While studies have investigated the moral issue associated with downsizing, little research attention has been directed to leaders’ behaviors that result in organizational decline and eventually lead them to make a downsizing decision. This study tests a sequence-based model to assess (1) the impact of leaders’ risk-aversion and self-centeredness on organizational decline and downsizing and (2) the impact of organizational and industry decline on organizational downsizing. We address a gap in the decline (...) literature that has only implicitly alluded to leadership characteristics as forerunners of decline. Data collected from 85 firms indicate that both leadership risk-aversion and self-centeredness are significantly related to organizational decline. This results in intensified organizational downsizing. However, industry decline affects downsizing more significantly. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Although unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) in the workplace has been widely researched, studies have focused on its antecedents rather than its outcomes. To fill this gap in the literature, we integrated moral licensing theory and the literature on leader gratitude expression to explore the ethical consequences of UPB. Using a sample of multi-source time-lagged surveys of 206 leader–employee dyads, we found that the pro-organizational nature of UPB fostered employees’ psychological entitlement and thereby increased their likelihood of engaging (...) in subsequent unethical behavior. Leaders’ expressions of gratitude for employee UPB strengthened the relationship between UPB and psychological entitlement, ultimately reinforcing employees’ unethical behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. (shrink)

Dutch decline is usually studied as a topic in economic history: when did it really start, what shape did it take? In this article an attempt is made to show the actual awareness of the strengths and weaknesses of the Dutch economy, in the terms used by participants in three public debates. The classical Dutch discourse of decay and decline evolved in response to national and international political reality. The Bickerse Beroerten debate of 1650 shows the conflict between (...) neo-Roman and neo-Athenian tendencies. Subsequently, the explanation of Dutch decline (the effect of luxury) by the Anglo-Dutch pamphleteer Bernard Mandeville is shown to be markedly different from his advice to the English (to allow luxury). Finally, the 1630s Dutch debate between Lieven de Beaufort and his critics represents the maturing of the Dutch vocabulary of decline, including its failure to take into account the organisational preconditions of modern society. (shrink)

This paper explores the relationship between declining organizations and unethical behavior. Data from a four month long management simulation indicate that declining organizations demonstrate a greater propensity for unethical activities than do more successful companies. The results indicate that: 1) organizations in decline are more likely to be involved in unethical activities; 2) the more severe the decline is, the more unethical the behavior is likely to be; and 3) it is organizational decline and not initial (...) propensities toward unethical conduct that explains the unethical behavior. The paper also discusses the implications of these findings and outlines future streams of research.Honesty is the best policy - When there is money in it. - Mark Twain. (shrink)

The role of ethics in organizational crisis management has received limited but growing attention. However, the majority of research has focused on applications of ethical theories to managing crisis events after they have occurred, as opposed to the implications of ethical theories for the primary prevention of these situations. The relationship between concepts derived from a contemporary ethic of care, pp. 141–158, Gilligan, C.: 1990, ‘Preface’, in C. Gilligan, N. P. Lyons and T. J. Hanmer, pp. 6–29, Gilligan, C.: (...) 1991, ‘Women’s Psychological Development: Implications for Psychotherapy’, in C. Gilligan, A. G. Rogers and D. L. Tolman, pp. 5–32), and, concepts derived from a classic theory of organizational decline and recovery ) is described. The relevance of these notions for signal detection and uptake in organizational crisis prevention is discussed. Implications for prevention are highlighted through consideration of a case involving organizational crisis, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Directions for both business practice and future research are identified. (shrink)

. American businesses and corporate executives are faced with a serious problem the loss of public confidence. Public criticism, increased government controls, and growing expectations for improved financial performance and accountability have accompanied this decline in trust. Traditional approaches to corporate governance, typified by agency theory and stakeholder theory, have been expensive to direct and have focused on short-term profits and organizational systems that fail to achieve desired results. We explain why the organizational governance theories are fundamentally, (...) inadequate to build trust. We advance a conceptual framework based on stewardship theory characterized by “covenantal relationships” and argue that design of governance mechanisms using a covenantal approach is more effective in building trust in organizations. A covenantal relationship is a specialized form of a relational contract between an employee and his or her organization. We argue that regardless of incentives and control mechanisms carefully designed through contractual mechanisms, in the absence of covenantal relationships it is extremely difficult to build trust within organizations. We propose that organizations are more likely to build trust – both at the organizational level and at the interpersonal level – when they create reinforcing and integrated systems that honor implied duties of “covenantal relationships.”. (shrink)

This longitudinal case study reports on a charity in the UK which gained a new CEO who was reported by two middle managers who worked in the charity, to embody all or most of the ten characteristics within a measure of corporate psychopathy. The leadership of this CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score was reported to be so poor that the organisation was described as being one without leadership and as a lost organisation with no direction. This paper outlines (...) the resultant characteristics of the ensuing aimlessness and lack of drive of the organisation involved. Comparisons are made to a previous CEO in the same organisation, who was reportedly an authentic, effective and transformational leader. Outcomes under the CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score were related to bullying, staff withdrawal and turnover as effective employees stayed away from and/or left the organisation. Outcomes also included a marked organisational decline in terms of revenue, employee commitment, creativity and organisational innovativeness. The paper makes a contribution to both leadership and to corporate psychopathy research as it appears to be the first reported study of a CEO with a high corporate psychopathy score. (shrink)

