Alienation and moral imperatives: A reply to Kanungo

Rabindra Kanungo's position that alienation at work can be eliminated within capitalism is critically evaluated. My argument is that Kanungo only emphasizes the psychological aspect of Marx's view of alienation. The failure to include the ontological element of alienation results in the confused position that alienation can be eliminated while workers are still being separated from their work by capital. The role that the right to private property plays in the maintenance of this separation is also seen to be a part of Marx's conception of alienation that is missing from Kanungo's analysis. The clarification of Marx's conception of alienation results in the position that organizations within capitalism cannot live up to the moral imperative to be socially responsible in removing alienation at work.Robert T. Sweet is an instructor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton. His research interests include: Marxist philosophy, business ethics, and philosophy of mind. HisMarx, Morality and the Virtue of Beneficence (Peter Lang), was published in November of 1991.     

Alienation and empowerment: Some ethical imperatives in business

The issue of worker alienation in the context of business ethics is critically examined. From a normative perspective, it is assumed that the minimal ethical requirement in business should include accountability for adverse consequences of management practice for workers in organizations. Using this standard, managerial actions that are responsible for worker alienation are considered unethical. The nature of work alienation and the organizational conditions responsible for it are outlined. Several dealienation measures in the form of empowerment strategies for management are presented as ethical imperatives.Rabindra N. Kanungo, Chaired Professor of Management, McGill University. Concentrating on the basic and applied areas of psychology and management, his publications include eight books and more than 100 articles in professional journals.The preparation of the paper is supported by the Power Corp. International Management Centre. The author is thankful to Manuel Mendonca for his suggestions and critical comments.     

Organizational Ethical Standards and Organizational Commitment

Organizations interested in employee ethics compliance face the problem of conflict between employee and organizational ethical standards. Socializing new employees is one way of assuring compliance. Important for longer term employees as well as new ones, however, is making those standards visible and then operable in the daily life of an organization. This study, conducted in one large organization, found that, depending on organizational level, awareness of an organization's ethical standards is predicted by managerial adherence to and organizational compliance with those standards and/or discussions with peers. Regardless of level, organizational commitment was predicted most strongly by managerial adherence to organizational standards. These findings have theoretical implications for the fields of business ethics, organizational identity and organizational socialization and practical implications for the implementation of ethics policies.     

浅析俄汉文化意象中的文化差异

语言是文化最重要的组成部分,是文化的镜子,"文化的载体(носитель культры)"(徐景益,刘春,2006:227)是文化传承和发扬的媒介.可以直接反映出一个民族的民族心理和民族文化.语言作为文化的一部分,所以受着文化的制约,跟着文化一起发展.在语言发展的发展过程中,很多词语因为使用频繁,受用率高而逐渐演化成一种特定的文化符号,其所代表的文化也经过历史沉淀而成为一个文化形象,一个区别于其他国家文化的特有的文化形象.     

Internationalization and Organizational Change

Abstract

This work analyzes the changes caused by the adoption of a strategy of internationalization in two Brazilian companies: Embraco of the machinery sector and Bamerindus of the banking sector. In the case of Embraco, it was confirmed that there was a relation between three specific instances in the process of internationalization and the adoption of mechanisms of normative integration by the company connected to the dissemination of values, transfers of personnel, communication between the units, programs of personnel exchange, and training and job rotation. In the case of Bamerindus, the impact of internationalization on the interpretive schemes of the organizational managers at each strategic level was evaluated. In both cases, the effect of internationalization was gradual and continuous, characterizing the change as incremental although the direction of change was different in each of the companies analyzed. The explanation for the type of change in each case appears to result from differences in interpretation of which environment constituted the institutional context of reference of each company.     

基于工作态度的组织支持感与组织公平对组织公民行为的影响研究

本文采用我国中小企业员工样本,运用相关分析和回归分析方法研究组织支持感与公平感对组织公民行为影响的作用机制,即组织支持与公平感是否会通过员工工作态度的中介作用对组织公民行为产生影响。结果表明:员工的组织支持感和公平感均对情感承诺、工作满意度和组织公民行为有显著影响;情感承诺对组织支持感、组织公平分别与组织公民行为间的关系起到部分中介作用;但工作满意度仅对互动公平与组织公民行为间的关系起到部分中介作用;而其余的中介效应检验中,工作满意度仅对组织支持感、分配公平、程序公平分别与指向个体的组织公民行为起到部分中介作用。     

试论组织冲突及管理

组织冲突是领导者经常面对的一个问题,传统的观点认为冲突不利于组织绩效的提升,实际上冲突既有正面效果也有负面作用,过高与过低的冲突状态对组织绩效都会产生不利的影响。组织冲突是不可避免的,作为管理人员应该正视冲突现象,要正确认识到它对组织绩效的两面性作用,应该引导积极冲突,预防破坏型冲突;重视冲突的过程管理,冲突管理不是冲突的事后管理,不能造成事后弥补、四处救火的局面,应着力在组织层面建立应对冲突的机制与文化,完善冲突管理,以此提高组织绩效。     

