Abstract
Taking its point of departure from the ‘economic crisis’, this book, edited by Sara Louise Muhr, Bent M. Sorensen and Steen Vallentin, is interested in the investigation of the ‘moral foundations’ of contemporary business strategies and management practices. To begin with, the authors problematize that ‘neoliberal economics’ tends to silence those ‘voices’ that do not or cannot believe and support its moral codes and ideals like the ‘free market’, competition or self-management. Now, this silencing of disagreeable and potentially critical voices seems not least to be facilitated through the management concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), which is gaining increasing relevance within the post-industrial ‘regime’ of enterprise. Commonly, CSR is seen as an instrument that is, first and foremost, to show, prove and account for the sustainable development of organizations and, thus, for ‘good’ management practice. However, according to critics many CSR activities are characterized through a strategic, calculative and utilitarian orientation, and contribute, by this means, to a further promotion of the economization of morality. Muhr et al. also question that CSR can determine or assure moral conduct and responsible judgements and, so, counter ‘ethical deficits’ in business through normative guidelines or codes of conduct.
Following Kierkegaard, Muhr et al., simultaneously, call the crisis an ethico-political moment, thereby considering uncertainty and lack of guarantees as immanent within ethical requests. In this philosophical spirit, the crisis marks a turning point; and as such it can also offer chances of re-thinking and re-creating established morality conceptions, (business) practices and truths. The editors hence emphasize that they ‘want to expose business ethics to its crises’ (p. 11). Their concern is not the development or presentation of models that solve ethical dilemmas and ambiguities, emerging from the neoliberal ‘regime of truth’ (Foucault 1977). Put differently, Muhr et al. do not agree to the closing of questions of ethics and responsibility, e.g. through prescribing moral conduct and, thus, judging and separating ‘right’ from ‘wrong’ choices; instead they want to inspire an on-going undermining, opening up and reflecting of the moral foundations and justifications of organizational activities (including our own (self) practices and ways of responding to normative demands). This concern, again, demands leaving a ‘void’ open to contingent, yet unknown, ethical requests that can or could arise. Rather than sorting out ethical problems, the attempt, here, is to try, that is, try to do justice to ethical questions—through a considered acknowledging of the ambiguous, singular, context-related, relational and infinite character of ethics and responsibility (Derrida 1999). This in mind, responsibility can maybe best be understood as a matter of continuous ‘reflection and choice amongst undecidable alternatives’ (Clegg et al. 2007: 118).
The contributions of the book then address questions of morality in different institutional and organizational contexts. In so doing, they follow diverse conceptualizations of ethics and morality and, thus, quite different moral positions and ethical perspectives, ranging from (modern) normative, code- and value-based approaches, over practice- and subjectification-based to individualist (business) ethics approaches. The point where many of the chapters connect is a critical perspective on business ethics, its meaning, use and limitations.
In Chapter 2 (pp. 17–35), Martyna Sliwa and George Cairns investigate dominant contents of international business (IB) education from a value-based ethics approach. Thereby, they criticize IB’s dominant focus on ‘neoliberal values’ like profit maximization and growth, as well as the realities and truths its specific rhetoric would promote. In relating to Aristotele’s concept of ‘phronesis’, the authors, therefore, plead for a more reflexive engagement with IB theories and practices, comprising, not least, an open and critical discussion of the precarious social including and excluding effects and the broader socio-political consequences that conventional ideas of IB can constitute.
Jeanette Lemmergard discusses, in Chapter 3 (p. 36–56), the concept of value-based management, and mainly its Scandinavian form, which is, according to the author, characterized through a strong participative and dialogical orientation. In its empirical part, the chapter presents in short how the concept of value-based management is enacted within a Danish knowledge-intensive firm. Lemmergard, finally, argues that value-based management produces commitment among organizational members and, thus, becomes effective if it, or better the promoters behind it, is, or are, seriously interested in the involvement of diverse organizational actors into the firm’s specific value-creating process.
Chapter 4 (p. 57–80) is one of the strongest contributions of the book, regarding both its conceptual elaborations and empirical study. Dan Kärreman and Mats Alvesson, following a practice-based ethics approach, investigate the discursive and organizational framing and shaping of ethical judgment and conduct, with particular modes of ethical closure building their main focus of analysis. In their field of study—Swedish media organizations (which have, by the way, an institutional code of conduct)—they, however, identify four dominant modes of ethical closure. They name them ethical sealing, ethical bracketing, double dehumanization, and commodification of ethics, which are, again, driven or even created by processes of ‘naturalization’ and ‘subjectification of experience’ (p. 65ff.). In referring to their very interesting empirical material, the authors finally argue that the field-specific power structures, even if they certainly cannot determine individual and collective scopes of action, still deeply constrain chances for ethical reflection among newsmakers—and, thus, resistance towards established codes of conduct.
