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Responsible Management in Private Sector Nano Enterprises: Conversations with Lead Technologists and Managers

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Abstract

The aim was to learn about responsible management in private sector nano enterprises by telephone conversations with lead technologists and managers in companies in the US Midwest. The conversations took place between January and March of 2011. The marked increase starting in 2008 of prescriptive documents such as guidelines, codes of responsibility, and best practices in NanoEthicsBank offered an entry point for initiating the conversations. Had respondents noticed these documents and did they find them useful? Follow-up questions asked about the full life cycle of their products. The responses from 22 of the 25 organizations selected are categorized in 5 groups according to how they described their nano materials/business. A conception of responsible management in organizations is provided to underpin the analysis of the responses. This conception features virtues of concern, care, and foresight implied by a fundamental moral obligation. In the analysis, definitions from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the International Standards Organization (ISO) are used as a basis of comparison in assessing respondents’ claims. Two important gaps are identified. One gap is between actual practices and the prescriptive use of the conception of responsible management in organizations. The other gap is between the actual use of nano terminology and OECD definitions.

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Notes

  1. This is a database produced by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) at Illinois Institute ofTechnology (IIT), with funding from the National Science Foundation. The funding created a national Center for Nanotechnology and Society (CNS) made up four consortia of universities, one headed by Harvard and UCLA of which IIT was a member throughout the project from 2005 to 2011.organiza

    The term nanomaterials is the broad term used by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an independent organization that provides resources for its many government members. OECD has played an important role in producing accepted definitions of nano terms.

  2. The intergovernmental OECD carried out a number of projects between 2006 and 2011 dealing with risk and safety related to manufactured nanomaterials. Among its products, is a priority list for testing manufactured nanomaterials under OECD aegis.

  3. For an example of a recent novel understanding of responsibility, see [4].

  4. Hart [5] p. 212 et passim is the source for the canonical four senses identified above.

  5. Michael Davis adds this and other senses of responsibility in his paper, [2].

  6. Ladd argues for this notion of moral responsibility in ‘Collective and individual moral responsibility in engineering: Some questions,’ reprinted in Ethical Issues in Engineering. Ed. by Deborah Johnson. [10].

  7. Included in this trend are [1, 3].

  8. There are alternative ways of managing the interviewing and the note taking. It can be a two person effort, with one interviewing and the other taking notes. There are trade-offs with any arrangement. I was concerned to record what struck my ear as salient and I could consequently vouch for.

  9. Perhaps names of teams in sports would have better conveyed competitive aspects of the nano scene, but the names of operas serve to indicate the arbitrary character of the assigned names.

  10. Email comment March 16, 2011 from Kelly Laas, a Librarian/Information Researcher who built NEB, created and oversees NEB and annotates the entries. I am indebted to her for other insightful comments on the conversations.

  11. Rip, Arie, Supra, fn. 5. ‘Folk Theories of Nanotechnologists…

  12. Kearnes, M. and Rip, Arie, ‘The Emerging Governance Landscape of Nanotechnology, in Jenseits Von Reguleirung: Zum Politischen Umgang Mit der Nanotechnologie, ed. Gamel, Stefan, Losch, Andreas, and Nordmann, Alfred,Berlin: AkademischeVerlagsgesellschaft.

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Acknowledgments

For carrying out this research, the author gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and of the leaders of the Harvard Consortium in the NSF Center for Nanotechnology and Society (CNS), Richard Freeman and Lynne Zucker. They bear no responsibility for the contents of this paper.

The author is also grateful to the reviewers and editors for their criticisms and suggestions.

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  1. Illinois Institute of Technology, Hermann Hall Room 204 CSEP 3241 S, Federal St., Chicago, IL, 60616, USA

    Vivian Weil

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Weil, V. Responsible Management in Private Sector Nano Enterprises: Conversations with Lead Technologists and Managers. Nanoethics 7, 217–229 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11569-013-0180-8

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