This paper examines dispositional sources of workplace guanxi and the mediating role of workplace guanxi on the affectivity and job satisfaction relationship. Data were collected from 808 respondents in multiple industries in a city in China’s northeast. The study found that both positive affectivity and negative affectivity have an effect on supervisor–subordinate guanxi and co-worker guanxi, which supports the proposition that workplace guanxi has a dispositional source. Supervisor–subordinate guanxi has a positive relationship with (...) job satisfaction, although co-worker guanxi is not significantly related to job satisfaction. The research also found a mediating role of supervisor–subordinate guanxi on the affectivity and job satisfaction relationship, which suggests that supervisor–subordinate guanxi can extend the influence of affectivity to job satisfaction. Taken together, these results suggest that in a high power distance country such as China, supervisor–subordinate guanxi plays a more important role than co-worker guanxi in influencing job satisfaction. Theoretically, this study suggests the as yet unexplored possibility of dispositional antecedents of workplace guanxi and the role of workplace guanxi on the relationship between dispositions and workplace attitudes such as job satisfaction. (shrink)

Background: Physicians sometimes are asked by co-workers for prescriptions to deal with their medical problems. These “hallway” requests typically occur outside a formal doctor-patient relationship. There are professional guidelines on serving as physician for family members and friends, but no guidelines address writing prescriptions for co-workers. The frequency of these requests and the factors physicians consider in responding to them have not been examined.Objectives: To obtain data on the frequency of these requests and physicians’ attitudes and practices in responding to (...) them, and to explore the ethical considerations in writing prescriptions for co-workers.Design: A survey was administered to all physician faculty and residents in an academic department of internal medicine. The questions included whether the respondent had ever been asked for a prescription by a co-worker and how often the respondent had received such requests and written such prescriptions in the previous three months. Respondents also were asked to rate how likely they would be to write such a prescription in 15 hypothetical scenarios.Results: Of the 113 respondents who completed surveys, 68 percent reported having been asked for a prescription by a co-worker. Among those who had ever been asked, 59 percent had been asked one or more times during the previous three months and 88 percent had ever written such a prescription. Also, 88 percent of all respondents stated they were “very likely” or “likely” to write the prescription in one or more of the hypothetical scenarios.Conclusions: Most physicians in our sample had been asked for prescriptions by co-workers, and most had written such prescriptions. Many respondents indicated a willingness to write such prescriptions in a variety of scenarios, despite the absence of a formal doctor-patient relationship. Further discussion of the ethical considerations in writing prescriptions for co-workers is needed. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived co-worker support, commitment to colleagues, job satisfaction, intention to help others, and pro-environmental behavior with the emphasis on eco-helping, with a view to determining the extent to which peer relationships encourage employees to engage in pro-environmental behaviors at work. This paper is framed by adopting social exchange theory through the lens of ethics of care. Data from a sample of 449 employees showed that receiving support from peers (...) triggers an exchange process that encourages eco-helping among colleagues. The implications of the findings are discussed in the light of the social exchange literature. (shrink)