In arguing for a particular political conceptualization and understanding of CSR, in Chapter 5 (p. 81–100), Steen Vallentin discusses the role(s) of public opinion and its different modes of articulating in the process of defining corporate responsibilities. In referring to liberal economists like Friedman and Hayek, he, thereby, accurately analyses how CSR promoters use ‘public opinion’ to sustain their interests and positions. With reference to this discussion Vallentin tries to explore, in the second part of the chapter, how public voice, in terms of a democratic form of social control, could effectively engage in the on-going power struggle over the meaning, function and value of CSR. According to the author, it is a politically constituted and reflected, ‘multiple-vocal’ form of public opinion that could broaden and re-create the currently dominant CSR rhetoric and its discursive logics. A public opinion that is keen to practice ‘critique from within’ could then possibly become performative—also in ‘the new spirit of capitalism’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).
In Chapter 6 (p. 101–120), Samuel Mansell explores how moral arguments can or could inform the development of corporate legislation. Following his view, ‘objective’—as I interpret it, objective in the sense of reason-orientated and interest- and actor-independent—moral positions are necessary preconditions to developing a ‘just’ corporate legislation. Emphasizing that such moral positions have to take chances of fallibility into account, Mansell then develops, built upon the dimensions or ‘forces’ of moral ‘continuity’ and ‘progress’, a so-called dialectical framework in and through which a moral basis for regulation can or is to be conceived.
Chapter 7 (p. 121–142) is engaged with the work of the psychologist C.G. Jung, arguing that this would include a distinctive ethical dimension. Cécile Rozuel then primarily focuses on Jung’s concept of the self and the psyche as these are judged to be core elements of moral systems. In the empirical part, Rozuel briefly discusses the, seemingly opposed, self-perceptions and morality experiences of two managers which she finally relates to Jung’s notion of self-knowledge and individuation. Rozuel concludes that just a non-fragmented, consistent and ‘authentic’ self can sustain moral integrity and develop clear moral attitudes.
In Chapter 8 (pp. 143–162), Emma Louise Jeanes and Sara Louise Muhr critically address the possibilities of ethical guidance through moral codes of conduct. As an alternative to rule-based ethics approaches they elaborate on the moral philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, and mainly its notion of ‘the ethical encounter with the Other’ in which the demand of responsibility emerges. Instead of defining responsibility as an act of giving account and, thus, of justifying one’s conduct in referring to established codes, Jeanes and Muhr emphasize in a very emphatic way the singular and infinite character of responsibility—if responsibility were not infinite, there would be no ethical-political problems, so the assumption (also Derrida, 1999). Now, the attempt to act responsibly requires, in Levinas’ spirit, first of all a thorough openness towards the Other and, so, also a willingness to put oneself—and one’s conventional perceptions and moral foundations—into question through the Other. Through the discussion of a South African human rights project, the authors, however, illustrate different ethical demands that arise in particular encounters with various Others. Against this background, Jeanes and Muhr seem, finally, not to argue against ‘institutions of justice’ (p. 160) that try to regulate human conduct according to moral rules—but for an idea of responsibility that focuses on the singular Other and its unique, situational demands. Such an idea appreciates limits of ‘full responsibility’ and, thus, the absence of certainties, ‘complete’ knowledge and calculability (moreover, these ‘limits’ actually constitute the ethical question); but what it pleads for, is a considered and unconditional openness in the very specific response to the Other (Jones, Parker and ten Bos, 2005).
Chapter 9 (pp. 163–180) is a very imaginative and stimulating one. Alf Rehn is one of the few authors that explicitly address the question if there can be such a thing as a moral foundation of management, and, on what ‘fundament’ would and could such a business ethics be constituted? (p. 163). Taking a historical and mainly anthropological perspective, Rehn discusses, in detail, the concept of ‘exchange’, as this seems to demonstrate a central foundation of economic behaviour and management. Amongst others, Rehn shows, through relating to Malinowski’s ethnographic studies of the people of the Trobriand Islands, that the idea of exchange was, at first, not primarily orientated on profit-maximization and, thus, economic interest; rather it was understood as a practice of maintaining and deepening social relations. Rehn concludes in emphasizing the original non-calculative, playful and emphatic foundation of management and organizing activities. In this vein, he questions the unchangeable and ‘natural’ order and morality of the neoliberal ‘regime of truth’ (also acknowledged as such by many management studies scholars) and its particular exchange practices. These are, as is known, focussed on competition, self-interest and growth, rather than on social feelings, comfort and empathic relationships like e.g. in case of the natives or times of the primates.