As frequent, violent, and organized peasant protests show, China’s reform regime has lost its once all-powerful control in the countryside. The sharp decline of village cadres’ positional authority in allocating economic resources, which began in post-Mao decollectivization, holds the key to explaining the change. Since the late 1990s, the collapse of village enterprises and the erosion of power over land have cost village cadres their remaining economic levers to engage the villagers as well as their incentives to work for (...) the party-state. The loss of the regime’s grip on village cadres and the loss of command by village cadres on peasants have almost synchronized, causing the traditional structure of organizational control to crumble in vast rural areas. In the new, prevailing patterns of village governance, party power is becoming increasingly irrelevant. (shrink)

Explanations of organizational misconduct frequently point to declining firm performance and/or the actions of unethical or suspect leaders. Evidence that high-performing firms act illegally or unethically is an enigma. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues by exploring organizational performance using aspirational rather than absolute measures and examining the effect that suspect leader succession has on the increased probability of organizational misconduct. Our analysis of 128 collegiate football programs competing between 1953 and 2016 reveals (...) an increased likelihood of misconduct among organizations with strong as well as weak performance, most notably in comparison to competitive peer programs. Social- and self-referenced aspirations produced distinct relationships between relative performance and misconduct. The impact of leader succession was conditional. The data revealed an increased likelihood of infraction episodes with the appointment of suspect leaders. In some instances, however, a reduced likelihood of misconduct accompanied succession events involving untainted leaders. (shrink)

À partir d’une approche anthropologique des prises en charge médicales de la tuberculose et du paludisme, ainsi que des conceptions et usages de la prévention dans des milieux urbains d’Afrique de l’Ouest , ce texte interroge la nature du métier de soignant. Après nous être penchés sur les spécificités de ce type d’étude anthropologique en milieu médical, nous nous attachons à décrypter les processus d’occultations des singularités du malade qui caractérisent les messages et discours de prévention. Dans les structures de (...) santé, sont étudiées les négociations des normes de diagnostic et de traitement à l’œuvre ; les attitudes des soignants qui oscillent entre sur- et sous-estimations des risques sanitaires ; et le hiatus entre la demande et les besoins réels de formations continues. Enfin, nous nous penchons sur la rencontre entre les soignants et les malades qui peut se trouver transformée par les spécificités de la maladie et de son traitement. On constate alors que les fondements de la professionnalisation tendent à disparaître au profit d’un mode de régulation du rapport au malade, au collègue et plus largement au savoir médical qui témoigne de l’émergence d’une culture soignante qui est, de fait, une culture organisationnelle. Elle se caractérise à la fois par la délégation des tâches à des non-professionnels, la production et la résolution des conflits mettant en évidence des réseaux clientélistes ainsi que par une routinisation des gestes.Drawing on an anthropological approach of tuberculosis and malaria care in West African cities , and on an analysis of prevention modes, this paper examines the characteristics of medical work. We first examined the conditions of an anthropological field study in health care centres. The concealment of both patients’ singularities and populations’ specificities targeted in the prevention messages were then studied. The negotiation of diagnosis and treatment standards, and the under- and over-estimations of nosocomial risks were also analysed. We also focused on the gap between demands and actual needs for training, and on the relationships between health care providers and patients, which can be modified by the specificities of the disease. We noticed a decay of professionalization, a kind of regulation of relationships between health care workers and patients, and among medical staff, which expresses an emerging medical culture, which is also an organizational culture. Its main features are the delegation of tasks to non-professionals workers, a strategy of conflict management based on clientelism, and the development of routine action. (shrink)

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between harmonious and obsessive work passion and organizational citizenship behavior as well as the moderating effect of collectivistic values. Using 233 paired supervisor-employee responses from Russia, I found that harmonious work passion and OCB are positively related up to a point, after which higher levels of harmonious work passion are associated with declining OCB. The main curvilinear effect of obsessive work passion on OCB was not significant. Collectivistic (...) values were found to significantly interact with obsessive work passion but not harmonious work passion in the way they affect OCB. Employees who score high on collectivistic values tend to engage more in OCB than those who score low on collectivistic values. Interestingly, at low levels of collectivism, the inverted U-shaped curve illustrates the relations between obsessive passion and OCB changes into a U-shaped curve, suggesting that the highest engagement in OCB will no longer be observed at intermediate levels of obsessive work passion but rather at its lowest and highest levels. The findings contribute to work passion research and suggest that curvilinear rather than linear relationships may exist between work passion and work outcomes, which may account for the existing inconsistencies in the previous studies in regards to whether work passion-outcomes relationships are either positive or negative. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the managerial template that has become the normative model for the organization of the university. In the first part of the paper I explain the corporatization of academic life in terms of the functional relationships that make up the organizational components of the commercial enterprise and their inappropriateness for the life of the academy. Although there is at present a significant body of literature devoted to this issue, the goal of this paper is to (...) explain the genesis of this phenomenon through a reference to the ideology that characterizes our modern secular age. This is the subject of the second part of the paper. Most texts seek to explain this ideological development either through the ever increasing dominance of economic rationalism, perceived conservatism of collegial forms of governance, the necessity to transfer fiscal responsibility in tight budgetary periods, the decline of the Keynesian ‘welfare consensus’, or the legacy of the power regimes that began to take shape in the liberal societies of the 19th century. I trace this development to the beginnings of Modernity and the Cartesian bifurcation that separated the material world from its spiritual and intellectual source and thereby overthrew the hierarchy of related values that informed both nature and human organization. In articulating this argument I make reference to the thought of Jacques Maritain, Charles Taylor and René Guénon. (shrink)