Background Ethical nurse leaders play a pivotal role in helping their nurse employees deliver high-quality healthcare services. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the mediating and moderating mechanisms by which ethical leadership improves job performance. Purpose This study aims to investigate: (1) whether ethical leadership would enhance nurses’ job performance; (2) whether learning goal orientation acts as a mediator; and (3) whether co-worker support operates as a moderator. Participants and research context We collected two-wave data from 218 (...) nurses working in hospitals located in Jiangsu, China. Research design A time-lagged study based on an online survey design was utilized for data collection between September 2022 and January 2023. PROCESS Model 5 was employed to test the research hypotheses. Ethical considerations We obtained ethics approval from the University Ethics Committee. The nursing participants were assured that their survey responses were completely anonymous. Results and discussion Ethical leadership is not significantly correlated with job performance. However, ethical leadership has an indirect impact on nurses’ job performance through the mediator (learning goal orientation). Moreover, co-worker support moderates the relationship between ethical leadership and job performance. Conclusion The conceptual model provides us with a fine-grained understanding of the relationship between ethical leadership and nurses’ job performance. We highlight the mediating role of learning goal orientation and the moderating role of co-worker support. We suggest that healthcare organizations should devote more efforts to promoting ethical leadership, co-worker support, and learning goal orientation. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have sought to investigate the impact that ethical leaders can have within organisations. Yet, only a few theoretical perspectives have been adopted to explain how ethical leaders influence subordinate outcomes. This study therefore draws on social rules theory (SRT) to extend our understanding of the mechanisms linking ethical leadership to employee attitudes. We argue that ethical leaders reduce disengagement, which in turn promotes higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, as well as lower turnover intentions. (...) Co-worker social undermining is examined as a moderator of the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement, as we suggest that it is difficult for ethical leaders to be effective when co-worker undermining prevails. To test the proposed model, questionnaires were administered to 460 nurses in Romanian hospital settings over three time points separated by two-week intervals and the hypotheses were tested using generalised multilevel structural equation modeling (GSEM) with STATA. The findings revealed that ethical leadership has a beneficial effect on employee attitudes by reducing disengagement. However, the relationship between ethical leadership and disengagement was moderated by co-worker social undermining, such that when undermining was higher, the significance of the mediated relationships disappeared. These results suggest that while ethical leaders can promote positive employee attitudes, their effectiveness is reduced in situations where co-worker undermining exists. (shrink)

This study focuses on a third-party perspective of idiosyncratic deals. More specifically, we look into the differential judgments co-workers make about i-deals in their work environment, as well as their reactions. Based on equity theory, we examine to what extent the content of the i-deal and the work context explain co-worker judgments regarding i-deal fairness in addition to subsequent voice behavior. A vignette study with 1988 respondents shows that when i-deals are considered distributively unfair, co-workers try to restore equity (...) through voice behavior, thereby making the i-deal less effective. Furthermore, i-deals spark more distributive injustice perceptions and voice behavior in a highly interdependent work context. Finally, on average, financial bonuses were considered most distributively unfair and, thus, trigger more voice behavior. These results have important implications for i-deal literature as they uncover the criteria that co-workers use to judge i-deals and shape their reactions. (shrink)

Although anomic feelings have been found to lead employees to unethical performance, little is known about why this relationship is possible. The aim of this study is to test a compassion-based explanation of why anomic employees harm co-workers by displaying interpersonal deviance. The prediction is made that once sociological anomie enters organizations in the form of employees’ private feelings of anomie—i.e., “anomia”—, this anomia will individually move staff to be uncompassionate in the workplace. Three uncompassionate feelings toward co-workers are then (...) hypothesized to mediate the relationship between anomia and interpersonal deviance: negative judgments about others, over-identification, and isolation. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. The results indicated that anomia was significantly and positively linked to uncompassionate feelings and interpersonal deviance, but only negative judgments about others mediated the anomia effects on interpersonal deviance. Findings suggest to managers that by spreading ethical standards that discourage negative judgments about others in the workplace, they can neutralize the mechanisms leading anomia to interpersonal deviance. (shrink)

This study aims to enhance the understanding about the influence of perceived ethical work climate dimensions on employees’ trust in co-workers. The instrument used was Victor and Cullen’s (1988) questionnaire containing five empirically derived types of ethical climate (caring, law and code, rules, instrumentalism, and independence). As hypothesized, the study revealed that the instrumental ethical climate dimension was negatively related, and independent climate was positively related to co-worker trust. Thus, two ethical climate dimensions (independent and instrumental) account for the (...) 22.7 percent variation taking place in co-worker trust while the remaining climate types had no significant impact. The findings may be of help particularly to human resource staff in developing policies to better off relations among employees acknowledging differing potential of ethical climate types. (shrink)

Because an organization member’s degree of cognitive moral development (CMD) can be expected to influence his or her decisions and behaviour, in this paper we investigate the idea that that employees might prefer to supervise, work with, or work under others of particular levels or stages of CMD. We surveyed undergraduate business students in order to identify typical CMD preferences for co-workers and test preliminary hypotheses concerning possible influences on those preferences. Majorities of subjects expressed preferences for conventional level work (...) peers and subordinates but postconventional superiors, which could augur a lack of congruence between what subordinates typically desire of their superiors and how those superiors are likely to actually behave. (shrink)

