Based on the Guest 1997 organizational outcome model, this explanatory study examined the effects of five dimensions of practices of HR. i.e. performance evaluation, recruitment & selection, compensation & reward, career opportunities within organization and training & development on proximal business outcomes. The study validates components of GUEST model by integrating between HRM dimensions and banking operations, thus strengthens the existing theoretical model of GUEST by improving the comprehensiveness as it provides analytical framework for studying HR. Exploratory factor analysis and (...) confirmatory factor analysis was utilized in the current study, and tested the study hypotheses by SEM to analyze the proposed conceptual model. It was found that all five chosen HR practices had significant influence on the quality of operations however for flexibility of operations, performance appraisals and career within organization have shown significant role for banking industry of the country, Pakistan. The study contributed to the construction and validation of structural. path and measurement models of SHRM practices and two selected operational competitive outcomes based on theoretical and empirical foundations, which will help progress the human resource management future researches and important implications for HR mangers, as very little work has been done on interdisciplinary framework of HR and OM specifically within context of South Asian banking Industry. (shrink)

Corporate psychopathy thrives perhaps as the most significant threat to ethical corporate behaviour around the world. We argue that Human Resources Management professionals should formulate strategic solutions metaphorically by balancing what strategic military planners famously call ‘Search and Destroy’ and ‘Hearts and Minds’ counter-terrorist strategy. We argue that these military metaphors offer creative inspiration to help academics and practitioners theorise CP in richer, more reflective and more balanced and complementary ways. An appreciation of both metaphors is likely to (...) favour the use of hybrid strategies comprising SD and HM elements, which may provide the best HRM solutions to CP for the same reasons as the military now considers parallel hybrid solutions optimal for combating terrorist and guerrilla insurgency. (shrink)

As the implementation of corporate social responsibility strategy requires promoting employee participation and initiating meaningful changes in organisational culture, the involvement of the human resource management function in policy formulation and implementation is highly desirable. The relationship between the HRM and CSR functions is, however, under-investigated than other areas. Hence, there is a lack of clarity concerning HRM roles and the conditions under which they may be strategic or operational in nature. By drawing on data from interviews with 29 (...) CSR and HRM professionals of large organisations in New Zealand, this paper argues that the role and contribution of the HR function in CSR is contingent on organisational variables such as the CSR structure, the scope and application of CSR and the nature of the HR functions. It concludes that in such contexts HRM is more likely to offer operational support in executing CSR rather than strategic input. (shrink)

Human resource management (HRM) education has tended to focus on specific functions and tasks within organizations, such as compensation, staffing, and evaluation. This task orientation within HRM education fails to account for the bigger questions facing human resource management and employment relationships, questions which address the roles and responsibilities of the HR function and HR practitioners. An educational focus on HRM that does not explicitly address larger ethical questions fails to equip students to address stakeholder concerns about how employees are (...) treated or the ethical dilemmas facing employers with regard to the employment relationship, and ironically makes the HRM function less strategic to the organization. In this paper, we identify some of the key ethical issues within the employment relationship, discuss how extant HRM education often fails to address these issues or help students to become aware of them, and offer a framework for integrating ethics into HRM education. (shrink)

Ethical cultures, corporate social responsibility (CSR), and sustainability strategies are increasingly being addressed through formal organisational policies and structures. This is evidenced by codes of ethics, conduct, whistle-blowing reporting lines, anti-bribery and corruption policies, and broader stakeholder and environmental engagement strategies. In the United States, corporate ethics managers are responsible for these functions, supported by specific professional and university-level qualifications. However, this is not the case in Australia and Asia where the role appears delegated to human resource personnel in organisations. (...) Human resource management (HRM) is increasingly advanced as a formal profession, yet whether corporate ethics content features as a significant component of the HRM profession is unclear. Expert knowledge is a foundation of a profession along with the duty to act within the limits of that knowledge and expertise. This paper scopes what constitutes professional expert knowledge. It examines corporate ethics expertise and HRM within this context. Major Australian and Asian organisations are examined to verify that HRM Departments, and thus HRM practitioners, are responsible for managing corporate ethics. Given the seniority and strategic importance of this function, the content of selected Masters in HRM and related fields are examined to identify the extent of ethics content. This is considered in the light of the expertise required to manage corporate ethics, and conclusions are drawn whether the HRM discipline is appropriately qualified to manage this function. Finally, recommendations and further research towards advancing the role and function of corporate ethics managers in general are proposed. (shrink)

