Ethical Decision Making and the Employed Lawyer

This article addresses one of the more disturbing questions raised by the major financial failures of the recent past; namely, how it could be that professionals, highly trained both in ethics and technical disciplines, should apparently collude with management in corporate misbehaviour. The article builds on evidence suggesting that professionals in employment contexts find ways of adapting in order to minimise perceived or actual conflict between their professional and organizational obligations and that this, in turn, may affect the way in which they exercise professional judgment. It uses identity theory to propose that professionals may adopt modified identities when employed and that these identities may be expressed, in part, in the way in which they resolve ethical dilemmas. The article reports on the results of a qualitative study in which corporate counsel showed evidence of adopting these identities. The findings suggest that this line of research offers insight into a far more complex world of employed professionals than that traditionally hypothesised and that the popular approach of regulators and others to monitoring corporate governance by appointing professionals as gate-keepers within the organization is perhaps problematic.     

Professional Ethics in a Virtual World: The Impact of the Internet on Traditional Notions of Professionalism

Numerous articles in the popular press together with an examination of websites associated with the medical, legal, engineering, financial, and other professions leave no doubt that the role of professions has been impacted by the Internet. While offering the promise of the democratization of expertise – expertise made available to the public at convenient times and locations and at an affordable cost – the Internet is also driving a reexamination of the concept of professional identity and related claims of expertise and standards of integrity.This paper begins with a presentation of case studies illustrating the ease by which impostors infiltrate the ranks of professionals. Reports of individuals masquerading as professionals via the Internet often reveal that these imposters cause harm to the unwary victims who rely on assertions of professional expertise. Such reports motivated the authors to examine the origins and evolution of the traditional roles of professions and professionals in today’s society, as well as question how, or whether, the standards for professional practice have been adapted to the challenges posed by technology, i.e., do statements of professional ethics provide a ‘guiding light’ for practitioners and their clients in the cyber age? The authors challenge the professions to consider the notion that technology forces a confrontation between the guild-like aspects of a profession that have served, on the one hand, to protect a profession from encroachment and, on the other hand, have purportedly protected the public.The authors conclude by presenting an examination of websites that show recognition of the challenges that the Internet poses to professionalism, as we have known it. Detailed discussion of the websites of two professions illustrates different approaches to responding to these challenges.     

‘Not to bet the farm’: SANLAM and internationalisation, 1995–2010

The South African Life Assurance Company (SANLAM) entered global markets after 1990, with varied success. Contextual pressures exerted a ‘push’ on financial services companies, which led to strategic changes in firm strategy, structure and performance. Theories of internationalisation afford more attention to industrial production internationalisation. This article explores the SANLAM experiences with internationalisation since the early 1990s. Initial internationalisation attempts were less successful, leading to strategic business changes, which led to a change in the globalisation strategy and more success in alternative markets. This article explores the different stages of SANLAM’s internationalisation strategy and what determined eventual success. The article contextualises the SANLAM internationalisation strategy by drawing on aspects of the process theory, the Matthews Linkage, Leverage and Learning (LLL) framework, and the Strategy, Structure, Organisation and Performance (SSOP) analytical framework. The SANLAM case underlines the crucial role of tacit knowledge of the host market as prerequisite for successful globalisation strategies of financial services’ firms.     

Everyday dramas of conscience: navigating identity through creative neutralisations

ABSTRACT

The paper seeks to recuperate autonomy within debates around identity as the discursive construction of self through exploring the ‘greening’ of intensive mothering discourse and the emergence of new subject positions and practices of accountability. It argues that facets of ideologies of ethical and sustainable consumption are inscribed within this discourse, authorising identity work and furnishing everyday provisioning routines with significance and urgency; and that related social practices that are marked for ‘greening’ diligence or negligence are not merely situated and productive, but transformative of mothering identities, roles and norms. We report the findings of a study of a group of professional working mothers as they negotiate competing and conflictual spaces of doing ‘green’ mothering. This opens an analytical window on the diversity of signifying practices that characterise how informants play with boundaries and ambiguity in creative ways, using images of responsible consumption and sustainable living to negotiate appeals to social well-being while authorising claims to ‘greening’ competence. Our interviews capture discursive events that rearticulate social messages, mixing them with brand appeals and media content that situate the invention of ‘new’ mothering with regard to flows of ‘greening’ discourse. Inventive appeals and related subject positions speak of a repertoire of strategic messaging practices, themselves consistent with a heightened reflexivity shaping content and presentation through practices we understand as modes of neutralisation – forms of self-governance and accountability that seek to generate resources of resilience that help reinforce green mothering identity claims made to self and others. Through socialising ‘sustainability’ in this way, we contribute to our understanding of the social surrogacy of brands and its problematics.     