Who blows the whistle — a loner or a well-liked team player? Which of them is more likely to lead a successful opposition to perceived organizational wrongdoing? The potential influence of co-worker pressures to conform on whistle-blowing activity or the likely effects of whistle-blowing on the group have not been addressed. This paper presents a preliminary model of whistle-blowing as an act of nonconformity. One implication is that the success of an opposition will depend on the characteristics of the (...) whistle-blower and how the complaint is pursued. Specific hypotheses and general suggestions for future research and practice are offered. (shrink)

The focus of this article is the deep transformation of labour markets and working life in the wake of `1968', where the class language culminated in slogans like co-determination, Mitbestimmung and autogestion, and in the development of new practices like sit-ins, work-ins, factory occupations and so on. The massive criticism expressed in the new language posed a major challenge not only to organized capital, but also for organized labour, i.e. the trade unions. However, the shop floor protests were quickly followed (...) by the new neoliberal ideology emphasizing values like proximity and flexibility, and a growing role for the individual worker in a friendly relationship with the employer as opposed to the old class-based antagonism. The old Arbeiter became the Mitarbeiter, the worker became the co-worker. The article discusses the preconditions of this conceptual transformation. (shrink)

When faced with an ambiguous ethical situation related to computer technology (CT), the individual's course of action is influenced by personal experiences and opinions, consideration of what co-workers would do in the same situation, and an expectation of what the organization might sanction. In this article, the judgement of over three-hundred Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) members concerning the actions taken in a series of CT ethical scenarios are examined. Respondents expressed their personal judgement, as well as their perception (...) of their co-workers' judgement, and their understanding of the organization's judgement of the actions described in the scenarios. The findings show that there are differences in respondents' judgements for self, co-workers, and organization. Definitive patterns were also found between groups with and without organizational codes related to CT. (shrink)

Karl Popper is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s greatest critic of Marxism. This article, based upon his 1942-47 correspondence with Rudolf Carnap, shows that Popper’s critique of scientific socialism had less to do with Marx’s social goals than with the attitudes that Marxists adopted toward their means of achieving them. It also reveals how Carnap, who tried to keep his politics separate from his epistemology, managed to mix the two when refusing to give Popper his wholehearted support in finding (...) both a publisher for The Open Society and Its Enemies and a position that would give him greater opportunities for research. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, EarlyView.

Business Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 1, Page 224-238, January 2022.

This paper demonstrates the value of embracing digital technology in order to effect positive change in a non-governmental charity organisation, in this case the Irish Charity Crosscause. The outcome of the research was the creation of a charity video, Crosscause: Making a Difference, to showcase humanitarian work in Ireland and Romania with a view to inspiring others to contribute in some capacity to this cause. Video is an important medium to provide connections with a wider audience, as it gives humanitarian (...) workers and marginalised communities an opportunity to tell their story by making a compelling and evocative case to others. Visual media not only makes connections with an audience, but can also positively challenge people to consider what is happening in the world around them. The research process incorporated an entrepreneurial methodology - an Educational Entrepreneurial approach to action research-with four steps: Exploring, Understanding, Creating and Transforming, which is designed to guide practitioner-researchers as they embrace digital technology to resolve an identified need in a workplace context, including people in disadvantaged settings. In this research, there was an identified need for a charity video to link the giving in Ireland to the receiving in Romania, so that viewers could see the tangible effects of their contributions. A further aim of the research was to illustrate how volunteering can inspire solidarity among Irish and Romanian communities. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I examine the concept ‘self‐exploitation’ and its use in criticising workers' co‐operatives. I argue that the concept is incoherent and that the kind of exploitation which members of workers' co‐ops actually face is ‘market‐exploitation’. Moreover, some of the criticisms of workers' co‐ops which are made by those who employ the confused concept ‘self‐exploitation’ are shown to be inapposite when ‘market‐exploitation’ is recognised to be the real problem. I conclude with a discussion of the reasons for the (...) acceptance of the misguided concept ‘self‐exploitation’ by a number on the Left in Britain today. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a recent paper Alan Carter argues that the claim that workers’co‐operatives merely replace exploitation by employers with ‘self‐exploitation’is nonsense: the term ‘self‐exploitation’is self‐contradictory. He maintains that the only form of exploitation to which a workers’co‐operative may be said to be subject is ‘market‐exploitation’by dominant economic actors who are external to the co‐operative. I argue that these conclusions are mistaken. While the concept of ‘market‐exploitation’is not without value, it is difficult to operationalise. While the concept of ‘self‐exploitation’is, understood literally, (...) incoherent, the claims defended by some of the users of this term can be made conceptually respectable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a recent paper Alan Carter argues that the claim that workers’co‐operatives merely replace exploitation by employers with ‘self‐exploitation’is nonsense: the term ‘self‐exploitation’is self‐contradictory. He maintains that the only form of exploitation to which a workers’co‐operative may be said to be subject is ‘market‐exploitation’by dominant economic actors who are external to the co‐operative. I argue that these conclusions are mistaken. While the concept of ‘market‐exploitation’is not without value, it is difficult to operationalise. While the concept of ‘self‐exploitation’is, understood literally, (...) incoherent, the claims defended by some of the users of this term can be made conceptually respectable. (shrink)