This study investigates the interaction effects of two business strategies (differentiation and low cost) and human resource (HR) management (HRM) practices (recruitment and selection, training and development, compensation, performance management, employment security and work–life balance) on employee outcomes (organizational commitment, turnover intention, employee involvement and job satisfaction). These relationships are further analyzed on the extent of differences between public and private limited companies in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to examine the effect of the three variables and the (...) invariance effect of the two types of companies. The results show that HRM practices mediate the interaction of business strategy and employee outcomes. Furthermore, the effects of business strategy and HRM practices on employee outcomes in public limited companies are only slightly different from the ones implemented in private limited companies. Specifically, the moderation analysis shows invariance between differentiation strategy and variance in low-cost strategy. (shrink)

Contemporary HRM was introduced into Poland by the arrival of international corporations with their professional systems of Human Resource Management, which emphasizes ethical personnel management. This research is based on data collected from a questionnaire and interview of 40 women and men professional graduates of the 2004 Weekend MBA Program at Poznan University of Economics eliciting their perceptions of ethical issues in Polish HRM. The present Polish economic situation, with 19% unemployment, precipitates many ethical challenges. The questionnaire and interviews resulted (...) in 217 observations and specific examples of ethical HRM issues. Examples fall in two broad categories and five specific Human Resource areas. The broad external categories are: History and cultural attitudes and Exploitation of the current unemployment situation. Historical and cultural attitudes influence attitudes toward work; company discipline; property and ownership; law and social expectations at work. The history of personnel departments in Socialistic Poland explains many of these attitudes. The five specific categories are: Ethical issues in recruitment; Ethical issues in hiring ; Ethical issues in performance appraisals and promotions; Abuse of authority, and “Mobbing”. Ethical issues in these categories include correlation with appropriate Polish Labor and Penal Laws. This research reveals some HRM ethical challenges unique to Polish HRM. The research emphasizes professional HRM and ethical expectations, which are now being recognized and accepted as a strategic component of Polish management. (shrink)

Formulating and translating corporate social responsibility strategy into actual managerial practices and outcome values remain ongoing challenges for many organizations. This paper argues that the human resource management function can potentially play an important role in supporting organizations to address this challenge. We argue that HRM could provide an interesting and dynamic support to CSR strategy design as well as implementation and delivery. Drawing on a systematic review of relevant strategic CSR and HRM literatures, this paper highlights the important (...) interfaces between CSR and HRM and develops a conceptual model, the CSR-HRM co-creation model, which accounts for the potential HRM roles in CSR and identifies a range of outcome values resulting from a more effective integration of the role of HRM within CSR. The paper concludes with relevant theoretical and managerial recommendations that advance our understanding of the potential interfaces between HRM and CSR and how HRM can support a systematic and progressive CSR agenda. (shrink)

Off-shoring is a business decision increasingly being considered as a strategic option to effect expected cost savings. This exploratory study focuses on the moral recognition of off-shoring using ethical decision making embedded within affective events theory. Perceived magnitude of consequences and time pressure are hypothesized as affective event characteristics that lead to decision makers’ empathy responses. Subsequently, cognitive and affective empathy influence the decision makers’ moral recognition. Decision makers’ prior knowledge of off-shoring was also predicted to interact with perceptions (...) of the affective event characteristics to influence cognitive and affective empathy. Findings from a limited sample of human resource management professionals suggest that perceptions of magnitude of consequences and cognitive empathy directly relate to moral recognition and that affective empathy partially mediates the relationship between perceptions of the magnitude of consequences and moral recognition. The three-way interaction of the perceptions of magnitude of consequences, time pressure, and prior knowledge of off-shoring was marginally related to cognitive empathy. Interpretations of the findings, validity issues, limitations, future research directions, and management implications are provided. (shrink)

The book examines ethics and employment issues in contemporary Human Resource Management (HRM). Written by an international team of academics from universities in the UK, the US, Australia and New Zealand, it examines the problems and opportunities facing employers and employees. The book subdivides into three sections: Part I assesses the context of HRM; Part II analyses contemporary debates, continuity and change in HRM, and Part III proposes likely developments for the future seeking to identify a more proactive HRM approach (...) towards ethical issues arising in employment. Distinctive features include: -/- -Comprehensive analysis of continuity and change in employment and HRM -In-depth assessment of the ethical contribution and potential of HRM -Timely evaluation of the ethical achievements to-date of HRM in: individualized employment relations, HRM partnerships, HRM and employee performance, and strategic HRM -Detailed recommendations for HR managers and general managers encouraging more ethically aware practice -Guidance on ethical approaches to leadership, knowledge management and collective employment relations -Analysis of alternative futures for HRM as a profession and advice on how to create more rigorous and independent professional practice -A vision of a more innovative, cooperative and ethically sensitive set of HRM practices -Clear proposals for HRM on how to attain more ethical conduct. (shrink)

