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{"title":"From the Editors","authors":"Frank den Hond, Mollie Painter","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.24","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.24","url":null,"abstract":"An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135762878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article develops a liberal theory of the virtues in business. I first articulate two key liberal values embodied within market society: self-authorship and mutual benefit. Self-authorship is a mode of autonomy given expression through the effective exercise of economic liberties. Mutual benefit involves the intentional pursuit of the well-being of one’s transaction partners within economic exchange. These values are uniquely realized, I argue, within business, conceptualized as a distinct, firm-level, social practice. More specifically, individuals realize self-authorship by purposively integrating cospecialized resources, forms of knowledge, and business functions to facilitate mutually beneficial transactions. Through their commitment to mutual benefit, businesspersons establish ongoing, cooperative relationships with customers, members of other firms, and various stakeholders more generally. These relationships are constitutive of a distinct liberal notion of the common good. The practice of business and the common good in a market society are sustained by a range of individual-level virtues. I recount these virtues and, before concluding, discuss several other theoretical implications of this account.
{"title":"Self-Authorship through Mutual Benefit: Toward a Liberal Theory of the Virtues in Business","authors":"Caleb Bernacchio","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.20","url":null,"abstract":"This article develops a liberal theory of the virtues in business. I first articulate two key liberal values embodied within market society: self-authorship and mutual benefit. Self-authorship is a mode of autonomy given expression through the effective exercise of economic liberties. Mutual benefit involves the intentional pursuit of the well-being of one’s transaction partners within economic exchange. These values are uniquely realized, I argue, within business, conceptualized as a distinct, firm-level, social practice. More specifically, individuals realize self-authorship by purposively integrating cospecialized resources, forms of knowledge, and business functions to facilitate mutually beneficial transactions. Through their commitment to mutual benefit, businesspersons establish ongoing, cooperative relationships with customers, members of other firms, and various stakeholders more generally. These relationships are constitutive of a distinct liberal notion of the common good. The practice of business and the common good in a market society are sustained by a range of individual-level virtues. I recount these virtues and, before concluding, discuss several other theoretical implications of this account.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135816925","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Research on ethical norms has grown in recent years, but imprecise language has made it unclear when these norms prescribe “what ought to be” and when they merely describe behaviors or perceptions (“what is”). Studies of ethical norms, moreover, tend not to investigate whether participants were influenced by the prescriptive aspect of the norm; the studies primarily demonstrate, rather, that people will mimic the behaviors or perceptions of others, which provides evidence for the already well-substantiated social proof theory. In this review article, we delineate three streams of norms research in business ethics: behavioral, perceptual, and prescriptive. We argue that by properly categorizing norms, and designing studies to investigate when prescriptions, more than mere mimicry, improve ethical outcomes in organizations, researchers can enhance managers’ efforts to promote ethical outcomes in organizations.
{"title":"When Are Norms Prescriptive? Understanding and Clarifying the Role of Norms in Behavioral Ethics Research","authors":"Tobey K. Scharding, Danielle E. Warren","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.11","url":null,"abstract":"Research on ethical norms has grown in recent years, but imprecise language has made it unclear when these norms prescribe “what ought to be” and when they merely describe behaviors or perceptions (“what is”). Studies of ethical norms, moreover, tend not to investigate whether participants were influenced by the prescriptive aspect of the norm; the studies primarily demonstrate, rather, that people will mimic the behaviors or perceptions of others, which provides evidence for the already well-substantiated social proof theory. In this review article, we delineate three streams of norms research in business ethics: behavioral, perceptual, and prescriptive. We argue that by properly categorizing norms, and designing studies to investigate when prescriptions, more than mere mimicry, improve ethical outcomes in organizations, researchers can enhance managers’ efforts to promote ethical outcomes in organizations.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135981570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the existing research on meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter’s relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics.
{"title":"A Sociological Perspective on Meaningful Work: Community versus Autonomy","authors":"Andrey Bykov","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.13","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.13","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the existing research on meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter’s relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48981409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Commentary: Lying about Reservation Prices in Business Negotiation: A Qualified Defense – Corrigendum","authors":"A. Strudler","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41408285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) as institutions for social and environmental governance in the global economy has received much scholarly attention over the past years. To date, however, research has yet to focus on assessing the legitimacy of MSIs in their interactions with other actors within larger systems of deliberation. Drawing on the deliberative systems perspective developed within deliberative democracy theory, we theorise a normative framework to evaluate the roles of MSIs within the broader systems of governance they co-construct through their interactions with other initiatives, governments, non-governmental organisations, and other external actors. As we demonstrate in our evaluation of the illustrative case of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety as a MSI in the context of the Bangladeshi garment industry, this framework can help researchers assess whether a MSI ultimately serves to enhance or undermine the deliberative legitimacy of the overall system of which it forms a part.