This study compares employee attitudes to their reports of whether they consider their socio-economic status to be higher, the same, or lower than that of their parents. The premise of the research was based on the apparent deterioration of the expectation that each generation will live in greater economic comfort than their parents, referred to as a vital component of the American dream. Where this pattern of socio-economic progress has been interrupted, it may relate to certain attitudes. These attitudes, in (...) turn, are likely to influence behavior. Here the focus is on whether employees' survey responses indicate they are honest, trustworthy, and tolerant. Differences in these characteristics that relate to self-reported socio- economic progress, may serve to explain the occurrence of certain behaviors among people who otherwise seem highly ethical. This information may also help create organizational awareness of the potential for unethical behavior, when employees have been blocked from their own expectations for betterment. (shrink)

Companies often benefit from others’ attributions of moral conviction for prosocial behavior, for example, attributions that a company has a sincere moral desire to improve the environment when behaving sustainably. Across four studies, we explored how organizations’ changing resource positions influenced people’s attributions for the motivations underlying prosocial organizational behaviors. Observers attributed less moral conviction following prosocial behavior when they believed an organization was losing economic resources. This effect was primarily a “penalty” assessed against organizations that were losing resources, (...) as opposed to a “reward” given to organizations gaining resources. Finally, we found that this effect occurred because people perceive organizations that are losing resources as more situationally constrained, leading them to attribute less dispositional moral conviction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications stemming from how changes in resource access can lead people to be more skeptical of organizations’ motivations following prosocial behavior. (shrink)

During the last several decades, business schools have increasingly portrayed themselves as the advocates and teachers of business ethics. In this context, educators have examined, criticized, and written about the questionable actions of many organizations. Business schools are, however, currently facing their own unprecedented crisis in the form of dramatically declining enrollments. This paper examines the morality of the various possible response strategies and argues that how business schools respond to this crisis will serve as a clear indication of their (...) own organizational ethics and values. (shrink)

Organizational members are likely to harbor different allegiances, values, and identifications that can affect how they respond to their organization’s stigmatization. Drawing on the empirical case of a public broadcaster in South Korea initially stigmatized for its association with an authoritarian government, we focus on the responses of different intra-organizational groups to stigma and their interactions with each other and with external audiences. We find that faced with stigma, groups in the organization were divided about how to respond, (...) with those defying the stigma and advocating a close relationship with the government competing with those who shared the values of stigmatizing audiences. Both groups sought control over journalism work, the organizational attribute for which the broadcaster was stigmatized, allying with external audiences that shared their respective visions. The dominance of the group that defied the stigma led to increased stigmatization of the organization by existing audiences and additionally prompted the participation of initially passive audiences in its denigration, eventually leading to organizational decline. We contribute to the literature on stigma by promoting an understanding of heterogeneity among members in stigmatized organizations and its implications for the consequences of stigma. We also contribute to theorizing stigmatization as a relational process by demonstrating how the heterogeneity of organizational members’ experience of stigma interacted with audience heterogeneity and highlighting the relative roles played by active and passive audiences in bringing about the decline of a stigmatized organization. (shrink)

We trace the genealogy of wisdom to show that its status in epistemological and management discourse has gradually declined since the Scientific Revolution. As the status of wisdom has declined, so the status of rational science has grown. We argue that the effects on the practice of management of the decline of wisdom may impede management practice by clouding judgment, degrading decision making and compromising ethical standards. We show that wisdom combines transcendent intellection and rational process with ethics to (...) provide a balanced and integrated way of knowing, deciding and acting for managers in a complex and uncertain business environment. Finally, we discuss the role and value of wisdom across a range of business functions including knowledge management, strategic management, leadership and international business. (shrink)

Why has right-wing activism in Japan, despite its persistence throughout the postwar era, only gained significant traction recently? Focusing on the Zaitokukai, an anti-Korean movement in Japan, this article demonstrates how the new Far Right were able to popularize formerly stigmatized right-wing ideas. The Zaitokukai represents a political group distinct from the traditional right and reflective of new Far Right movements spreading worldwide. In Japan, concerns about the growing influence of South Korea and China in the 1980s as well as (...) the decline of left-wing norms opened up a discursive opportunity for the new Far Right. By framing Korean postcolonial minorities as undeserving recipients of social welfare benefits, the Zaitokukai mobilized perceptions of threat that has continued to powerfully influence public perceptions of Koreans even following the group’s organizational decline. While past research has focused on the new Far Right’s political influence, this article stresses their roles as ideological entrepreneurs. (shrink)

Vera Zasulich’s shooting of Trepov, a governor of St Petersburg who had ordered the flogging of a political prisoner, in January 1878, catapulted her to international fame as a revolutionary heroine, a reputation that she put to good use by becoming one of the five ‘founding parents’ of Russian Marxism that created the ‘Group for the Emancipation of Labour’ in 1883. But her act of self-sacrifice also triggered, to her dismay, the institutionalisation of individual terrorist tactics in the Russian Populist (...) movement with the creation of the ‘People’s Will’ (Narodnaya Volya) Party in 1879. The organisation went into decline after the killing of Tsar Alexander II in 1881, and Populism itself was increasingly superseded by Marxism as the hegemonic force on the left with the rise of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). But individual terrorist tactics reappeared with the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1902, prompting Zasulich to write an article for Die neue Zeit, the theoretical organ of German Social Democracy, in which she both condemned the Neo-Populist tendency as deleterious to the rising labour movement and supported the organisational plans for the RSDLP sponsored by the Iskra group, developed at length by Lenin in his book What Is to Be Done?, published in March 1902. This article provides the background to Vera Zasulich’s article ‘The Terrorist Tendency in Russia’ (December 1902), setting it against the history of the Russian revolutionary movement from 1878 to 1902. (shrink)

