Thomas Carlyle on the use of numbers in economics

Thomas Carlyle’s criticism of economics goes far beyond his epithet, “Dismal Science.” One aspect of economics that attracted his attention was its use of numbers in both theories and empiricisms. Here is explored his attacks on economist’s use of arithmetic in explaining human behavior, and statistics in addressing the condition of the working class.     

Regulatory impact assessment: a survey of selected developing and emerging economies

This paper reports on a survey of regulatory impact assessment (RIA) in 16 developing and emerging economies. RIA was playing an increasing role in these countries: eight had introduced RIA in the past 10 years; one had recently redesigned its existing RIA system; another had a long-standing RIA system in place. However, RIA was at an early stage of development in the majority of cases and six countries did not practise RIA.     

Learning with futures to realise progress towards sustainability: The WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative

This paper addresses the limited evidence of how futures work bears fruit in the present by exploring a specific, yet significant, empirical case study. The results of our longitudinal study into the WBCSD Vision 2050 Initiative shed light on how organisations are harnessing the perspective of the long term future to identify what can and should be done in the near term to keep progress towards sustainability on track. We provide evidence of the expected and realised benefits of this collaborative futures initiative. These benefits extend beyond direct decision support, manifest at multiple levels and vary over time. We note that shift from single client to collaborative futures work is inherent to addressing sustainability challenges and call for more research into how collaborative futures practices are evolving to deal with new puzzles and wicked problems.     

Assessing the Effects of Certification Networks on Sustainable Production and Consumption: The Cases of FLO and FSC

Private governance approaches to foster sustainability have gained importance in recent years. The article focuses on such approaches that involve actors from different parts of the value chain, as well as consumers, labour unions, and NGOs. As these approaches rely on the certification mechanism to document the adherence to environmental and social standards, we refer to them as “certification networks.” The main objective of these networks is to realize more sustainable production and consumption patterns from within existing market structures. Concerning their impact on sustainability, however, existing research revealed mixed results. This raises the question, how to systematically assess the success of certification networks. Referring to debates on private governance, this paper proposes to consider structural–material (e.g., altered market and incentive structures) and regulative–normative effects (e.g., altered institutions). Taking this broader perspective, two cases are analysed: The Fairtrade Labelling Organization and the Forest Stewardship Council.     

Corporate institutionalization of ethics in the United States and Great Britain

This paper compares the results of large-scale U.S. and U.K. surveys designed to identify managers' major ethical concerns and to investigate how firms are formulating and communicating ethics policies responsive to these concerns.Our findings indicate some important differences between U.S. and U.K. firms in perceptions of what are important ethical issues, in the means used to communicate ethics policies, and in the issues addressed in ethics policies and employee training. U.K. companies tend to be more likely to communicate ethics policies through senior executives, whereas U.S. companies tend to rely more on their Human Resources and Legal Departments. U.S. firms consider most ethical issues to be more important than do their U.K. counterparts, and are especially concerned with employee behavior which may harm the firm. In contrast, the issues which U.K. managers consider more important tend to be concerned with external corporate stakeholders rather than employees.Diana C. Robertson is an Assistant Professor in the Legal Studies Department of The Wharton School University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Robertson has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at The London Business School and she has received The University of Pennsylvania Provost's Award for Distinguished Teaching. Her research interests include the impact of corporate policy and strategy on employees' ethical behavior, and the diffusion of ethical practices among corporations. Dr. Robertson has published articles in theSloan Management Review, theJournal of Business Ethics, andOrganization Science.Bodo B. Schlegelmilch holds the British Rail Chair of Marketing. Dr. Schlegelmilch was formerly a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Lecturer in Marketing and International Business at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include international and strategic marketing. Dr. Schlegelmilch has published articles in theJournal of International Business, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, andIndustrial Marketing Management.     

Business Ethics: The Promise of Neuroscience

Cultural diversity is an increasingly important phenomenon that affects not only social and political harmony but also the cohesion and efficiency of organisations. The problems that firms have with regard to managing cultural diversity have been abundantly studied in recent decades from the perspectives of management theory and moral philosophy, but there are still open questions that require deeper reflection and broader empirical analysis. Managing cultural diversity in organisations is of prime importance because it involves harmonising different values, beliefs, credos and customs, and, in essence, human identity. Taking into consideration these cultural differences and harmonising them is a human rights issue (UNDP, Cultural liberty in today’s diverse world, 2004) and a central dimension of corporate social responsibility. Here we are going to focus on theoretical reflection about the ideas that lie behind corporate policies and organisational initiatives that deal with cultural diversity. The aim of our paper is twofold: to present a critical reflection on the ideology of tolerance, and propose an ideology of respect for dealing with cultural diversity. We start by presenting the plurality of interpretations of the concept of ideology, and justify its applicability to the field of cultural diversity. We then reflect on the differences between “tolerance” and “respect” and identifying the practical implications for managing cultural diversity. And finally, we propose a culture of respect that goes beyond tolerance and complements and legitimizes the “business case” perspective for managing cultural diversity in companies. The ideology of respect is based on the Kantian tradition and on the discursive approach where rational dialogue and argumentation are considered the legitimate process for creating a culture of intercultural respect. From this theoretical discussion of the key philosophical concepts we can suggest some general principles for managing cultural diversity in organisations.