Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:03:16.750Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moral Imagination in Organizational Problem-Solving: An Institutional Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2020

Deborah Vidaver-Cohen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This essay responds to Patricia Werhane’s 1994 Ruffin Lecture address, “Moral Imagination and the Search for Ethical Decision-making in Management,” using institutional theory as an analytical framework to explore conditions that either inhibit or promote moral imagination in organizational problem-solving. Implications of the analysis for managing organizational change and for business ethics theory development are proposed.

Type
Section III
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 8 , Issue S1: The Ruffin Series Special Issue No.1 , 1998 , pp. 123 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © Business Ethics Quarterly 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, N. (1991). International dimensions of organizational behavior. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Andrews, K. (1989). Ethics in practice. Harvard Business Review, September-October, 99-104.Google Scholar
Arlow, P. and Ulrich, T. (1988). A longitudinal survey of business school graduates’ assessment of business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics. 7, 295–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Baucus, M. and Near, J. (1991). Can illegal corporate behavior be predicted? An event history analysis. Academy of Management Journal. 34 (1), 9–36.Google Scholar
Baumhart, R. C. (1961). How ethical are businessmen? Harvard Business Review. 39 (4), 6–8.Google Scholar
Brenner, S. and Molander, E. (1977). Is the ethics of business changing? Harvard Business Review. 55 (1), 57–71.Google Scholar
Brief, A., Dukerich, J., Brown, P.Brett, J. (1995). What's wrong with the Treadway Commission report? Experimental analyses of the effects of personal values and codes of conduct on fraudulent financial reporting. Journal of Business Ethics.Google Scholar
Clinard, M. B. (Ed.). (1964). Anomie and deviant behavior. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Clinard, M. (1983). Corporate Ethics and Crime. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Clinard, M. B. and Yeager, P. (1980). Corporate crime. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P. (1988). Interest and agency in institutional theory. In Zucker (ed.) Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment (3-21). Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. W. (1991). Introduction. In Powell, W. W. and DiMaggio, P, (Eds.) The new institutionalism in organization analysis (183–203). Chicago, University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. and Preston, L. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence and implications. Academy of Management Review. 20 (1), 65–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etzioni, A. (1988). The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fligstein, N. (1990). The transformation of corporate control. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Forlani, V. (1994). Boston Against Drugs: An analysis of business involvement in the community. In Wartick, S. and Collins, D. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the International Association of Business and Society. Hilton Head, SC.Google Scholar
Frederick, W. (1992). The empirical quest for normative meaning. Business Ethics Quarterly. 2 (2), 91–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R. E. and Gilbert, D. (1988). Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gioa, D. (1992). Pinto fires and personal ethics: A script analysis of missed opportunities. Journal of Business Ethics. 11, 379–389.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanson, K. (1992). Profiles in Business Responsibility. New York: Business Enterprise Trust.Google Scholar
Hoffman, W. M. and Petry, E. (1995). Ethics Officer Association News. Waltham, MA: Center for Business Ethics, Bentley College.Google Scholar
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Issues. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Hosmer, L. T. (1995). Trust: The connecting link between organizational theory and philosophical ethics. Academy of Management Review, 20 (2), 379–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, M. and Meckling, W. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3 (4), 305–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jepperson, R. L. (1991). Institutions, institutional effects and institutionalization. In Powell, and DiMaggio, (Eds.) The new institutionalism in organization analysis (143–163). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, T. (1995). Instrumental stakeholder theory: A synthesis of ethics and economics. Academy of Management Review, 20 (2), 404–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, R. M. (1995). World Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Katz, D and Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Kotter, J. P. and Heskett, J. (1992). Corporate culture and performance. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, J. and Shriver, D. (1991). Beyond success: Corporations and their critics in the 1990s. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
March, J. and Olsen, J. (1989). Rediscovering institutions. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Meyer, J. W., Boli, J. and Thomas, G. (1994). Ontology and rationalization in the western cultural account. In Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (Eds.) Institutional environments and organizations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Moore, J. (1992). Corporate culpability under the federal sentencing guidelines. Arizona Law Review, 34, December.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990). Institutions, institutional change and economic performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paine, L. (1994). Managing for organizational integrity. Harvard Business Review, March-April, 106-117.Google Scholar
Passas, N. (1988). Merton's theory of anomie and deviance: an elaboration. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Edinburgh, Scotland.Google Scholar
