The pragmatic conception of truth, anticipated by Henry David Thoreau and developed by C.S. Peirce and subsequent pragmatists, is proposed as a useful analogy for characterising 'sustainability.' Peirce's definitions of 'truth' provides an attractive approach to sustainability because (a) it re-focuses discussions of truth and objectivity from a search for 'correspondence' to an 'external world' (the 'conform' approach) to a more forward-looking ('transform') approach; and (b) it emphasises the crucial role of an evolving, questioning community in the conduct of inquiry. (...) Any successful definition of sustainability must share these characteristics with Peircean truth. While Peirce and John Dewey never reconciled their disagreements regarding the nature and task of 'inquiry', a pragmatist resolution of their differences is offered, arguing that we need both a logic of management sciences (logica utens) and a logic of pure science (logica docens), which (perhaps among other differences) respond very differently to uncertainty. It is shown that adaptive management – can be understood as a first approximation of a logica utens for social learning in pursuit of solutions to environmental problems, and it is suggested that a pragmatist, transform approach to inquiry such as Dewey's may provide a way around the 'fact-value' gulf. (shrink)

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid (...) application of invasion biology’s a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class. (shrink)

Courts have determined that adaptive management does not satisfy the Endangered Species Act's requirement to use the 'best available science'. This is due, in part, to the failure to recognise the role of non-epistemic values in science. We examine the role of values in the legal controversy over the scientific reports and adaptive management plans for endangered salmon in the Columbia River Basin. To do this, we employ philosophical concepts related to risk and uncertainty that demonstrate (...) how non-epistemic values are internal to science. We describe how, because adaptive management is a method for dealing with inductive risk, by remaining flexible, responsive and adaptive in those circumstances where the costs of making a mistake are very high, it requires special attention to ensure that it remains useful. We conclude that, because non-epistemic values will inevitably influence the 'best available science', it is critical that they are clarified in any adaptive management planning so that we can ensure the salmon conservation that the ESA mandates. Fortunately, because adaptive management is iterative in nature and includes opportunities for engagement between policymakers and scientists, it enables clarification of non-epistemic values through making standards of evidence transparent, acknowledging aims and goals and dealing with uncertainty at the institutional level. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 has taken the world by surprise and has impacted the lives of many, including the business sector and its stakeholders. Although studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on the organizational structure, job design, and employee well-being have been on the rise, fewer studies examined the role of leadership and what it takes to be an effective leader during such times. This study integrates social cognitive theory and conservation of resources theory to argue for the importance of (...) adaptive personality in the emergence of effective leaders during crisis times, utilizing the crisis of COVID-19 as the context for the study. We argue that managers with an adaptive personality tend to have increased self-efficacy levels to lead during a crisis, resulting in increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, managers with increased motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis are argued to have enhanced adaptive performance, thereby suggesting a serial mediation model where crisis leader self-efficacy and motivation to lead during the COVID-19 crisis act as explanatory mechanisms of the relationship between the adaptive personality and performance of the manager. In order to test our hypotheses, we collected data from 116 full-time managers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 crisis and used hierarchical linear regression as the method of analysis. The findings support all of the hypotheses. A discussion of the results, contributions, limitations, and future directions is included. (shrink)

Uncertainty is a pervasive feature in natural resource management. Adaptive management, an approach that focuses on identifying critical uncertainties to be reduced via diagnostic management experiments, is one favored approach for tackling this reality. While adaptive management is identified as a key method in the environmental management toolbox, there remains a lack of clarity over when its use is appropriate or feasible. Its implementation is often viewed as suitable only in a limited set (...) of circumstances. Here we restructure some of the ideas supporting this view, and show why much of the pessimism around AM may be unwarranted. We present a new framework for deciding when AM is appropriate, feasible, and subsequently successful. We thus present a new paradigm for adaptive management that shows that there are no categorical limitations to its appropriate use, the boundaries of application being defined by problem conception and the resources available to managers. In doing so we also separate adaptive management as a management tool, from the burden of failures that result from the complex policy, social, and institutional environment within which management occurs. (shrink)

The trend in environmental management toward more adaptive, community-based, and holistic approaches will require new approaches to environmental valuation. In this paper, we offer a new valuation approach, one that embodies the core principles of adaptive management, which is experimental, multi-scalar, and place-based. In addition, we use hierarchy theory to incorporate spatial and temporal variability of natural systems into a multi-scalar management model. Our approach results in the consideration of multiple values within community-based ecosystem (...) class='Hi'>management, rather than an attempt to maximise a single variable such as economic efficiency. We then offer two heuristics – one procedural and one evaluative – to guide a community toward shared goals, and to develop indicators to measure progress toward these goals. We illustrate our approach by application to environmental and developmental decisions in the Southern Appalachians. (shrink)

