Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T19:09:17.315Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ideology and the Economic Social Contract in a Downsizing Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

George W. Watson ,
Jon M. Shepard ,
Carroll U. Stephens  and
John C. Christman
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

By combining normative philosophy and empirical social science, we craft a research framework for assessing differential expectations embodied in normative conceptions of the economic social contract in the United States. We argue that there are distinct views of such a contract grounded in individualist and communitarian philosophical ideologies. We apply this framework to organizational downsizing, postulating that certain human resource practices, in combination with the respective ideological orientations, will affect perceptions of the justice of downsizing policies.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 659 - 672
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1999

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

Adams, J. S. 1965. “Inequity in Social Exchange.” In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, ed. Berkowitz, L.New York: Academic Press, pp. 267–299.Google Scholar
Abramson, J., and Bussiere, E. 1995. “Free Speech and Free Press: A Communitarian Perspective.” In The New Communitarian Thinking, ed. Etzioni, A.Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, pp. 218–232.Google Scholar
Beauchamp, T., and Bowie, N. 1997. Ethical Theory in Business. 5th edition. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Bendix, R. 1956. Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of Industrialization. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Brockner, J.; Greenberg, J.; Brockner, A.; Bortz, J.; Davy, J.; and Carter, C. 1986. “Layoffs, Equity Theory, and Work Performance: Further Evidence of the Impact of Survivor Guilt.” Academy of Management Journal 29, no. 2: 373–384.Google Scholar
Brockner, J.; Grover, S.; Reed, T.; and DeWitt, R. 1987. “Survivor’s Reactions to Layoffs: We Get By with a Little Help From Our Friends.” Administrative Science Quarterly 32, no. 4: 526–541.Google Scholar
Brockner, J.; Tyler, T.; and Cooper-Schneider, R. 1992. “The Influence of Prior Commitment to an Institution on Reactions to Perceived Unfairness: The Higher They Are, The Harder They Fall.” Administrative Science Quarterly 37: 241–261.Google Scholar
Brockner, J.; Konovsky, M.; Cooper-Schneider, R.; and Folger, R. 1994. “Interactive Effects of Procedural Justice and Outcome Negativity on Victims and Survivors of Job Loss.” Academy of Management Journal 37, no. 2: 397–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, D. 1997. “The Ethical Superiority of Participative Management as an Organizational System.” Organization Science 8: 489–507.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. 1982. Corporations and Morality. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. 1994. “When Integration Fails.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 157–170.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T., and Dunfee, T. 1994. “Integrative Social Contracts Theory: A Communitarian Conception of Economic Ethics.” Academy of Management Review 19, no. 2: 145–165.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T., and Preston, L. 1995. “The Stakeholder Theory of the Corporation: Concepts, Evidence and Implications.” Academy of Management Review 20, no. 1: 65–91.Google Scholar
Dudley, K. 1994. The End of the Line: Lost Jobs and New Lives In Postindustrial America. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Etzioni, A. 1995. The New Communitarian Thinking. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Frederick, W. 1994. “The Virtual Reality of Fact vs. Value: A Symposium Commentary.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 171–174.Google Scholar
Freeman, R. 1997. “A Stakeholder Theory of the Modern Corporation: Kantian Capitalism.” In Ethical Theory in Business, ed. Beauchamp, T. and Bowie, N.5th ediiton. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 66–76.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. 1979. Capitalism and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Galston, W. 1992. “Communitarian Economics: How to Cut the Deficit and Put America Back to Work.” Challenge 35, no. 6: 53–55.Google Scholar
Gauthier, D. 1986. Morals by Agreement. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J. 1996. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, T. 1651/1962. Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Keeley, M. 1988). A Social Contract Theory of Organizations. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Keeley, M. 1995. “Continuing the Social Contract Tradition.” Business Ethics Quarterly 5, no. 2: 241–256.Google Scholar
Konovsky, M., and Folger, R. 1991. “The Effects of Procedures, Social Accounts, and Benefits Level on Victims’ Layoff Reactions.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 21, no. 8: 630–650.Google Scholar
Lancaster, I. 1994. “Outplacement Offers as a Safety Net for Displaced Workers.” Personnel Administration 34: 60–63.Google Scholar
Leana, C., and Feldman, D. C. 1992. Coping with Job Loss: How Individuals, Organizations and Communities Respond to Layoffs. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Leicht, K., and Wallace, M. 1990. “Work Organization, Business Culture and Job Entitlement in the United States and Japan.” Comparative Social Research 12: 177–208.Google Scholar
