Scandals in companies such as Enron have been a source of great concern in the last decade. The events that led to a global financial crisis in 2008 have heightened this concern. How does one account for executive behaviors that led to such a crisis? This article argues that a conjunction of motive, means, and opportunity creates ‘an ethical hazard’ making questionable executive decisions more probable. It then suggests that corporate unethical behavior can be minimized by creating a process to (...) identify and remove such ethical hazards, and by appointing an ‘ethical hazards marshal.’. (shrink)

Dissipative structures exist at all scales, systems, and at different levels of complexity. A thermodynamic theory integrating simple and complex DS is introduced, which addresses existence of growing/decaying DS based on their entropy analysis. Two entropy-based dimensionless ratios are introduced, which explain negentropy-debt payment and existence of DS with growth or decay. It is shown that excess negentropy debt payment is needed and beneficial for growing DS; but for decaying DS, it hastens its approach to perish and is counter-productive. Growing (...) complex DS tend to pay lower negentropy debt to their surroundings, due to involvement in other activities enabled by complexity; e.g. mediation for survival that is linked to their mortality. Hence, disorder of complex DS increases, due to which, their growth can be un-sustained, leading to entry in decay-phase in spite of availability of adequate mass-energy in-flows. Proper handling or reduction of complexity enables growth in the direction of ideal growth, which is limited only by availability of adequate mass-energy in-flows. (shrink)

Organizational identity has emerged as a significant construct to understand the behaviour of organizations. However, researchers have noted several inconsistencies in the way organizational identity has been conceptualized so far. The concept of organizational self holds promise in reconciling these tensions. In this article, we contribute towards this reconciliation by identifying processes that may facilitate the creation of a shared understanding of organizational self. Borrowing from, and building on, theorization from Indian psychology that specializes in the knowledge of individual self, (...) we propose three processes, namely meta-cognizing, guarding and organizing, that assist organizational members arrive at a shared understanding of organizational self. Evidence from one organization’s efforts to evolve a unique identity is used to demonstrate the existence of these processes. This conceptualization is capable of addressing the inconsistencies in the organizational identity literature, and also has significant implications for practice as it may be able to suggest how organizational members can develop and preserve a unique organizational identity in the context of dynamic internal pressures and external influences. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

We examine the role of religious identity in promoting strategic renewal in privately held founder family firms. Religious identity in these firms refers to their collective sense of being that reflects their founders’ and owner family members’ espoused religious values and beliefs, thereby distinguishing themselves from others in what is central, distinct, and enduring about their organization. We propose that such a religious identity determines family firms’ spiritual capital, which influences strategic renewal activities such as conflict resolution and resource allocation. (...) Specifically, we argue that spiritual capital can be a double-edged sword when family firms pursue strategic renewal. We discuss the implications of our work for future research. (shrink)

We examine the role of religious identity in promoting strategic renewal in privately held founder family firms. Religious identity in these firms refers to their collective sense of being that reflects their founders’ and owner family members’ espoused religious values and beliefs, thereby distinguishing themselves from others in what is central, distinct, and enduring about their organization. We propose that such a religious identity determines family firms’ spiritual capital, which influences strategic renewal activities such as conflict resolution and resource allocation. (...) Specifically, we argue that spiritual capital can be a double-edged sword when family firms pursue strategic renewal. We discuss the implications of our work for future research. (shrink)

Two attitudes are possible: one, that the world is an absolute jungle and that the exercise of coercive power by rulers is only a manifestation of this; and the other, that it is both necessary and right that there should be this exercise of power, that through it the world is much less of a jungle than it could possibly be without it, so that one should in principle be glad of the existence of such power, and only take exception (...) to its unjust exercise. (shrink)

Ethics in business and economics is often attacked for being too superficial. By elaborating the conclusions of two such critics of business ethics and welfare economics respectively, this article will draw the attention to the ethics behind these apparently well-intended, but not always convincing constructions, by help of the fundamental ethics of Emmanuel Levinas. To Levinas, responsibility is more basic than language, and thus also more basic than all social constructions. Co-operation relations in organizations, markets and value networks are generated (...) from personal relations and personal responsibilities. It is not sufficient to integrate ethics in an impersonal, rational system, neither in business organizations nor in the world economy. Ethics has its source not in rationality, but in the personal. (shrink)

Levinas did not present any new ethical theories; he did not even give any normative recommendations. But his phenomenological investigations help us to understand how the idea of ethics emerges and how we try to cope with it. The purpose of this paper is to suggest some implications from a reading of Levinas on how ethical challenges are handled within a management perspective. The paper claims that management, both in theory and in practice, is necessarily egocentric and thus ethically biased. (...) Therefore, ethics, defined as the idea that it is possible to do otherwise than pursue one's own interest, must have its source outside the scope of management. Levinas identifies this source as the call for responsibility from the Other, beyond the reach of managerial control. He also suggests how this idea of ethics is put into practice, especially in economic life: the existence of money makes it both possible and necessary to compare unique and incomparable others. Management tools may be used in the service of always more justice, as it also may be used for the opposite purpose. Instead of trying to draw a normative conclusion from Levinas, we may distinguish between two ways of experiencing reality: one through language and knowledge, covering both descriptive and normative knowledge, including business ethics, and the other through the particular events of encounters, from where this knowledge is continuously questioned through the call for responsibility, and thereby may provide possibilities for continuous improvements towards always more justice. (shrink)

Levinas did not present any new ethical theories; he did not even give any normative recommendations. But his phenomenological investigations help us to understand how the idea of ethics emerges and how we try to cope with it. The purpose of this paper is to suggest some implications from a reading of Levinas on how ethical challenges are handled within a management perspective. The paper claims that management, both in theory and in practice, is necessarily egocentric and thus ethically biased. (...) Therefore, ethics, defined as the idea that it is possible to do otherwise than pursue one's own interest, must have its source outside the scope of management. Levinas identifies this source as the call for responsibility from the Other, beyond the reach of managerial control. He also suggests how this idea of ethics is put into practice, especially in economic life: the existence of money makes it both possible and necessary to compare unique and incomparable others. Management tools may be used in the service of always more justice, as it also may be used for the opposite purpose. Instead of trying to draw a normative conclusion from Levinas, we may distinguish between two ways of experiencing reality: one through language and knowledge, covering both descriptive and normative knowledge, including ‘business ethics’, and the other through the particular events of encounters, from where this knowledge is continuously questioned through the call for responsibility, and thereby may provide possibilities for continuous improvements towards always more justice. (shrink)

Fichte assigns ‘intellectual intuition’ a new meaning after Kant. But in 1799, his doctrine of intellectual intuition is publicly deemed indefensible by Kant and nihilistic by Jacobi. I propose to defend Fichte’s doctrine against these charges, leaving aside whether it captures what he calls the ‘spirit’ of transcendental idealism. I do so by articulating three problems that motivate Fichte’s redirection of intellectual intuition from being to acting: (1) the regress problem, which states that reflecting on empirical facts of consciousness leads (...) only to further facts and so cannot yield a first principle; (2) the rhapsody problem, which states that the categories form a haphazard set and so lack necessity unless they derive from a first principle; and (3) the nihilism problem, which states that a first principle cannot lie outside our cognition of it, lest it be the cause of our cognition and, being first, the cause of all our actions, reducing us to machines. Crucially, Fichte’s three motivating problems are in fact aspects of a single problem. Leaving any aspect unsolved spoils putative solutions to the other two. Consequently, Fichte requires a single unified solution to all three, which his doctrine of intellectual intuition provides. (shrink)