Understanding how hybrid organizations resist mission drift and sustain the joint pursuit of their plural goals over time remains a central theoretical and practical concern in the business and society literature. In this article, we mobilize an organizational politics approach to elucidate how hybrid organizations react to mission drift and strive to rebalance the relationship between their conflicting missions. Drawing on an in-depth longitudinal analysis of a project developed within a multinational worker co-op to reverse mission drift, we elaborate (...) a process model showing how shifting patterns in the mobilization of episodic and systemic forms of power provoke critical changes in the way that plural missions are construed and enacted within hybrid organizations. This study also contributes to the field of co-operative organization and management studies by revealing that the transfer of organizational practices within multinational co-ops is more critically shaped by power relations and conflicting interests rather than, as much of the previous literature has argued, by host country institutions. (shrink)

COVID-19 created a transformational shift in the working environment for much of the labour force, yet its impact on workers is unclear. This study uses longitudinal data to examine the wellbeing of 621 full-time workers assessed before and during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom. We employ fixed effects analyses to investigate the impact of the restrictions and mandatory homeworking on cognitive, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. Within the sample, the rate of full-time homeworking increased from 2 to 74% between (...) waves. We identify significant changes in 9 of the 15 measures assessed, with a general pattern of improvements in wellbeing during lockdown. Overall levels of stress, self-rated mental health, positive emotions and life and job satisfaction are not adversely affected by the restrictions. There is a reduction in the burnout symptoms of disengagement and exhaustion and in the frequency with which negative emotions are experienced at work. Workers feel more autonomous, closer to their co-workers, and more attached to their organisations. However, homelife satisfaction declines. These findings highlight the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale transition to homeworking was associated with unchanged or improved worker wellbeing. This study has important implications for governments and employers regarding a global shift to homeworking. (shrink)

No Bosses Here: Management in Worker Co-operatives examines the worker co-op structure as a workplace option for women. The appeal of the model for women is described in terms of the opportunity for skill development and control over workplace conditions. The structure also presents some unique challenges for training since all members participate in management functions. The author describes a six-month course, Co-operative Employment for Women which trained women in co-operative business development.

This paper provides an analysis of the fair trade network in the North through a comparative assessment of two distinctly different fair trade certified roasters: Planet Bean, a worker-owned co-operative in Guelph, Ontario; and Starbucks Coffee Company, the world's largest specialty roaster. The two organizations are assessed on the basis of their distinct visions of the fair trade mission and their understandings of "consumer sovereignty". It is concluded that the objectives of Planet Bean are more compatible with the moral (...) mission of fair trade, even while the network has become increasingly dependent on the market-reach of corporations like Starbucks, raising difficult prospects for the future of fair trade. (shrink)