Public Professional Accountability: A Conditional Approach

In the past decades, profession(al)s have increasingly been called to account. Several authors have reported that this increased public professional accountability, in the form of showing that professional conduct meets predefined standards or rules, has had severe negative consequences for professionals, their clients and society, and call for ‘intelligent’ forms of accountability; forms of accountability that may inform a wider public about professional conduct but do not harm it. In this paper, we propose a form of ‘intelligent’ public professional accountability. Taking Freidson’s (Professionalism. The third logic, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001) notion of institutional ethics as a point of departure, we develop a form of accountability that seeks to account for the conditions required for professional conduct. The paper first discusses the current ‘dilemma of professional accountability,’ describes ‘ideal-type professional conduct’ and goes into the conditions it requires. Next, it shows what accounting for these conditions entails and that this form of accountability fits the criteria for intelligent accountability, as set by O’Neill (in: Morris and Vines (eds.) Capital failure: rebuilding trust in financial services, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014).     

Advancing marketing strategy in the marketing discipline and beyond: from promise,to neglect,to prominence,to fragment (to promise?)

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to advance the field of strategic marketing within the marketing discipline, which will in turn, the author argues, contribute to enhancing the discipline’s impact beyond the narrow confines of its own journals. Towards this goal, certain aspects of the history of marketing strategy need to be reviewed. However, though this article draws extensively on historical sources, it is not a history of marketing strategy. Rather, this article uses historical materials and arguments concerning the four ‘Eras’ of marketing thought to advance five major claims: the area of strategic marketing (1) had significant promise when the marketing academic discipline was founded in Era I (1900–1920), (2) was neglected in Era II (1920–1950), (3) rose to prominence in Era III (1950–1980), (4) has become a ‘fragment’ in Era IV (1980–present) and (5) has prospects that are both promising and problematic in the future ‘Era V’. Finally, a tentative prognosis for strategic marketing and the marketing discipline is suggested.     

The Role of Corporate Value Clusters in Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Performance: A Study of Financial Professionals and Implications for the Financial Meltdown

This article delves into a potential mindset that may be responsible for the recent financial meltdown. Research relating to this mindset from different perspectives is reviewed. The findings from this literature review are used to create a conceptual framework for the empirical, ethical, and corporate social responsibility study of financial professionals. Data were collected from a survey of the professional membership of a large national association of financial professionals. This article reports the results of the analysis of data relative to the relationships among the four constructs—financial professionals’ perceived organizational value clusters, ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate performance. The findings indicate that organizational core values significantly affect corporate ethics, social responsibility, and financial performance. We propose that organizations in the financial industry can move toward being more ethical and socially responsible by adopting organic core values (e.g., democratic, open, trusting, enterprising, creative, stimulating) and moving away from mechanistic values (e.g., structured, regulated, procedural, authoritarian, closed, callous). We also found the adaptation of organic core values does not require the organization to suffer a loss in financial performance.     

Understanding Customer Role and its Importance in the Formation of Service Quality Expectations

A search of the Service Quality (SQ) and Customer Satisfaction (CS) literature reveals a gap in knowledge relating to the ‘expectation’ formation aspect of the disconfirmation paradigm.

Little consideration has been given to the ‘role’ of the customer in the service encounter, albeit that the above literature mostly customer that one measure of output performance comprises a customer comparison of the various delivery components with a self-established standard, of which ‘expectations’ appears the most common. A need exists to identify not only how customers define the standards and parameters for evaluation, but also, how the customers’ understanding of their role during service interaction affects the expectations they form.

