In this article, we contend that due to their size and emphasis upon addressing external social concerns, the corporate relationship between social enterprises, social awareness and action is more complex than whether or not these organisations engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This includes organisations that place less emphasis on CSR as well as other organisations that may be very proficient in CSR initiatives, but are less successful in recording practices. In this context, we identify a number of internal CSR (...) markers that may be applied to measuring the extent to which internal CSR practices are being observed. These considerations may be contrasted with the evidence that community based CSR activities is often well developed in private sector small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) (Observatory of European SMEs, 2002), a situation which may be replicated in social enterprises especially those that have grown from micro-enterprises embedded in local communities. We place particular emphasis upon the implications for employee management. Underpinning our position is the Aristotelian-informed capabilities approach, a theory of human development and quality of life, developed by Sen (1992; 1999) and Nussbaum (1999) which has been developed further, in an organisational context, (e.g., Cornelius, 2002); Cornelius and Gagnon, 2004; Gagnon and Cornelius, 1999; Vogt, 2005. We contend that the capabilities approach offers additional insights into CSR in social enterprises in general and internal CSR activity in particular. Our article concludes with proposals for future research initiatives and reflections upon social enterprise development from a capabilities perspective. (shrink)
Recent events have raised concerns about the ethical standards of public and private organisations, with some attention falling on business schools as providers of education and training to managers and senior executives. This paper investigates the nature of, motivation and commitment to, ethics tuition provided by the business schools. Using content analysis of their institutional and home websites, we appraise their corporate identity, level of engagement in socially responsible programmes, degree of social inclusion, and the relationship to their ethics teaching. (...) Based on published research, a schema is developed with corporate identity forming an integral part, to represent the macro-environment, parent institution, the business school and their relationships to ethics education provision. This is validated by our findings. (shrink)
James D. Wallace treats moral considerations as beliefs about the right and wrong ways of doing things - beliefs whose source and authority are the same as any ...
In this article, the ability of partnerships to generate goods that enhance the quality-of-life of socially and economically deprived urban communities is explored. Drawing on Rawl's study on social justice [Rawls, J.: 1971, A Theory of Justice (Harvard University Press, Cambridge)] and Sen's capabilities approach [Sen, A.: 1992, Inequality Re-Examined (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA); 1999, Development as Freedom (Oxford University Press, Oxford); 2009, The Idea of Justice (Ellen Lane, London)], we undertake an ethical evaluation of the effectiveness of different (...) approaches to partnership activity in city neighbourhood regeneration. We focus, in particular, on their impact on the social regeneration of disadvantaged communities. Governance of cross-sector partnerships, built upon negotiated values and strong community voice, may result in a greater sense of procedural justice, as well as improvements to orderliness in local neighbourhoods. However, distributive justice, the accumulation of, and access to, goods that enable greater participation in society, remains largely elusive within neighbourhood partnership activity. We conclude that social provision that deals fairly with the causes of disadvantage by enhancing the capabilities of local communities and increasing social capital is likely to be a more effective and sustainable approach for partnerships, despite being a longer-term and more costly endeavour. (shrink)
Challenging the paradigm in ethics -- The spirit of the enterprise -- Social artifacts and ethical criticism -- General and particular in practical knowledge -- Virtues of benevolence and justice.
This book aims to recast the way we think about ethics by defending an alternative to more conventional approaches and illustrating its plausibility through detailed discussions of several important cases. The book is styled as an attack on “Plato’s Thesis”.
Interest in third sector organisations (TSOs) is growing as their role in addressing social regeneration, especially in urban environments, is regarded as crucial by governmental and supra-governmental organisations. The challenge is increased in multicultural environments, where those from ethnic minorities may struggle to participate in the mainstream economy and society more broadly. There is an assumption that TSOs make a positive contribution to the social good of the diverse communities and client groups that they serve. However, although there have been (...) many studies of ethicality in commercial and public sector organisations, few focus on TSOs. Furthermore, black and minority ethnic (BME) TSOs, in particular face specific pressures, caught between the high expectations of their capacity to engage with diverse communities where the public sector has failed and, in common with all TSOs, the struggle to secure the resources necessary to manage their organisations and deliver front-line services. In this article, we investigate how implicitly ethicality is constructed in TSOs, including those with a primary mission to provide support for and services to BME communities. Building on information obtained for 305 TSOs in a post-industrial city we develop a structural equation model (SEM) in order to evaluate the relationships between elements that we argue comprise ethicality. We then assess the manner in which TSOs generally, and BME TSOs specifically, vary in the manner in which they communicate their ethical purpose and the outcomes of their actions. (shrink)
In Quandaries and Virtues, Edmund Pincoffs maintains that we observe a multiplicity of moral norms. A common life in which we participate supplies a context in which many virtues play diverse functional roles. He suggests, without developing the idea, that such a common life provides us with a structure for organizing and harmonizing the many moral norms we attempt to pursue. This essay explores that idea. Bodies of shared practical knowledge, such as medicine and scientific research, provide examples of empirically (...) grounded practices in which people simultaneously observe a plurality of norms that guide them in right practice. The essay develops the idea that morality is in important ways Iike these bodies of technical practical knowledge. It maintains that the origin and source of authority of moral norms is appreciably Iike that of technical norms and that the motivation for observing such norms is fundamentaIly similar. (shrink)
In Quandaries and Virtues, Edmund Pincoffs maintains that we observe a multiplicity of moral norms. A common life in which we participate supplies a context in which many virtues play diverse functional roles. He suggests, without developing the idea, that such a common life provides us with a structure for organizing and harmonizing the many moral norms we attempt to pursue. This essay explores that idea. Bodies of shared practical knowledge, such as medicine and scientific research, provide examples of empirically (...) grounded practices in which people simultaneously observe a plurality of norms that guide them in right practice. The essay develops the idea that morality is in important ways Iike these bodies of technical practical knowledge. It maintains that the origin and source of authority of moral norms is appreciably Iike that of technical norms and that the motivation for observing such norms is fundamentaIly similar. (shrink)
… We learn from anatomy, that the immediate object of power in voluntary motion, is not the member itself which is moved, but certain muscles, and nerves, and animal spirits, and, perhaps, something still more minute and more unknown, through which the motion is successively propagated, ere it reach the member itself whose motion is the immediate object of volition. Can there be a more certain proof, that the power, by which the whole operation is performed … is, to the (...) last degree, mysterious and unintelligible?Recent metaphysical theories, which stress the importance of an agent as a sort of cause, raise again the question of where and how in the chain of events involved in voluntary motion the human agent “immediately” exerts his influence. The matter is still every bit as mystifying as Hume suggests. We know that when a human being moves voluntarily, there are events in his central nervous system which are causes of the motion. Of course, nothing whatever need be known about these events in order to move voluntarily. Either human agents produce these events or they do not. (shrink)