Legitimacy and Organizational Sustainability

The literature regarding social and environmental sustainability of business focuses primarily on rationales for adopting sustainability strategies and operational practices in support of that goal. In contrast, we examine sustainability from a perspective that has received far less research attention??attitudes that inform managerial decision-making. We develop a conceptual model that identifies six elemental categories of attitudes that can be held independently or aggregated to yield a meta-attitude representing the legitimacy of sustainability. Our model distinguishes among three types of internally held attitudes and externally perceived subjective norms: pragmatic, moral, and cognitive. We propose a refinement of Ajzen??s (In: Kuhl J, Beckmann J (eds) Action control: from cognition to behavior, 1985; Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 50:179?C211, 1991) Theory of planned behavior (TPB) that incorporates these sub-categories of personal attitudes and subjective norms. Practical implications are discussed including how organizations considering adopting sustainability programs might use the model as a conceptual tool to help achieve and assess program success.     

信息技术与虚拟组织

技术变革对企业组织运形态有很大影响。从信息技术的普遍特性(功能性)和对虚拟企业的专有特性(使能性)两个角度分析了信息技术同虚拟企业之间的关系,并就企业的虚拟化实施过程中,如何给与信息技术合理定位,提出了一些参考性建议。     

Perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness and Happiness as Predictors of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

Moral and financial scandals emerging in recent years around the world have created the momentum for reconsidering the role of virtuousness in organizational settings. This empirical study seeks to contribute toward maintaining this momentum. We answer to researchers’ suggestions that the exploratory study carried out by Cameron et al. (Am Behav Sci 47(6):766–790, 2004), which related organizational virtuousness (OV) and performance, must be pursued employing their measure of OV in other contexts and in relation to other outcomes (Wright and Goodstein, J Manage 33(6):928–958, 2007). Two hundred and sixteen employees reported their perceptions of OV and their affective well-being (AWB) at work (one of the main indicators of employees’ happiness), their supervisors reporting their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB). The main finding is that the perceptions of OV predict some OCB both directly and through the mediating role of AWB. The evidence suggests that OV is worthy of a higher status in the business and organizational psychology literatures.     

Organizational and Interorganizational Determinants of EDI Diffusion and Organizational Performance: A Causal Model

Electronic data interchange (EDI), a specific form of interorganizational systems, has the potential to significantly influence business operations and the exchange of business documents in a number of industries and to provide substantive tangible and intangible benefits to the participating firms. However, successful implementation and diffusion of these systems innovations requires the cooperation and commitment of all participating member firms. A number of interorganizational as well as internal, organization-specific factors can influence both the extent to which EDI is diffused and used and the level of subsequent benefits that accrue to the firms.

Research from sociopolitical process framework in marketing, organizational theory, innovation theory, use of information technology for competitive advantage, and information systems (IS) implementation was used to identify 3 interorganizational variables (customer support, customer expertise, competitive pressure) and 4 organizational variables (internal support, EDI's benefits potential, EDI compatibility, resource intensity). In this study, we develop a multidimensional measure for EDI diffusion to capture both external integration and internal integration. We then examine the influence of these 7 variables on the extent to which EDI adopter firms pursue diffusion and whether more diffusion leads to superior organizational-level outcomes.

Two senior executives (the chief executive officer and a senior manager responsible for the IS function or EDI) from 83 firms in the motor carrier industry participated in a field survey. The results from a structural equation model (SEM), developed using LISREL, provide quite a strong support for the hypothesized relations. All 4 organizational variables and 2 of the 3 interorganizational variables (customer support and competitive pressure) influence EDI diffusion. The results also indicate that external integration dimension of diffusion enables adopter firms to achieve improved operational and market-oriented performance, whereas internal integration contributes only to operational performance.     

Organizational Structure and Managerial Decisions

We investigate how the organizational structure of a firm influences the decision making of its top management. Different organizational structures lead information to be processed in different ways by the individual decision makers, potentially creating an informational cascade within the organization. We analyze two organizational structures: the first inducing sequential information processing, the second inducing batch information processing. In particular, we characterize the optimal organizational structure using the signal precision of the top manager, i.e., the value of his private information.     