Adaptive management is commonly identified as a way to address situations where ecological and social uncertainty exists. Two discourses are common: a focus on experimentation, and a focus on collaboration. The roles of experimental and collaborative adaptive management in contemporary practice are reviewed to identify tools for bridging the discourses. Examples include broadening the scope of contributions during the buy-in and goal-setting stages, using conceptual models and decision support tools to include stakeholders in model development, experimentation (...) using indicators of concern to stakeholders, an experimental focus that reflects the level of statistical confidence required by management, and the engagement of stakeholders in data interpretation so that those affected by management outcomes can learn and adapt accordingly. In this context, a framework of questions that managers can use to reflect on both ecological and social uncertainties as they relate to individual management contexts is proposed. (shrink)

Evans et al. (Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 2008) have attempted to enmesh me in their dispute with the Florida Bureau of Invasive Plant Management about a specific system, Kings Bay/Crystal River. In so doing, they repeatedly mischaracterize my positions in order to depict, incorrectly, invasion biology as monolithic and me as a representative of one extreme of a false dichotomy about management of introduced species. In addition, they introduce an issue irrelevant in this case (extinctions) and (...) cite incorrect data. Proposing to manage people, manatees, introduced plants, and cyanobacteria in Kings Bay by participative adaptive management, they ignore the fact that living organisms can both disperse autonomously and hitchhike. Finally, they present few details on any aspect of their management proposal and do not address the myriad problems that have beset previous attempts at scientific adaptive management, especially at large scales. Until such a management approach is fleshed out and implemented, it is impossible to assess its validity for Kings Bay, and it is very premature to suggest it as a general model for dealing with invasive species disputes. (shrink)

The field of environmental ethics hosts a debate between competing strategies of practical reason. Both sides of the debate share a commitment for ethics to address environmental problems, but strategies diverge over notions of what an ethic must accomplish in order to do so effectively. Should ethics critique the cultural worldviews that give rise to environmental problems and propose alternative environmental values, or should it develop practical responses to problems from broadly available cultural values? That initial question of strategy seems (...) to force a practical dilemma: choosing (what I will call) a cosmological strategy allows one to critique the depth of problems, but at the cost of distance from the .. (shrink)

Our recent paper advocating adaptive management of invasive nonnative species (INS) in Kings Bay, Florida received detailed responses from both Daniel Simberloff, a prominent invasion biologist, and Mark Sagoff, a prominent critic of invasion biology. Simberloff offers several significant lines of criticism that compel detailed rebuttals, and, as such, most of this reply is dedicated to this purpose. Ultimately, we find it quite significant that Simberloff, despite his other stated objections to our paper, apparently agrees with our argument (...) that proposals for alternative management of established INS (i.e., alternatives to minimization/eradication) should not be rejected on an a␣priori basis. We argue that more specific development and application of adaptive approaches toward INS management, whether in Kings Bay or other appropriate case studies, would be facilitated if ecosystem managers and invasion biologists follow Simberloff’s lead on this key point. While Sagoff largely shares (and, indeed, served as a primary source for developing) our general arguments that challenge common moral and scientific assumptions associated with invasion biology, he does question our suggestion that participatory adaptive management provides an appropriate framework for approaching environmental problems in which science and politics are inherently entangled. We attempt to answer this criticism through a brief sketch of what participatory adaptive management might look like for Kings Bay and how such an approach would differ from past management approaches. (shrink)

This paper presents an adaptation of Lawrence Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Interview and Standard Issue Scoring method. The adaptation emphasizes four points: (1) a mixture of less familiar and more familiar moral dilemmas, (2) followup questions which probe managers' moral reasoning by focusing upon key organizational values, (3) the flexibility of utilizing either an oral or written interview method, and (4) a simpler, yet reliable, system for scoring the managers' responses and identifying their stage of moral reasoning. An empirical investigation found (...) that each adaptation could enhance the assessment of managers' moral reasoning. (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)

This article examines adaptive resource management as it has been applied to the US horseshoe crab fishery over the past decade. As a critical yet constructive exercise, I have three goals: to suggest how adaptive management, for all its promise, can still be improved; to add a nuanced case study to the literatures on the quantification of nature and environmental decision-making; and to use the example of ARM to make certain temporal aspects of contemporary natural resource (...) management more salient to science and technology studies scholars—that is, to show the ways in which time matters in environmental science, policy, and the analysis thereof. I draw attention to the time-related aspects of adaptive management by developing the notions of temporal orientation and chronological accountability. Temporal orientation refers to the time-based perspectives and epistemological commitments—that is, past-facing empiricism versus future-oriented modeling—that scientists of different types bring to bear on environmental problems. Chronological accountability refers to the missing link in adaptive forms of environmental governance: firm time lines and commitments to reflexively revisit management decisions. The time-related aspects of natural resource management deserve greater attention among both environmental managers and analysts of environmental policy. (shrink)

