The wide range of readings in Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits proposes different ways of thinking about something most of us do every day -- work. As part of the Ethics of Everyday Life series, these readings are an invitation to reflection and conversation. They focus not on rules for the workplace or on dilemmas in business ethics but on one of the most fundamental aspects of human existence in every time and place.

Gilbert C. Meilaender presents varied readings that explore many of the ways in which human beings have thought about the place of work in life -- its meanings, its limits, and its relation to other obligations, to the life cycle, to play, and to rest. The readings in this volume range in time from the world of ancient Israel and the classical world of Greece and Rome to contemporary American society. They range in complexity from "The Little Red Hen" to philosophers such as Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre, and in genre from poetry by Kipling and George Herbert to essays by Dorothy Sayers and Roger Angell; from novels by Tolstoy and Twain to treatises by Marx, Aristotle, and Karl Barth -- all placed in the context of an extended discussion of the meaning of work in human life by Meilaender's introduction.

Working: Its Meaning and Its Limits enables any reader interested in understanding the moral and spiritual significance of work in our lives to enter into a conversation not only about what we do but who we are.

Emissions trading challenges the management of companies in an entirely new manner: Not only does it, like other market-based environmental policy instruments, allow for a bigger flexibility in management decisions concerning emission issues. More importantly, it shifts the mode of governance of environmental policy from hierarchy to market. But how is this change reflected in management processes, decisions and organizational structures? The contributions in this book discuss the theoretical implications of different institutional designs of emissions trading schemes, review schemes that have been implemented in the US and Europe, and evaluate the range of investment decisions and corporate strategies which have resulted from the new policy framework.

This book discusses management philosophy based on case studies in companies in Japan, Korea and China. In an era of increasing globalization and the internet society, it is time for companies to re-examine their mission and existence. Repeated corporate scandals and global environmental issues have revealed the need for CSR (corporate social responsibility) and business ethics. At the same time, cross-cultural conflicts in the workplace highlight the necessity for management to integrate multiple values. In other words, the importance of value in a company has to be reconsidered. This timely book re-evaluates the issue of management philosophy in the context of the global society. It approaches the issue of management philosophy from the perspective of keiei-jinruigaku, the anthropology of business administration, presenting interdisciplinary research consisting of fields such as management studies, anthropology, religious studies and sociology. By focusing on the phenomena of transmission of management philosophy to other areas by cultural translation, the book reveals the dynamic process of the global transmission of management philosophy.

In a society where the role of corporations and the state is in flux, this volume explores how the concept of citizenship has been transformed with the entrance and involvement of other actors, primarily corporations and non-governmental organizations, in the protection and provision of citizenship without the nation-state. Examining the economic effects of globalization and citizenship, this interdisciplinary collection questions what ideas on corporate citizenship may say about the ongoing publicization of the corporation. What is the role of the corporate citizen in the public domain? How does that new role transgress traditional notions of what corporations are and ought to be? And what are the implications of these developments for the welfare state and democracy at large?This book uses the notion of a citizenship for corporations as a devise for delineating and analyzing the political role of the corporation in the public domain. It will appeal to a wide range of scholars in political science, organization and management, business and society and political economy. Its international contributors include Paula Blomqvist, Celine Cholez, Andrew Crane, Steven Gerencser, Boris Holzer, Uwafiokun Idemudia, Dirk Matten, Jeremy Moon, Fabrizio Panozzo and Pascal Trompette.

Corporations in conflict zones and their provision of security are particularly relevant for understanding whether private actors are increasingly sources of governance contributions that regulate public goods. Feil highlights the discrepancies between political and theoretical expectations of corporate engagement and governance contributions.

Big business is often painted as the villain when it comes to the environment or social wellbeing. There is certainly good evidence of what some businesses have done wrong in the past. But times are changing. Leading businesses are often now the visionaries: leaders in the fight against climate change, protectors of human rights and supporters of international development.
"Big Business, Big Responsibilities" shares the inside track on why some of the world's best known brands are doing this not as philanthropy but as a core part of business strategy: protecting the environmental systems they depend on, building consumer trust and creating new markets to ensure long term success.
This book describes the surprising speed with which business is recognizing that it will thrive best in societies that succeed and identifies the major challenges that still need to be overcome for business to make its full contribution.

