Decision outcomes sometimes result in negative emotions. This can occur when a decision appears to be wrong in retrospect, and/or when the obtained decision outcome does not live up to expectations. Regret and disappointment are the two emotions that are of central interest in the present article. Although these emotions have a lot in common, they also differ in ways that are relevant to decision making. In this article we review theories and empirical findings concerning regret and disappointment. We first (...) discuss how regret and disappointment differ with respect to their antecedent conditions, appraisals, and phenomenology. We also discuss possible behavioural consequences of experiencing these emotions. Next, we consider how the anticipation of regret and disappointment may influence decision making. We use regret and disappointment theory, developed by the economists Bell (1982, 1985), and Loomes and Sugden (1982, 1986, 1987), as a framework for our discussion. Finally, we argue that combining the theoretical approaches and research paradigms of behavioural decision theory with emotion theories will significantly increase our knowledge of antecedents and consequences of emotions. (shrink)

Regret and disappointment have in common the fact that they are experienced when the outcome of a decision is unfavourable: They both concern “what might have been”, had things been different. However, some regret and disappointment theorists regard the differences between these emotions as important, arguing that they differ with respect to the conditions under which they are felt, and how they affect decision making. The goal of the present research was to examine whether and how these emotions also differ (...) with respect to the way in which they are experienced. Participants were asked torecall aninstance of intense regret or disappointment andto indicate what they felt, thought, felt like doing, did, and were motivated to do during this experience (cf. Roseman, Wiest, & Swartz, 1994). Significant differences between regret and disappointment were found in every category. These differences were most pronounced for “action tendencies” (what participants felt like doing) and “emotivations” (what they were motivated to do). These results suggest that the two emotions have differential implications for future behaviour. (shrink)

To advance current knowledge on ethical decision-making in organizations, we integrate two perspectives that have thus far developed independently: the organizational identification perspective and the ethical climate perspective. We illustrate the interaction between these perspectives in two studies, in which we presented participants with moral business dilemmas. Specifically, we found that organizational identification increased moral decision-making only when the organization’s climate was perceived to be ethical. In addition, we disentangle this effect in Study 2 from participants’ moral identity. We argue (...) that the interactive influence of organizational identification and ethical climate, rather than the independent influence of either of these perspectives, is crucial for understanding moral decision-making in organizations. (shrink)

Physicians frequently encounter situations in which their professional practice is intermingled with moral affordances stemming from other domains of the physician’s lifeworld, such as family and friends, or from general morality pertaining to all humans. This article offers a typology of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ as well as a new theoretical framework for dealing with them. We start out by arguing that established theories of professional ethics do not offer sufficient guidance in situations where professional ethics overlaps (...) with moral duties of other origins. Therefore, we introduce the moral theory developed by Christine M. Korsgaard, that centres around the concept of practical identity. We show how Korsgaard’s account offers a framework for interpreting different types of moral conflicts ‘at the margins of professionalism’ to provide either orientation for solving the conflict or an explanation for the emotional and moral burden involved in moral dilemmas. (shrink)

Often institutions or individuals are faced with decisions where not all claims can be satisfied. Sometimes, these claims will be of differing strength. In such cases, it must be decided whether or not weaker claims can be aggregated in order to collectively defeat stronger claims. Many are attracted to a view, which this chapter calls Limited Aggregation, where this is sometimes acceptable and sometimes not. A new version of this view, Local Relevance, has recently emerged. This chapter seeks to explore (...) and evaluate this view. In order to do so, the chapter offers a more precise interpretation of this basic approach, calling it ‘Sequential Claims-Matching’. The chapter shows how Sequential Claims-Matching avoids problems that dog other Limited Aggregation views but suffers from difficulties and ambiguities of its own. In particular, the chapter shows that it is hard to accommodate some core Limited Aggregation intuitions around tie-break cases within the Local Relevance view. (shrink)

Given the high prevalence and dramatic impact of being bullied at school, it is crucial to get more insight into how teachers can reduce bullying. So far, few instruments have measured elementary teachers’ responses to bullying. This study investigated the validity of the student-reported Teachers’ Responses to Bullying Questionnaire. The factor structure and measurement invariance were tested across two educational contexts among fourth and fifth grade students from Italy and Belgium. Furthermore, associations between student-perceived teachers’ responses and students’ bullying behavior (...) were examined. Confirmatory Factor Analysis supported the predicted five-factor structure, distinguishing Non-Intervention, Disciplinary Methods, Group Discussion, Mediation, and Victim Support. A partial factor means invariance model was found, allowing for valid comparisons between the Italian and Belgian educational contexts. Significant associations were found between self-reported, but not peer-nominated, bullying behavior and most student-perceived teachers’ responses. (shrink)