Lewin, A. and Stephens, C. 1993. “Designing Postindustrial Organizations: Combining Theory and Practice.” In Organizational Change and Redesign, ed. Huber, G. and Glick, W.Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 393–410.Google Scholar
Lichtenberg, J. 1993. “On Alternatives to Industrial Flight.” In Ethical Theory in Business, ed. Beauchamp, T. L. and Bowie, N. E.Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 638–645.Google Scholar
Locke, J. 1690/1980. Second Treatise of Government. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Lodge, G. 1975. The New American Ideology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Lodge, G., and Vogel, R. 1987. Ideology and National Competitiveness. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd edition. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maitland, I. 1998. “Community Lost?” Business Ethics Quarterly 8: 655–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinley, W.; Barker, V.; and Mone, M. 1995. “The Protestant Ethic, The Postmodern Ethic, and the Spirit of Capitalism.” Paper presented at the 1995 Academy of Management Meeting.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. 1754/1987. “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.” In Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress., D. A.Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 221–227.Google Scholar
Rousseau, J. J. 1762/1987. “On the Social Contract.” In Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Basic Political Writings, ed. Cress, D. A.Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, pp. 23–220.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D., and Anton, R. 1988. “Fairness and Implied Contract Obligations: A Policy-Capturing Study.” Human Performance 1, no. 4: 273–289.Google Scholar
Rousseau, D. 1995. Psychological Contracts in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Salancik, G., and Leblebici, H. 1988. “Variety and Form in Organizing Transactions.” In Research in the Sociology of Organizations, ed. DiTomaso, N. and Bacharach, S. Vol. 6. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, M. 1996. Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap-Harvard.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. 1992. The Moral Commonwealth. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Selznick, P. 1998. “Social Justice: the Communitarian Perspective.” In The Essential Communitarian Reader, ed. Etzioni, A.Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, pp. 61–72.Google Scholar
Shain, B. 1994. The Myth of American Individualism: The Protestant Origins of American Political Thought. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, R. 1995. “American Conceptions of Citizenship and National Service.” In The New Communitarian Thinking, ed. Etzioni, A.Charlottesville, Vir.: University Press of Virginia, pp. 223–258.Google Scholar
Solomon, R. 1992. Ethics and Excellence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, W. 1995. “Institutions as the Infrastructure of Democracy.” In The New Communitarian Thinking, ed. University Press of Virginia, pp. 223–258.Google Scholar
Solomon, R. 1992. Ethics and Excellence. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, W. 1995. “Institutions as the Infrastructure of Democracy.” In The New Communitarian Thinking, ed. Etzioni, A.Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, pp. 170–182.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 1985. Sources of the Self. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thurow, L. 1996. The Future of Capitalism. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Trevino, L. and Weaver, G. 1994. “Business ETHICS/BUSINESS Ethics: One Field or Two.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 113–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Victor, B. and Stephens, C. 1994. “Business Ethics: A Synthesis of Normative Philosophy and Empirical Social Science.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 145–156.Google Scholar
Walzer, M. 1983. Spheres of Justice. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Watson, G.; Shepard, J.; and Stephens, C. 1999. “Fairness and Ideology: An Empirical Test of Social-Contract Theory.” Business and Society 38, no. 1: 83–108.Google Scholar
Weaver, G., and Trevino, L. 1994. “Normative and Empirical Business Ethics: Separation, Marriage of Convenience, or Marriage of Necessity?” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 129–143.Google Scholar
Weber, M. 1910/1978. Economy and Society. Trans. Roth, G. and Wittich, C.Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, R., and Miller, L. 1988. “Ideas, Interests, and the Social Science of Organizations.” Academy of Management Review 13, no. 3: 490–494.Google Scholar
Werhane, P. 1994. “The Normative/Descriptive Distinction in Methodologies of Business Ethics.” Business Ethics Quarterly 4, no. 2: 175–180.Google Scholar
Wolfe, A. 1995. “Human Nature and the Quest for Community.” In New Communitarian Thinking, ed. Etzioni, A.Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, pp. 126–140.Google Scholar
Wuthnow, R. 1996. Poor Richard’s Principle. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Young, I. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar