Testing the Limits of Antidiscrimination Law: The Business, Legal, and Ethical Ramifications of Cultural Profiling at Work

While courts have rarely ruled in favor of plaintiffs bringing discrimination claims based on identity performance, legal scholars have argued that discrimination on the basis of certain cultural displays should be prohibited because it creates a work environment that is heavily charged with ethnic and racial discrimination. Drawing upon empirical studies of diversity management, stereotyping, and group dynamics, we describe how workplace cultural profiling often creates an unproductive atmosphere of heightened scrutiny and identity performance constraints that lead workers (especially those from marginalized groups) to behave in less authentic, less innovative ways in diverse organizational settings

Identity and Commitment: Sen\u27s Conception of the Individual

This paper develops a conception of personal identity for Amartya Sen’s capability framework that emphasizes his self-scrutinizing aspect of the self and related concept of commitment, and compares this conception to the collective intentionality-based one advanced in Davis (2003c). The paper also distinguishes personal identity and social identity, and contrasts Sen’s framework with recent standard economics’ explanation of social identity in terms of conformity. Sen’s concept of commitment is examined in two formulations, and the later version is related to Bernard Williams’ thinking about identity-conferring commitments. The paper’s concludes by arguing that explaining personal identity as a special capability and possible object of social-economic policy provides one way of resolving the debate over whether the capability framework ought to have a short-list of essential capabilities

Extended emotions

Until recently, philosophers and psychologists conceived of emotions as brain- and body-bound affairs. But researchers have started to challenge this internalist and individualist orthodoxy. A rapidly growing body of work suggests that some emotions incorporate external resources and thus extend beyond the neurophysiological confines of organisms; some even argue that emotions can be socially extended and shared by multiple agents. Call this the extended emotions thesis. In this article, we consider different ways of understanding ExE in philosophy, psychology, and the cognitive sciences. First, we outline the background of the debate and discuss different argumentative strategies for ExE. In particular, we distinguish ExE from cognate but more moderate claims about the embodied and situated nature of cognition and emotion. We then dwell upon two dimensions of ExE: emotions extended by material culture and by the social factors. We conclude by defending ExE against some objections and point to desiderata for future research

Managing in Uncertainty : Complexity and the paradoxes of everyday organizational life

© 2015 Chris Mowles. All rights reserved.The reality of everyday organizational life is that it is filled with uncertainty, contradictions and paradoxes. Yet leaders and managers are expected to act as though they can predict the future and bring about the impossible: that they can transform themselves and their colleagues, design different cultures, choose the values for their organization, be innovative, control conflict and have inspiring visions. Whilst managers will have had lots of experiences of being in charge, they probably realise that they are not always in control. So how might we frame a much more realistic account of what’s possible for managers to achieve? Many managers are implicitly aware of their messy reality, but they rarely spend much time reflecting on what it is that they are actually doing. Drawing on insights from the complexity sciences, process sociology and pragmatic philosophy, Chris Mowles engages directly with some principal contradictions of organizational life concerning innovation, culture change, conflict and leadership. Mowles argues that if managers proceed from the expectation that organizational life as inherently uncertain, and interactions between people are complex and often paradoxical, they start noticing different things and create possibilities for acting in different ways. Managing in Uncertainty will be of interest to practitioners, advanced students and researchers looking at management and organizational studies from a critical perspective

The Blaming Function of Entity Criminal Liability

Application of the doctrine of entity criminal liability, which had only a thin tort-like rationale at inception, now sometimes instantiates a social practice of blaming institutions. Examining that social practice can ameliorate persistent controversy over entity liability\u27s place in the criminal law. An organization\u27s role in its agent\u27s bad act is often evaluated with a moral slant characteristic of judgments of criminality and with inquiry into whether the institution qua institution contributed to the agent\u27s wrong. Legal process, by lending clarity and authority, enhances the communicative impact, in the form of reputational effects, of blaming an institution for a wrong. Reputational effects can flow through to individuals in ways that reduce probability of future wrongdoing by altering individual preferences and forcing reevaluation and reform of institutional arrangements. Blame and utility are closely connected here: the impulse to blame organizations and the beneficial effects of doing so both appear to depend on the degree of institutional influence on the agent. These insights imply that the doctrine should be tailored, unlike present law, to more fully exploit criminal law\u27s expressive capital by selecting cases according to entity blameworthiness. Barriers to describing the phenomenon of organizational influence and culture prevent discovery of a first-best rule of institutional responsibility. A second-best step would be to enhance the existing doctrine\u27s examination of agent mens rea, to impose fault only if the agent acted primarily with the intent to benefit the firm

Color/Identity/Justice: Chicano Trials

This Book Review seeks to rectify in small measure the omission of color from American documents of black/white legal and political struggle. Enlarging the spectrum of struggle beyond the black/white paradigm not only works to correct the historical record of color in law, but also helps to advance the progress of color in society. As a starting point for this revision, the review turns to Ian F. Haney Lopez's new book, Racism on Trial: The Chicano Fight for Justice. Racism on Trial broadens and deepens the study of indigenous and immigrant legal and political struggle by documenting the defense of the Chicano movement in its rise out of the East Los Angeles Mexican community of California amid the turmoil of the 1960s