The relative role of the intellectual and moral virtues in sustainable management decisions: The case of practical wisdom and justice

We analyze the status of virtues in management by going in some depth into the two main virtues, justice and practical wisdom. We next study how ethics requires that all virtues should be present under the ideal concept of a ‘unity of virtues’ for a completely wise person and discuss the practical limitations of this concept. Then, we draw a framework for decision making depending on whether the decision maker possesses justice and practical wisdom or lacks one of them and then discuss which one is better to have. We conclude that justice is more important, as it is about setting objectives and prioritizing, whereas practical wisdom is about attaining these objectives, once listed, in a rationally wise and contextual way. Hence, we conclude that objectives (justice) must come first, because this makes it more likely that, in the end, practical wisdom is developed, and thus we end up having the two virtue

Trust under bounded rationality: Competence, value systems, unselfishness and the development of virtue

Purpose: This paper analyses the foundations of trust in a context of bounded rationality to reach the conclusion that non-calculative trust is meaningful essentially because of bounded rationality, specifying what aspects of bounded rationality are relevant for this to happen. Design/methodology: Building on previous theoretical work we conceptually develop the reasoning involved to arrive deductively that bounded rationality provides a rationale for the concept of trust that goes beyond a calculative notion. Findings: We show that there are four reasons for trust to exist and that people assess probabilities to each in order to determine whether to trust a recipient, depending on each of the four. We also add to previous work and show how bounded rationality provides additional arguments to show how competence, value systems and unselfishness are necessary to underpin trust. We provide additional foundations to their three factors, focused on bounded rationality. We add the development of virtue as a crucial fourth aspect, which supports the argument that trust can be reinforced between people and developed through time. Originality/value: The concept of trust has been analyzed empirically, but it lacks some theoretical foundations to show under which assumptions trust is a requirement that goes beyond mere calculations, and can be developed or not through time. We also introduce how the concept of virtue has a major role in trust development

La iniciativa emprenedora, febrer 2012

Material docent de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.Material docente de la "Universitat Oberta de Catalunya".Learning material of the "Universitat Oberta de Catalunya"

La iniciativa emprenedora, febrer 2012

Material docent de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.Material docente de la "Universitat Oberta de Catalunya".Learning material of the "Universitat Oberta de Catalunya"

Justice to Generate Trust, Two Aspects of Human Relationships in Management

Justice and trust have largely been considered important in organizations, to generate sustainable management practices that when maintained generate improvements over time. Trust is the organizational glue allowing people to enter into mutual benefiting interactions and relationships for a continuous long-term coordination. Trust is unavoidable as not all participants have all the information and should rely on others’ decisions. Justice is a personal virtue that affects all the relationship participants, the decision-maker, the recipient and the beholder. Justice is also a perception of these participants about decisions, people involved and results. Justice as a personal virtue is important for the decision-making, but as an organizational value is coming as a set of requisites for organizational formal and informal systems. In this chapter I aim at understanding the foundations of trust, understanding justice dimensions, and finally disentangling the relationship between trust and justice and how both can mutually be cause and effect of each other. I also examine how trust and justice brought together may cause other desired effects into organizational performance. I propose an understanding of the interplay between trust and justice that helps to improve management practices and their design to maintain and promote economical and socially sustainable organizations

How Should We Distribute Rewards in Social Sustainable Organizations? Investigating Individual Preferences for Justice Allocation Norms

The fair allocation of scarce resources is an important ethical and practical problem for sustainable organizations. Research has typically focused on the perceived equity of distributions to the neglect of alternative justice norms governing allocation, such as equality or need. In the present paper, we address this gap by considering people to differ in their preferences for allocation norms. In four studies, we developed and validated an instrument that captures individual preferences for equity of input, equity of output, equality, need, and status. Our data suggest that people differentiate between these five allocation norms and that they are consistent in their preferences over time. We present recommendations for research and organizational practice, which can benefit from a deeper understanding of employees’ and other stakeholders’ preferences for specific allocation norms. Finally, considering different norm choices also links organizational-psychological research on organizational justice and social sustainability with philosophical debates about value choices in organizations

How Should We Distribute Rewards in Social Sustainable Organizations? Investigating Individual Preferences for Justice Allocation Norms