While the population expected a quantitative improvement in municipal management, there was, from the outset, a fear of greater centralisation. The policy makers aften did not seem up to their tasks through the lack of experience and because of favouritism. This often led to dissension between the sub-municipalities. Centralisation did not improve the services, unless the council produced the necessary creativity. Difficult problems in the amalgamation concerned the shifting of the financial repercussions ofthe amalgamation onto the population, the further construction (...) of the road system and the infrastructure policy, the restructuring of education, the giving of new stimuli to the social policy, and the involvement of the organisational life in policy formation. The balance can turn positive if the municipal administrations are better assisted, if the demographic decline is halted, if more financial support appears, if the participation of the population is increased, and if more pluralism is achieved in socio-cultural and educational matters. (shrink)

We trace the genealogy of wisdom to show that its status in epistemological and management discourse has gradually declined since the Scientific Revolution. As the status of wisdom has declined, so the status of rational science has grown. We argue that the effects on the practice of management of the decline of wisdom may impede management practice by clouding judgment, degrading decision making, and compromising ethical standards. We show that wisdom combines transcendent intellection and rational process with ethics to (...) provide a balanced and integrated way of knowing, deciding, and acting for managers in a complex and uncertain business environment. Finally, we discuss the role and value of wisdom across a range of business functions including knowledge management, strategic management, leadership and international business. (shrink)

Declining levels of stakeholder trust in business are of concern to business executives and scholars for legitimacy- and performance-related effects. Research in the area of stakeholder trust in business is nascent; therefore, the trust formation process has been rarely examined at the stakeholder level. Furthermore, the role of personal values as one significant influence in trust formation has been under-researched. In this paper, we develop a contingency model for stakeholder trust formation based on the effects of stakeholder-specific vulnerability and personal (...) values of the trustor. Using a factorial vignette methodology, we find that Schwartz’s value set interacts with stakeholder roles so that trustworthiness signals of competence and character play differing roles during trust formation. These results inform stakeholder trust research, organizational trust research, and research in personal values. The research also informs managers tasked with rebuilding stakeholder trust in business. (shrink)

This paper posits that organizational variables are the factors that lead to the moral decline of companies like Enron and Worldcom. The individuals involved created environments within the organizations that precipitated a spiral of unethical decision-making. It is proposed that at the executive level, it is the organizational factors associated with power and decision-making that have the critical influence on moral and ethical behavior. The study has used variables that were deemed to be surrogate measures of the (...) ethical violations (OSHA and EPA violations), the risky shift phenomenon (executive team size), banality of wrong-doing (reputation score for firms) and escalating commitment (tenure with the firm/change in revenue for declining firms). The research found that there were small correlations between ethical violations and the three organizational variables. (shrink)

This article contributes to the literature on legitimacy by highlighting its paradox and constraints. While an optimal level of legitimacy-seeking behaviours may be necessary for organizational effectiveness, an excessive focus on legitimacy may lead to stakeholder mismanagement and have the opposite effect. These insights emerged from a longitudinal qualitative study of large-scale changes in public-sector health care in a Canadian province (1994-2002). In 1994, subordinate health care organizations underwent government-driven reforms to promote market-based logics of efficiency and cost reduction. (...) Initial years post reforms were characterized by a singular focus on government-driven priorities and inattention to other stakeholders. However, instead of giving benefits of legitimacy, these behaviours led to anger and activism from non-institutional stakeholders such as staff and community due to a decline in quality and patient satisfaction. Eventually, greater attention to stakeholder concerns ended the stand-off. These findings also elaborate Suchman's (Academy of Management Review 20(3), 571-610, 1995) framework on legitimacy and explain that legitimacy may occur for reasons other than institutionalization of values and be temporary in nature. (shrink)

Management theory and practice are facing unprecedented challenges. The lack of sustainability, the increasing inequity, and the continuous decline in societal trust pose a threat to ‘business as usual’. Capitalism is at a crossroad and scholars, practitioners, and policy makers are called to rethink business strategy in light of major external changes. In the following, we review an alternative view of human beings that is based on a renewed Darwinian theory developed by Lawrence and Nohria. We label this alternative (...) view ‘humanistic’ and draw distinctions to current ‘economistic’ conceptions. We then develop the consequences that this humanistic view has for business organizations, examining business strategy, governance structures, leadership forms, and organizational culture. Afterward, we outline the influences of humanism on management in the past and the present, and suggest options for humanism to shape the future of management. In this manner, we will contribute to the discussion of alternative management paradigms that help solve the current crises. (shrink)

Employee engagement and spirituality have both been the focus of increasing interest by researchers and practitioners, and both are still early stage theories with ill-defined constructs and definitions. Emergent empirical work related to engagement and spirituality has supported the promise of improving both organizational performance and employee conditions. Responding to the call by theorists to examine engagement antecedents and specifically, the relationship between spirituality and employee engagement, a cross-sectional study was performed to examine self-reported individual spirituality as measured by (...) the DSES and employee engagement measured using the UWES-9 including the dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption. 124 usable surveys were collected from a snowballing convenience sample and after confirming demographic representativeness and identifying the individual’s organizational role as a potential influential variable, analyses of the relationships between individual spirituality, overall engagement, and three individual engagement dimensions were performed using multiple regression controlling for organizational role. Empirical support was found for relationships between individual spirituality and engagement, vigor, and dedication but not for the engagement dimension of absorption. The findings should encourage further future exploration of the relationship between spirituality and engagement and inquiry into why results differ across engagement’s dimensions; specifically, why the relationship was not supported for absorption. The empirical support for spirituality as a predictor of engagement informs practical decisions for addressing workplace spirituality and concerns with the potential to assist in countering the declining engagement trend. (shrink)