Companies committed to corporate social responsibility should ensure that their managers possess the appropriate competencies to effectively manage the CSR adaptation process. The literature provides insights into the individual competencies these managers need but fails to prioritize them and adequately contextualize them in a manner that makes them meaningful in practice. In this study, we contextualized the competencies within the different job roles CSR managers have in the CSR adaptation process. We interviewed 28 CSR managers, followed by a survey to (...) explore the relative importance of the competencies within each job role. Based on our analysis, we identified six distinct managerial roles, including strategic, coordinating, and stimulating roles. Next, we identified per role key individual CSR-related competencies as prioritized by the respondents. Our results show that the context, as indicated in this study by CSR managers’ job roles, indeed influenced the importance of particular CSR-related competencies, because each role seems to require a different combination and prioritization of these competencies. Moreover, the results suggest that the relative importance of these competencies within each role may be driven by business logic rather than an idealistic logic. The results are presented as a competence profile which can serve as a reflection tool and as a frame of reference to further develop the competence profile for CSR managers. (shrink)

In China, guanxi is the basis on which Chinese exchange a lifetime of favors, resources, and business leverage. Guanxi is considered a unique construct and a product of Confucian values and the contemporary political and socioeconomic system in Chinese society. With its cultural embeddings guanxi , as the social norm of conduct, functions as complex adaptive systems that expand and interconnect to become well-knit social networks; meanwhile the functions of well-fixing and self-reinforcement of the guanxi networks ( chuens ) (...) are synergetically activated internally, externally, and interactively, which shows their extreme flexibility of adaptation. Taking as a case study an outside direct investment (ODI) Taiwanese firm in China, we address and conduct a survey to examine the effect of guanxi on management. Results of the research suggest that guanxi is not limited to interpersonal links; it is also the switch that activates social networks and that reconciles interpersonal and internetwork mismatches to influence management efficacy. (shrink)

Companies committed to corporate social responsibility (CSR) should ensure that their managers possess the appropriate competencies to effectively manage the CSR adaptation process. The literature provides insights into the individual competencies these managers need but fails to prioritize them and adequately contextualize them in a manner that makes them meaningful in practice. In this study, we contextualized the competencies within the different job roles CSR managers have in the CSR adaptation process. We interviewed 28 CSR managers, followed by a survey (...) to explore the relative importance of the competencies within each job role. Based on our analysis, we identified six distinct managerial roles, including strategic, coordinating, and stimulating roles. Next, we identified per role key individual CSR-related competencies as prioritized by the respondents. Our results show that the context, as indicated in this study by CSR managers’ job roles, indeed influenced the importance of particular CSR-related competencies, because each role seems to require a different combination and prioritization of these competencies. Moreover, the results suggest that the relative importance of these competencies within each role may be driven by business logic rather than an idealistic logic. The results are presented as a competence profile which can serve as a reflection tool and as a frame of reference to further develop the competence profile for CSR managers. (shrink)

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-226-595 19-6 (cloth : alk. paper) . A . 1. Environmental policy. 2. Environmental management — Decision making. 3. Interdisciplinary research. 4. Communication in science. 5. Sustainable ...

Social and cultural contexts influence power dynamics and shape gender perceptions, roles, and decisions regarding the management of agrobiodiversity for dealing with and adapting to climate change. Based on a feminist political ecology framework and a mixed method approach, this research performs an empirical analysis of two case studies in the northern of India, one in the Himalayan Mountains and another in the Indian-Gangetic plains. It explores context-specific influence of gender roles and responsibilities on on-farm agrobiodiversity management gendered (...) expertise and knowledge related to agrobiodiversity and gendered preferences for practices and institutional arrangements for agrobiodiversity conservation linked to adaptation to climate change. In the Himalayan mountains women actively participate in crop and seed management decisions and tasks, and maintain informal institutions for seed and services exchanges in the case of crisis, which simultaneously favours high levels of agrobiodiversity and enhances women’s social status. By contrast, in the Indio-Gangetic plains, where women from better-off households are socially secluded and women from poorer households work mainly as labourer to respond to high out-migration of men, they exercise less public control over agrobiodiversity, with their role being mainly invisible at the homestead and related to post-production tasks. We finally discuss as improved understanding of the links between gendered spaces, crops, tasks, social status, and agrobiodiversity management can facilitate the design of gender-sensitive policy interventions for conservation and adaptation to climate change. (shrink)

