A paradigm for design,promulgation and enforcement of ethical codes

The paper explores the promise of ethical codes as a means to control unethical behavior in business. After a review of arguments for ethical codes from outside the business system, the paper outlines the arguments for codes from inside the business system at the level of the industry, firm and individual executive.The paper then discusses the problems of code design — the dilemma between specific practices and general precepts — and offers a model for a thoroughgoing code. This is followed by a discussion of the problems of promulgation and code enforcement.In conclusion, the paper summarizes the limitations of ethical codes and the arguments which have been made against them. Earl A. Molander is Associate Professor of Management at Portland State University. He is the author of Responsive Capitalism,and co-author of Is the Ethics of Business Changing, which appeared in Harvard Business Review.     

Dis-Ag-reement: the construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over antibacterial silver

What constitutes a potentially hazardous object is often debated. This article analyses the polemic construction and negotiation of risk in the Swedish controversy over the use of antibacterial silver in health care and consumer products. This debate engages the media, government agencies, parliament and government, non-governmental organizations and companies. Texts and websites from these actors were studied using content analysis. Antibacterial silver is construed by some actors as a risk object with harmful effects on a series of objects at risk: the environment, public health, organisms and sewage treatment. In contrast, other actors deny that antibacterial silver is a risk object, instead construing it as mitigating risk. In such a schema, antibacterial silver is conceived of as managing the risk objects of bacteria and micro-organisms, in turn managing the risk objects of infection, bad smell and washing, and in turn helping the environment and public health (objects at risk). The structure of the debate suggests two basic modes of risk communication. First, antibacterial silver is construed as a risk object, endangering a variety of objects at risk, such as organisms, public health, the environment and sewage treatment. Second, this association between antibacterial silver and objects at risk is obstructed, by denying that antibacterial silver is a risk object or by associating silver with the benefit of mitigating risk.     

Hero shots: involved fathers conquering new discursive territory in consumer culture

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we explore how visual expressions of culture offer new discursive territory within which consumer cultural ideals can be negotiated on a global scale. Through a critical visual analysis of the revelatory case Swedish Dads, we find hero shots depicting involved fathers where children’s needs and the hermetic confines of the home take center stage, as opposed to the traditional fatherhood ideals portrayed in western contemporary advertising, media, and popular culture. We demonstrate how the Swedish state’s gender ideology was encoded into a communicative event in the form of hero shots and subsequently dispersed by visual consumers as well as political and commercial stakeholders pushing this particular agenda and/or capitalizing on its tendencies. This in such a way that the event conquered new discursive territory fostering new types of consumer cultural negotiations on fatherhood ideals also in other cultural settings.     

Some aspects of an analytical framework for studying the diffusion of organizational innovations

The objective of this paper is to explore the extent to which the more recent literature on innovation and decision, with a prime focus on technical innovations, can contribute to a useful analytical framework for studying the diffusion of organizational innovations. We review that literature, compare the intrinsic features of technical and organizational innovations, and explore what these differences may mean for an eventual analytical framework specifically developed for studying organizational innovations. We conclude that the received 'innovation' literature has a great deal to offer but that some modifications are required. In particular, we suggest that the role of factors 'inside' the non and of non-market mechanisms for transfer of organizational innovations needs special emphasis.     

Market Orientation in Public Service—A Comparison Between Buyers and Providers

Public services have been subjected to processes of deregulation, competition, and privatization in many countries worldwide. One popular reform has involved focusing on competitive procurement. This context, where public and private organizations jointly deliver the service in a dyad, makes the market orientation of public services highly complex. The main elements of market orientation – intelligence generation, intelligence dissemination and responsiveness– have shown themselves to be valid and of significance in both the private and public sectors. Nevertheless, the empirical context of the public sector involves a complexity that has been poorly addressed in market orientation research. In this study, we research the Swedish public transport industry and survey buyer and provider organizations in order to determine how market-orientated activities are approached in public-private service dyads. We present three theoretically-underpinned relationship types - buyer dominated, provider dominated and collaborative - which we suggest as having implications for market-oriented activities. A survey of public transport authorities’ (buyers, n = 48) and operators’ (providers, n = 49) market orientation activities reveals the concurrent prevalence of characteristics from all three relationship types, as both parties try to dominate the relationship while also engaging in collaborative efforts. Drawing on our theoretical framework and our empirical results, we conclude that there are legitimate differences in the perspectives of buyers and providers, and that these differences, if acknowledged and properly managed, can provide valuable resources in the development of a joint market orientation in complex public-private settings.