. Included studies were selected based on the inclusion criteria before being manually extracted and independently screened by two reviewers.ResultsThe initial database search returned 777 articles, 506 of which remained after removal of duplicates. Following review of titles, abstracts, and full texts, 32 studies were included in the current review. Participants in the articles were primarily police officers, with fewer articles focusing on paramedics and firefighters. There were two studies that included mixed populations. Most studies were qualitative and focused on four topics: values, ethical decision-making, organizational betrayal, and spirituality.ConclusionPublic safety organizations appear to recognize the experience of moral distress or moral injury among public safety personnel that results from disconnects between personal core values, formal and informal organizational values, vocational duties, and expectations. Further research is needed to better understand moral distress or moral injury specific to public safety personnel and inform training and treatment in support of public safety personnel mental health. (shrink)

The Herald of Free Enterprise, a ferry operating in the English Channel, sank on March 6, 1987, drowning nearly two hundred people. The official inquiry found that the company running the ferry was extremely sloppy, with poor routines of checking and management. “From top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness.”1 But the courts did not penalize anyone in what might seem to be an appropriate measure, failing to identify individuals in the company or (...) on the ship itself who were seriously enough at fault. As one commentator put it, “The primary requirement of finding an individual who was liable . . . stood in the way of attaching any significance to the organizational sloppiness that had been found by the official inquiry.”2 In a case like this it can make good sense to hold that while the individuals involved may not bear a high degree of personal responsibility, together as a corporate enterprise they should carry full responsibility for what occurred. Although the members may not fully satisfy the conditions for being held personally responsible—although there are mitigating circumstances that excuse them in some mea-. (shrink)

Google is a complex and complicated political beast with a significant, and often confusing, interest, in copyright matters. On one hand, for example, Google is widely accused of profiting from piracy. On the other, Google routinely complies with what is rapidly approaching a billion copyright takedown requests annually. In the present article, Foucault, neo-Gramscians, and Deleuze and Guattari are utilized to help construct a 32 dispositive analysis framework that overlaps three dispositive modalities and perspectives. In applying the framework to the (...) Google–copyright relationship, the article shows how Google was “born political”: in that it was, and still is, disposed by an apparatus comprised of copyright laws, Silicon Valley culture, and broad advances in digitization. Moreover, the article shows how Google continuously acts where “politics is born”: as it significantly shapes copyright considerations by disposing of human and organizational phenomena through articulations and assemblages. (shrink)

Clinical ethics committees have recently been established in nearly all Norwegian hospital trusts. One important task for these committees is clinical ethics consultations. This qualitative study explores significant barriers confronting the ethics committees in providing such consultation services. The interviews with the committees indicate that there is a substantial need for clinical ethics support services and, in general, the committee members expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the committee work. They also reported, however, that tendencies to evade moral disagreement, (...) conflict, and ‘outsiders’ are common in the hospitals. Sometimes even the committees comply with some of these tendencies. The committees agree that there is a need to improve their routines and procedures, clarify the committees' profile and field of responsibility, to make the committees well‐known, to secure adequate operating conditions, and to develop organizational integration and support. Various strategies to meet these challenges on a local, regional or national level are also explored in this paper. (shrink)

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in organizations has fundamentally changed from performing routine tasks to supervising human employees. While prior studies focused on normative perceptions of such AI supervisors, employees’ behavioral reactions towards them remained largely unexplored. We draw from theories on AI aversion and appreciation to tackle the ambiguity within this field and investigate if and why employees might adhere to unethical instructions either from a human or an AI supervisor. In addition, we identify employee characteristics affecting this (...) relationship. To inform this debate, we conducted four experiments (total N = 1701) and used two state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms (causal forest and transformers). We consistently find that employees adhere less to unethical instructions from an AI than a human supervisor. Further, individual characteristics such as the tendency to comply without dissent or age constitute important boundary conditions. In addition, Study 1 identified that the perceived mind of the supervisors serves as an explanatory mechanism. We generate further insights on this mediator via experimental manipulations in two pre-registered studies by manipulating mind between two AI (Study 2) and two human supervisors (Study 3). In (pre-registered) Study 4, we replicate the resistance to unethical instructions from AI supervisors in an incentivized experimental setting. Our research generates insights into the ‘black box’ of human behavior toward AI supervisors, particularly in the moral domain, and showcases how organizational researchers can use machine learning methods as powerful tools to complement experimental research for the generation of more fine-grained insights. (shrink)