At present, with the continuous rise in public consumption level, the pressure on college students’ entrepreneurship or employment is increasingly severe. Under the concept of positive psychological intervention, the present work aims to alleviate the entrepreneurial pressure of college students and improve college students’ entrepreneurial education through the analysis of enterprise management elements. A 3-month intervention experiment, including the pre-test, preventive curriculum intervention, post-test, and delayed test, is conducted on a control group and an experimental group, to investigate entrepreneurial (...) intention, emotional management ability, and ability to deal with entrepreneurial pressure of college students. In addition, based on a complex adaptive system, the enterprise management elements are analyzed, and a three-layer network model is constructed. Meanwhile, new diversified elements of enterprise management are defined to discuss the effectiveness and psychological impact of diversified management, proving that psychological security plays an intermediary role in the cross-layer relationship chain in the three-layer CAS network. The experimental results indicate that on the whole, the positive psychological intervention reduces the pressure of students in the experimental group, significantly ameliorates depression and anxiety, and promotes the positive personality in all directions. Besides, in the delayed test after 3 months, the experimental group can maintain a relatively better state than the control group. By exploring the role effectiveness and characteristics of diversified management, this experiment confirms that the improvement of psychological security under positive psychological intervention has a positive impact on the effectiveness of diversified management. The present work discusses the hierarchical construction in enterprise management and puts forward reasonable suggestions and theoretical development for the influence of the entrepreneurial practice of college students. (shrink)

In the process of communication between people, everyone will have emotions, and different emotions will have different effects on communication. With the help of external performance information accompanied by emotional expression, such as emotional speech signals or facial expressions, people can easily communicate with each other and understand each other. Emotion recognition is an important network of affective computers and research centers for signal processing, pattern detection, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. Emotions convey important information in human communication and communication. (...) Since the end of the last century, people have started the research on emotion recognition, especially how to correctly judge the emotion type has invested a lot of time and energy. In this paper, multi-modal emotion recognition is introduced to recognize facial expressions and speech, and conduct research on adaptive higher education management. Language and expression are the most direct ways for people to express their emotions. After obtaining the framework of the dual-modal emotion recognition system, the BOW model is used to identify the characteristic movement of local areas or key points. The recognition rates of emotion recognition for 1,000 audios of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise are: 97.3, 83.75, 64.87, 89.87, 84.12, and 86.68%, respectively. (shrink)

Diagnosis of dementia in primary care is both difficult and important. The recommendations by several authors to improve the diagnosis of dementia by general practitioners are important, but insufficient. It is argued that perhaps the disease concept in itself is a cause of confusion for clinicians. Primary care physicians need an adapted procedure, gradually leading to the final diagnosis of dementia. It has to be a stepwise labelling strategy, using global descriptions and non-disease specific labels in the beginning, ending up (...) with well-defined disease criteria. In this process, there is circularity: previous diagnoses have to be kept in mind because symptoms and signs may gradually change during the progression of the disease, leading to reconsideration of previous deleted options. To frame this properly, the primary care physician needs to adopt a broad frail elderly geriatric concept. Implementation of this concept not only helps the diagnostic process, but also stimulates the care for dementing patients and their caregivers. Relevant arguments for early diagnostic involvement of primary care physicians can be put forward on condition that a new concept, adapted procedures and adapted instruments are used. (shrink)

The rural-migrant protagonist in Knut Hamsun’s Hunger fails to adapt to the urban environment because the moral algorithm that informs his collaborative choices is unfit for the city. He often responds poorly when overwhelmed by pride, shame, or other sensations that he struggles to make sense of. Such emotions are hypothesized to be neuro­computational adaptations crafted by natural selection to help us get ahead as collabora­tors. But with societal transformation, these feelings can become a poor match for a new reality. (...) Reprogramming oneself can be challenging; Hunger’s protagonist must suffer months of emotional and physical pain before he adapts. His journey, and Hamsun’s mod­ernist project, can be illuminated by recent research on status management and morality as cooperation. As literature, Hunger could fulfill several adaptive functions by mapping mor­als for urban pro-sociality at a time of great disruption. Similar moral adaptation could become necessary in our present era, too. (shrink)

Management are increasingly using adaptive and agile organisations as a means to competitive advantage. In these organisations there is a flux in membership of work groups and organisation in response to external environment. The theory of complex adaptive systems suggests that the application of a few simple rules can lead to complex structures. But is there a relationship between the members of the organisation? Do they constitute a group, or an organisation? The paper advances a number of (...) reasons why adaptive and agile enterprises may not be organisations in the accepted sense of the word. Implications are drawn with respect to the current demands for accountability and for the application of management processes and management development techniques which are based on groups. The paper draws on the work of Amelie Rorty on identity, Margaret Gilbert on groups and Chris Provis on trust. It is also informed by activity in the multi-national SYMPHONY project, which is developing management tools for networked enterprises which have a high knowledge component in the value stream and operate in rapidly changing and uncertain environments.1. (shrink)