{"title":"Multi-stakeholder Initiatives and Legitimacy: A Deliberative Systems Perspective","authors":"Kristin Apffelstaedt, Stephanie Schrage, Dirk Ulrich Gilbert","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.12","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.12","url":null,"abstract":"The legitimacy of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) as institutions for social and environmental governance in the global economy has received much scholarly attention over the past years. To date, however, research has yet to focus on assessing the legitimacy of MSIs in their interactions with other actors within larger systems of deliberation. Drawing on the deliberative systems perspective developed within deliberative democracy theory, we theorise a normative framework to evaluate the roles of MSIs within the broader systems of governance they co-construct through their interactions with other initiatives, governments, non-governmental organisations, and other external actors. As we demonstrate in our evaluation of the illustrative case of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety as a MSI in the context of the Bangladeshi garment industry, this framework can help researchers assess whether a MSI ultimately serves to enhance or undermine the deliberative legitimacy of the overall system of which it forms a part.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135263581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Much business ethics and corporate social responsibility literature suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that firms ought to engage in activities that can be characterized as philanthropy, namely, expending resources beyond what is required by law and market norms to promote others’ welfare at the expense of firm profits. However, this literature has struggled to provide a normative framework for evaluating corporate philanthropy, although scholars have noted that such expenditures can potentially remedy market failures and provide public goods more efficiently. I articulate two specific rationales that can justify corporate philanthropy based on considerations of welfare economics: 1) firms making strategic but high-risk investments in activities that are likely to generate positive externalities even if they prove unprofitable and 2) firms possessing a strong comparative advantage in their ability to address a social problem at lower social cost. Moreover, these rationales can be evaluated by a concept I develop called the philanthropy multiplier, indicating the ratio of net positive externalities to net costs. I suggest that firms consider publicizing their philanthropy multipliers, and I discuss theoretical and practical implications.
{"title":"Can Welfare Economics Justify Corporate Philanthropy? Proposing the Philanthropy Multiplier as a Metric for Evaluating Corporate Philanthropic Expenditures","authors":"W. English","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.2","url":null,"abstract":"Much business ethics and corporate social responsibility literature suggests, implicitly or explicitly, that firms ought to engage in activities that can be characterized as philanthropy, namely, expending resources beyond what is required by law and market norms to promote others’ welfare at the expense of firm profits. However, this literature has struggled to provide a normative framework for evaluating corporate philanthropy, although scholars have noted that such expenditures can potentially remedy market failures and provide public goods more efficiently. I articulate two specific rationales that can justify corporate philanthropy based on considerations of welfare economics: 1) firms making strategic but high-risk investments in activities that are likely to generate positive externalities even if they prove unprofitable and 2) firms possessing a strong comparative advantage in their ability to address a social problem at lower social cost. Moreover, these rationales can be evaluated by a concept I develop called the philanthropy multiplier, indicating the ratio of net positive externalities to net costs. I suggest that firms consider publicizing their philanthropy multipliers, and I discuss theoretical and practical implications.","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45282719","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Scherer, C. Neesham, Dennis Schoeneborn, Markus Scholz
Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism” describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals’ and collectives’ negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue “Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century.”