This article proposes the lens of moral economy as a useful ethical framework through which to assess HRM practice, with a particular focus on the strategic use of contingent work ('non-standard' employment practices including temporary, agency and outsourced work). While contingent work practices have a variety of impetuses we focus here on their strategic use in the pursuit of economic and flexibility goals. A review of the contingent work literature conveys mixed messages about its outcomes for individuals, and (...) more opaquely, for organisations: on the one hand transferring risks yet on the other, creating opportunities. A moral economy lens views employment as a relationship rooted in a web of social dependencies, and considers that ' thick' relations produce valuable ethical surpluses that represent mutuality and human flourishing. Applying such an approach to the analysis of contingent work enables a fresh interpretation of contradictory individual and collective outcomes observed in the research literature. We suggest that evaluations informed by moral economy offer a more holistic appraisal of HRM practices such as contingent work, where both economic and social opportunities and costs can be more fully seen. In this way we not only highlight the ethical inadequacies of neglecting the human in HRM but also the conceptual pitfalls of analytically separating the economic from the social. (shrink)

In management theory and business practice, the dealing with diversity, especially a diverse workforce, has played a prominent role in recent years. In a globalizing economy companies recognized potential benefits of a multicultural workforce and tried to create more inclusive work environments. However, many organizations have been disappointed with the results they have achieved in their efforts to meet the diversity challenge [Cox: 2001, Creating the Multicultural Organization (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco)]. We see the reason for this in the fact that (...) while much attention has been paid to the strategic dimension of diversity policies, systems, and processes, much less thought has been given to the normative dimension, the norms and values involved. Given the fact that diversity is essentially about cultural norms and values, appropriate reflection work becomes a fundamental task to create a truly inclusive work environment where people from diverse backgrounds feel respected and recognized. Therefore, we focus in this article on the challenge of building an inclusive diversity culture showing that such a culture of inclusion has to be built on solid moral grounds. We present a conceptual framework of inclusion based on a moral theory of recognition and introduce the founding principles of reciprocal understanding, standpoint plurality and mutual enabling, trust and integrity. After revealing barriers that hinder a culture of inclusion from emerging we shed light on the process of developing such a culture which involves four essential transformational stages: The first phase focuses on raising awareness, building understanding and encouraging reflection. The second phase deals with the development of a vision of inclusion as an important step to define the change direction. In a third phase key management concepts and principles should be re-thought. This leads to the fourth, action-oriented phase, that focuses on an integrated Human Relations Management (HRM)1 system that helps implement change by doing both, translating the founding principles via competencies into observable and measurable behavior and fostering the development, reinforcement and recognition of inclusive behavior. (shrink)

Purpose – The study aims at clarifying whether locus of control may act as a bias in organisational decision-making or not. -/- Design/methodology/approach – Altogether 44 managers working at Skanska (a Swedish multinational construction company) participated in the study. They were asked to complete a booklet including a locus of control test and a couple of decision tasks. The latter were based on case scenarios reflecting strategic issues relevant for consultative/participative decision-making. -/- Findings – The results revealed that managers (...) with low external locus of control used group consultative decision-making more frequently than those with high locus of control. There was also a tendency showing that high externals more frequently used participative decision-making than low externals. This was in line with the general trend, indicating that managers on the whole predominantly used participative decision-making. -/- Originality/value – The results of the present study are valuable for HRM practice, especially with regard to the selection of individuals to management teams. (shrink)

Adopting an Ethics of Care theoretical framework, this paper aims to investigate the way in which the owner-mangers (OMs) of small and medium-sized enterprises in Malaysia engage in human resource management. Based on in-depth interviews with 48 OMs, the findings show that HRM practices occur within the remit of management but are described by the managers in terms of relational obligations and cannot be fully accounted for using a strategic, instrumental, or critical lens. The present study highlights the importance (...) of the caring attitudes of OMs who adopt a humanistic management approach, responding to the varied needs of their employees and the obligations which are inherent to relationships between humans. (shrink)

This study develops a conceptual framework and investigates green human resource practices —green recruitment and selection, green training and development, and green reward and compensation? effects on pro-environmental psychological climate and pro-environmental behavior, which cause green corporate social responsibility. We employ information technology capabilities as a moderator between the GHRM and pro-environmental behavior. It applies a convenience sampling technique and survey questionnaire to collect data from 388 employees at CPEC projects. Results demonstrate that GHRM positively influences pro-environmental psychological climate and (...) pro-environmental behavior that significantly develops GCSR. IT capabilities significantly moderate the relationships between GHRM and pro-environmental behavior. The study findings add to the body of green HRM practices, strategic management, and information processing and policy makers better postulate, align, and exercise their green HRM practices for its synergetic effects for green CSR and sustainability. We also acknowledge some limitations and provide future directions. (shrink)

