The establishment of new plants in greenfield sites is a strategic organisational initiative providing the opportunity to develop alternative systems of staff values and beliefs…
Abstract
The establishment of new plants in greenfield sites is a strategic organisational initiative providing the opportunity to develop alternative systems of staff values and beliefs which may be more appropriate for capitalising on external product market opportunities. Explores whether an alternative organisational culture can be established at a greenfield site within a New Zealand food processing plant. This case organisation utilised the provisions of the Employment Contracts Act 1991 to establish alternative employment conditions in the greenfield site to those of its brownfield site. A comparative analysis was made utilising quantitative organisational culture data from Human Synergistic’s Organisation Culture Inventory. The data reveal the similarities and differences between the greenfield and brownfield sites and provide the basis for discussion of whether culture can be managed through the mechanism of a greenfield site. Critical elements in creating a desired culture are identified.
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One defining characteristic of service-learning as a pedagogical tool is its focus on reflection. Within service-learning programmes, students engage collaboratively with one…
Abstract
One defining characteristic of service-learning as a pedagogical tool is its focus on reflection. Within service-learning programmes, students engage collaboratively with one another and community members, and are encouraged to reflect on the various aspects of their experience. The author argues that reflection is crucial for its contribution to service-learning, as a teaching methodology, and to service-learning’s cognitive, affective and social impact. Part of service-learning’s impact is its contribution to the development of inclusive attitudes and predispositions towards inclusiveness among school students and tertiary students, particularly pre-service teachers. The chapter recognises inclusivity as an element of quality teaching that helps students make connections with contexts outside the classroom, engage with different perspectives and ways of knowing and to accommodate all their peers and all those being offered service. The chapter recommends a particular approach to the expansion of thinking and practice that inclusivity requires, one based on the methodology of the Philosophy in Schools movement, which has its genesis in the work of John Dewey. That approach uses the mechanism of the Community of Inquiry to structure reflective activities in a way that facilitates the development of students’ critical and creative thinking and their capacity for substantive dialogue. Within the Community of Inquiry students are encouraged to engage with differing and perhaps novel perspectives as they respond to real-life service-learning experiences. Well-facilitated reflection gives students the opportunity to develop skills and dispositions conducive to deep understanding of concepts and issues that arise in discussion. It also helps to raise awareness of preconceptions and attitudes that can undermine inclusiveness in education. The chapter draws the conclusion that rigorous reflection serves as a stimulus to act to implement inclusive practices within service-learning projects on the basis of well-justified reasoning.
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Maria Jose Parada, Georges Samara, Alexandra Dawson and Eduard Bonet
Despite the great importance attributed to values in the family business, few studies have focused on their importance and on how such values influence the way family businesses…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the great importance attributed to values in the family business, few studies have focused on their importance and on how such values influence the way family businesses behave over time. Using Aristotelian virtues as our main framework, the purpose of this paper is to understand what motivates both family members and business families to perform virtuous acts, therefore, observing the underlying beliefs at both levels of analysis that make individuals and families repeatedly behave in a way that reflects the pursuit of excellence of character.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors rely on a qualitative methodology, following an interpretive approach. Based on the narratives of family members from two Spanish family businesses, the authors abductively analyze how values and virtues in family businesses allow them to cope with changes that occur across generations.
Findings
Findings suggest that family businesses that have survived heavy crises have been able to overcome these critical moments in part due to their strong virtues – both at the individual and at the family level – where the so-called four cardinal virtues have been evident, for example, through the achievement of collective goals and adherence to a stated mission, as well as through behaviors that have been aimed at improving and benefiting the community.
Practical implications
Values are the basis for all businesses and their behaviors. Understanding the type of values, as well as the underlying virtues, that allow for prosperity across generations is important for business families to perpetuate those that allow the family business to thrive.
Originality/value
This paper contributes to the family business field by exploring a key understudied dimension that determines family business prosperity over time and across generations. It brings to the forefront values and virtues that are rarely studied in this setting despite their great importance, using narratives as a key element for value transmission as well as a research method that allows for deeper insights about specific processes.
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This paper is an interweaving of virtues ethics perspectives of the relational and role grounded with the situational and agent and is explored through the patterns of academic…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper is an interweaving of virtues ethics perspectives of the relational and role grounded with the situational and agent and is explored through the patterns of academic freedom. It uses a notion of Confucian‐inspired “role virtue ethics” where obligation, procedure and virtue mix in a relational way with a community of scholarly practice. This counter‐intuitive linking of ritual with freedom reveals the importance of the former in defending and maintaining academic freedom: a freedom with rule‐based obligations.