With the rise of the knowledge economy, the knowledge content of goods and services is going up just as their material content is declining. Economic value is increasingly seen to reside in the former - that is, in intangible assets - rather than in the latter. Yet we keep wanting to turn knowledge back into something tangible, something with definite boundaries which can be measured, manipulated, appropriated, and traded. In short, we want to reify knowledge. Scholars have been debating the (...) nature of knowledge since the time of Plato. Many new insights have been gained from these debates, but little theoretical consensus has been achieved. Through six thematically linked chapters, the book articulates the theoretical approach to the production and distribution of knowledge that underpins Max Boisot's conceptual framework, the Information Space or I-Space. In this way the book looks to provide theoretical and practical underpinnings to Boisot's book Knowledge Assets.Following an introductory chapter, how knowledge relates to data and information is first examined in chapter 1, and how different economic actors - entrepreneurs, managers, etc - use knowledge as a basis for action is explored in chapter 2. Chapter 3 looks at how the heterogeneity of economic actors arises naturally from their respective data processing strategies in spite of any similarities in the data that they might share. Chapter 4 argues, contra much transaction-based economics, that an organizational order must have preceded a market order, something that should be reflected in any knowledge-based theory of the firm. Chapter 5 discusses the cultural and institutional significance of different kinds of knowledge flows. Finally, chapter 6 presents an agent-based simulation model, SimISpace, that illustrates how the I-Space might be applied to concrete problems such those of intellectual property rights. A concluding chapter proposes a research agenda based on the theorizing developed in the book.The approach the book sets out is used by a whole range of organizations to issues of knowledge management, policy, economics, and organizational and cultural change. (shrink)

High turnover rate is one of the striking features of the hotel industry and one of the most significant challenges. High turnover rate causes substantial costs for recruitment, selection and training in hotels, on the other hand, it also leads to negative consequences such as the decline of organizational performance and service quality. Thus, it is necessary to search for the root causes of turnover and put forward solutions. This study was designed to examine the impact of psychological (...) capital, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction on turnover intention among hotel employees. Additionally, it aimed to test the mediating roles of job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The data were obtained from 228 hotel customer-contact employees with a time lag of two weeks in three waves in Kuala Lumpur based on convenience sampling. A series of structural equation modeling analyses were utilized to investigate hypothesized relationships. The results reveal that there exists a significant and negative impact of PsyCap on employees’ turnover intention and this correlation is partially mediated through two job attitudes. That is to say, to retain hotel talents, five-star hotel management should take proper measures to help employees obtain and maintain positive psychological resources such as PsyCap, on the other hand, how to cultivate positive job attitudes and strengthen their sense of identification and belonging for their organizations is supposed to be more focused on. (shrink)

One of the more interesting counter-intuitive findings in organizational research is that success breeds failure. This counter-intuitive has been described in termsof core rigidities, core incompetencies, and even the Icarus Paradox. The literature on these topics has concluded that success yields overconfidence and myopia in firms and their managers, and this eventually causes failure. We augment this literature by suggesting that success breeds not only internal pathologies that cause firms to misuse their established resources over time, but also external (...) pathologies that cause firms to lose access to new resources. In particular, success influences stakeholders’ perceptions of firms, causing firms to lose the benefits of underdog status and gain the problems of overlord status. We term this notion that success warps images of the successful, leading to their decline over time, the Helios Paradox, and suggest that dominant firms must counter natural tendencies to succumb to both the Icarus and Helios Paradoxes if they are to remain successful over time. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore a critical paradox related to the expression of moral courage in organizations, which is that although morally courageous acts are aimed at fostering collective growth, vitality, and virtue, their initial result is typically one of collective unease, preoccupation, or lapse, reflected in the social ostracism and censure of the courageous member and message. Therefore, this article addresses the questions of why many organizational groups suffer stagnation or decline rather than growth (...) and vitality following acts of moral courage, and what can be done to ameliorate this outcome. A general system, relational psychodynamic perspective through which organizational group members might receive and respond to acts of moral courage is offered, and seven insights emerging from this perspective for fostering collective growth and vitality following acts of moral courage are provided. (shrink)

Increasing the participation of women in top-level corporate boards is high on the agenda of policy-makers. Yet, we know little about director appointment dynamics and the drivers and impediments of women appointments. This study builds on organizational and group-level behavior theories and empirically investigates how ex-ante board structures and gender-specific board dynamics impact the representation of women on corporate boards. We study boards of listed firms in Europe between 2002 and 2019 and find a declining appointment probability for every (...) additional woman, i.e., the share of women already on the board negatively predicts the likelihood of additional women appointments. Further, we find evidence of a replacement effect, i.e., the likelihood of a woman being appointed as director is significantly larger when a woman, compared to when a man, leaves the board. We do not find spillover effects from non-executive to executive boards. These results are robust to econometric model specifications that address potential endogeneity concerns using matching and instrumental variables. Our results confirm that board director appointments are gender specific and suggest that demand-side factors such as explicit and implicit norms drive women appointments up to a certain threshold. (shrink)