This paper addresses the above need through the development and subsequent exploratory testing of a conceptual model of expectation formation. In addition to the recognised expectation antecedents of ‘experience’ and ‘familiarity,' two ‘role’ construct dimensions ‘role understanding’ and ‘role benefit’ are introduced in a broader expectation antecedent framework. The relationship between ‘experience’ and ‘familiarity’ with respect to expectations is found to be indirect in nature; with ‘role understanding’ and ‘role benefit’ both performing a mediator function. Managerial and research implications are discussed.     

Becoming a reflective practitioner: a continuing professional development strategy through humanistic action research

This article seeks to show how Human Resource Management and Development practitioners can develop an ethics of practice by adopting a Humanistic Action Research approach toward their Continuing Professional Development (CPD). Central to this approach is the development of reflective practice skills, in itself a journey of development. I aim to give a flavour of what this practice has meant for me as a professional educator by sharing an account of my own CPD using this approach. This approach is for the mature practitioner and it is located within Humanistic Action Research: to be appropriate, it necessitates a maturity of ego and not simply professional maturity and status. The article will discuss what this maturation process involves and will show its centrality to reflective practice. Within this framework of human inquiry, CPD requires an undertaking to engage in first person Action Research, where ‘I’ am the subject and object of my inquiry. At the heart of this approach is the pragmatic question at the centre of any approach to CPD ‘How do I improve my practice?’     

Strategy Development: Conceptual Framework on Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its action-oriented offspring Corporate Citizenship (CC) currently trigger an intensifying debate on ethics, role and behavior of companies within civil society. For companies, CSR raises the question of what may be the “good reason(s)” for acting responsible towards its members, customers or society. In order to answer this question, we face the debate on CSR and its strategic engagement drivers on the levels of corporate culture, social innovation, and civil society. In this article, we provide a conceptual framework based on the analytic distinction of legitimation and sensemaking. The conceptual framework developed in this article can serve as a basis to develop a company’s CSR strategy. It provides measures and instruments to make complex CSR processes more visible and manageable.     

Influence of professional drivers’ personality traits on road traffic safety: case study

The purpose of this paper is to present basic elements of the research directed at identifying and determining the personality traits of professional drivers that affect safe, secure and enjoyable ride on public roads. A quantitative method has been used here, whereas data were acquired from a questionnaire based on a sample of 59 professional drivers. Determining personality traits of professional drivers that are in correlation with a safe and pleasant ride on the roads has been enabled by applying the five-factor model of personality (‘Big Five’) and the Personality Inventory NEO-PI. From these results it was concluded that safe operation of the vehicle in traffic involves the successful ‘conduct’ of oneself, which recognises the importance of certain personality traits of professional drivers for traffic safety and the need for appropriate professional selection in the case of employment of professional drivers. Research results implicate development of educational programmes aimed at achieving harmony of psychological, physical and sensory health, that is, programmes for permanent informing, educating and training professional drivers for defensive driving. The research opens the way for new research tasks that should help in creating a specific structure of curricula that can be used in a variety of transportation companies and enterprises to improve general and public safety.     

Corporate Narratives of Information Society: Making Up the Mobile Consumer Subject

The purpose of the article is to study how corporate actors participate in the cultural construction of the Information Society. By means of a case study, the article explores how a multinational corporation is involved in forming consumer identities—making up the subjects of consumption—by shaping the interpretive repertoires and cultural practices that are available for consumers as members of the emerging information society. The article elaborates on the ways in which the corporation invokes a discourse of shareholder value in its visionary strategic narrative entitled Mobile Information Society, and how this discourse operates to mobilize consumer conduct in particular ways, by making up, framing and formatting the consumer as a mobile subject of the global economy. The article’s aim is to contribute to the empirical bases of policy debates about the roles and responsibilities of different market actors in the production of the information society.     

Identity,knowledge and strategy in the UK subsidiary of an Anglo-German automobile manufacturer

This paper uses a qualitative case study of an Anglo-German automobile manufacturing plant to investigate the role played by the strategic self-presentation of national, class and ethnic identities by different groups within the organisation in knowledge management and power relations in multinational corporations (MNCs). I explore this using a ‘negotiated culture’ approach to cross-cultural management. My findings are, firstly, that knowledge management played a crucial part in strategic self-presentation and thus in power relations. Secondly, that an examination of knowledge management activities from this perspective provided a way of analysing the complexity of intergroup interaction in the organisation. Thirdly, that workers as well as managers engage in knowledge management and strategic action. I conclude that a qualitative analysis of knowledge management can help researchers and managers deal with the complexities of social behaviour in organisations, and suggest frameworks for understanding of the impact of identity on knowledge management.     