Management cybernetics has been in development since the 1960s, although its implementation has been relatively modest. Two of the best-known proposals are Beer’s Viable System Model and Steinbruner’s Cybernetic Theory of Decision. Both are homeostatic systems, inspired by living organisms. Professor Juan A. Pérez López (1934–1996) argued that homeostatic systems are not fully appropriated for human beings, and proposed instead the “Freely Adaptive System” (FAS) model to explain the dynamics of an organization formed by two dynamic human systems. (...) This model, although it is within the management cybernetic paradigm, and does not propose any anthropological philosophy, is consistent with several features of the Aristotelian anthropological tradition, including epistemology, practical reason, and virtues. The FAS model can help as a compass for decision making by considering three basic criteria—effectiveness, internal efficiency and consistency—when two persons—an active agent and a reactive agent—interact repeatedly. The model sheds light on the interdependence of ethics and efficiency in successive interactions. (shrink)

Adaptation to the impacts of climate change is a rapidly emerging, new area of knowledge and policy that is coevolving with political negotiations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As such, it offers the opportunity to study the coproduction of knowledge and social order within the climate change regime. A subset of adaptation knowledge relates to cost estimates of adaptation policy. Here the methodology of the adaptation cost studies are reviewed and compared to economic theory. Although presented as (...) technical and apolitical applications of economic theory, this analysis shows that these studies in fact differ significantly and consistently from theory in that they largely ignore autonomous adaptation and almost universally cost complete adaptation rather than an efficient level of adaptation. It is suggested that these differences are related to the political nature of adaptation cost estimates, which are closely connected with normative claims for both adaptation funding for developing countries and compensation for the unavoidable climate change impacts. As such, adaptation cost estimates are an example of boundary objects, used to manage normative and highly politicized claims for restitution using scientific and therefore apolitical language and framings. (shrink)

Adaptation and stress are two main concepts useful for better understanding the phases of illness and health-related human behavior. The two faces of adaptation, adaptation as a process and adaptation as a product, have raised the question of how long the adaptation process will take in cancer trajectories. The care setting transition from clinical-based into home-based cancer care has stressed the role of family caregivers (FCG) in cancer management. This study examines how types of demanded healthcare information affect the (...) FCG’s role in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. The mindsponge theory was used in conceptual development and results interpretation. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was used for statistical analysis on a dataset of 48 spouses (husbands) and 12 other family members in five congested communities of Surabaya, Indonesia. Results showed that among the six types of demanded healthcare information, FCGs with a higher tendency to demand cancer-specific information are more likely to need support in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. Meanwhile, FCGs with a higher demand for information on alternative therapies are less likely to need support in catalyzing cancer adaptation. Other types of healthcare information have ambiguous effects on the need for support in cancer adaptation assistance. This study reveals that the demanded cancer-specific information, e.g., cancer’s prognosis or likely outcome, must be prioritized to assist FCG’s role in catalyzing adaptation among female cancer patients. Cancer prognosis and outcomes reflect the future of cancer care results. (shrink)

(1997). Organisms, machines, and societies: From the vertical structure of adaptability to the management of information. World Futures: Vol. 50, No. 1-4, pp. 667-687.

The definitions and conceptualizations of health, and the management of healthcare have been challenged by the current global scenarios (e.g., new diseases, new geographical distribution of diseases, effects of climate change on health, etc.) and by the ongoing scholarship in humanities and science. In this paper we question the mainstream definition of health adopted by the WHO—‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ (WHO in Preamble to the constitution (...) of the World Health Organization as adopted by the international health conference, The World Health Organization, 1948)—and its role in providing tools to understand what health is in the contemporary context. More specifically, we argue that this context requires to take into account the role of the environment both in medical theory and in the healthcare practice. To do so, we analyse WHO documents dated 1984 and 1986 which define health as ‘coping with the environment’. We develop the idea of ‘coping with the environment’, by focusing on two cardinal concepts: adaptation in public health and adaptivity in philosophy of biology. We argue that the notions of adaptation and adaptivity can be of major benefit for the characterization of health, and have practical implications. We explore some of these implications by discussing two recent case studies of adaptivity in public health, which can be valuable to further develop adaptive strategies in the current pandemic scenario: community-centred care and microbiologically healthier buildings. (shrink)

While organizations today make extensive use of complex algorithms, the notion of algorithmic accountability remains an elusive ideal due to the opacity and fluidity of algorithms. In this article, we develop a framework for managing algorithmic accountability that highlights three interrelated dimensions: reputational concerns, engagement strategies, and discourse principles. The framework clarifies that accountability processes for algorithms are driven by reputational concerns about the epistemic setup, opacity, and outcomes of algorithms; that the way in which organizations practically engage with emergent (...) expectations about algorithms may be manipulative, adaptive, or moral; and that when accountability relationships are heavily burdened by the opacity and fluidity of complex algorithmic systems, the emphasis of engagement should shift to a rational communication process through which a continuous and tentative assessment of the development, workings, and consequences of algorithms can be achieved over time. The degree to which such engagement is, in fact, rational can be assessed based on four discourse-ethical principles of participation, comprehension, multivocality, and responsiveness. We conclude that the framework may help organizations and their environments to jointly work toward greater accountability for complex algorithms. It may further help organizations in reputational positioning surrounding accountability issues. The discourse-ethical principles introduced in this article are meant to elevate these positioning contests to extend beyond mere adaption or compliance and help guide organizations to find moral and forward-looking solutions to accountability issues. (shrink)

