Complexity sciences and business ethics : a different perspective

This paper strives to shed some light on organizations\u27 behaviours and practices of business ethics in the marketplace and the surrounding society by the aid of complexity sciences. For this purpose, a conceptual discussion will be based upon the causal frameworks of teleology introduced by Stacey, Griffin and Shaw (2000).<br /

When Government Intrudes: Regulating Individual Behaviors That Harm the Environment

Emerging environmental problems and technologies, coupled with the existence of mature regulatory regimes governing most industrial sources of pollution, reveal with new clarity the harms that individual behaviors can inflict on the environment. Changing how individuals impact the environment through their daily behaviors, however, requires a reorientation of environmental law and policy and a balancing of government prerogatives with individual liberty. A growing body of legal scholarship recognizes the environmental significance of individual behaviors, critiques the failure of law and policy to capture harms traceable to individuals, and suggests and evaluates strategies for capturing individual harms going forward. In this discussion, mandates on individuals have been largely dismissed as a policy tool for changing environmentally significant individual behaviors because of a widely shared view (1) that detection and enforcement of such mandates would pose insurmountable technical, administrative, and cost barriers and (2) that the application of mandates to individuals would trigger insurmountable objections to their intrusive effect, essentially so offending notions of liberty and privacy that they could not be adopted or enforced. But there are reasons to believe that the cost and feasibility of imposing mandates on environmentally significant individual behaviors may be less daunting than widely imagined. Notably, intrusion objections have yet to be subjected to critical examination. A better understanding of whether, when, and why mandates on environmentally significant individual behaviors might trigger fatal intrusion objections would help to assess mandates as a policy tool for changing environmentally significant individual behaviors and would offer guidance about how mandates could be structured to avoid such objections. This Article undertakes an initial effort to better define and understand the intrusion objection as it applies to the use of individual mandates to change environmentally significant behaviors. Part I surveys prior and existing laws aimed at individual behaviors and associated environmental harms to develop a rough sense of when such regulations have, and have not, triggered what could be characterized as intrusion objections. Part II then looks to substantive due process jurisprudence for further guidance about when and why government restrictions on individual freedom might give rise to intrusion objections. Part III builds on Parts I and II to offer a more nuanced understanding of the intrusion objection and suggests some principles to guide the consideration and development of mandates on environmentally significant individual behaviors going forward. Part III proposes as an example an energy-waste ordinance designed to avoid intrusion objections. The Article concludes that the obstacle to direct regulation of environmentally significant individual behaviors posed by the intrusion objection is both narrower and broader than presently recognized. The obstacle posed by the intrusion objection is narrower because although the enforcement of mandates against some primarily in-home behaviors may occasion insurmountable privacy objections, other environmentally significant individual behaviors can be and are regulated without triggering these objections. The obstacle posed by the intrusion objection is broader because perceived government intrusion is just one of the costs—along with monetary costs and inconvenience—that regulation can impose on individuals. The more salient variable for purposes of understanding the objections to regulating environmentally significant individual behaviors is transparency: direct regulation, as opposed to indirect regulation, tends to make all of the costs of regulation more transparent, an effect that may invite public resistance

A Benchmarking Toolkit for Corporate Sustainable Development in Supply Chains

The objective is to describe and apply a benchmarking toolkit to prioritize managerial implications for the measurement and assessment of sustainable development in supply chains. A case study approach of a Scandinavian hotel chain, which is well-known for its dedication and commitment to the sustainable development of its business practices, is used. The outcome of a TBL dominant logic consisting of dimensions, indicators and items across economic, social and environmental aspects, which yields various benchmarking priorities of implications for supply chains is discussed. The priority of sustainable development in supply chains depends on the others involved who may have contradictory views on what to do and how to progress sustainable development. The assessment scheme reported stresses through an asymmetric benchmarking approach and interpretation, rather than a symmetric one, so as to deal effectively with the priority of managerial implications of corporate sustainable development in supply chains. Suggestion for futher research are provided. This study provides the foundation of a benchmarking toolkit for corporate sustainable development that offers relevant and valuable insights into the priority of managerial implications across economic, social and environmental aspects in connection with business sustainability in supply chains

Resonant and off-resonant microwave signal manipulation in coupled superconducting resonators

We present an experimental demonstration as well as a theoretical model of an integrated circuit designed for the manipulation of a microwave field down to the single-photon level. The device is made of a superconducting resonator coupled to a transmission line via a second frequency-tunable resonator. The tunable resonator can be used as a tunable coupler between the fixed resonator and the transmission line. Moreover, the manipulation of the microwave field between the two resonators is possible. In particular, we demonstrate the swapping of the field from one resonator to the other by pulsing the frequency detuning between the two resonators. The behavior of the system, which determines how the device can be operated, is analyzed as a function of one key parameter of the system, the damping ratio of the coupled resonators. We show a good agreement between experiments and simulations, realized by solving a set of coupled differential equations.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Storage and on-demand release of microwaves using superconducting resonators with tunable coupling

We present a system which allows to tune the coupling between a superconducting resonator and a transmission line. This storage resonator is addressed through a second, coupling resonator, which is frequency-tunable and controlled by a magnetic flux applied to a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID). We experimentally demonstrate that the lifetime of the storage resonator can be tuned by more than three orders of magnitude. A field can be stored for 18 {\mu}s when the coupling resonator is tuned off resonance and it can be released in 14 ns when the coupling resonator is tuned on resonance. The device allows capture, storage, and on-demand release of microwaves at a tunable rate.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Cross-sector organisational engagement with ethics : a comparison between private sector companies and public sector entities of Sweden

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of the paper is to describe and compare similarities as well as differences in the organizational engagement with ethics between private sector companies and public sector entities. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; A survey was conducted in order to examine the organizational engagement with ethics in the largest private sector companies and the largest public sector entities in Sweden. Two adapted questionnaires were developed for each sector. The outcome of this research procedure is reported in this paper. Findings &ndash; There are both minor and major differences between the private sector and public sectors, where the private sector companies overall tend to be more engaged with ethics than the public sector entities in areas such as: ethical bodies, ethical tools, internal and external ethical usage, and ethical support measures and ethical performance measures. Research limitations/implications &ndash; This paper makes a contribution to theory as it outlines findings for the benefit of other researchers working in private and/or public sectors in the field. A suggestion for further research is to examine the organizational engagement with ethics in other countries/cultures that differ from the ones in this research effort performed in the private and public sectors of Sweden. Practical implications &ndash; The research may be of managerial interest as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the examination of organizational engagement with ethics in both private sector companies and public sector entities. It may be used as a benchmark by either sector. Originality/value &ndash; It reports a research effort to develop and describe a cross-sector comparison of the organizational engagement with ethics between private sector companies and public sector entities of Sweden. A framework is also introduced and illustrated. It also makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it is based upon a dual sample that provides insight into cross-sector organizational engagement with ethics.<br /

The value of cultivating norms for market orientation in professional service firms

acceptedVersio

Introduction – on interactive research

"This article is an introduction to the special issue on interactive research. A short presentation is made of the different articles. A background to the growing interest in interactive research is presented, and some differences and similarities with action research are discussed. One section deals with the issue of validity in interactive research, another with the realistic and critical perspective. The role of researcher is described. In the final section an interactive research model is presented." (author's abstract