This edited collection explores the challenges and opportunities presented by the transition to a low carbon economy, and outlines the different approaches taken to ensure the sustainability of such a transition. Chapters explore the nature of the transformation from a 'brown' to 'green' economy, the importance of effective carbon measurement and management methodologies, the use of behaviour economics, and the application of a growth-enabling approach. Offering valuable insights into how various stakeholders respond to the challenges of green growth and focusing in particular on the support of universities, The Low Carbon Economy covers themes of leadership, systems approach, stakeholder management, and collaborative action. This comprehensive study provides readers with constructive ideas for maximising the opportunities of transitioning to a low carbon economy, and will serve as a useful tool for practitioners and academics interested in sustainability.

People succeed over time and sustain positive performance when they tie in their actions to a deep understanding of human nature. "Survival to Growth" explores human nature and illustrates how occupational goals and objectives can be achieved by applying a basic organizational approach, and upgrading the skill level of each company employee.
Chronicling real-life examples from various industries, Hout illustrates the responsibility of management to continuously review and upgrade company standards, maintain a 'can do' attitude in dealing with problems, identify core issues, and offer practical solutions. The author also explores the role of a successful company employee: a person with leadership qualities, a high regard for ethical values, and the commitment to teamwork and to the greater good of the company. Success in organizations has always been determined by a clear understanding of business theory and application, and good management and employees, but Hout shows us how continuity of this success is characteristic of businesses and employees that understand how to relate to the basic needs of human behavior.

We live in a 'bimoral' society, in which people govern their lives by two contrasting sets of principles. On the one hand there are the principles associated with traditional morality. Although these allow a modicum of self-interest, their emphasis is on our duties and obligations to others: to treat people honestly and with respect, to treat them fairly and without prejudice, to help and care for them when needed, and ultimately, to put their needs above our own. On the other hand there are the principles associated with the entrepreneurial self-interest. These also impose obligations, but of a much more limited kind. Their emphasis is competitive rather than cooperative: to advance our own interests rather than to meet the needs of others. Both sets of principles have always been present in society but in recent years traditional moral authorities have lost much of their force and the morality of self-interest has acquired a much greater social legitimacy, over a much wider field of behaviour, than ever before. The result of this is that in many situations it is no longer at all apparent which set of principles should take precedence. In this book John Hendry traces the cultural and historical origins of the 'bimoral' society and explores the challenges it poses for the world of business and management. The developments that have led to the 'bimoral' society have also led to new, more flexible forms of organizing, which have released people's entrepreneurial energies and significantly enhanced the creative capacities of business. Working within these organizations, however, is fraught with moral tensions as obligations and self-interest conflict and managers are pulled in all sorts of different directions. Managing them successfully poses major new challenges of leadership, and 'moral' management, as the technical problem-solving that previously characterised managerial work is increasingly accomplished by technology and market mechanisms. The key role of management becomes the political and moral one of determining purposes and priorities, reconciling divergent interests, and nurturing trust in interpersonal relationships. Exploring these tensions and challenges, Hendry identifies new issues for contemporary management and puts recognized issues into context. He also explores the challenges posed for a post-traditional society as it seeks to regulate and govern an increasingly powerful and global business sector.

A complement to the successful The Global Negotiator: Making, Managing, and Mending Deals Around the World in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave, 2003), Salacuse's new work is a comprehensive and easy-to-understand look at negotiation in everyday life. Drawing from his extensive experience around the world, Salacuse applies such large-scale examples as the Arab-Israeli conflicts or those in Berlin and shows us how to use such strategies in our own lives, from family and home life, to business and the workplace, even to our own thoughts as we negotiate compromises and agreement with ourselves.Arguing that life is really a series of negotiations, deal making, and diplomacy, Salacuse gives readers the tools to make the most of any situation.

A comprehensive socio-legal evaluation of the 2000 statutory recognition procedure over ten years of its operation, in the context of UK labour law, changing work relationships, the dissipation of collective bargaining and union membership decline. The authors of this volume consider how far it has provided a template for the incursion of the law into industrial relations, with voluntarism no longer a dominant model in UK industrial relations, and how far it has encouraged a more limited form of joint regulation. They also reflect on how the procedure has shaped union strategies and on whether it creates the conditions for worker mobilisation. The central trend has been the decline in applications and whilst the design and operation of the procedure may discourage unions from submitting claims and permit employers to undermine the process, its impact is also influenced by union capacity to generate cases, something defined by wider economic, social and political relationships.

Conceptualized and put into practice by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Dr. Muhammad Yunus, social businesses work to address social ills such as poverty, lack of health care, gaps in education and environmental challenges. This book explores the ideation, practice and evaluation of the concept of social business. Not just theoretical foundations but several case studies of social businesses around the world and state-of-the-art assessment of the issues that arise in the planning, marketing and evaluation of social businesses, are featured in this book.

This cutting-edge collection of articles, presented by the California Institute for Social Business (CISB) in collaboration with Professor Yunus, is one of the first comprehensive collections of theory and research on the emerging field of social business. The diverse group of authors come from around the world and from various disciplinary backgrounds, representing the leading academic experts on social business phenomena.

This book explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and doing good.As research into entrepreneurship has evolved, so has the business environment and the society in which entrepreneurs work. Now more than ever, entrepreneurs are found to reflect on personal commitment, ethical issues and more recently, the influence they could have on society. In short they have embraced the concept of 'the good entrepreneur.' Over time many different strands of 'good' entrepreneurship have emerged; from social, green and sustainable entrepreneurship to ecopreneurship and so forth. Indeed some strands of research have merged while others have registered a lack of field research and analysis. In this book the author argues that this excessive fragmentation has created the need for a reflection on the role of niches in entrepreneurship. Providing analysis from multiple perspectives, the author provides an overview of the relationship between entrepreneurship and doing good as well as an exploration of the drivers that promote research in this field and an outline of research dynamics. Contributing to the current debate around the field of entrepreneurship and its ability to drive responsible and sustainable business practices, this book presents a comprehensive guide for students (graduate, master and PhD), academics and institutions and offers the reader an enhanced understanding of the evolution and research challenges within 'good entrepreneurship.'

Fair Trade In CSR Strategy of Global Retailers shows how retailers can improve the success of their fair trade strategy. Using Polish market research, the authors analyze the aggressive and detrimental competition between retailers such as Ikea, and Tesco to emphasize the benefits of CSR strategy for stakeholders and society at large.

This volume explores corporate governance from three perspectives: a traditional economic, a philosophical, and an integrated business ethics perspective.

Corporate governance has enjoyed a long tradition in the English-speaking world of management sciences. Following its traditional understanding it is defined as leadership and control of a firm with the aim of securing the long-term survival and viability of that firm. But recent business scandals and financial crises continue to provide ample cause for concern and have all fuelled interest in the ethical aspects. As a result, corporate governance has been criticized by many social groups. Economic sciences have failed to provide a clear definition of the corporate governance concept. Complexity increases if we embed the economic approach of corporate governance in a philosophical context. This book seeks to define the concept by examining its economic, philosophical and business ethics foundations.

An increasing number of people work in organizations that 'trade in trust'. Institutions such as banks, accounting firms, schools, and hospitals require customers, students, and patients to have confidence in the experience and professional expertise of the staff, as well as in the effectiveness of the regulations, rules, and systems in place for quality control. What mechanisms have developed in modern society to create, manage, maintain, and convey trust in companies, public administrations, and civil society organizations? What takes place in the encounter between different cultures of confidence and what happens when confidence in or between organizations is shattered?
Trust and Organizations gathers an interdisciplinary group of academics to contextualize the dilemmas resulting from the institutionalization of trust and confidence in a wide selection of organizational settings. The importance of trust is highlighted in relation to different types of borders or boundaries - institutional, organizational, and geographical - as the overlapping and blurring of such boundaries is becoming one of the main characteristics of an increasingly transnational and re-regulated world.

This book argues that separation consciousness has kept a collective demand for corporate social responsibility at bay, even providing justification for business to neglect society. Yet there are signs that separation consciousness is being replaced with the expectation that businesses engage in symbiotic relationships with stakeholders that yield triple bottom line benefits. The potential for business to enact this social contract depends largely on the ability of top executives to discover how to activate the organizational values that make such benefits possible. The author argues that the required mind-set for this task bears a strong resemblance to the scientific discovery mentality, and that if executives were to embed this mentality in organizational decision making, shared consciousness between firms and stakeholders of the values that support corporate responsibility is feasible. CSR Discovery Leadership examines this prospect of shared value consciousness, a new frontier for CSR leadership.

This book advocates a holistic reform of the current monetary and financial system dealing with the issues of money creation, central banks, loans, stock markets, tax justice, pension security and the international monetary system - "Bretton Woods II". Its innovative approach presents several alternatives for each cornerstone, in addition to introducing a participatory democratic process whereby sovereign citizens can themselves determine the rules governing the new financial and monetary system. With "democratic money conventions" in each municipality, where the elements of this new money system are discussed and decided on in a participatory manner, and a federal money covenant which then elaborates a template for a referendum about the future "money constitution", a true "sovereign" could progressively convert money from a financial weapon into a democratic tool. The envisaged democratic monetary system, by providing equal opportunities for every member of society to participate in the development of the "new rules of the game", turns money progressively into a public good which increases the freedom for all. The new system furthermore drives the enhancement of constitutional and relational values such as human dignity, solidarity, justice, sustainability, or democracy. Money should serve life and should serve the common good. The "Bank for the Common Good" Project, which was initiated in Austria by the author Christian Felber, represents a practical example of his proposals.

This book examines various aspects of changes to business behavior through the lenses of the "twin pillars" of sustainability - responsibility and governance. It discusses whether the focus of corporate social responsibility has changed so much that we need to think about redefinitions of key concepts in the field, and analyses both the theory and practice in a variety of ways to enable conclusions to be drawn about the changes needed to any definitions. This approach is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network, which in its 15-year history has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and relevant to business. This book consists of the best contributions from the 16th International Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility and 7th Organisational Governance Conference held in Derby, United Kingdom in August/September 2017.

The request on managers to base eco-investments on solid grounds has never been so vital. They need to know what they should do first, and why. Should they focus on generating carbon credits via eco-efficiencies? Enhance corporate reputation by joining Green Clubs? Subscribe to eco-label programs? Explore emerging cleantech markets? Within the overwhelming possibilities, many spend precious resources without sound criteria.

By analyzing the rationales for sustainability strategies, this book addresses a timely question for managers, academics and MBAs: "when does it pay to be green?" Based on solid theoretical foundations and empirical research, it clarifies the elements involved in the formation and evaluation of sustainability strategies in firms, helping managers to prioritize eco-investments and transform them into sources of competitive advantage and new market spaces.

"Sustainability Strategies" delves particularly deep into the troublesome global auto industry. By identifying the roots of economic and environmental problems of the sector, the book shows how to develop Sustainable Value Innovation: the creation of differential value for customers and contribution to society at both, reduced costs and environmental impacts.

This book discusses the unique relationship between societies and businesses in the Mediterranean region, with contributions from public figures and academics from Middle Eastern and Arab societies, as well as from North America and Europe. This blend of expertise and knowledge focuses on common business practices and their effect on society in Mediterranean countries, and aims to create a bridge between the two. Considering the cultural, social, political, legal and economic impacts and variety, Business and Society in the Middle East is a contemporary and authentic view of how local and traditional aspects of society dictate diversity and homogeneity within businesses.

In his Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate Pope Benedict XVI proposed a new humanistic synthesis to realign the economy with its social purpose. The aim of this book is to interpret, comment and develop aspects of the Encyclical Letter which are significant for economic and business activity and contribute to humanistic management.

In recent years, social innovation has experienced a steep career. Numerous national governments and large organisations like the OECD, the European Commission and UNESCO have adopted the term. Social innovation basically means that people adopt new social practices in order to meet social needs in a different or more effective way. Prominent examples of the past are the Red Cross and the social welfare state or, at present, the internet 2.0 transforming our communication and cooperation schemes, requiring new management concepts, even empowering social revolutions. The traditional concept of innovation as successful new technological products needs fundamental rethinking in a society marked by knowledge and services, leading to a new and enriched paradigm of innovation. There is multiple evidence that social innovation will become of growing importance not only concerning social integration, equal opportunities and dealing with the greenhouse effects but also with regard to preserving and expanding the innovative capacity of companies and societies. While political authorities stress the social facets of social innovation, this book also encompasses its societal and systemic dimensions, collecting the scientific expertise of renowned experts and scholars from all over the world. Based on the contributions of the first world-wide science convention on social innovation from September 2011 in Vienna, the book provides an overview of scientific approaches to this still relatively new field. Forewords by Agnes HUBERT (Member of theBureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA) of the European Commission) and Antonella Noya (Senior Policy Analyst at OECD, manager of the OECD LEED Forum on Social Innovations)

This book challenges the separation between CSR and law. It also demonstrates that BRHR may be gradually separating from CSR through emphasis on state obligations. Authors from around the world discuss how businesses engage in CSR and human rights, and how governments and intergovernmental organisations may support business in taking responsibility

Globalization and technological innovation have greatly enhanced the free mobility of currencies, commodities, services, information, jobs and people; yet this can also cause gaps in regional development and create uneven wealth in minority economies. Social Innovation and Business in Taiwan links the ultimate goal of the common good by connecting people not just through technology, but through new forms of organization. Based on five major research cases observed in Taiwan, this book introduces the core concept of a social innovation system to show how the common good can be established, adapted and diffused across communities, societies and national boundaries. By identifying effective and sustainable ways to create social value, this innovation system shows a universally true way to lead to a more humane global society.