In order to understand the system wherein human resource management practices are determined by the interactions of a complex system of actors, it is necessary to have a conceptual framework of analysis. In this respect, the works of scholars (Mitroff, 1983, Stakeholders of the Organizational Mind, Jessey-Bass; Freeman, 1984, Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Pitman) concerning stakeholder theory opened new perspectives in management theory. An organisation is understood as being part of a politico-economic system of stakeholders who interact and (...) influence management practices. Each stakeholder tries to optimise and protect his interests (Frooman, 1999, Academy of Management Review 24, 191–205; Savage et al., 1991, Academy of Management Executive 5(2), 61–75). The framework of stakeholder analysis enables escape from a purely instrumental approach to HRM, and avoids reducing our understanding of conflicts within companies to mere antagonism between employees and their employers. It enables us to point out the existence of other stakeholders in the relationship. Notably, it allows for the incorporation into management theory of actors from the sphere of politics (president of the republic, government, national elected representatives – deputies and senators – and locally elected representatives – mayors and regional councillors, etc.) as well as their dependent administrations. All these actors are considered to be stakeholders who define the legal framework of firm management and guarantee the application of these laws. (shrink)

The pandemic has changed the way people work, and more and more people are choosing to work from home. Unlike traditional work patterns, this approach has limitations and has had a significant impact on both organizations and individuals. It also brings many challenges to the work of HR practitioners. HR practitioners, as key players in strategic human resource management, need to take advantage of management innovations under the crisis to improve employees’ work flexibility and effectively address the impact of (...) working from home. This study aims to address the need for employee skill improvement, psychological stress relief, work-family balance, and company culture reinforcement from an HRM perspective because of the impact of WFH work patterns during the COVID-19 crisis. (shrink)

This research synthesizes social exchange, organizational culture, and social identity theories to explore the boundary conditions of the relationship between high-performance work systems and employee organizational citizenship behavior. In particular, it draws on the China-specific management context. In this country, in spite of the wide use of a long-term-oriented and loose-control-focused Western-styled strategic human resource management model, a short-term-focused and tight-control-oriented error aversion culture is still popular. The study uses multi-source individual-level survey data in a large state-owned enterprise to (...) test the hypotheses. It is found that employee-experienced, Western-styled high-performance work systems positively impact a China-specific employee’s organizational citizenship behavior, and the—joint—moderation effects of employee-perceived error aversion culture and organizational identification are significant. The research findings deepen the understanding of the HRM-OCB relationship by demonstrating that culture and identity can jointly adjust the effects of HRM on OCB. The findings also challenge an established argument in the HRM-OCB literature that compatibility between employees’ personalities and organizational values – organizational identification – can enhance OCB. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by a puzzling observation made when conducting a case study of ProCredit, a well-known social bank. The HR practices that this social enterprise adopted to cultivate mission identification were unfavorably impacting its retention rate. Building on prior research and our analysis of the case, we argue the need for SEs to embrace HRM systems that are both mission-identification proactive and employee-retention preemptive. It theorizes that these HRM systems should be attuned to the labor market conditions that (...) frame how SEs develop and sustain Person-Organization fit. Attuned HRM systems are adapted to labor market conditions and tuned to support SEs’ adeptness to operate against the grain of country and industry norms. (shrink)

The digital revolution has generated huge changes in the world of work, with relevant implications for the Human Resources Management function. New challenges arise in facing digital work, digital employees, and digital management, such that the connection between new technologies and HRM is now described as electronic HRM. Challenges and connection entail the possibility to review the notion of HRM itself, examining new research perspectives and lines of interpretation following a Critical Management Studies approach, thus developing a more contextualized view (...) in conceiving HRM, a more expansive consideration of stakeholders, and a longer-term perspective in approaching the results of digital transformation and HRM outcomes. The article analyzes a specific organizational case, involving a multinational enterprise, and explores how the case study enhances the understanding of HRM as a social practice embedded in specific situated contexts. Such a conception enables the engagement of multiple rationalities, related to both internal and external stakeholders, overcoming a “mere antiperformance stance” and achieving forms of reconstructive reflexivity concerning the interconnection between the digital age, HRM, and the innovative generation of social value through an authentic corporate responsibility. (shrink)