‘The knowledgeable marketing practitioner’: practice and professional knowing in marketing work

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the knowledge constructs that professionals draw upon when engaging in marketing work. Our conceptual approach stems from a critical analysis of marketing work foregrounding the practitioners’ professional knowledge and practice of marketing work. We identify 13 pertinent knowledge constructs–some of which are illustrated by vignettes–showcasing the shared and multifaceted nature of professional knowledge in a small- and medium-sized enterprise. By exploring how practitioners deploy their knowledge of marketing in practice, we conclude what the marketing discipline can learn from professional knowing. We contribute to the marketing work literature by considering the ontological role of professional knowing in dereifying marketing work from textbook knowledge along with its implications for the critical understanding of the perceived gap between marketing theorising and practice.     

Enterprise logic vs product logic: the development of GE’s computer product line

The following article focuses on corporate strategies at General Electric (GE) and how corporate-level interventions impacted the market performance of the firm’s general purpose commercial mainframe product set in the period 1960–1968. We show that in periods of both divisional independent planning and corporate-level planning strategic governance, central decisions interfered in the execution of GE’s product strategy. GE’s institutional ‘enterprise logic’ negatively impacted the ‘product logic’ of its computer product line leading to a weakened position in the market for these systems.     

Social Media Marketing Management: A Conceptual Framework

Managers today face many challenges when using social media in their marketing strategies. Drawing from social media literature, this study introduces a new framework to assist managers in developing and using social media as a marketing tool. This framework has four dimensions related to the actions managers perform when implementing and engaging with social media: messaging/projecting, monitoring, assessing, and responding. Each dimension of the framework may be applied differently based on the firm’s strategic direction or focus. The framework provides an opportunity for a firm to examine the entire scope of social media marketing from a broad strategic perspective as well as a more tactical perspective. Propositions formulated by the authors suggest how organizations with different strategic characteristics may manage social media differently. The study provides an understanding for managers of the variety of issues related to the specific aspects of maintaining a firm’s online presence based on a firm’s scope, culture, structure, and governance.     

Business policy,ethics and society

This section will cover (a) definition of business policy: strategic decisions in the enterprise; (b) ethical behaviour above and beyond the requirements of the law: what might this involve e.g. in respect of products and markets in which the business is prepared to operate? (c) does business have a responsibility towards ‘society’? For example, should businesses decide without being legally required to do so, to undertake activities which they think are in the national interest even if this may appear to conflict with strictly commercial interests? (d) if ethical/social decisions are required, who is to make them — at what levels of an enterprise — e.g. does the board make them all or are they also expected below board level? This section will also cover: (e) practical examples in the light of changing attitudes towards business and market behaviour in the 1980's and 1990's; (f) implications of attitudes towards corporate crime and of behaviour which may not be illegal but which may be regarded as ‘unacceptable’: this will be discussed with examples from experience in Australia and other countries. The section will first explain the meaning of the phrase ‘business policy’ and will briefly outline the kinds of strategic decision which have to be made in business enterprises. It will go on to consider whether there are things a business ‘ought’ or ‘ought not’ to do even if they are within the law. The section will illustrate these problems with examples in the light of changing attitudes towards business policy and market behaviour in the 1980's and 1990's. It will take into account some recent cases of corporate crime in Australia and elsewhere and also of behaviour which while neither against the law or outside the power of the board, might be thought ‘inappropriate’.     

A Generalized Model of the Utilization of Professional Services

The determinants of the utilization of professional services has been widely studied in the case of the Andersen-Newman (1973) framework. It seems likely that this framework which includes predisposing, enabling and illness level factors as leading to health services utilization might be usefully extended to the analysis of all professional service usage will illness level changing to professional service need level. This paper adapts the P Andersen-Newman framework to all professiona services by reformulating the framework and adds a strategic marketing approach in discussing its application.