Design/methodology/approach
Applied philosophical approach to a pressing problem in higher education and indeed to all education.
Findings
The paper seeks a preliminary blending of eastern and western understanding to proceed to a “virtue role ethic” for higher education scholars and is presented as a more relational way of being than the contemporary notion of being a fitting scholar in higher education.
Practical implications
A synthesis of western and Confucian approach may offer insights to other ethical issues for educational management.
Social implications
A synthesis of western and Confucian approach may offer insights to other ethical issues for educational management.
Originality/value
The development of role virtue ethics more the discussion away from dispositions and from situational to a blending of both.
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Matthew Eriksen and Kevin Cooper
The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to develop responsible leaders through developing their response-ability within the context of their day-to-day lives that…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology to develop responsible leaders through developing their response-ability within the context of their day-to-day lives that addresses the existing disconnect between the knowledge about responsible leadership and its practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The responsible leadership development methodology begins by helping individuals increase their awareness of their impact on others based on how they are relating and responding to them. This is facilitated through individuals engaging in self-reflexivity and reflection on relationships for which they want to be responsible. Then individuals experiment with and take responsibility for how they are relating and responding within the relationships. Finally, they engage in self-reflexivity and reflection to make sense of the experience to develop practical wisdom and the response-ability that will allow them to become more responsible leaders.
Findings
Students that completed an MBA leadership course that employed the responsible leadership development methodology overwhelmingly reported that their response-ability improved in ways that allowed them to become more responsible for their actions, impact on others, relationships and the reality they co-construct with others, as well as becoming a more responsible person.
Research limitations/implications
The research is based on an MBA class of 24 students, only a few of whom currently occupied organizational leadership positions.
Originality/value
The presented leadership development methodology facilitates the development of responsible leaders through developing their ability and commitment to act responsibly within the context of their day-to-day lives.
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W. Pieters and L. Consoli
The purpose of this paper is to analyze information security assessment in terms of cultural categories and virtue ethics, in order to explain the cultural origin of certain types…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze information security assessment in terms of cultural categories and virtue ethics, in order to explain the cultural origin of certain types of security vulnerabilities, as well as to enable a proactive attitude towards preventing such vulnerabilities.
Design/methodology/approach
Vulnerabilities in information security are compared to the concept of “monster” introduced by Martijntje Smits in philosophy of technology. The applicability of different strategies for dealing with monsters to information security is discussed, and the strategies are linked to attitudes in virtue ethics.
Findings
It is concluded that the present approach can form the basis for dealing proactively with unknown future vulnerabilities in information security.
Research limitations/implications
The research presented here does not define a stepwise approach for implementation of the recommended strategy in practice. This is future work.
Practical implications
The results of this paper enable computer experts to rethink their attitude towards security threats, thereby reshaping their practices.
Originality/value
This paper provides an alternative anthropological framework for descriptive and normative analysis of information security problems, which does not rely on the objectivity of risk.
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Eila Isotalus and Marja-Liisa Kakkuri-Knuuttila
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that creating shared meanings in dialogical communication is a “must” for diversity management if it wants to fulfill the double…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that creating shared meanings in dialogical communication is a “must” for diversity management if it wants to fulfill the double promise of promoting both business and ethical goals. By way of meeting this challenge, the authors introduce the negotiating reality theory and education program developed by Victor Friedman and Ariane Berthoin Antal, and examine its ethical underpinnings.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is a theoretical exploration which combines ethical and intercultural communication perspectives in the context of diversity management. Excerpts from ethnographic research data are used to illustrate the deficiency of intuitive processes in negotiating reality in practice.
Findings
The negotiating reality program, originally developed for international business, is equally relevant to diversity management, as it serves to deconstruct value hierarchies embedded in diversity categorizations, and hence enhances seamless and productive cooperation. Learning such communication skills involves personal emotional-cognitive growth, which can be analyzed in terms of Aristotle’s notion of virtue. The authors also argue for the interconnected nature of performance and ethical goals in diversity management.
Research limitations/implications
Since this is a theoretical paper, empirical research is needed to investigate the pedagogical and rhetorical means which inspire people to develop their intercultural communication skills in various diversity contexts.
Practical implications
This paper challenges managers to introduce means to develop negotiating reality skills and practices for the benefit of the staff and the whole organization.
Originality/value
This paper suggests that the focus of diversity management should shift to meanings and intercultural communication, and that ethical considerations are an important part of that.