The research aims to study the role of strategic and operational planning as approach for crises management in UNRWA - Gaza Strip field- Palestine. Several descriptive analytical methods were used for this purpose and a survey as a tool for data collection. Community size was (881), and the study sample was stratified random (268). The overall findings of the current study show that strategic and operational planning is performed in UNRWA. The results of static analysis show that there (...) are a relation between strategic and operational planning and crises management. In spite this relation existence, it need more improvement and expanding. Also there are shortcomings in the way that organization manages the crises before and after they occur. A crisis management is only practicing during the crisis. The study suggests that UNRWA must invest in more resources to enhance strategic and operational palming and improve other methods to face potential crises in the future. (shrink)

It argues that states forge a relationship due to strategic needs such as economic or security needs. Slobodchikoff has developed a database composed of the whole population of bilateral treaties between Russia and each of the former Soviet republics, and examines all of these bilateral relationships. He finds that Russia indeed forged relationships with the former republics based on its strategic interests. However, despite Russia's strategic interests, it had to build a bilateral relationship that would address the (...) issues of mistrust and power asymmetry between the states. To achieve this, Russia and the former Soviet republics created treaty networks, which served to legitimize as well as legalize the independent status of each of the former republics while also increasing the cost to Russia of violating any of the treaties. (shrink)

The research about strategic human resource management (SHRM) has suggested that human resource professionals (HRPs) have the opportunity to play a greater role in contributing to organizational success if they are effective in developing systems and policies aligned with the organization's values, goals, and mission. We suggest that HRPs need to raise the standard of their performance and that the competitive demands of the modern economic environment create implicit ethical duties that HRPs owe to their organizations. We define ethical (...) stewardship as a model of governance that honors obligations due to the many stakeholders and that maximizes long-term organizational wealth creation. We propose that if HRPs adopt an ethical stewardship framework and the qualities of transformative leaders, they will be more aware of their ethical duties to their organizations and more effective in helping their organizations to create increased wealth, achieve desired organizational outcomes, and establish work environments that are more satisfying to employees. (shrink)

This paper examines the strategic use of corporate philanthropy in the 1990s by UK building societies faced with an intensification of societal pressure to change legal form from mutual to corporate status. While the economic case for mutuality has been made elsewhere, this paper examines the observation that community relationships were thought by management to be capable of assisting in the strategic positioning of mutual societies with regard to their legal form. By increasing charitable giving to respond to (...) the level of societal scrutiny and discussion on the issue of mutuality, this paper argues that charitable giving, as one proxy for community involvement, was used as a strategic tool to deflect calls for demutualisation, thereby preserving the existing mutual status of building societies. (shrink)

Despite a plethora of laws prohibiting discrimination in employment, supporting and enforcing equal employment opportunity principles has proven to be an enormous challenge for those charged with this responsibility. The question often asked is who should exercise this role in organizations. Not surprisingly, there has been a call for HRM to become the guardian of EEO in organizations but should human resource managers be male or female, and/or would line managers be better positioned to assume this responsibility? This paper overviews (...) the literature and then summarizes an empirical study that attempted to address the possible impact of these options as they exist in organizations. One hundred and eighty respondents who met the criterion of having interviewed one or more job applicants in the previous 6 months were systematically selected from business telephone listings. Based on self-reported behaviors, no significant difference was found between the expected and actual distributions of HR and line managers in respect to whether decisions were made on unlawful grounds. The percentage of each respondent category that asked unlawful questions varied from 1% to 36% depending upon the attribute under consideration. This begs the question as to what value HR managers contribute to EEO in the selection process. The second finding was that significantly less female managers admit to making decisions on the basis of unlawful questions than male managers. Thus, support was found for female line managers as guardians of EEO but no clear justification for HRM in this role. (shrink)

Strategic leadership and corporate sustainability have recently come together in conspicuously explicit fashion through the emergence of top management team positions with dedicated corporate sustainability responsibilities. These TMT positions, commonly referred to as “Chief Sustainability Officers,” have found their way into the upper echelons of many of the world’s largest corporations alongside more traditional TMT positions including the CEO and CFO. We explore this phenomenon and consider the following two questions: Why are corporate sustainability positions being installed to the (...) TMT?What effects do corporate sustainability TMT positions have at their organizations? We consider these questions through strategic leadership and neoinstitutional theoretical frameworks. Through the latter, we also engage with Weberian considerations of bureaucracy. We find that the reasons why corporate sustainability TMT positions are installed can be in response to a crisis at the corporation for which its legitimacy is challenged. We also find the corporate sustainability TMT position can be installed proactively in an effort to realize external opportunities that may have otherwise gone unrealized without concerted attention and coordination afforded by a strategic level position. Regarding effects, we determine the position can relate to the establishment of bureaucratic structures dedicated to corporate sustainability within the corporation through which formalized processes and key performance indicators to drive corporate sustainability performances are established. In the face of our finding that many corporate sustainability TMT positions are being removed despite having only relatively recently been introduced to their respective TMTs, we find that the successful implementation of bureaucratic machinery can help considerations to sustainability extend beyond the tenure of a corporate sustainability position within the TMT. (shrink)

