Gary R. Weaver

Behavioral Ethics in Organizations: A Review

The importance of ethical behavior to an organization has never been more apparent, and in recent years researchers have generated a great deal of knowledge about the management of individual ethical behavior in organizations. We review this literature and attempt to provide a coherent portrait of the current state of the field. We discuss individual, group, and organizational influences and consider gaps in current knowledge and obstacles that limit our understanding. We conclude by offering directions for future research on behavioral ethics in organizations.

Virtue in Organizations: Moral Identity as a Foundation for Moral Agency

Framing issues of organizational ethics in terms of virtues and moral agency (rather than in terms of rules and ethical behavior) has implications for the way social science addresses matters of morality in organizations. In particular, attending to matters of virtue and moral agency directs attention to the moral identity, or self-concept, of persons, and to the circumstances that influence self-identity. This article develops parallels between philosophical theories of virtue and the concept of moral identity as developed in social cognitive identity theory. Explicating notions of virtue and moral agency in terms of social cognitive identity theory, in turn, helps direct attention to a range of factors—including both organizational and extraorganizational, macro-cultural ones—that can foster or inhibit moral agency in organizations.

Business ETHICS/BUSINESS ethics: One Field or Two?

This paper delineates the normative and empirical approaches to business ethics based upon five categories: 1) academic home; 2) language; 3) underlying assumptions; 4) theory purpose and scope; 5) theory grounds and evaluation criteria. The goal of the discussion is to increase understanding of the distinctive contributions of each approach and to encourage further dialogue about the potential for integration of the field.

Ethics Programs in Global Businesses: Culture's Role in Managing Ethics

Even if there were widespread cross-cultural agreement on the normative issues of business ethics, corporate ethics management initiatives (e.g., codes of conduct, ethics telephone lines, ethics offices) which are appropriate in one cultural setting still could fail to mesh with the management practices and cultural characteristics of a different setting. By uncritically adopting widely promoted American practices for managing corporate ethics, multinational businesses risk failure in pursuing the ostensible goals of corporate ethics initiatives. Pursuing shared ethical goals by means of culturally inappropriate management practices, in short, can undermine the effectiveness of ethics management efforts. This article explicates how several important dimensions of culture can influence the effectiveness of common ethics initiatives, and recommends the development and application of a culture-structure contingency analysis in the task of encouraging ethical behavior in global businesses.

Paradigms Lost vs Paradigms Found

to the effect that structuration provides for ’metatheoretical and theoretical pluralism’, obviously cannot be correct, for we present structuration as the preferred metatheory. We argue that structuration, as a metatheory, leaves the daily practice of different schools relatively intact, but rejects their ontological presumptions (e.g. about causal regularity in the case of structural-functionalism). If so, structuration is the metatheory, and there is no metatheoretical pluralism. In the abstract, we should have said ’methodological and theoretical’. We spoke imprecisely here, and apologize for the confusion generated. That leads to the next issue, however: how ’largely intact’ (our words) does a structurational analysis leave the practice of traditional ’paradigmatic’ forms of inquiry? Our critics claim that structuration precludes

Technology Studies in a Liberal Arts Context

Anyone who has followed recent discussions of the state of American education will have noted the manifold cries of alarm regarding the scientific and technological incompetence of most Americans. Yet a close look at the curricular advice generated by such concern reveals a variety of motives and a diversity of views regarding just what it is we ought be doing to improve technological education. Prescriptions range from the introduction of &dquo;grand-tour&dquo; style technology appreciation courses to critical assessment of science and technology policy to immersion in remedial quantitative skills. My aim herein is to look at three important features of technology which have implications for how we deal with technology in the liberal arts curriculum.

Technology and the Analysis of a Political Theory.

The issue is pedagogically useful, for the political relevance of the theory in question renders it an appropriate topic for a contemporary audience often lacking in enthusiasm for the history of ideas or technology studies as ends in themselves. Well suited for use as a technology and society course module, the topic provides opportunities for treating (a) the history and basic concepts of feedback technology, (b) classical liberalism, (c) traditionalist conservatism, and (d) the interaction of technology and culture.