Scientific findings forecast that one of the major consequences of human-induced climate change and global warming is a greater occurrence of extreme weather events with potentially catastrophic effects for organizations, industries, and society. Current management and adaptation approaches typically focus on economic factors of competition, such as technology and innovation. Although offering useful insights, these approaches are potentially ill equipped to deal with any increases in drastic changes in the natural environment. This article argues that discussions on organizational adaptation (...) need to be broadened and that new conceptual and practical approaches are needed to incorporate the effects of climate change and a greater occurrence of weather extremes into corporate strategy and decision making. The authors advance the notion that a resilience framework might provide insights into dealing with new types of environmental change. They contend that by developing resilience, organizations can develop resources and capabilities to avoid or minimize organizational collapse and to reorganize in light of discontinuities associated with climate change and weather extremes. Implications for organizational practice and research are discussed. © 2010 SAGE Publications. (shrink)

Knowledge management hinges upon the presumption that workers within an organization possess knowledge that can be converted into concrete business improvements if the information is harvested and disseminated to others to whom it could be of use. True knowledge management must involve capturing the internal knowledge generated by a firm—its best thinking on products, customers, competitors and processes—and sharing it. Insofar as organizations are concerned, postmodernists argue that one view that has been in appropriately privileged is that of (...) the organization rather than the process of organizing. They draw our attention to the link between individual and collective identity. If there is a link between individual identity and how that individual behaves, there may also a link between collective identity and organizational action, for which a study on discourse ethics is essential. After considering the implications of knowledge management and the actual situation and work culture where the knowledge workers are in action, this paper raises and explores the questions wherein lies our individual identity and what its functional relation ship with the collective identity is. It has been envisaged in this article that through principles-driven cross-functional teams and innovative organizational mechanisms, sharing and conviction building need to be facilitated in modern organizations phasing out bureaucratic approaches and hierarchical power domination. Flexibility with a focused attitude is a must for organizations to adapt in a changing environment. (shrink)

Digital transformation doesn't just raise ethical issues, it-in itself-is an ethical shift. Business leaders today are struggling to manage conflicting imperatives, those of the emerging digital world and those of the bureaucratic world of the past. The act of digital transformation requires a deep change in the moral outlook and ethical assumptions of a business. But how do we get there? Enterprise strategist and author Mark Schwartz shows how we need to learn to think differently about relationships with customers and (...) employees. That the ethics of digital transformation is a matter of cultivating and applying virtues rather than applying rules. Ethics is not just a matter of refraining from doing bad things. It's a matter of building the world we want, and it's the job of company executives. Featuring a chapter on bullshit, a handy chart of excuses for bad behavior, and Schwartz's typically paradoxical blend of deep insight and pasta jokes, this book guides business leaders as they struggle to adapt their bureaucratic framework of ethics to the emerging landscape of the digital world. By the end of the book, business leaders will rethink what it takes to be an ethical organization. (shrink)

Knowledge management hinges upon the presumption that workers within an organization possess knowledge that can be converted into concrete business improvements if the information is harvested and disseminated to others to whom it could be of use. True knowledge management must involve capturing the internal knowledge generated by a firm—its best thinking on products, customers, competitors and processes—and sharing it. Insofar as organizations are concerned, postmodernists argue that one view that has been in appropriately privileged is that of (...) the organization rather than the process of organizing. They draw our attention to the link between individual and collective identity. If there is a link between individual identity and how that individual behaves, there may also a link between collective identity and organizational action, for which a study on discourse ethics is essential. After considering the implications of knowledge management and the actual situation and work culture where the knowledge workers are in action, this paper raises and explores the questions wherein lies our individual identity and what its functional relation ship with the collective identity is. It has been envisaged in this article that through principles-driven cross-functional teams and innovative organizational mechanisms, sharing and conviction building need to be facilitated in modern organizations phasing out bureaucratic approaches and hierarchical power domination. Flexibility with a focused attitude is a must for organizations to adapt in a changing environment. (shrink)