Although political argumentation is not institutionalized in a formal sense, it does have recurrent patterns and characteristics. Its constraints include the absence of time limits, the lack of a clear terminus, heterogeneous audiences, and the assumption that access is open to all. These constraints make creative strategic maneuvering both possible and necessary. Among the common types of strategic maneuvering are changing the subject, modifying the relevant audience, appealing to liberal and conservative presumptions, reframing the argument, using condensation symbols, (...) employing the locus of the irreparable, and argumentative use of figures and tropes. It is difficult to evaluate strategic maneuvering in political argumentation, however, because the activity types dictate wide latitude for the arguers, so there are few cases of unquestionable derailment. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Using the Job Demands-Resources model literature and the life-span theory as scholarly frameworks, we examined the effects of job demands and job resources as mediators in the relationship between bundles of used HRM practices and employee outcomes. In addition, we tested for age differences in our research model. Findings confirmed the hypothesized original 2-factor structure representing maintenance and development HRM practices. Structural Equation Modeling analyses showed that the maintenance HRM bundle related directly and negatively to employee outcomes, without moderating effects (...) of age. However, job resources appeared to mediate this relationship in a positive way as it also did for the development HRM bundle. Whereas this study showed the ‘driving power’ of the actual use of HRM bundles through job resources, regardless of the employee’s age, this study also suggests a ‘dark side’ of HRM. In particular, we found that development HRM bundles may also increase job demands, which, in turn, may result in lower levels of beneficial employee outcomes. These empirical outcomes demonstrate the strength of the driving power eliciting from job resources preceded by any HRM bundle. Moreover, this effect appears to apply to employees of all ages. Our moderated-mediation model appeared robust for several control variables. Overall, this study provides an extension of the well-known Job Demands-Resources model by including maintenance and development bundles of HRM practices used by employees that have a differential effect on job demands and job resources which in turn have an impact on employee outcomes. (shrink)

In this book I examine various forms of indeterminacy in the law and scrutinize (i.a. by way of game theoretical models) the conditions under which they can be strategically used. In particular, I analyze the advantages and disadvantages of indeterminacy in the wording of laws, contracts, and verdicts. Legal texts are particularly interesting insofar as they address a heterogeneous audience, are applied in a variety of unforeseeable circumstances and must, at the same time, lay down clear and unambiguous standards. I (...) argue for the claim that semantic vagueness is less relevant than commonly supposed in the debate, while other forms of indeterminacy (in particular, polysemy and standard-relativity) are underrated or altogether ignored. This misconception is, as I argue, due to a systematic confusion between semantic vagueness and these forms of indeterminacy. Once it is resolved, the value of indeterminacy can be clearly shown. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify the strategic sensitivity and its impact on enhancing the creative behavior of Palestinian NGOs in Gaza Strip, and the study used the descriptive analytical approach and the questionnaire as a main tool for collecting data from employees of associations working in Gaza Strip governorates, and the cluster sample method was used and the sample size reached (343) individuals (298) questionnaires were retrieved, and the following results were reached: The relative weight of strategic sensitivity (...) was 79.22 (%), and the relative weight of creative behavior was 78.99 (%), a statistically significant relationship between all strategic sensitivity and creative behavior, and the presence of a sensitivity effect The strategy’s strategy on creative behavior, there are statistically significant differences in the scale dimensions attributable to the gender variable and the differences were in favor of females, there are no statistically significant differences between the averages of strategic sensitivity due to the age variable, and the educational qualification, and there were no statistically significant differences in creative behavior according to The gender variable, age, educational qualification, specialization, and the study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: the need for civil organizations in Gaza Strip to seek funding from external countries in order to provide self-income for associations to face crises and give them independence Mechanism in order to keep them to carry out their role in society, the need to follow up the strategic plan of civil organizations using e-mails as they pave the way to reach excellence and creativity in the field of work. (shrink)

The very idea of human resource management raises ethical considerations: What does it mean to us as humans for human beings to be managed as resources? Intriguingly, the field of ethics and HRM remains underdeveloped. Current approaches to HRM fail to place ethical considerations as their central warrant. This article, building on Greenwood (J Bus Ethics 36(3):261–279, 2002), argues for a deeper analysis of ethical issues in HRM, indeed for a differentiated ethical perspective of HRM that sets normative deliberations as (...) its prime task. By identifying a distinct ethical approach to HRM that is unashamedly normative and socio-politically embedded, two objectives can be achieved. First, mainstream and critical approaches will be challenged to take ethical issues in HRM more seriously. Second, a dedicated forward-looking research agenda for the ethical analysis of HRM will be advanced. (shrink)