The European Corporate Sustainability Framework (ECSF) is, among other concepts, based on a phase-wise development approach as described by Clare Graves' Levels of Existence Theory. As much as corporate sustainability has a sequence of adequate interpretations, aligned with each development level, also the notion of business excellence can be defined at multiple levels, as this paper demonstrates. Furthermore, the authors analyze the current EFQM Excellence Model for particular biases towards various development levels and suggest a new and innovative two-step approach (...) to assessing organizational performance with respect to organizational excellence (OE) and corporate sustainability. According to the organization's ambition, the assessment is either limited to a shareholder approach, mainly focusing at optimal usage of resources, or it also includes an additional assessment format based on the stakeholder approach, with specific reference to the organization's performance on the financial, social and ecological bottom line. This paper demonstrates the need and feasibility of an EFQM-Based assessment tool with a combined focus on corporate sustainability and OE. (shrink)

The Uninhabitable Earth has one of the most arresting book covers I have ever seen: a single dead honeybee against a clinically white background. If that does not send a chill down your spine, then...

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis in the Netherlands a shortness of intensive care beds was looming. Dutch professional medical organizations asked a group of ethicists for assistance in drafting guidelines and criteria for selection of patients for intensive care treatment in case of absolute scarcity, when medical selection criteria would no longer suffice. This article describes the Dutch context, the process of drafting the advice and reflects on the role of ethicists and lessons learned. We argue that timely (...) interaction between clinical and ethical expertise is necessary since the distinction between medical and non-medical considerations is not as clearcut as sometimes assumed. Furthermore, pragmatic considerations related to the specifics of an epidemic are of importance, for example, in relation to prioritizing health care workers. As a consequence, any protocol already present before the pandemic would need alterations to fit the current situation. The ‘fair innings’ criterion we proposed, rephrased as an argument of intergenerational solidarity, was considered reasonable by professionals as well as patient organizations. While it is desirable to draft ethical guidelines in ‘peacetime’ as a matter of pandemic preparedness, the pressure of an actual crisis facilitates decision-making, although it will also complicate a more democratic approach. (shrink)

Libertarian paternalism involves the idea that it is justified to shape the context in which people make important choices in a way that they are nudged to options that would be better for them, wh...

This article gives a practice-based and theoretical overview of the transformation from a traditional hierarchical organization in the care and cure sector towards a so-called Community-driven organization providing human happiness to 6000 elderly people. The actual case study is intertwined with conceptual information for better understanding of the innovative transition which took place at Humanitas. The case description includes its initial situation, its new core values, mission and objectives and shows the sequence of emerging policies and interventions that resulted in (...) a stakeholder oriented business model for the care sector. The selected concepts are Graves' Emerging Cyclical Level of Existence Theory (or Spiral Dynamics), Ken Wilber's Four Quadrant Model, Roberts Simons' Four Levers of Control and various elements from the European Corporate Sustainability Framework sponsored by the European Commission. The conclusion marks the match between theory and practice in transforming Humanitas Rotterdam into providing cure, care, housing and well-being to elderly people. (shrink)

In depicting five “spheres of morality” occupied by physicians Doernberg and Troug provide an impressive analysis on physicians’ various commitments and role conflicts which are excellently illustr...

Distributed agile teams are increasingly employed in organizations, partly due to the increased focus on digital transformation. However, research findings about the performance of such teams appear to be inconsistent, calling for more research to investigate the conditions under which distributed agile teams may thrive. Given that task coordination is particularly challenging when team members are not co-located, the present study investigates the roles of the two types of task interdependence, i.e., initiated versus received task interdependence. Survey results from 191 (...) participants working in distributed agile teams within three companies in Norway confirm our hypotheses. Specifically, we show that high initiated task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of others, while received task interdependence is associated with higher role clarity of self, and that both subsequently result in higher team performance in distributed agile teams. Thus, we argue that each type of task interdependence contributes in a unique way to team performance in distributed agile teams. (shrink)

This paper proposes a framework for understanding and analysing online social resistance movements based on Hilde Lindemann’s concept of counterstories (Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair, 2003). This framework is based on the premise that we shape our identities in shared social spaces, and that such shared spaces are structured according to so-called ‘master narratives’. Master narratives define the ‘realm of possible identities’ that we can assume, and form the basis for either recognizing or denying recognition to various social groups in specific (...) roles that they might occupy. Social oppression occurs when master narratives preclude or forbid a certain form of self-expression, or alternatively force members of a specific social group into a determinate societal role (say, women who receive recognition only in the roles of mother or housewife). Counterstories serve as a corrective to these aspects of oppression by challenging the oppressive facets of master narratives. Based on this framework, I propose an interpretation of the #MeToo movement as a counterstory that aims to change the oppressive aspects of the patriarchal master narrative that (partially) structures many shared social spaces in the modern Western world. I end this paper by applying the framework to consider potential obstacles #MeToo may encounter as a distinctively online movement. (shrink)

