The digital transformation of work: A relational view Rodriguez‐Lluesma, Carlos; García‐Ruiz, Pablo; Pinto‐Garay, Javier
Business ethics, the environment & responsibility (Print),
01/2021, Letnik:
30, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Abstract
Conversation about the current and potential effects of digital technologies on the nature of work is raging within scholarly and practitioner communities. Artificial intelligence, robotics, ...data analytics, digital platforms, and automation, among other technologies, are prompting a swift and profound transformation of work. Building on Pierpaolo Donati's relational sociology, we examine the changes these technologies are likely to bring about in work as a human relation. Despite the very real threats of unemployment, job insecurity, precariousness, and surveillance, technology may also encourage the emergence of a work culture that shifts the scales toward a relational realm rather than a transactional one. To this end, we argue that work should be understood as a social relation with four dimensions: exchange value, intrinsic extra‐economic purpose, communication for reciprocal services, and correspondence with primary human needs according to use values. Understanding the digital transformation of work from this point of view requires comprehending the differentiation and integration of these four dimensions.
Building on research that addresses why some financial systems are based on banks and others on markets, this study stresses that culturally-based social preferences regarding uncertainty avoidance ...help explain cross-national differences in financial system configuration. We propose a theory in which political institutions condition this relationship. National culture is a good predictor of financial systems as long as governments are constrained and therefore able to credibly commit to not interfering in the functioning of banks and markets. We adopt a strict definition of culture that focuses only on inherited dimensions, while postulating uncertainty avoidance as a proxy for the societal attitudes that channel those cultural priors. We find that in a political context with unconstrained government, national culture fails to explain financial system variation. In contrast, when political institutions limit governmental action, culturally-driven preferences for uncertainty avoidance affect significantly financial configuration.
Alasdair MacIntyre´s criticism of Modernity essentially refers to the problem of compartmentalization, which restricts the possibility of achieving excellence in an integral lifestyle. Among other ...reasons, compartmentalization is especially derived from an insular valorization of the workplace based on a reductionist understanding of productivity in terms of mere efficiency. Aimed at overcoming the moral confusion derived from the overestimation of technical, skilled productivity and individualistic cooperation in private corporations, this article offers a thicker explanation of MacIntyre’s theory of productive work in light of a narrative approach that opens up the possibility of achieving standards of excellence in modern production. To do so, it follows MacIntyre’s understanding of productivity in terms of craftsmanship by explaining what excellence in production is and the role it plays in achieving unity of life and excellence in modern corporations based on two criteria derived from a historical definition of production, namely, craftsmanship and collegiality.
Among contexts in which consumer ethics unfold, the family is a very relevant one because it holds a sizeable share of consumption decisions, and is intimately connected to the search and sustaining ...of a common life project. Based on interviews with 20 fathers cohabiting with their partners and children, we examine the role of the father in family consumption, including the progressive weakening of the breadwinner model in favor of more involved ways of male presence in the family. We explore whether fathers show any kind of ethical concern in their family consumption decisions and, if that is the case, whether those concerns are better understood through the lens of an ethics of care –as usually done in the case of mothers– or through the lens of virtue ethics –which is connected to consumers’ projects and their search for the good life.
Over the next decades a growing demand for Long Term Care (LTC) services and workers in Europe will face a stagnant supply. Although this is conventionally attributed to poor working conditions, our ...analysis of two critical dimensions of employment quality shows that LTC jobs fall under the classification of low-wage/low-quality work only in some European countries. Using the European Union Labor Force Survey, we analyze workers' wages and job stability in the LTC sector relative to the overall workforce. Additionally, we explore how human-capital explanations may account for differences across countries. web URL: http://www.funcas.es/Publicaciones/Publicaciones.aspx
Ethical research on consumption has focused mainly on the obligations, principles and values guiding consumers' actions and reasons for action. In doing so, it has concerned itself mostly with such ...bounded contexts as voluntary simplifiers, anti-consumption movements or so-called 'ethical consumers,' thereby fostering an artificial opposition between ethical and non-ethical consumption. This paper proposes virtue ethics as a more apt conceptual framework for the ethical analysis of consumption because it takes into account the developmental dynamic triggered by engagement in consumption practices. We build on MacIntyre's goodsvirtues-practices-institutions framework and Beabout's concept of a domain-relative practice and argue that when engaging in consumption activities, agents may pursue goods internal to practices, further their individual life narratives and contribute to the good of their communities, thus developing virtues that perfect themselves both as consumers and as ethical agents.