Over the past twenty years, traditional commitments of policy analysis to empirical inquiry and expert knowledge have shaped the policy "solution" for addressing a public perception of ethical decline. Separation of facts and values, basic assumptions regarding the limits and fallibility of human reason, and confidence in the use of objective techniques to achieve social control have all contributed to a regulatory approach to ethics policy within our organizations. Few have questioned these assumptions. This dissertation argues that policy addressing (...) the ethical conduct of individuals cannot avoid a discussion of values, cannot reject the importance of human reason in resolving ambiguous ethical dilemmas, and cannot legislate ethical behavior by tightening the legal and bureaucratic system of rules and regulations. ;By integrating the perspectives of moral philosophy and policy inquiry, this dissertation presents a theoretical critique of the influence traditional regulatory policy approaches to organizational ethics can have on individuals within these organizations. An examination of diverse goals associated with ethics policy reveals three perspectives common to public administration debates--ethics policy as a vehicle for demonstrating social responsibility, as a tool of social control , and as window dressing to appease the public and to avoid further regulation . Concluding that morally responsible ethics policy requires the use of an interdisciplinary policy approach, a judgment-focused model is recommended to enable and empower individuals to develop a moral self capable of addressing ambiguous ethical dilemmas as they arise. (shrink)

During sudden school closures in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers had to move to distance teaching. This unprecedented situation could be expected to influence teacher well-being and schools as organizations. This article reports a qualitative study that aims at understanding how changes in teachers’ professional lives that were related to school closure affected Swiss primary teachers’ professional well-being. In semi-structured online-interviews, 21 teachers from 15 schools sampled by snowball method reported their experiences during school closure and distance (...) teaching and how this situation influenced their professional well-being. Results showed that medium to high levels of teacher well-being could accompany a general negative evaluation of the move to distance teaching. Factors such as high work-load, social distancing and feelings of lack of competence and self-efficacy were among the most aversive aspects of distance teaching and associated with deteriorating professional well-being. Among a plethora of factors that supported teachers in maintaining their well-being, contextual work-related aspects such as school resources, collegial support or leadership support along with individual aspects such as resilience, coping strategies, and clear work structures were important. Additionally, it was found that teacher well-being was nourished by positive experiences with the new forms of distance teaching and feelings of professional mastery. Despite methodological limitations, the findings of this study could inform schools and authorities about what is needed to support teacher well-being and might help to develop organizational strategies that aim at preventing harmful declines in teacher well-being during challenging and difficult times such as a pandemic. (shrink)

We are plagued today by a decline in ethical behavior. Scandals come so thick and fast that any attempt to list them is out of date in weeks if not days. But ethics isn’t just a matter of headlines; it’s a part of everyone’s life. We’re called on to make ethical decisions, large and small, all the time. This can be particularly tricky in the workplace, where our decisions can affect not just ourselves but coworkers, clients, customers, and even (...) the entire company. Existing ethics books are of limited use. They generally feature one author’s opinions on very specific situations, which may well have nothing to do with the problems we’re facing. And anyway, we don’t need expert advice. Mark Pastin insists every one of us is qualified to resolve even the thorniest dilemmas ourselves, and in this profoundly practical book he gives us the tools to do just that. Pastin argues that we all have an innate ethical –he calls it “the ethics eye.” The problem is, we’re not aware we have it or how to develop it. Here he provides practical tools we can use to open up our ethics eye so that we can consistently see what is right and do it. Make an Ethical Difference shows how to apply these tools using actual ethical dilemmas drawn from Pastin’s decades of experience as an advisor to governments, corporations, and NGOs. The point is not to try to wedge your situation into one of the examples—it’s to show how a tool that can be applied to any situation is used in one particular instance. And once you’ve reached a decision, Pastin offers strategies for building consensus with those who might disagree with you. People often feel hopeless and skeptical that there is anything they as individuals can do to raise society’s ethical level or resolve long-standing impasses. By using the unique tools in this book, we will gain confidence in our innate ethical sense and take actions that will elevate the ethical level of the groups and organizations we belong to and society as a whole. (shrink)