Chapter 10 (pp. 181–198), starting with insights from non-forensic psychopathy, investigates the notion of the—morally insane—(organizational) psychopath. Discussing parallels to the creature of the ‘werewolf’, Rasmus Johnson argues, in referring to Kristeva’s theory of abjection, that the psychopath demonstrates a hybrid figure wherein the boundary between human (moral) and animal (inhuman) is blurring. In an interesting way, Johnson then relates the organizational psychopath to current HRM strategies—arguing that they promote certain ‘characteristics’ of the psychopath like creative competencies, ambition and capabilities of manipulation. Now, it is quite obvious that today’s HRM practices are orientated towards normative imperatives like organize yourself!, be self-responsible!, be autonomous!—be yourself! etc. Opposed to the bureaucratic-fordistic regime of work organization, ‘the human’, the ‘subjective factor’ is, these days, integrated into the ‘production process’, as it is considered to make individuals even more passionate, committed and, thus, productive. However, following Johnson, the boundary phenomenon of organizational psychopaths can also contribute to a problematization of the unstable and inconsistent distinction and separation between the ‘authentically human’ and the ‘instrumentalized human’ in HRM (p. 184). Put in my own words, boundaries between the ideal work force and the organizational psychopath (‘the abject’) seem to become increasingly fluid; that the psychopath presents some sort of a ‘supplement’ of the ‘appropriate individual’ can, in this regard, be seen as a precarious side effect of current, paradox HR-strategies.
In discussing the explosive issue of corruption, the last chapter of the book, a contribution by Thomas Taro Lennerfors, returns to the book’s starting point, ‘the crisis’. Lennerfors begins this inspiring and insightful chapter (pp. 199–213) with a critique on the principal-agent theory, which constitutes the most common basis in theorizing corruption in business (ethics) studies. The principal-agent theory assumes that the avoidance of corruption, as the ‘misuse of entrusted power’ (p. 201), demands that the agent solely follows the principal’s interests and will at work. Put differently, you can stay clear of corruption as long as you sustain a strict distinction between your ‘body at work’ and your ‘body off work’, thus, your ‘private persona’ (du Gay, 2007). Lennerfors, now, problematizes that such conventional corruption approaches separate the two bodies—or ethics—and, moreover, repress issues like the subject’s aspirations and desires. Taking a Lacanian inspired psychoanalytic perspective and following Zizek’s interpretation of the ‘objet petit a’, the author then introduces the ‘two-bodies-doctrine’ as an alternative framework to consider the phenomenon of corruption. The ‘objet petit a’ is a sublime body; it can be understood as that ‘something’ ‘which is in a person more than himself’ (p. 207). It is an, unreachable, object ‘causing our desire and at the same time … posed retroactively by this desire’ (Zizek, 1989: 65). In following Zizek’s work, Lennerfors illustrates, furthermore, that it is the ‘symbolic office’, representing a position and place of power, that, primarily, creates this ‘objet petit a’. So, when we occupy an office, we, our body, get supplemented with (instead of substituted by) a sublime substance. Importantly, now, the ‘objet petit a’ has to be understood as a ‘pharmakon’; it demonstrates both a chance—through the arousal of desire (of the Other)—and a threat—through its incomplete, fleeting and, thus, uncontrollable character. Lennerfors, however, concludes in highlighting that without the ‘objet petit a’ there would be no corruption, because ‘if the people engaging in “corrupt practices” do not arouse our desire, they will not appear corrupt to us’ (p. 208). In other words, the ‘objet petit a’ makes us desire, and in so doing, it—also—creates the possibility of corruption.
Altogether, the variety of approaches, fields of study and methodologies used that the book provides is, on the one hand, seen as a strength; on the other hand it would have been use- and helpful, if the modes of how the chapters relate to each other and, furthermore, contribute to the overall issue of the book—the ethical reflection of current management practices—had been made more evident. However, despite the, in parts, ‘loose coupling’ of the singular chapters, the book’s conceptual (and empirical) plurality allows to give heterogeneous, exciting and provoking insights into the field of management and its morality. Thus, it seems to be of interest for business ethics researchers (more than for students) from different conceptual paths and scholarships that are, however, still connected through an interest in a critical engagement with contemporary business codes, management practices and ‘truths’. ‘A time of crisis invites questioning and challenging common sense’ (p. 11)—it is beyond doubt that several of the book’s pieces enable the reader to question such common ground and, thus, supposed certainties.