Stakeholder engagement is central to organizations' social impact. Engagement activities rely on mechanisms whose complexity increases for multinational corporations (MNCs). This study explores the ...boundary conditions of our Western/Northern-based knowledge of stakeholder engagement mechanisms through the examination of such practices in multinational companies founded in Latin America (Multilatinas—MLs). Based on previous studies on the identification of organizational stakeholders in the region, we aim to understand the specific engagement mechanisms MLs use. To this end, we analyze qualitatively 28 corporate sustainability reports by relevant firms. Our findings show that the community includes silent (or non-visible) stakeholders composed of subgroups not listed as organizational stakeholders but mentioned in the report as engaged by the company or a subsidiary. MLs in our sample use four main mechanisms to engage these subgroups: (a) strong, visible commitments to local social organizations; (b) continuous dialogue with members of the community; (c) networks of volunteers to help perform the social activities of the companies; and (d) creation of social infrastructure institutions. We end by detailing the theoretical implications for stakeholder engagement among emerging economies multinational companies (EMNCs) and for MNCs in general.
The case method (CM) helps executives develop their problem-solving skills by exposing them to real-life situations in which they have to look for similarities and differences with respect to their ...professional contexts. This study seeks to explain how the analogies generated by the CM favor the authentic learning of experienced executives in custom executive programs (CEPs). An analogy is an explicit, nonliteral comparison between two objects, or sets of objects, that links their structural, functional, and causal similarities. Our comparative-case study, based on nine CEPs across six Latin American countries, seeks to identify the key factors that enable the effectiveness of the CM in authentic executive learning. Our results suggest that a CEP's success, i.e., its ability to achieve the analogical knowledge transfer that authentic learning requires, in part depends on the CEP's selection of cases and its appropriate delivery. Our analysis reveals two critical drivers of CM success in a CEP: choosing cases that enable analogies according to the type of business issues and constructing a CM narrative that illustrates the analogies of each case.
•Case method effectiveness on custom executive programs also depends on the choice of the cases and analogies.•Case method is authentic learning when learners can see an analogy between the case and their professional situation.•Choosing suitable cases enable analogies according to the type of business issues.•Deftly delivering the case method narrative displays the case's analogies.
The literature identifies customized executive programs (CEPs) as a significant source of knowledge generation, sharing and distribution within the field of management. For these programs to be ...successful, overcoming boundaries between companies and business schools needs to be in place. Through the inductive multiple-case study approach, we address the question, “How do business schools and their corporate clients effectively engage in the design and delivery of CEPs?” We find that the two parties jointly use certain boundary objects and create design and delivery trading zones to achieve local coordination to bridge the instrumental, interactional, and cognitive boundaries that separate them. We contribute to the study of customized executive education by developing a grounded process model that emphasizes four factors that lead to successful collaboration, namely, brokering by program directors, boundary crossing, role switching and veiling and unveiling. We conclude by noting the theoretical and managerial implications and providing some concluding remarks.
•Companies and business schools jointly develop Custom Executive Programs.•Program Directors modulate the flow of information between the two parties.•Cocreation dynamics demand the crossing of organizations' knowledge boundaries.•Case method pivots on a structured conversation around participants' concerns.•Faculty members' aid to connect the teaching case with the organizations' problems.
Ethical research on consumption has focused mainly on the obligations, principles and values guiding consumers' actions and reasons for action. In doing so, it has concerned itself mostly with such ...bounded contexts as voluntary simplifiers, anti-consumption movements or so-called 'ethical consumers,' thereby fostering an artificial opposition between ethical and non-ethical consumption. This paper proposes virtue ethics as a more apt conceptual framework for the ethical analysis of consumption because it takes into account the developmental dynamic triggered by engagement in consumption practices. We build on MacIntyre's goods-virtues-practices-institutions framework and Beabout's concept of a domain-relative practice and argue that when engaging in consumption activities, agents may pursue goods internal to practices, further their individual life narratives and contribute to the good of their communities, thus developing virtues that perfect themselves both as consumers and as ethical agents.
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