The influence of moral sensitivity on organizational cooperation

International audienceThe purpose of this paper is to present how to model moral sensitivity and emotions in organizational setting by using the SocLab formal framework. SocLab is a platform for the modelling, simulation and analysis of cooperation relationships within social organizations – and more generally Systems of Organized Action. Design/methodology/approach – Simulation results, including an interesting tendency for a Free Rider model, will be given. Considering that actors’ decision-making processes are not just driven by instrumental interest, the SocLab learning simulation algorithm has been extended to represent moral sensitivity, making actors trying to prevent bad emotions and feel good ones.Findings – Some simulation results about actors’ collaboration and emotions in a Free Rider model were presented. A noteworthy tendency is that actors’ unconditional collaboration, which occurs when their moral sensitivity reaches its highest value, is not so good since it exempts other actors from collaboration (they take advantage from the unconditional collaboration), while values of moral sensitivity somewhat below the highest value (between 0.7 and 0.9) still induces collaboration from others.Originality/value – The research and results presented in this paper have not been presented in other papers or workshops. The presented quantitative definition of emotions (determining indexes of emotions) is different to previous approaches – for instance, to Ortony, Clore and Collins (OCC) qualitative descriptions and to logical descriptions. Similarly, simulation of morality in organizations is a new research field, which has received scarce attention up to now

Moral Intuitions and Organizational Culture

Many efforts to understand and respond to a succession of corporate scandals over the last few years have underscored the importance of organizational culture in shaping the behavior of individuals. This focus reflects appreciation that even if an organization has adopted elaborate rules and policies designed to ensure legal compliance and ethical behavior, those pronouncements will be ineffective if other norms and incentives promote contrary conduct. Responding to the call for creating and sustaining an ethical culture in organizations requires appreciating the subtle ways in which various characteristics of an organization may work in tandem or at cross-purposes in shaping behavior. The idea is to identify the influences likely to be most important, analyze how people are apt to respond to them, and revise them if necessary so that they create the right kinds of incentives when individuals are deciding how to act. This can be a tall order even if we assume that most behavior is the result of a deliberative process that weighs multiple risks and rewards. It’s even more daunting if we accept the notion that conscious deliberation typically plays but a minor role in shaping behavior. A focus on what two scholars describe as “the unbearable automaticity of being” posits that most of a person’s everyday life is determined not by conscious intentions and deliberate choices but by mental processes outside of conscious awareness. In this article, I discuss a particular strand of research that is rooted in the study of non-conscious mental processes, and consider its implications for ethics and culture in the organizational setting. This is work on the process that we use to identify and respond to situations that raise what we think of as distinctly moral questions. A growing body of research suggests that a large portion of this process involves automatic non-conscious cognitive and emotional reactions rather than conscious deliberation. One way to think of these reactions is that they reflect reliance on moral intuitions. When such intuitions arise, we don’t engage in moral reasoning in order to arrive at a conclusion. Instead, we do so in order to justify a conclusion that we’ve already reached. In other words, moral conclusions precede, rather than follow, moral reasoning. If this research accurately captures much of our moral experience, what does it suggest about what’s necessary to foster an ethical organizational culture? At first blush, the implications seem unsettling. The non-conscious realm is commonly associated with irrational and arbitrary impulses, and morality often is characterized as the hard-won achievement of reason over these unruly forces. If most of our moral judgments are the product of non-conscious processes, how can we hope to understand, much less influence, our moral responses? Are moral reactions fundamentally inscrutable and beyond appeals to reason? If reason has no persuasive force, does appreciation of the non-conscious source of our moral judgments suggest that any effort to promote ethical conduct must rest on a crude behaviorism that manipulates penalties and rewards? I believe that acknowledging the prominent role of non-conscious processes in shaping moral responses need not inevitably lead either to fatalism or Skinnerian behaviorism. Research has begun to shed light on how these processes operate. Related work has suggested how our moral responses may be rooted in human evolution. This perspective focuses on the ways in which our capacity for moral judgment is embedded in physical and mental processes that have provided an adaptive advantage in human evolution. These bodies of research contribute to a richer portrait of human cognition and behavior that can be valuable in thinking about how to promote ethical awareness and conduct. As Owen Flanagan has put it, “seeing clearly the kinds of persons we are is a necessary condition for any productive ethical reflection.” If there were such a thing as a normative theory of human movement, it would be futile if it exhorted us to fly. Efforts to create an organizational culture that encouraged people to fly would be doomed as well. In thinking about ethics, we need to have a sense of what lies between simply accommodating what we tend to do and demanding that we fly. My hope is that this article takes a small step in that direction

SOCIAL NETWORKS OF THE ITALIAN MAFIA; THE STRONG AND WEAK PARTS

In this paper, it is argued that well-built, social network system has enabled the Mafia to\ud reach a certain level of success through three main networks: members, local people, and\ud politicians. I assert that the role of the executive power of the state has been partially\ud supportive in this success. Moreover, this paper also concludes that to combat different\ud Mafia groups, it is essential to know their strong and weak parts. Consequently, it is found\ud that their well-built network system does not solely comprise of strong parts but that the\ud weak parts also exist, albeit, that they have not yet played a defective role in the resolution of\ud the Mafia. Therefore, this paper suggests that the illustration of both the strong and weak\ud parts of these networks can have prominent and assisting role in the combat against the\ud Mafia phenomenon in the future, either by strengthening the weak parts or by weakening the\ud strong parts of its networks