Background: As part of an ongoing Scandinavian project on the dignity of care for older people, this study is based on ‘clinical caring science’ as a scientific discipline. Clinical caring science examines how ground concepts, axioms and theories are expressed in different clinical contexts. Central notions are caring culture, dignity, at-home-ness, the little extra, non-caring cultures versus caring cultures and ethical context – and climate. Aim and assumptions: This study investigates the individual variations of caring cultures in relation to dignity (...) and how it is expressed in caring acts and ethical contexts. Three assumptions are formulated: (1) the caring culture of nursing homes influences whether dignified care is provided, (2) an ethos that is reflected on and appropriated by the caregiver mirrors itself in ethical caring acts and as artful caring in an ethical context and (3) caring culture is assumed to be a more ontological or universal concept than, for example, an ethical context or ethical person-to-person acts. Research design: The methodological approach is hermeneutic. The data consist of 28 interviews with relatives of older persons from Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Ethical considerations: The principles of voluntariness, confidentiality and anonymity were respected during the whole research process. Findings: Three patterns were revealed: dignity as at-home-ness, dignity as the little extra and non-dignifying ethical context. Discussion: Caring communion, invitation, at-home-ness and ‘the little extra’ are expressions of ethical contexts and caring acts in a caring culture. A non-caring culture may not consider the dignity of its residents and may be represented by routinized care that values organizational efficiency and instrumentalism rather than an individual’s dignity and self-worth. Conclusion: An ethos must be integrated in both the organization and in the individual caregiver in order to be expressed in caring acts and in an ethical context that supports these caring acts. (shrink)

This article uses the concept of partial organization to examine how organizing principles can facilitate the effective operation of networked forms of corruption. We analyze the case study of a corruption network in the South Korean maritime industry in terms of how it operated by selectively appropriating practices normally associated with formal bureaucratic organizations. Our findings show that organizational elements built into the corruption network enabled coordination of corruption activities and served to distort and override practices within member organizations. (...) The network was primarily organized through the hierarchical organization of a bounded and controlled set of members and, to a lesser extent, through processes of monitoring and sanctions. Given its clandestine nature, the network avoided the use of explicit rules to govern behavior, instead relying on habituated routines to ensure consistent and predictable action from members. We find that organizational elements were rescinded when the corruption network was exposed after the sinking of a passenger ferry, the Sewol. By rolling back its hierarchical organization and reverting to core relationships, the corruption network sought to preserve its center. The article illustrates the explanatory value of studying how the activities of corruption networks are enabled and adapt to existential challenges through partial organization. (shrink)

Based on a study of the oil and gas industry, this article examines how physical impacts of climate change become events that firms notice and interpret in a way that leads to an active response to adapt to these impacts. Theoretically, the study draws on the attention-based view to highlight the potential biases that might occur as a consequence of firms’ preconceptions as well as organizational structure and context. In the empirical analysis, the article derives a model that explains (...) the influence of the attentional process on how awareness and perceived vulnerability lead firms to adopt either routine or non-routine measures to adapt to climate change. The article also explores the relevant underlying factors of awareness and perceived vulnerability. The findings suggest that how firms channel attention to climate events has a distinctive influence on the measures firms take to cope with physical impacts. The article concludes with implications for research, management practice, and policy makers. (shrink)

In the last 2 decades, the literature has documented the upsurge of community-driven processes of consumer-producer cooperation, which are alternative to the dominant food system. These organizational arrangements have been conceptualized differently, witnessing the growing importance of local communities in generating place-based solutions to the demand for organic, local, and sustainable food. Relying on a practice theory approach, this article delves into two key inquiries: first, what motivates individuals to become part of Civic Food Networks (CFNs) and how does (...) this influence the variety of food entering their households? And second, how does participation in a CFN impact people’s daily food practices, with a particular focus on diet diversification? We employ the term “civic food networks (CFN)” to underscore the significance of grassroots initiatives in the broader context of local food policies. This term also highlights the connections to other movements known for their potential for transformation, such as the solidarity economy, transition towns, and de-growth movements. Our analysis draws on a comprehensive qualitative approach, which includes participant observation, in-depth interviews, and a focus group involving members of the CSA _Naturalmente in Trentino_, situated in the North-Eastern part of Italy. The findings reveal that altering dietary habits poses various challenges both at the individual and institutional levels. This process involves the stabilization of ingrained habits, adjustments to daily routines, and the reinforcement of shared norms. Furthermore, it underscores the critical role of food policies in promoting sustainable eating practices. (shrink)