Public relations practitioners place a premium on loyalty - particularly in terms of cultivating relationships. However, little scholarly research has been done on the subject. This essay analyzes loyalty in terms of organizational deterioration and decline. The ethical dimensions of Hirschman's concept of "exit, voice, and loyalty, " and Royce's notion about loyalty, are explored, as is the concept of "loyalty to loyalty. " The essay concludes with a 7-step model intended to help practitioners determine the demands of (...) ethical loyalty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 261-282 [Access article in PDF] The "Progress of Ambition": Character, Narrative, and Philosophy in the Works of William Robertson Neil Hargraves In his biography of William Robertson, Dugald Stewart claimed that by "few writers of the present age has [the] combination of philosophy with history been more often attempted than by Dr. Robertson; and by none have the inconveniences which it (...) threatens been more successfully avoided." 1 At first sight Stewart's assertion seems puzzling. Arnaldo Momigliano considered Robertson to be less successful than Edward Gibbon in his integration of the three elements of eighteenth-century historical writing, philosophy, narrative, and erudition. 2 Despite Robertson's stated belief that "arrangement" was the principal task of the historian, his organizational framework appeared to foster separation rather than integration. 3 Thus, his central work, The History of the Reign of Charles V (1769), is divided into three discrete parts. An apparently conventional narrative of high politics and diplomacy is prefaced by an essay on medieval Europe, A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, which was regarded by his contemporaries as a classic of "philosophical" history, 4 while [End Page 261] Robertson appended to both copious "Proofs and Illustrations." The structure of The History of America (1777) is even less integrated, despite criticalpraise of its "regular plan... complete narration and perfect whole." 5 To other critics his interpolation of dissertations upon the "condition and character" of the Americans, Mexicans, and Peruvians, seemed to sever the thread of the narrative and consequently to break up the unity of the work. 6 Yet as this paper will seek to demonstrate, there was a vital connection between the narrative and "philosophical" components of Robertson's major histories: the theoretical dissertations served recognizably narrative purposes. The bridge between them lies in the complex notion of character created by the expansion of historical forms in the eighteenth century."Philosophical" history defined itself in opposition to the vacuities and muddles of conventional political-diplomatic historical narrative. Its advantages over narrative were various: the revelation of general rather than particular causes, grounding the history on more certain and less random principles: 7 the penetration of causes "insensible" and invisible to the eyes of a careless observer, obscured by the "great theatre of the world"; 8 a broadening of the subject-matter, away from the mere rehearsal of the struggles between crown and nobility or fixation with constitution and government, towards a more inclusive and heterogeneous history of "manners, including arts, sciences, society" and what today would be termed "mentalities," and, related to the last point, a principle of organization that would reduce the apparent chaos and multiplicity of the past to a simple and luminous plan of arrangement. 9 This was the most exacting requirement for the philosophical historian. As a critic wrote of Robertson's View, its value lay most in its "vast and magnificent plan... that profound and easy art of classing [facts], in such a manner that... the accumulated multiplicity of events is gradually reduced to a small number." It [End Page 262] required a more "elevated view... above all discussions and disputes." 10 Philosophic history aimed to strip away the illusion of appearances and substitute an unseen but more regular and systematic history. In its more ambitious formulations it aimed not simply at a universal history of mankind but at no less than a "history of the human mind": an attempt to explain through historical description the enormous gulf that separated modern man from his savage ancestor. As Robertson himself famously declared in Book IV of America, In order to complete the history of the human mind, and attain to a perfect knowledge of its nature and operations, we must contemplate man in all those various situations wherein he has been placed. We must follow him in his progress through the different stages of society, as he gradually advances from the infant state of civil life towards its maturity and decline. (VIII, 49-50) This was a history of progress... (shrink)

This study examines the extent to which there has been a rise in ideologically based politics in Japan due to the decline in factionalism in the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The study is based on two cases studies. The first is based on the notion of recruited by former Prime Minister Koizumi and his allies, who were heavily discouraged from joining a faction. The second model is based on an analysis of a junior MP groups which have played (...) a role in the internal management of the LDP independent of established party organizational structures. (shrink)

Aging is characterized by the decline and deterioration of functional cells and results in a wide variety of molecular damages and reduced physical and mental capacity. The knowledge on aging process is important because life expectancy is expected to rise until 2050. Aging cannot be considered a homogeneous process and includes different trajectories characterized by states of fitness, frailty, and disability. Frailty is a dynamic condition put between a normal functional state and disability, with reduced capacity to cope with (...) stressors. This geriatric syndrome affects physical, neuropsychological, and social domains and is driven by emotional and spiritual components. Sarcopenia is considered one of the determinants and the biological substrates of physical frailty. Physical and cognitive frailty are separately approached during daily clinical practice. The concept of motoric cognitive syndrome has partially changed this scenario, opening interesting windows toward future approaches. Thus, the purpose of this manuscript is to provide an excursus on current clinical practice, enforced by aneddoctical cases. The analysis of the current state of the art seems to support the urgent need of comprehensive organizational model incorporating physical and cognitive spheres in the same umbrella. (shrink)

BackgroundMoral dilemmas have arisen concerning whether physicians and other providers should treat patients who have declined COVID vaccination and are now sick with this disease. Several ethicists have argued that clinicians have obligations to treat such patients, yet providing care to these patients has distressed clinicians, who have at times declined to do so. Critical questions thus emerge regarding how best to proceed.Main bodyProviders face moral tensions: whether to place the benefits to an unvaccinated patient over their duties to protect (...) themselves and their families, staff and other patients, and goals of working collaboratively with patients. Clinicians’ duties to treat such patients arguably outweigh claims otherwise, but these obligations are creating moral conflict and distress for providers. Moral distress has been associated with burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder, and interpersonal and work difficulties. Given ongoing vaccine refusals, these problems are unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future. Society has obligations to address this moral distress due to principles of reciprocity, and implicit social contracts, as part of which physicians risk their lives in caring for patients for the good of society as a whole. Responses are thus urgently needed at several levels: by hospitals, medical schools, professional societies, governments, media, providers and patients. Medical training on professionalism should address these stresses, probing why doctors have duties to treat these patients, but also how moral conflicts can ensue, and how best to address these tensions. Governments and institutions should thus alter relevant policies and devote more resources to addressing clinicians’ psychological strains. Institutions should also improve organizational culture. Public health organizations and the media described clinicians, earlier in the pandemic, as heroes, committed to treating COVID patients. This narrative should now be changed to highlight the strains that unvaccinated patients cause—endangering hospital staff and others.ConclusionsUnvaccinated COVID patients should receive care, but multi-level strategies, involving enhanced policies, education and practice are vital to alleviate ensuing moral distress, and thus aid these clinicians and their patients. Ethical arguments that providers must treat these patients have not considered these obligations’ effects on clinicians, but should do so. (shrink)

The rise of managed care initiated a steady decline in solo and small group physician practices and the emergence of new delivery models built around large health care organizations. Health care reform has only accelerated this trend as public and private payors shift to new payment methodologies that reward clinical and financial integration among providers. As a result, patients increasingly receive care from physicians and other health professionals organized into collaborative partnerships with one another and institutional providers, such as (...) hospitals. As described below, this new organizational dynamic profoundly influences the clinical judgment of physicians. No longer can society simply depend on the professionalism of individual physicians to ensure ethical integrity in the health care setting. Rather, ethical integrity in the health care setting also requires a strong foundation of organizational ethics. (shrink)

Donors, scientists and farmers all benefit when research and development projects have high impact. However, potential benefits are sometimes not realized. Our objective in this study is to determine why resource-poor farmers in Togo (declined to) adopt recommended practices that were promoted through a multi-organizational project on soil fertility management. We examine the processes and outcomes related to the adoption process. The project was undertaken in three villages in the Central Region of Togo in West Africa. The development and (...) research processes that took place during the implementation of the project were critically analyzed using a conceptual framework that may be useful for improving the impact of future participatory projects. At the macro level, opportunities for innovation were not deliberately explored with participating farmers and other village members; consequently “pre-analytical choices” made during the planning phase resulted in practices that resource-poor farmers were, for a variety of reasons, unable or unwilling to adopt. From the outset, donors and scientists focused on soil fertility management, but failed to take into account the wider economic context within which soil fertility management took place. This was a major obstacle to the subsequent adoption of recommended management strategies. Scientists and donor partners measured the success of the Project in terms of crop productivity, but farmers’ choices were influenced by a complex mix of socio-economic, political and technical factors. We also illustrate the importance of selecting appropriate categories of farmers for a particular experiment. We conclude that for participatory research and development projects to be successful, it is not enough to develop technologies that “work” in a technical sense. In order to be scaled up and widely implemented, such technologies must also meet a variety of needs of resource-poor farmers and be acceptable from a socio-cultural point of view. (shrink)

This paper examines with the use of aggregate data from the U.S. Department of Justicethe extent of contemporary white-collar crime as a consequence of multiple normative standards existing within corporations. Given the implications of globalization, the desire for increased profits, and the declining role of regulatory agencies across much of the world (save for Europe, Japan, Mexico and India), paper suggests that the incidence of corporate deviance is likely to increase in the foreseeable future.

Integrity is often conceived as a moral virtue that pertains to the coherence between one’s moral convictions and actions, as well as consistency in convictions over time. By contrast, I argue that integrity is primarily an epistemic virtue. To act with integrity, an individual or organisation must engage in responsible inquiry; that is, the collection, processing, sharing, and storage of information in ways that promote truth. Organisational structures such as division of labour and hierarchy present challenges to responsible inquiry, thereby (...) making epistemic integrity in organisations inherently vulnerable and increasing the risk of unintentional unethical behaviour. This epistemic perspective on organisational integrity emphasises the importance of developing virtuous epistemic infrastructure and an ethical epistemic culture. By aligning their beliefs with facts, organisations can also improve moral behaviour and reduce the risk of culpable ignorance. (shrink)

The ethics of artificial intelligence is a widely discussed topic. There are numerous initiatives that aim to develop the principles and guidance to ensure that the development, deployment and use of AI are ethically acceptable. What is generally unclear is how organisations that make use of AI understand and address these ethical issues in practice. While there is an abundance of conceptual work on AI ethics, empirical insights are rare and often anecdotal. This paper fills the gap in our current (...) understanding of how organisations deal with AI ethics by presenting empirical findings collected using a set of ten case studies and providing an account of the cross-case analysis. The paper reviews the discussion of ethical issues of AI as well as mitigation strategies that have been proposed in the literature. Using this background, the cross-case analysis categorises the organisational responses that were observed in practice. The discussion shows that organisations are highly aware of the AI ethics debate and keen to engage with ethical issues proactively. However, they make use of only a relatively small subsection of the mitigation strategies proposed in the literature. These insights are of importance to organisations deploying or using AI, to the academic AI ethics debate, but maybe most valuable to policymakers involved in the current debate about suitable policy developments to address the ethical issues raised by AI. (shrink)

The jury remains out about the bottom-line relevance of organisational spirituality. This article reviews the arguments made thus far, using those sources most commonly cited as providing ‹evidence’ that organisational spirituality adds value to the bottom line. Having collated the evidence, this article offers some observation about the robustness of this existing ‹business case’. It then offers some preliminary conclusions on the literature review, examining the merits of pursuing a ‹business case’ in this field and identifying some specific questions for (...) future research. (shrink)

Measuring outcomes using quantitative analytic methods is the hallmark of scientific research in healthcare. For clinical ethics support services (CESS), tangible outcome metrics are lacking and literature examining CESS quality is limited to evaluation of single cases or the influence on individual healthcare professional’s perceptions or behaviour. This represents an enormous barrier to implementing and evaluating ethics initiatives to improve quality. In this context, Kok _et al_ propose a theoretical framework for how moral case deliberation (MCD) can drive quality at (...) an organisational-level, termed _morisprudence_ 1. By offering mechanistic insights into how MCD can lead to organisational learning and quality improvement (QI), they provide a roadmap for actionable items to measure quality. As conceptualised, _morisprudence_ follows accumulation of organisational practical wisdom from a repertoire of ‘paradigmatic’ MCDs, aiding identification of patterns of morally important features. Here, there are parallels between healthcare professionals’ clinical judgement, where past experience... (shrink)