The debate about the Strategic Foul has been rumbling on for several decades and it has predominantly been fought on moral grounds. The defenders claim that the rules of a game must be supplemented by the ‘ethos’ of the game, by its conventions or informal rules. Critics of the Strategic Foul argue that to break the rules deliberately, in order to gain an advantage, is morally wrong, spoils the game, or is a form of cheating. Rather than entering (...) the moral maze I will argue that the Strategic Foul rests on a conceptual mistake. I will contrast the Strategic Foul with the idea of Efficient Breach in the economic approach to law in order to bring out some of the salient features. While doing so I will attempt some cross-fertilisation between jurisprudential insights and philosophical reflection on game rules. Finally, I will re-cast Searle’s distinction between constitutive and regulative rules in order to bring out the conceptual mistake more clearly. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this wide-ranging interview, Bob Jessop discusses the development of, and many of the main themes in, his work over the last fifty years. He explains how he became interested in realism and Marxism; and he describes the various influences on his highly influential theory of the state. The discussion explores his strategic-relational approach, his thoughts on regulation theory, variegated capitalism, post-disciplinarity, cultural political economy and his ‘spatial-turn’, as well as neoliberalism, contemporary events and looming problems of climate (...) change and crisis. (shrink)

Examining previous discussions on how to construe the concepts of gender and race, we advocate what we call strategic conceptual engineering. This is the employment of a (possibly novel) concept for specific epistemic or social aims, concomitant with the openness to use a different concept (e.g., of race) for other purposes. We illustrate this approach by sketching three distinct concepts of gender and arguing that all of them are needed, as they answer to different social aims. The first concept (...) serves the aim of identifying and explaining gender-based discrimination. It is similar to Haslanger’s well-known account, except that rather than offering a definition of ‘woman’ we focus on ‘gender’ as one among several axes of discrimination. The second concept of gender is to assign legal rights and social recognitions, and thus is to be trans-inclusive. We argue that this cannot be achieved by previously suggested concepts that include substantial gender-related psychological features, such as awareness of social expectations. Instead, our concept counts someone as being of a certain gender solely based on the person’s self-identification with this gender. The third concept of gender serves the aim of personal empowerment by means of one’s gender identity. In this context, substantial psychological features and awareness of one’s social situation are involved. While previous accounts of concepts have focused on their role in determining extensions, we point to contexts where a concept’s role in explanation and moral reasoning can be more important. (shrink)

This book brings together emerging perspectives from organization theory and management, environmental sociology, international regime studies, and the social studies of science and technology to provide a starting point for discipline-based studies of environmental policy and corporate environmental behavior. Reflecting the book’s theoretical and empirical focus, the audience is two-fold: organizational scholars working within the institutional tradition, and environmental scholars interested in management and policy. Together this mix forms a creative synthesis for both sets of readers, analyzing how environmental policy (...) and organizational practices are shaped, spread and contested. (shrink)

Corporate philanthropy describes the action when a corporation voluntarily donates a portion of its resources to a societal cause. Although the thought of philanthropy invokes feelings of altruism, there are many objectives for corporate giving beyond altruism. Meeting strategic corporate objectives can be an important if not primary goal of philanthropy. The purpose of this paper is to share insights from a strategic corporate philanthropic initiative aimed at increasing the pool of frontline customer contact employees who are performance-ready, (...) while supporting curriculum development and infrastructure improvement for selected university business programs, creating a win-win situation for the company and the universities. This paper will address three objectives. First, we will examine the evolution of strategic philanthropy from the traditional view to its current position as a strategic option. Second, we will address the recruitment of front line talent needs (customer facing jobs in sales, customer service, and marketing) based on the profit maximization model of strategic philanthropy. Finally, we will offer conclusions and issues for future research. (shrink)

Strategic Reliabilism is a framework that yields relative epistemic evaluations of belief-producing cognitive processes. It is a theory of cognitive excellence, or more colloquially, a theory of reasoning excellence (where 'reasoning' is understood very broadly as any sort of cognitive process for coming to judgments or beliefs). First introduced in our book, Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment (henceforth EPHJ), the basic idea behind SR is that epistemically excellent reasoning is efficient reasoning that leads in a robustly reliable (...) fashion to significant, true beliefs. It differs from most contemporary epistemological theories in two ways. First, it is not a theory of justification or knowledge – a theory of epistemically worthy belief. Strategic Reliabilism is a theory of epistemically worthy ways of forming beliefs. And second, Strategic Reliabilism does not attempt to account for an epistemological property that is assumed to be faithfully reflected in the epistemic judgments and intuitions of philosophers. If SR makes recommendations that accord with our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions, great. If not, then so much the worse for our reflective epistemic judgments and intuitions. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to analyze the relationships between theories of strategic design and participatory design, in multiple commercial alliances between local entrepreneurs from different sectors and their integrated application in the urban context. Various authors have dealt with these strategic issues in isolation and less frequently have addressed them from the entrepreneurial experience. A review of the specific literature allows us to account for the main concepts involved in this approach. The case being analyzed refers (...) to a fitness-related venture in the city of La Plata, which articulated, together with other local actors, a collaborative strategy that led to the application of a superior business model for its sector. In addition, he capitalized on his role as an influencer on the social network Instagram, as a way to enhance the project’s comprehensiveness. The topics that are addressed synthesize the key concepts that allow us to interpret the praxis relieved. And from them, create a model that can be applied in other markets and territories to promote young local development. And in this way, different actors, complementary products and services serve to jointly promote a co-productive and self-managed culture. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to give an account and a rational reconstruction of the heuristic advice provided by Aristotle in the Topics and Prior Analytics in regard to the difficulty or ease of strategic planning in the context of a dialectical dialogue. The general idea is that a Questioner can foresee what his refutational syllogism would have to look like given the character of the thesis defended by the Answerer, and therefore plan accordingly. A rational reconstruction of (...) this advice will be attempted from three perspectives: strategic planning based on the acceptability of Answerer’s thesis, strategic planning based on the predicational form of the thesis, strategic planning based on the logical form of the thesis. In addition, we will provide an illustration of the potential of this heuristic advice as we apply it to the interpretation of a fragment from Plato, presuming that, in a similar way, a reading of this kind might be more generally applicable in the interpretation of the Platonic dialogues. (shrink)

We highlight how Corporate Social Responsibility can be strategically used against the negative perception from earnings management. Using international data, we analyse the effect of CSR and EM on the cost of capital and corporate reputation. Results confirm that CSR strategy is positively valued by investors and other stakeholders. Contrary to EM, CSR has a positive effect on corporate reputation and lowers the cost of capital. In addition, we also find that the favourable effect of CSR on cost of capital (...) is consistently more intense in firms that show signs of EM indicating that the market does not identify when CSR practices are used as a strategy to mask EM. We also demonstrate how institutional factors influence the above relationship. (shrink)

Despite the ongoing consideration of the ethical nature of human resource management (HRM), little research has been conducted on how morality and ethics are represented in the discourse, activities and lived experiences of human resource (HR) professionals. In this paper, we connect the thinking and lived experiences of HR professionals to an alternative ethics, rooted in the work of Bauman (Modernity and the Holocaust, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1989; Theory, Culture and Society 7:5-38, 1990; Postmodern Ethics, Blackwell, Oxford, 1991; Approaches to (...) Social Enquiry, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1993; Life in Fragments, Blackwell, Oxford, 1995) and Levinas (Otherwise than Being, or, Beyond Essence, Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh, PA, 1998). We argue that the study of HRM and ethics should be contextualized within the discourses used, the practices and activities of HR professionals. Through the analysis of interview data from 40 predominantly Canadian HR practitioners and managers we experiment with Bauman's notion of 'moral impulse' to help us understand how HRM is both a product and perpetuator of moral neutralization in organizations. We suggest that HRM as it is practiced is concerned with distancing, depersonalizing, and dissembling, and acts in support of the 'moral' requirements of business, not of people. However, we also recognize that HR practitioners and managers are often confronted with and conflicted by actions and decisions that they are required to take, therefore opening possibilities and hope for an alternative ethical HRM. (shrink)

There are two different, and somewhat competing, strategic explanations for why firms certify for ISO 14001. On the one hand, firms may seek to reinforce their present strategies thereby further enhancing their competitive advantage. On the other hand, firms may use ISO 14001 as a mechanism to reorient their strategies, so that a clear signal is sent about the firm's change in strategic positioning. This paper aims to identify the most likely explanation for early adopters of ISO 14001. (...) Using a matched pair design, we test these alternative explanations on a sample of US firms that certified for ISO 14001 in the first two years after its introduction. In particular, we tested whether ISO 14001 was used to reinforce or reorient firm strategies in respect to the natural environment, corporate social responsibility, quality, and internationalization. We found that firms that certified early for ISO 14001 had considerable environmental legitimacy and a strong international presence. We also found that the firm's commitment to corporate social responsibility and quality were not significantly different between certified and non-certified firms. These findings suggest that early adopters of ISO 14001 leaned towards reinforcing rather than reorienting their firm strategy, which calls into question the ultimate reach of ISO 14001. (shrink)