{"title":"Guest Editors’ Introduction: New Challenges to the Enlightenment: How Twenty-First-Century Sociotechnological Systems Facilitate Organized Immaturity and How to Counteract It","authors":"A. Scherer, C. Neesham, Dennis Schoeneborn, Markus Scholz","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.7","url":null,"abstract":"Organized immaturity, the reduction of individual capacities for public use of reason constrained by sociotechnological systems, constitutes a significant pushback against the project of Enlightenment. Forms of immaturity have long been a concern for philosophers and social theorists, such as Kant, Arendt, Fromm, Marcuse, and Foucault. Recently, Zuboff’s concept of “surveillance capitalism” describes how advancements in digital technologies lead to new, increasingly sophisticated forms of organized immaturity in democratic societies. We discuss how sociotechnological systems initially designed to meet human needs can inhibit the multidimensional development of individuals as mature citizens. To counteract these trends, we suggest two mechanisms: disorganizing immaturity as a way to safeguard individuals’ and collectives’ negative freedoms (freedoms from), and organizing maturity as a way to strengthen positive freedoms (freedoms to). Finally, we provide an outlook on the five further articles that constitute the Business Ethics Quarterly Special Issue “Sociotechnological Conditions of Organized Immaturity in the Twenty-First Century.”","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57042340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“Art points beyond itself”; it transcends style, convention, and the maker (Agamben 1999, 33). Take the installation of five large and differently sized blocks of white Portland stone arranged in a semi-circular pattern, some twenty-five foot in diameter. Approaching Squareinthecircle? (2007, see Figure 1) by Southportand London-based sculptor and performance artist Tony Heaton, we first encounter an uninviting fortress made from the same stone as St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, and the Bank of England. Narrow gaps lead to the inside, where hard-edged, solid surfaces are interspersed with zigzagging shapes. Our imagination connects the disparate blocks along a disjointed circle carved into the stones’ tops, mirroring a second ring paved into the floor. Triangular prisms hewn down the middle of three blocks create the illusion of a square in the centre of the figure. Sitting behind an oversized pot of tea in his dusty, cold studio in Southport, Heaton tells me he is obsessed with layers. With some help, I attempt to unpeel Squareinthecircle? There is the majestic opulence of the grand white stone used in the construction of centres of power. The outer rings resemble tracks left by endlessly circling wheels unable to squeeze through the narrow passageways to a centre dominated by sharp edges and steep stairways. Squareinthecircle? points beyond itself as it stylizes the ambiguity inherent in all things that are made: their capacity to include and exclude, protect and harm, create and destroy. Later, I come to think of Elaine Scarry’s (1985) provocation that artifices extend human sentience beyond the boundaries of the body into the outside world: coats mimic and extend outwards our skin; chairs mimic and equally extend outwards the form of the human spine; even rooms or houses act like bodies, putting boundaries around the self while reducing access to the world to doors and windows. Human life is inherently dependent on such prostheses. Even culture can only take shape when the excess of artefacts creates identities: tailors, builders, or merchants; citizens protected by the real or imagined walls of institutional or civic bodies. In Haraway’s (1985) iconic phrasing, we are all cyborgs. Scarry (1985) argues that artefacts absorb pain and, in turn, work inwards and change us. Coats absorb the cold, letting us roam beyond the warming hearth; chairs
{"title":"Artifices and Bodies in the Artworks of Tony Heaton","authors":"M. Zundel","doi":"10.1017/beq.2023.16","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/beq.2023.16","url":null,"abstract":"“Art points beyond itself”; it transcends style, convention, and the maker (Agamben 1999, 33). Take the installation of five large and differently sized blocks of white Portland stone arranged in a semi-circular pattern, some twenty-five foot in diameter. Approaching Squareinthecircle? (2007, see Figure 1) by Southportand London-based sculptor and performance artist Tony Heaton, we first encounter an uninviting fortress made from the same stone as St Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, and the Bank of England. Narrow gaps lead to the inside, where hard-edged, solid surfaces are interspersed with zigzagging shapes. Our imagination connects the disparate blocks along a disjointed circle carved into the stones’ tops, mirroring a second ring paved into the floor. Triangular prisms hewn down the middle of three blocks create the illusion of a square in the centre of the figure. Sitting behind an oversized pot of tea in his dusty, cold studio in Southport, Heaton tells me he is obsessed with layers. With some help, I attempt to unpeel Squareinthecircle? There is the majestic opulence of the grand white stone used in the construction of centres of power. The outer rings resemble tracks left by endlessly circling wheels unable to squeeze through the narrow passageways to a centre dominated by sharp edges and steep stairways. Squareinthecircle? points beyond itself as it stylizes the ambiguity inherent in all things that are made: their capacity to include and exclude, protect and harm, create and destroy. Later, I come to think of Elaine Scarry’s (1985) provocation that artifices extend human sentience beyond the boundaries of the body into the outside world: coats mimic and extend outwards our skin; chairs mimic and equally extend outwards the form of the human spine; even rooms or houses act like bodies, putting boundaries around the self while reducing access to the world to doors and windows. Human life is inherently dependent on such prostheses. Even culture can only take shape when the excess of artefacts creates identities: tailors, builders, or merchants; citizens protected by the real or imagined walls of institutional or civic bodies. In Haraway’s (1985) iconic phrasing, we are all cyborgs. Scarry (1985) argues that artefacts absorb pain and, in turn, work inwards and change us. Coats absorb the cold, letting us roam beyond the warming hearth; chairs","PeriodicalId":48031,"journal":{"name":"Business Ethics Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46088378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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