Stakeholder theory has largely been anthropocentric in its focus on human actors and interests, failing to recognise the impact of nonhumans in business and organisations. This leads to an incomplete understanding of organisational contexts that include key relationships with nonhuman animals. In addition, the limited scholarly attention paid to nonhumans as stakeholders has mostly been conceptual to date. Therefore, we develop a stakeholder theory with animals illustrated through two ethnographic case studies: an animal shelter and Nordic husky businesses. We focus (...) our feminist reading of Driscoll and Starik’s (J Bus Ethics 49:55–73, 2004) stakeholder attributes for nonhumans and extend this to include affective salience built on embodied affectivity and knowledge, memories, action and care. Findings reveal that nonhuman animals are important actors in practice, affecting organisational operations through human–animal care relationships. In addition to confirming animals are stakeholders, we further contribute to stakeholder theory by offering ways to better listen to nontraditional actors. (shrink)

This paper brings empirical and theoretical studies of ethical leadership into conversation with one another in an effort to determine the antecedent to perceived ethical leadership. Employing a Levinasian perspective, I argue that ethical leadership entails being faced with the impossible task of realizing the needs of many individual others. For this reason, I argue, perceived ethical leadership is grounded in an employee’s perception that a leader struggles to make decisions based on the conflicting demands placed upon her. More important (...) than the result of a leader’s decision is the degree to which the leader demonstrates concern for the well-being of others in her decision-making process. I ground my discussion through reference to results of empirical studies on behaviors associated with ethical leadership, including Brown, Treviño, and Harrison, Kalshoven, Den Hartog, and De Hoogh, and Treviño, Hartman, and Brown. I identify several mediating factors which may influence employee perception of ethical leadership, proposing avenues for further research which can help to clarify the relationship between concrete leadership behaviors and perceived ethical leadership. (shrink)

Posthuman affirmative ethics relies upon a fluid, nomadic conception of the ethical subject who develops affective, material and immaterial connections to multiple others. Our purpose in this paper is to consider what posthuman affirmative business ethics would look like, and to reflect on the shift in thinking and practice this would involve. The need for a revised understanding of human–animal relations in business ethics is amplified by crises such as climate change and pandemics that are related to ecologically destructive business (...) practices such as factory farming. In this analysis, we use feminist speculative fiction as a resource for reimagination and posthuman ethical thinking. By focusing on three ethical movements experienced by a central character named Toby in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy, we show how she is continually becoming through affective, embodied encounters with human and nonhuman others. In the discussion, we consider the vulnerability that arises from openness to affect which engenders heightened response-ability to and with, rather than for, multiple others. This expanded concept of subjectivity enables a more relational understanding of equality that is urgently needed in order to respond affirmatively to posthuman futures. (shrink)

The global dairy industry is undergoing a period of expansion and consolidation, alongside heightened critique and competition from non-dairy alternatives. This review identifies four key megatrends within the global dairy sector, focusing in on the socioecological challenges associated with each. The megatrends were identified through a literature review of recent publications within the dairy science and social science fields, as well as a review of grey literature from intergovernmental and institutional reports. Key findings include geographical range shifts in production and (...) consumption of dairy milk from the Global North to the Global South; intensification of production agendas that strive for mechanisation, standardisation, and corporatisation of the sector; increasing awareness of the ecological impacts of intensive dairying; and finally, disruptions to the sector driven by plant-based milks and, potentially, synthetic milks. We identify under-researched socioecological challenges associated with each of these trends. Although dairy milk may be homogenous in its final form, the sector remains heterogenous in its impacts across spaces, places, and scales, as increasingly intensive dairying systems fundamentally reshape human–cattle relations. The combined impacts of these trends bring into question the mythologies of milk and the assumed desirability of ever-expanding dairy industries. Our review finds that the future of dairy is not clear nor uncontroversial and that more attention needs to be directed to maximising and broadening the social benefits of the dairy and dairy alternatives, minimising the human and non-human costs, and limiting contributions to global climate change. (shrink)