. Management scholars and practitioners often believe that individuals and organizations benefit by trusting their work contacts. (Husted, 1998; Sonnenberg, 1994) Trust is generally viewed as “good” and imperative to a modern functioning economy (Blau, 1964; Hosmer, 1995; Zucker, 1986) Consequently, scholars and practitioners have given scant attention to the “downside” of trust, despite the fact that trust involves taking risk under conditions of uncertainty (Rousseau et al., 1998) Recent corporate scandals show that people suffer when they misplace trust in (...) untrustworthy organizations and individuals. This paper develops a model of the causes and consequences of “over-trust,” which we define as a state where a trustor’s trust exceeds that which is warranted given the conditions. The antecedents of overtrust related to characteristics of the trustee, the trustor, and situational characteristics. We examine the role played by self-monitoring and perceived power base of the trustee as two key trustee characteristics. Among trustor characteristics, we examine the role (played by trustor’s core evaluation, core values). based on cultural affiliation), prior experiences with trustees, and use of habitual thinking behavior. Under characteristics of the situation, we examine the role played by uncertainty inherent in the situation, perceived threat from the context, degree of task interdependence, and organizational systems and routines. Next, we examine three consequences of over-trust – leniency in judging the trustee, delay in perceiving exploitation, and increased risk-taking. We conclude our paper by developing a set of guidelines that organizational members may employ to avoid over-trust. (shrink)

Herbert Simon viewed innovation as a particular type of problem-solving behavior that entails refocus of attention and search for alternatives outside the existing domain of standard operations. This exploration outside of standard routines involves heuristic-based discovery and action, such as satisficing search for information and options. In our observations on the innovation process, we focus on knowledge generation. We propose viewing the process of generating knowledge—when knowledge is sufficient to instigate action, but not necessarily enough to eliminate the uncertainty (...) of the situation—as a heuristic process. Because many personal and organizational decisions are acted upon in the presence of some degree of uncertainty, we argue that heuristics structure the way in which information is processed innovatively. We provide a catalogue of instances in business decision making. (shrink)

Sociological studies of culture have made significant progress on conceptual clarification of the concept, while remaining comparatively quiescent on questions of measurement. This study empirically examines internal conflicts (or “infighting”), a ubiquitous phenomenon in political organizing, to propose a “resinous culture framework” that holds promise for redirection. The data comprise 674 newspaper articles and more than 100 archival documents that compare internal dissent across two previously unstudied lesbian and gay Marches on Washington. Analyses reveal that activists use infighting as a (...) vehicle to engage in otherwise abstract definitional debates that provide concrete answers to questions such as who are we and what do we want. The mechanism that enables infighting to concretize these cultural concerns is its coupling with fairly mundane and routine organizational tasks. This mechanism affords one way to release the culture concept, understood here as collective self-definitions, from being “an amorphous, indescribable mist which swirls around society members,” as it was once provocatively described. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement (...) in corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

Black political actors across the ideological and organizational spectrum have routinely used expressive culture to do their work and advance their causes. However, the proper relationship between cultural and political work has remained controversial, with different views becoming ascendant in different traditions and communities, and at different times within the same traditions and communities. This chapter addresses some questions register in the black aesthetic tradition. It explores W. E. B. Du Bois's iconic arguments about art and propaganda by translating (...) the arguments into the language of more or less mainstream Anglophone academic philosophy. Political questions about matters other than autonomy come to mind when one studies black aesthetics. Notions like authenticity, solidarity, identity, ownership, and memory loom large in this tradition, and each has its own web of connections to questions of power, justice, citizenship, and freedom. (shrink)

Corporate legal scholarship has failed in fundamental ways to grasp the ethical significance of corporate law and policy. While the broader economic and social consequences of particular legal developments are routinely debated, too little reflection is given to how such developments affect the moral quality of individual lives within the corporate hierarchy. What is needed is a framework for illuminating the interaction between developments in corporate legal doctrine and the ethical choices of corporate managers. The ethical significance of corporate law (...) derives from two key factors. First, the corporation as an organization mediates between individuals in the corporate hierarchy and their ethical responsibilities. Second, the organizational choices and decision-making structure of the corporation are to a significant degree the product of corporate law. (shrink)