Digital technology is playing an increasingly visible role in the organisation of many people’s work—as well as large parts of their lives more broadly. The concerns of emancipatory technology studies, or other critical accounts of technology, are often focused on finding alternative uses of technology. In many workplace contexts—from call centres to platform work—the imperatives of capital are deeply written into these technologies. Yet at the same time, many capitalist technologies are playing a key role facilitating emerging workers’ struggles. For (...) example, in the case study examined here, Deliveroo drivers rely on communication technologies like WhatsApp to organise against algorithmic management. Drawing on an ongoing workers’ inquiry, this paper seeks to consider what a workerist approach to digital technology can add to these debates. The paper outlines the challenges and opportunities for a “digital workers’ inquiry,” considering how this approach combines research with organising. The argument is divided into two main parts: first, the need for inquiries in digital work and the importance of these and second, how the process of inquiry and co-research (and the methods these involve) can be adapted and refined with digital technology. By starting the critique of technology from the workplace, this paper proposes a workerist account of how technologies can be destroyed or re-appropriated, starting from a reading of workers’ struggle. (shrink)

From an institutional perspective we contribute to corporate governance of firms by (1) proposing a procedurally fair mechanism that is ethically desirable, and (2) experimentally testing whether procedural fairness crowds-in ethical behavior of managers (on behalf of shareholders) and workers. The experiment sees one ‘manager’ and three ‘workers’ (possibly representing three sections of the firm) co-determining an efficiency-enhancing investment which could harm some workers. Firstly, the manager claims a share of the investment surplus, then workers ‘bid’ for the investment to (...) express their willingness to satisfy the manager’s claim in case the investment is implemented. If the sum of workers’ bids is less than the manager’s claim, the investment is not implementable, which means its surplus will be lost. Workers’ behavior is ‘ethical’ when they veto unfair managerial claims, because the workers have to sacrifice own earnings. Hence, a manager’s fair claim is the ethical response to the threat of workers’ veto. If the manager claims fairly, workers’ ethical behavior is to ‘truthfully’ bid their investment evaluations; by all doing so, they equally share whatever surplus the manager has left for them. The experimental results show ethical behavior of managers in the form of fair claims. Despite these fair claims, workers behave less ethically by strategically underbidding. So the procedurally fair mechanism only partially crowds-in ethical behavior. This study should interest theorists of stakeholder management, especially those engaged in designing the rules of corporate governance. (shrink)

This paper examines how middle managers in the long term care sector use the discourse of professionalism to create ‘appropriate’ work conduct of care workers. Using Watson’s concept of professional talk, we study how managers in their daily work talk about professionalism of vocationally skilled care workers. Based on observations and recordings of mundane conversations by middle managers, we found four different professional talks that co-exist: appropriate looks and conduct, reflectivity about personal values and ‘good’ care, methodical work methods, competencies. (...) Jointly, these professional talks constitute an important discursive resource for middle managers to facilitate change on the work floor. Change involves the reconfiguration of care work and different managerial-worker relations. Middle managers use professional talks in both enabling and disenabling ways vis-à-vis care workers. Based on these findings, we suggest a more nuanced portrayal of the relationship between managers and professionals. Rather than being based on an intrinsic opposition, i.e. ‘managers versus professionals’, this relationship is flexibly reconstructed via professional talk. (shrink)

The World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFScW) and UNESCO share roots in the Social Relations of Science (SRS) movements and in the Franco-British scientific relations which developed in the 1930s. In this historical context (the Great Depression, the rise of Fascism and the Nazi use of science, the social and intellectual fascination for the USSR), a new model of scientific internationalism emerged, where science and politics mixed. Many progressive scientists were involved in the war efforts against Nazism, and tried to (...) prolong their international commitments into peacetime. They contributed to the establishment of the WFScW and of UNESCO in 1945–1946. Neither the WFScW nor UNESCO succeeded in achieving their initial aims. Another world emerged from the immediate post-war years, but it was not the world fancied by the progressive scientists from the mould of scientific internationalism. The aim of this article is to follow the path from the Franco-British networks towards the establishment of the WFScW and UNESCO; from an ideological scientific internationalism towards practical projects. It is to understand how these two bodies came to embody two different scientific internationalisms during the Cold War. (shrink)