组织模块化及其挑战:组织形态演进的思考

本文基于现有研究,分析了组织形态从家庭作坊到工厂组织,再到公司制组织,并最终进化为模块化组织的演进历程,认为资本增值性、技术进步、市场因素(需求、贸易、竞争)、交易费用和新经济元素(信息技术、互联网络、知识资本)等因素影响并推进着组织形态变迁,并最终催生了模块化组织。其中,技术进步是组织形态向模块化组织演进的关键动因。技术模块化引起的价值链解构、竞合机制的形成、顾客直接参与价值分配是模块化组织价值释放效应的表现,这将使以交易费用为理论基石的传统企业组织理论受到挑战。     

The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organizational Virtuousness in Positive Organizational Scholarship

This study considers the potential for influencing business students to become ethical managers by directing their undergraduate learning environment. In particular, the relationship between business students’ academic cheating, as a predictor of workplace ethical behavior, and their approaches to learning is explored. The three approaches to learning identified from the students’ approaches to learning literature are deep approach, represented by an intrinsic interest in and a desire to understand the subject, surface approach, characterized by rote learning and memorization without understanding, and strategic approach, associated with competitive students whose motivation is the achievement of good grades by adopting either a surface or deep approach. Consistent with the hypothesized theoretical model, structural equation modeling revealed that the surface approach is associated with higher levels of cheating, while the deep approach is related to lower levels. The strategic approach was also associated with less cheating and had a statistically stronger influence than the deep approach. Further, a significantly positive relationship reported between deep and strategic approaches suggests that cheating is reduced when deep and strategic approaches are paired. These findings suggest that future managers and business executives can be influenced to behave more ethically in the workplace by directing their learning approaches. It is hoped that the evidence presented may encourage those involved in the design of business programs to implement educational strategies which optimize students’ approaches to learning towards deep and strategic characteristics, thereby equipping tomorrow’s managers and business executives with skills to recognize and respond appropriately to workplace ethical dilemmas.     

推进廉政文化建设之我见

近年来,廉政文化受到人们越来越多的关注,各地丰富多彩的廉政文化建设活动成为党风廉政建设和反腐败工作中一道亮丽的风景线.     

Dual Information Systems: Supporting Organizational Working and Learning by Making Organizational Memory Transparent

The conceptual design of most computer-based information systems reflects a dualism of technology. During the development phase, part of the work-domain-related knowledge is formalized and encoded in the software, making it difficult for users to reflect on and use this knowledge. This design--use dualism contributes to the deterioration of the interpretive flexibility of information systems. In this article, we outline an information systems architecture called Dual Information Systems (DIS) that incorporates the concepts of an organizational memory information system (OMIS) in a broader framework. DIS help bridge the design--use dualism by providing organizations with a set of services that enable and reinforce both effective, institutionalized working and the questioning and (re)construction of computer-supported work routines. DIS have a 4-layered conceptual structure: (a) people draw on the business layer to work and learn; (b) people use the breakdown layer to handle unexpected break-downs; (c) self-organizing project teams use the project layer to create innovative work and information system (re)designs; and (d) the knowledge sharing server acts as an OMIS by storing these redesigns and making them organizationally available to facilitate working and learning as well as subsequent redesign efforts. We outline the theoretical background, conceptual structure, and generic services of DIS. We elaborate on the services and the conceptual design of the business and breakdown layers of DIS. The services help people work effectively and develop competence needed to handle breakdowns and participate in the redesign project teams. The conceptual design extends the hyperknowledge framework of Chang et al [1]. Finally, we demonstrate the conceptual design and services in a financial services organization with the help of the ReDIS prototype.     

Market Orientation and Organizational Learning Capabilities

The platform of contemporary marketing thought is founded upon the marketing concept. While there has been much debate about the precise nature of this concept, related discussion concerning its manifestation, in the form of a firm's market orientation, has developed to suggest that it is a feature exhibited by organizations possessing superior skills in understanding and satisfying customer needs. Despite the favourable externalities likely to accrue to an organization that is market oriented, it has been claimed that for a firm to achieve its full potential to learn about the marketplace, instilling a market orientation is only a first principle. While market orientation provides the norms for responding to the marketplace, this needs to be complemented by appropriate mechanisms and processes for higher-order learning to occur. This article examines such a conceptual argument and empirically investigates the relationship between two key constructs: market orientation and organizational learning capabilities. Data were generated from a survey of medium and large industrial firms and five dimensions of organizational learning capability items are tested against two different groups of firms in terms of their degree of market orientation. As contrasted with low market orientation firms, organizations characterized by high levels of market orientation perceived greater organizational learning capability with regard to the dimensions of strategic awareness, operational flexibility, strategic development processes and managerial skills. Discussion is given to these findings and implications are drawn for business executives and future research.     

项目管理及其组织结构

项目管理的方法正在被越来越多的企业所采纳 ,在当今竞争日益激烈的市场环境下 ,在强调成本管理的企业中 ,工作任务、岗位职责、资源配置、绩效考核等都非常具体明确 ,这使得项目管理的方法更容易得到有效的应用。本文论述了项目管理本身的组织方式与本企业原有的组织结构之间的相互关系和影响 ,以及各种组织结构的特点及其演变。