In multicultural situations it is common for people to feel that their usual modes of coping are insufficient. They experience what is here called diversity stress. Today diversity stress is widely experienced in part because key management assumptions involving moral judgments are changing. Understanding diversity stress as a type of morality stress suggests particular patterns of causation, and of productive and counterproductive reactions on the part of individuals and organizations. – Deciding whom to appoint to a challenging new position in (...) Europe, a manager passes over an Asian employee and gives the job to a white male. He worries that there may be some prejudice in his own Judgment. – Because she wants to see more minorities in visible positions, a manager promotes a slightly less qualified minority candidate over a majority candidate, all the while feeling guilty. – A male manager hesitates to hug a longtime employee who has just lost her mother. (shrink)

Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) and quasi-autonomous non-governmental organizations (quangos) comprise a powerful organizational sector that has been criticized for its lack of accountability to governments and their citizens. These organizations are established to serve the public as a whole by targeting the needs of particular groups or fulfilling specific functions. Often they use practices adopted from the business sector, and sometimes they enter the marketplace as profitmaking enterprises. In light of the contribution of GSE Fannie Mae to the 2008 world economic (...) crisis, the impact of this sector on effective democratic government bears further examination. In this article, I present a systems model that suggests how researchers might comprehensively assess the accountability of organizations in this sector, here termed the "gray sector," with respect to their government missions. I focus on four systems dimensions: mission, organizational design, organizational outcomes, and the information feedback process. Organizational design and the nature of the sector population are cited as emerging issues of particular importance. (shrink)

In recent years the benefit corporation has emerged as a new organizational form dedicated to legitimizing the pursuit of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Eschewing traditional governmental authority, the benefit corporation derives its moral legitimacy from the values of its owners and the oversight of a third party evaluator. This research identifies the benefit corporation as a new type of gray sector organization (GSO) and applies extant theory on GSOs to analyze its design. In particular, it shows how the theory of (...) GSO accountability can be used to assess the potential of benefit corporations for enhancing CSR. This research first examines the statutes that have established benefit corporations in five states in the US, along with bills in other states, to show how legislation defines their specific public benefits and holds them accountable for delivering these benefits. It then compares the accountability of the benefit corporation with that of other corporate - centric GSOs, e.g., GSOs that closely resemble traditional corporations. It concludes with significant design-based concerns about the utility of the benefit corporation as an effective organization for implementing CSR. (shrink)