The fair allocation of scarce resources is an important ethical and practical problem for sustainable organizations. Research has typically focused on the perceived equity of distributions to the neglect of alternative justice norms governing allocation, such as equality or need. In the present paper, we address this gap by considering people to differ in their preferences for allocation norms. In four studies, we developed and validated an instrument that captures individual preferences for equity of input, equity of output, equality, need, and status. Our data suggest that people differentiate between these five allocation norms and that they are consistent in their preferences over time. We present recommendations for research and organizational practice, which can benefit from a deeper understanding of employees’ and other stakeholders’ preferences for specific allocation norms. Finally, considering different norm choices also links organizational-psychological research on organizational justice and social sustainability with philosophical debates about value choices in organizations

The impact of ABC costing systems to solve managerial cost problems: a real improvement, a fad or a fashion?

One of the main problems of management profession is that there is not yet a corpus of theories and knowledge that can assist professionals to take adequate choices for solving the problems they actually have. Initially, we can assume that the inherent reasons for the explosion and diffusion of ABC are that these systems improve the efficiency of the selected strategy. However, a significant number of failures reveal a situation that can be attributed to other potential reasons, for instance a bad implementation. The existence of this paradox, lead us to investigate alternatives reasons for the diffusion of ABC. We show that there are alternative reasons for the diffusion of ABC, which may be a 'fad logic' rather than a 'problem solving logic' that we think should dominate management. We also argue that ABC systems are not introducing a revolutionary improvement in terms of the conceptualization of costs, as ABC is simply a way of using a full cost approach with a different conception of a cost center. Then, it can be useful mainly in cases where the decisions to be made can be better made using a full cost instead of other cost measures

Virtues of integrity and veracity in reporting, data alone is not enough. A case study approach

One of the claims made in reporting is that firms should publish more information, both quantitative and qualitative. The annual reports of companies are thought precisely to fulfill this function: allowing the ones who have any type of interest in companies to be aware of the data, both quantitative and qualitative (in the form of annual reports). In this paper, we argue that data alone is not enough. We use the case of the company Fish&Fish, Inc. to show that the problem goes beyond the data itself. The most well calculated data and the most detailed reports could be insufficient to deter future ethical misbehaviors or to perform ethical behavior for the stakeholders. We argue that data must be complemented with several ethical virtues: integrity on the managerial part, veracity in the way reports are written. These two should also be complemented with justice, meaning that balancing several interests that parties have at the same time and managing the way integrity and veracity needs to be implemented in reporting decisions. Looking at Fish&Fish, Inc. we show that the main problems was the lack of veracity and integrity in the reporting that may mask present or future fraud

La consommation collaborative en Europe : démêler la dualité des rôles

Cet article apporte de nouvelles preuves sur l’économie collaborative en Europe grâce à l’analyse des motivations à participer à une plateforme collaborative en tant qu’acquéreur ou fournisseur. À cet effet, nous analysons un échantillon paneuropéen de 14 050 citoyens provenant de 28 pays. L’étude, qui applique une méthodologie de prévision empirique grâce à un modèle d’équations structurelles, fournit deux principales contributions à la littérature. Premièrement, les motivations économiques et les motivations basées sur l’efficacité prédisent l’acquisition et la fourniture de biens et services sur les plateformes collaboratives en Europe. Deuxièmement, les échanges non financiers prédisent également la fourniture sur les plateformes collaboratives. Nos résultats ont également des incidences sur l’aménagement du territoire. Comprendre les motivations entre les acquéreurs et les fournisseurs peut favoriser les échanges collaboratifs des ressources essentielles, plus particulièrement à petite échelle et à l’échelle locale.Through the analysis of the motivations for participation in collaborative platforms as an obtainer or as a provider, the paper provides new evidence on the collaborative economy in Europe. For that purpose, we analyze a pan-European sample of 14,050 citizens from 28 countries. The study, which applies an empirical prediction methodology through a structural equation modelling (SEM), provides two main contributions to the literature. Firstly, economic and usefulness motivations predict the obtaining and provision of goods and services through collaborative platforms in Europe. Secondly, non-monetary exchanges also predict the provision of collaborative platforms. Our results also have implications for territorial development. Understanding the motivations between obtainers and providers can foster collaborative exchanges of essential resources, especially at a small-scale and at local levels