Harry G. Frankfurt has put the problem of volitional conflict at the center of philosophical attention. If you care fundamentally about your career and your family, but these cares conflict, this conflict undermines the coherency of your decision standard and thereby your ability to choose and act autonomously. The standard response to this problem is to argue that you can overcome volitional conflict by unifying your foundational motivational states. As Frankfurt puts it, the ‘totality of things that an agent cares (...) about’ plus his ‘ordering of how important to him they are effectively specifies his answer to the question of how to live’ (The Reasons of Love(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 23). In this paper, I critically assess the three main reasons given for such a coherency requirement: 1) we can do only one action at a time; 2) our motivational states come with normative pressure towards coherency; and 3) conflicting motivational states provide us with an incoherent decision-making framework. I conclude that these reasons do not ground a coherency requirement for practical deliberation and argue that we can autonomously express ourselves as volitionally conflicted by acting on our conflicting motivational states over the course of multiple actions. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of the contemporary debate on the concepts and definitions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability (CS). The conclusions, based on historical perspectives, philosophical analyses, impact of changing contexts and situations and practical considerations, show that "one solution fits all"-definition for CS(R) should be abandoned, accepting various and more specific definitions matching the development, awareness and ambition levels of organizations.

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors-in-chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialog around the theme Bringing Excitement to Empirical Business Ethics Research (inspired by the title of the commentary by Babalola and van Gils). These editors, considering the diversity of empirical approaches in business ethics, envisage a future in which (...) quantitative business ethics research is more bold and innovative, as well as reflexive about its techniques, and dialog between quantitative and qualitative research nourishes the enrichment of both. In their commentary, Babalola and van Gils argue that leadership research has stagnated with the use of too narrow a range of perspectives and methods and too many overlapping concepts. They propose that novel insights could be achieved by investigating the lived experience of leadership (through interviews, document analysis, archival data); by focusing on topics of concern to society; by employing different personal, philosophical, or cultural perspectives; and by turning the lens on the heroic leader (through “dark-side” and follower studies). Taking a provocative stance, Bal and Garcia-Lorenzo argue that we need radical voices in current times to enable a better understanding of the psychology underlying ethical transformations. Psychology can support business ethics by not shying away from grander ideas, going beyond the margins of “unethical behaviors harming the organization” and expanding the range of lenses used to studying behavior in context. In the arena of finance and business ethics, Guedhami, Liang, and Shailer emphasize novel data sets and innovative methods. Significantly, they stress that an understanding the intersection of finance and ethics is central to business ethics; financial equality and inclusion are persistent socio-economic and political concerns that are not always framed as ethics issues, yet relevant business policies and practices manifest ethical values. Finally, Charles Cho offers his opinion on the blurry line between the “ethical” versus “social” or “critical” aspects of accounting papers. The Journal of Business Ethics provides fertile ground for innovative, even radical, approaches to quantitative methods (see Zyphur and Pierides in J Bus Ethics 143(1):1–16, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3549-8, 2017), as part of a broad goal of ethically reflecting on empirical research. (shrink)

Blood service organizations employ various ways to ensure transfusion blood safety, including the testing of all donations for transfusion-transmissible infections (TTI) and the exclusion of donors who are at increased risk of a recent infection. As some TTIs are more common among men who have sex with men (MSM), many jurisdictions (temporarily) defer the donation of blood by sexually active MSM. This boils down to a categorical exclusion of a large group solely on the basis of their sexual orientation, which (...) is seen as unduly discriminatory and stigmatizing. Blood service organizations in the U.K. and the Netherlands have recently changed their deferral policies for MSM. The problem of the MSM deferral involves a conflict between fundamental rights: the right of MSM to equal treatment and the right to health of the recipients of blood and blood products. We distinguish and discuss three broad alternative options to the current categorical deferral of MSM donations: (1) completely abandoning donor selection on the basis of sexual behavior, (2) individual risk assessment of the sexual activities of each potential donor, and (3) individual risk assessment of the sexual activities of MSM only. The new U.K. policy falls within the second category, and the new Dutch policy is in the third category. We argue that each approach comes with moral costs but that the most reasonable option is different from the policies of both the U.K. and the Netherlands. (shrink)