We are already past the point where climate change mitigation alone does not suffice and major efforts need to be undertaken to adapt agriculture to climate change. As this situation was both foreseeable and avoidable, it is urgent to see that particularly people who have historically contributed the least to climate change do not end up assuming most of the costs. Climate change will have the worst effects on agriculture in the tropical region in the form of droughts, extreme heat (...) waves and massive storms. The historical unequal contributions to climate change and its unjustly distributed consequences morally oblige us to distribute global adaptation costs fairly. Yet to have a full understanding of the social implications of adapting to climate change we need to look beyond making adaptation technologies accessible and available. Using a social justice framework, I defend fair prices of adaptation technologies as a demand of justice in exchange, an allocation of research attention proportional to urgent global needs as distributive justice, inclusive technology development and governance as contributive justice and addressing the interests of future generations as intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Stakeholder management is an important method for reducing business risk. Recent decades have seen the growth of a new type of stakeholder: social protest stakeholders, individuals engaging in protest action which is directed at other unrelated parties, often the government. However, the actions of social protest stakeholders may negatively affect companies located nearby. This stakeholder category has not received any formal attention in the literature, and this article addresses the knowledge gap by exploring the effects of community-driven protest action (...) in South Africa and the strategies that firms adopt to mitigate the negative consequences of such protests. A multiple case study analysis was used to describe this type of stakeholder group and the management of the consequences of social protest action. Eight manufacturing companies in the Gauteng province participated in the study, the companies varied in size and industry. Among the key findings are that companies need to be highly adaptable if they are to mitigate the impact of protest action. We make practical suggestions about how companies may manage these risks, including the recommendation that companies engage more directly with social protestors to manage risks. The study makes an important contribution to the literature by identifying an additional key category of stakeholder and proposing a risk management approach to avert or minimize loss and damage. (shrink)

There is a growing need to implement anticipatory climate change adaptation measures, particularly in vulnerable sectors, such as in agriculture. However, setting goals to adapt is wrought with several challenges. This paper discusses two sets of challenges to goals of anticipatory adaptation, of empirical and normative character. The first set of challenges concern issues such as the extent to which the climate will change, the local impacts of such changes, and available adaptive responses. In the second set of uncertainties (...) are issues such as the distribution of burdens to enhance adaptive capacities in vulnerable agents with a legitimate claim to such resources, and what anticipatory adaptation ideally should result in. While previous discussions have been limited to either discuss the first or second set of uncertainties, this paper suggests that both dimensions should be considered when setting goals in social planning with long time frames. A taxonomy will be suggested that combines both dimensions. Furthermore, strategies for managing situations in which there are either empirical, or normative, uncertainties will be proposed which could be used in social decision-making with long planning time-frames in which goals must be set. (shrink)

In this paper we set out to explore the claims that corporate social responsibility (CSR) itself is little more than a complementary extension of the project of coloniality initiated by the Enlightenment (e.g. Banerjee 2019). We will not dispute that claim. Rather we will develop three points. First, we will apply a non-linear, systems approach to demonstrate how we all, of any color, ethnic origin or historical location are all part of an interconnected interrelated sets of systems—what some thinkers call (...) a complex adaptive system or systems (e.g., Miller and Page 2007) so that dismissing or degrading any particular ethnic, gender, or racial group is dismissing part of our history and origin. Secondly, we will argue that Enlightenment, coloniality, as well as neo-coloniality, and decoloniality sprung up from the Enlightenment projects themselves. Thus, the very critiques of Enlightenment, accurate as they may be, evolved from that perspective and have to be taken into account even in those critiques. Third, what appears to be an “either-or” – that is, that commerce should stick to business and not engage in political activities (forms of neocolonialism) or accept these business-political activities despite critiques – is not a simple choice. Rather, conceding that commerce and political systems cannot be nicely separated, we will provide some principles or ways to evaluate these activities, seemingly ubiquitous particularly in emerging economies. (shrink)

Transportation cyber-physical systems are constrained by spatiality and real-time because of their high level of heterogeneity. Therefore, applications like traffic control generally manage moving objects in a single-machine multithreaded manner, whereas suffering from frequent locking operations. To address this problem and improve the throughput of moving object databases, we propose a GPU-accelerated indexing method, based on a grid data structure, combined with quad-trees. We count object movements and decide whether a particular node should be split or be merged on the (...) GPU. In this case, bottlenecked nodes can be translated to quad-tree without interfering with the CPU. Hence, waiting time of other threads caused by locking operations raised by object data updating can be reduced. The method is simple while more adaptive to scenarios where the distribution of moving objects is skewed. It also avoids shortcomings of existing methods with performance bottleneck on the hot area or spending plenty of calculation resources on structure balancing. Experiments suggest that our method shows higher throughput and lower response time than the existing indexing methods. The advantage is even more significant under the skewed distribution of moving objects. (shrink)

Automatic preferences can influence a decision maker’s choice before any relevant or meaningful information is available. We account for this element of human cognition in a computational model of problem solving that involves active trial and error and show that automatic biases are not just a beneficial or detrimental property: they are a tool that, if properly managed over time, can give rise to superior performance. In particular, automatic preferences are beneficial early on and detrimental at later stages. What is (...) more, additional value can be generated by a timely rebiasing, i.e., a calculated reversal of the initial automatic preference. Remarkably, rebiasing can dominate not only debiasing but also continuously unbiased decision making. This research contributes to the debate on the adaptiveness of automatic and intuitive biases, which has centered primarily on one-shot controlled laboratory experiments, by simulating outcomes across extended time spans. We also illustrate the value of the novel intervention of adopting the opposite automatic preference—something organizations can readily achieve by changing key decision makers—as opposed to attempting to correct for or simply accepting the ubiquity of such biases. (shrink)