Ethics in a Global Society (Chapter 12 of Organizational Ethics: A Practical Approach

Globalization is having a dramatic impact on life in the 21st century. We inhabit a global society knit together by free trade, international travel, immigration, satellite communication systems, and the Internet. In this interconnected world, ethical responsibilities extend beyond national boundaries. Decisions about raw materials, manufacturing, outsourcing, farm subsidies, investments, marketing strategies, suppliers, safety standards, and energy use made in one country have ramifications for residents of other parts of the world. Organizational citizenship is now played out on a global stage. Businesses, in particular, are being urged to take on a larger role in solving the world\u27s social problems

Prosocial Behaviors: Their Motivations and Impacts on Organizational Culture

According to the International Corrupt Perceptions Index 2017, more than six billion people are living countries that are plagued by corruption (International Corrupt Perceptions Index, 2017). In an altruistic model of leadership, leaders act with the express intent of helping other people (Johnson, 2015). Within this model, good works manifest themselves as prosocial behaviors or “voluntary behavior(s) intended to benefit another and consisting of actions that benefit others or society” (Schminke, Arnaud, & Taylor, 2014, p. 730). These prosocial behaviors can create collaborative and inspirational environments (Axelsson & Axelsson, 2009), facilitate collectivism (Clarkson, 2014), and contribute to the long-term sustainability of an organization (Furnham, Treglown, Hyde, & Trickey, 2016). Leaders can nurture an altruistic environment in their organizations by motivating employees to participate in prosocial behaviors (Mallén, Chiva, Alegre, & Guinot, 2014). This article introduces the altruistic approach to leadership, explores prosocial behaviors, examines motivations for prosocial behaviors, and investigates how leaders can nurture benevolent cultures in their organizations by encouraging employees to demonstrate altruism and prosocial behaviors. Specifically, this article explores the impacts of prosocial behaviors on organizational culture

Antecedents of trust in international joint ventures' (IJVS) performance in developing countries: A review of empirical evidence

Trust in international joint venture has received much attention for the last 20 years. This study highlights the importance of social capital in international joint ventures (IJVs) in developing countries. This paper assesses the impact of antecedents of trust on performance of international joint ventures in developing countries, which is based on social exchange theory. Little attention has been paid to exploring the concept in IJV. The impacts of components of inter partner-fits and relational factors on trust and the effect of trust on performance of IJVs will be considered. In addition the impact of religion and country risk on level of trust in IJVs in these countries will be evaluated. A framework has been developed based on this review analyses and integrates empirical evidence in order to identify convergence and conflict in IJV. The paper addresses a problem of relevance to both international academics and practitioners in addressing managerial implications. It is hoped that the study will provide a meaningful implication to the process of selection of IJV partners

FINDING SOLUTIONS TO ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN AGRICULTURE

This paper distinguishes between two types of ethical Problems. A Type I ethical problem is one in which there is no consensus as to what is ethical. A Type II ethical problem is one in which there is a consensus as to what is ethical, but incentives exist for individuals to behave unethically. This paper shows that Type I ethical problems can only be resolved by making, challenging and reasoning through moral arguments, and Type II ethical problems can only be resolved by changing the institutional environment so that people do not have incentives to behave Unethically. Applications to and examples from agricultural and environmental problems are provided.Political Economy,

The role of metaphor in shaping the identity and agenda of the United Nations: the imagining of an international community and international threat

This article examines the representation of the United Nations in speeches delivered by its Secretary General. It focuses on the role of metaphor in constructing a common ‘imagining’ of international diplomacy and legitimising an international organisational identity. The SG legitimises the organisation, in part, through the delegitimisation of agents/actions/events constructed as threatening to the international community and to the well-being of mankind. It is a desire to combat the forces of menace or evil which are argued to motivate and determine the organisational agenda. This is predicated upon an international ideology of humanity in which difference is silenced and ‘working towards the common good’ is emphasised. This is exploited to rouse emotions and legitimise institutional power. Polarisation and antithesis are achieved through the employment of metaphors designed to enhance positive and negative evaluations. The article further points to the constitutive, persuasive and edifying power of topic and situationally-motivated metaphors in speech-making

Leadership and Fairness: The State of the Art

Research in leadership effectiveness has paid less to the role of leader fairness than probably it should have. More recently, this has started to change. To capture this development, we review the empirical literature in leadership and fairness to define the field of leadership and fairness, to assess the state of the art, and to identify a research agenda for future efforts in the field. The review shows that leader distributive, procedural, and especially interactional fairness are positively associated with criteria of leadership effectiveness. More scarce and scattered evidence also suggests that fairness considerations help explain the effectiveness of other aspects of leadership, and that leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, or the leadership context, may interact in predicting leadership effectiveness. We conclude that future research should especially focus on interaction effects of leader fairness and other aspects of leadership, and on the processes mediating these effects.Leadership effectiveness;Fairness