Passas, N. (1990). Anomie and corporate deviance. Contemporary Crises, 14, 157–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Post, J. E. (1996). Business and the twenty-first century (529-555). In Post, J. E., Frederick, W. C., Lawrence, A. T. and Weber, J. (1996). Business and Society: Corporate strategy, public policy and ethics. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Post, J. E. (1994). Findings of the BSR survey on social responsibility and corporate competitiveness. Boston, MA: Boston University School of Management.Google Scholar
Post, J. E. and Waddock, S.A. (1989). Social cause partnerships and the “megaevent”: Hunger, homelessness and Hands Across America. Research in corporate social performance and policy, 9, 181–205. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Powell, W. W. (1991). Expanding the scope of institutional analysis. In Powell and DiMaggio (Eds.) The new institutionalism in organization analysis (183-203). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, W. W. and DiMaggio, P. (Eds.) The new institutionalism in organization analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. (1994a). Institutions and organizations: Toward a theoretical synthesis (55-80). In Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (Eds.) Institutional environments and organizations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. (1994b). Institutional analysis: Variance and process theory approaches (81-112). In Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (Eds.) Institutional environments and organizations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (1994). The rise of training programs in firms and agencies: An institutional perspective (228-254). In Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (Eds.) Institutional environments and organizations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, P., Sathe, V., Schlesinger, L. and Kotter, J. (1992). Organization, 3rd Edition. Boston: Irwin.Google Scholar
Stone, C. D. (1975). Where the law ends. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Strang, D. and Meyer, J. W. (1994). Institutional conditions for diffusion. In Scott, W. R. and Meyer, J. W. (Eds.) Institutional environments and organizations. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Tichy, N. (1983). Managing strategic change: Technical political and cultural dynamics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Trevino, L. (1986). Ethical decision making in organizations: a person-situation interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, 11 (3), 607–617.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trevino, L. (1990). A cultural perspective on changing and developing organizational ethics. Research on Organization Change and Development, 4, 195–230.Google Scholar
Trevino, L. and McCabe, D. (1994). Meta-leaming about business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 13 (6).Google Scholar
Trevino, L. and Victor, B. (1992). Peer reporting of unethical behavior: A social context perspective. Academy of Management Journal, 35 (1), 38–64.Google Scholar
Trevino, L. and Youngblood, S. (1990). Bad apples in bad barrels: a causal analysis of ethical decision-making behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75 (4), 378–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaughan, D. (1983). Controlling unlawful organizational behavior: social structure and corporate misconduct. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Victor, B. and Cullen, J. (1988). The organizational bases of ethical work climates. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33, 101–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidaver-Cohen, D. (1992). Resisting the right stuff: Barriers to Business ethics consultation. Academy of Management Best Paper Proceedings, 155-159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidaver-Cohen, D. (1993). Creating and maintaining ethical work climates: Anomie in the workplace and implications for managing change. Society for Business Ethics Best Paper Award, 1992. Business Ethics Quarterly, 3 (4) 343–358.Google Scholar
Vidaver-Cohen, D. (1995a). Creating ethical work climates: A socio-economic perspective. Journal of Socio-economics, 24 (2), 317–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidaver-Cohen, D. (1995b). Global competitiveness and the costs of crime: A study of business-stakeholder relations in metropolitan Miami, Florida. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the International Association for Business and Society, 345-350. Vienna, Austria.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vidaver-Cohen, D. (1995c). Ethics and crime in business firms: Organizational culture and the impact of anomie. Advances in Criminological Theory, 6, 184–213.Google Scholar
Waddock, S. A. and Boyle, M. E. (1994). Corporate community relations: Driving forces in a changing environment. In Wartick, S. and Collins, D. (Eds.) Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Conference of the International Association of Business and Society, 317–322. Hilton Head, SC.Google Scholar
Waddock, S. A. and Boyle, M. E. (1995). The dynamics of change in corporate community relations. California Management Review.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, O. (1985). The economic institutions of capitalism. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, A. (1991). Whose keeper? Social science and moral obligation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Walton, C. (1967). Corporate social responsibilities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Werhane, P. (1994). Moral imagination and the search for ethical decision-making in management. The Ruffin Lectures in Business Ethics. Charlottesville, VA: The Darden School, University of Virginia.Google Scholar
Wood, D. (1991). Corporate social performance revisited. Academy of Management Review, 16 (4), 691–718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, D. (1994). Business and Society. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Zucker, L. G. (1988). Where do institutional patterns come from? Organizations as actors in social systems. In Zucker, (ed.) Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.Google Scholar