Online crowdsourcing platforms have rapidly become a popular source of data collection. Despite the various advantages these platforms offer, there are substantial concerns regarding not only data validity issues, but also the ethical, societal, and global ramifications arising from the prevalent use of online crowdsourcing platforms. This paper seeks to expand the dialogue by examining both the “internal” aspects of crowdsourcing research practices, such as data quality issues, reporting transparency, and fair compensation, and the “external” aspects, in terms of how (...) the widespread use of crowdsourcing data collection shapes the nature of scientific communities and our society in general. Online participants in research studies are informal workers who provide labor in exchange for remuneration. The paper thus highlights the need for researchers to consider the markedly different political, economic, and socio-cultural characteristics of the Global North and the Global South when undertaking crowdsourcing research involving an international sample; such consideration is crucial for both increasing research validity and mitigating societal inequities. We encourage researchers to scrutinize the value systems underlying this popular data collection research method and its associated ethical, societal, and global ramifications, as well as provide a set of recommendations regarding the use of crowdsourcing platforms. (shrink)

Children who experience well-being are engaging more confidently and positively with their caregiver and peers, which helps them to profit more from available learning opportunities and support current and later life outcomes. The goodness-of-fit theory suggests that children’s well-being might be a result of the interplay between their temperament and the environment. However, there is a lack of studies that examined the association between children’s temperament and well-being in early childhood education and care, and whether this association is affected by (...) ECEC process quality. Using a multilevel random coefficient approach, this study examines the association between toddlers’ temperament and well-being in Norwegian ECEC and investigates whether process quality moderates this association. Results reveal an association between temperament and well-being. Staff-child conflict moderates the association between shyness and well-being, and between activity and well-being. Moreover, high emotional behavioral support moderates the association between activity and well-being. Extra attention should be paid by the staff to these children’s needs. (shrink)

To assert that a 'clash of civilizations' follows inexorably from the different religious convictions at the foundations of Western Judeo-Christian and Arabic-Islamic cultures means to deny that a common political rationality can articulate genuinely universal, albeit culturally situated values. The eleven contributions to the present volume take up this controversy by challenging its premise that the heritage of classical Greek thought is exclusively part of Western political identity. By exploring the tradition of Platonism informing both Arabic-Islamic and Western political thought (...) and intellectual history in key stations in their history, the contributors show how Platonic political theory can still bear fruit in the present day, especially in the context of dialogue between cultures. (shrink)

Bernard Williams' Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is widely regarded as one of the most important works of moral philosophy in the last fifty years. In this outstanding collection of new essays, fourteen internationally-recognised philosophers examine the enduring contribution that Williams's book continues to make to ethics. Required.

Virtue ethics is frequently billed as a remedy to the problems of deontological and consequentialist ethics that Bernard Williams identified in his critique of “the morality system.” But how far can virtue ethics be relied upon to avoid these problems? What does Williams’s critique of the morality system mean for virtue ethics? To answer this question, we offer a more principled characterisation of the defining features of the morality system in terms of its organising ambition—to shelter life against luck. This (...) reveals the system to be multiply realisable: the same function can be served by substantively different but functionally equivalent ideas. After identifying four requirements that ethical thought must meet to function as a morality system, we show that they can also be met by certain constellations of virtue-ethical ideas. We thereby demonstrate the possibility of virtue-ethical morality systems raising problems analogous to those besetting their deontological and consequentialist counterparts. This not only widens the scope of Williams’s critique and brings out the cautionary aspect of his legacy for virtue ethics. It also offers contemporary virtue ethicists a more principled understanding of the functional features that mark out morality systems and lie at the root of their problems, thereby helping them to avoid or overcome these problems. (shrink)

Ernest Mandel theorised the capitalist world economy as an articulated system of capitalist, semi-capitalist and precapitalist relations of production, linked to each other by capitalist relations of exchange and domination by the capitalist world market. This seems to be an interesting starting point for an historically well-founded theory, building on and going beyond Marx's work, of the worldwide expansion of the capitalist mode of production from its origins to the present. In his attempt to formulate his theory, Mandel did not (...) succeed in resolving all difficulties, however. His main works – Marxist Economic Theory and Late Capitalism – show a number of dangling loose ends. The central question is whether these loose ends are merely technical difficulties or whether they reveal fatal flaws in the theory as a whole. In order to come a step closer to answering this question, a conference was organised in Amsterdam, November 2003. This introduction formulates the five, closely interrelated issues that were highlighted at this conference. (shrink)