Gina Vega

Isolation and technology: the human disconnect

Management control over production has often meant control over one means of production: people. There is evidence of the use of social isolation to control human behavior throughout recorded history. Traces the development of social isolation through the multiple lenses of management, economics, psychology, sociology, engineering technology, social psychology, and communication science and presents a taxonomy of perspectives for discussion. The taxonomy is further elucidated through the assignment and distribution of 13 organizational factors for both the objective state and subjective feelings of social isolation as linked to advances in telecommuting and other off‐site “open collar” work.

Unsavory Problems at Tasty’s: A Role-Play about Whistle-Blowing:

This article presents a role-play exercise to make the topic of whistle-blowing personally salient to undergraduates. Students identify with the prospective whistle-blower, whose decision affects several stakeholders. The protagonist merely suspects her manager of stealing, until she hears concrete evidence of his thefts from her assistant manager, who does not want to take action. The exercise helps prepare students to decide how to act if they observe workplace wrongdoing, demonstrates that different ethical frameworks may point to different decisions, promotes examination of possible consequences of whistle-blowing, and highlights how organizational factors affect employees’ ethical behavior and the outcomes of their behavior.

Operationalizing Maslow: Religion and Flow as Business Partners

Maslow and Csikszentmihalyi interpret human experience through a broad application of stakeholder theory to provide an expanded framework for ethical business. The aggressive search for mutuality of interest can reconcile conflicting stakeholder needs. Maslows religious peak experiences work in tandem with Csikszentmihalyis psychological optimal experiences (flow) to support the proposition that transcendence is an achievable goal, both for individuals and for corporations.

“What Button do I press?” The consequences of conducting a service learning project with senior citizens

In an effort to build interest in the two-year old service learning center and to fulfill its mission “to integrate academic life with service in thoughtful and relevant ways,” a competition was held to award developmental grants to faculty to create innovative courses incorporating service learning. The winning proposal from the business school used a business ethics course as the vehicle for formally introducing service into the business curriculum. This paper will tell the story of the intended and unintended consequences of building collaboration on several levels: between generations, between college and community, between faculty and college resources, between student teams, and between theory and practice.

Wet Sneakers, Bottom Lines, and Other Obstacles to Spirituality

Measurement of the traditionalbottom line leaves room for socialresponsibility and a sense of spirituality ifwe include the theme of connection in thediscussion. Spirituality in the workplacesuggests the combination of profitability withconcern for the common good. Transfer of themodel of social return on investment (SROI)from the not-for-profit sector to thefor-profit sector can be accomplished with someconceptual reframing. An earlier version ofthis paper was presented as the luncheonaddress at the Seventh Annual InternationalConference Promoting Business Ethics, Sept. 21,2000 (NYC).

RELIGION AND BUSINESS ETHICS: HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE

Andrew Greeley draws a distinction between serious literature and popular literature, and locates theological and moral insight in the latter rather than the former. An overview of modern writing leads him to conclude that, while “‘serious’ literature realizes that life is pointless and absurd…popular fiction or fairy stories…reassure their readers that there is meaning and purpose in life” (Greeley, 1988, p. 11). He readily acknowledges that this has not always been the case. However, to find “happy endings” revealing “paradigms of meaning” and hopeful, encouraging answers to the important questions of life the contemporary reader turns to popular literature (Greeley, 1988, p. 11).