Purpose Underlying much recent development in data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is a dependence on the labour of precarious crowdworkers via platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk. These platforms have been widely critiqued for their exploitative labour relations, and over recent years, there have been various efforts by academic researchers to develop interventions aimed at improving labour conditions. The aim of this paper is to explore US-based crowdworkers’ views on two proposed interventions: a browser plugin that detects automated quality (...) control “Gold Question” (GQ) checks and a proposal for a crowdworker co-operative. Design/methodology/approach The authors interviewed 20 US-based crowdworkers and undertook a thematic analysis of collected data. Findings The findings indicate that US-based crowdworkers tend to have negative and mixed feelings about the GQ detector, but were more enthusiastic about the crowdworker co-operative. Originality/value Drawing on theories of precarious labour, this study suggests an explanation for the findings based on US-based workers’ objective and subjective experiences of precarity. The authors argue that for US-based crowdworkers “constructive” interventions such as a crowdworker co-operative have more potential to improve labour conditions. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court held, in American Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Co. v. Sullivan, 119 S. Ct. 988, that state workers’ compensation system insurers cannot be sued for withholding health care benefits for work-related injuries while they decide whether the treatment is “reasonable” and “necessary.” The respondents, ten employees and two organizations representing employees who received medical benefits under the Workers’ Compensation Act, brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against state officials, the Pennsylvania State Workers’ Insurance Fund, private insurers, and (...) the school district, alleging that their due process rights were violated by provisions of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, 77 Pa. Cons. Stat. Ann. § 1 et seq.. The Act permits suspension of benefits without notice or opportunity to be heard pursuant to a “utilization review” process.To control costs, Pennsylvania amended its workers’ compensation system in 1993. Under the Act, an employer or its insurer must pay for all reasonable and necessary medical treatment. (shrink)

This article investigates how age categorisation and prejudicial use of age are mobilised in talk by job applicants during job interviews and how recruiters affiliate with these. The institutional goal of recruitment is to ensure an unbiased process and evaluation, nevertheless, ageism against older workers emerges as unchallenged and culturally acceptable in authentic job interviews. In line with the discursive psychology (DP) approach, the analysis focuses on -isms as discursively constructed and categories as resources to accomplish social actions. A case (...) study is conducted based on video recordings of 24 real job interviews held at an Italian staffing agency and analysed through membership categorisation and conversation analysis. The analysis provides evidence of how job applicants resort to age co-membership with recruiters to achieve affiliation – or remedy misalignment – by complaining about older workers. The study contributes to DP’s re-specification of prejudices as interactional practices and links microanalysis to macro phenomena, such as ageism, through categorisation practices. (shrink)

This comprehensive sourcebook of Philo of Alexandria presents topics and themes drawn from commonly studied Philonic texts in seven chapters: theology, cosmology, anthropology, ethics, biblical characters, Jewish Law, and Jewish worship and observances.

Over the last decade, cities, counties, and states across the United States have enacted higher minimum wages, paid sick leave and family leave, domestic worker protections, wage theft laws, “Ban the Box” removal of questions about conviction history from job applications, and fair scheduling laws. Nevertheless, vulnerable workers still do not trust government to come forward and report labor law violations. The article argues that while increasing the size of the labor inspectorate and engaging in strategic enforcement are necessary, (...) they are not sufficient. It argues that co-enforcement, in which government partners with organizations that have industry expertise and relationships with vulnerable workers, has the potential to manage the shifting and decentralized structures of twenty-first-century production, which were explicitly designed to evade twentieth-century laws and enforcement capabilities. The article aims to contribute to a broader understanding of the role of organizations in enforcement and the circumstances in which their effectiveness can be maximized. It sets forth a set of scope conditions and mechanisms and examines empirical cases of co-enforcement in Austin, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The main findings are that co-enforcement is most enduring when government agencies and worker organizations recognize each other’s unique capacities, rather than attempt to substitute for one another ; the effort focuses on a specific industry; and the collaboration receives strong political support. Sustaining the impacts of co-enforcement is found to require greater formalization of the partnership and funding streams. (shrink)