The need to better balance the promotion of scientific and technological innovation with risk management for consumer protection has inspired several recent reforms attempting to make regulations more flexible and adaptive. The pharmaceutical sector has a long, established regulatory tradition, as well as a long history of controversies around how to balance incentives for needed therapeutic innovations and protecting patient safety. The emergence of disruptive biotechnologies has provided the occasion for regulatory innovation in this sector. This article investigates (...) the regulation of advanced biotherapeutics in the European Union and shows that it presents several defining features of an adaptive regulation regime, notably institutionalized processes of planned adaptation that allow regulators to gather, generate, and mobilize new scientific and risk evidence about innovative products. However, our in-depth case analysis highlights that more attention needs to be paid to the consequences of the introduction of adaptive regulations, especially for critical stakeholders involved in this new regulatory ecosystem, the capacity and resource requirements placed on them to adapt, and the new tradeoffs they face. In addition, our analysis highlights a deficit in how we currently evaluate the performance and public value proposition of adaptive regulations vis-à-vis their stated goals and objectives. (shrink)

I envision new directions in the methodology of experimental games in the field of developmental, environmental and resource economics. Although there have been extensive discussions on experimenta...

Knowledge management hinges upon the presumption that workers within an organization possess knowledge that can be converted into concrete business improvements if the information is harvested and disseminated to others to whom it could be of use. True knowledge management must involve capturing the internal knowledge generated by a firm—its best thinking on products, customers, competitors and processes—and sharing it. Insofar as organizations are concerned, postmodernists argue that one view that has been in appropriately privileged is that of (...) the organization rather than the process of organizing. They draw our attention to the link between individual and collective identity. If there is a link between individual identity and how that individual behaves, there may also a link between collective identity and organizational action, for which a study on discourse ethics is essential. After considering the implications of knowledge management and the actual situation and work culture where the knowledge workers are in action, this paper raises and explores the questions wherein lies our individual identity and what its functional relation ship with the collective identity is. It has been envisaged in this article that through principles-driven cross-functional teams and innovative organizational mechanisms, sharing and conviction building need to be facilitated in modern organizations phasing out bureaucratic approaches and hierarchical power domination. Flexibility with a focused attitude is a must for organizations to adapt in a changing environment. (shrink)

Small and micro-enterprises play a significant part in economic growth and poverty alleviation in developing African countries. There are, however, a range of management issues that arise when looking at the support required for local enterprise development, the role and management style of the local support agency and the role and style of the, usually Western, funding body. This paper explores the management philosophy required to establish and resource micro-enterprise development and compares the local management processes (...) with those expected by a Western funding body. The purpose of this paper is to identify the strategies used by a mixed urban community association in Beira, Mozambique and the adaptations that are required by the Western sponsor to reflect local philosophical, cultural, traditional and environmental considerations. The paper goes on to propose a philosophical ‘pro-forma’ to improve the relationship between local community organisations and foreign donors to support enterprise development. (shrink)

A sourcebook for developing and facilitating collaborative groups capable of continuously adapting to anticipate the evolving learning needs of students. Based on a theoretical foundation of schools as complex systems in which linear management models are no longer sufficient.

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organization's ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian "upbuilding" dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organization's tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical (...) foundations of an organization's tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of "upbuilding" dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a non-profit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerry's, a business organization. (shrink)

BackgroundStreet-connected children and youth in low- and middle-income countries have multiple vulnerabilities in relation to participation in research. These require additional considerations that are responsive to their needs and the social, cultural, and economic context, while upholding core ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. The objective of this paper is to describe processes and outcomes of adapting ethical guidelines for SCCY’s specific vulnerabilities in LMIC.MethodsAs part of three interrelated research projects in western Kenya, we created procedures to (...) address SCCY’s vulnerabilities related to research participation within the local context. These consisted of identifying ethical considerations and solutions in relation to community engagement, equitable recruitment, informed consent, vulnerability to coercion, and responsibility to report.ResultsSubstantial community engagement provided input on SCCY’s participation in research, recruitment, and consent processes. We designed an assent process to support SCCY to make an informed decision regarding their participation in the research that respected their autonomy and their right to dissent, while safeguarding them in situations where their capacity to make an informed decision was diminished. To address issues related to coercion and access to care, we worked to reduce the unequal power dynamic through street outreach, and provided access to care regardless of research participation.ConclusionsAlthough a vulnerable population, the specific vulnerabilities of SCCY can to some extent be managed using innovative procedures. Engaging SCCY in ethical research is a matter of justice and will assist in reducing inequities and advancing their health and human dignity. (shrink)