Ethical Considerations in Management Research: A ‘Truth’ Seeker's Guide

Within a growing Knowledge-Management context, it would appear that Management Research calls for researchers to explicitly understand their own values, have increasing capacity for reflexivity and anticipate various ethical dilemmas that emerge from the research endeavour. This paper provides an overview of the philosophy of ethics and focuses on a researcher's ethical reasoning. It provides a framework for understanding causes of ethical dilemmas in the context of management research and provides strategies for a way forward through such dilemmas. The paper, finally, outlines exercises pertinent to research ethics and ‘hands on’ research praxis.     

Ethical Considerations in Management Research: A ‘Truth’ Seeker''s Guide

Within a growing Knowledge-Management context, it would appear that Management Research calls for researchers to explicitly understand their own values, have increasing capacity for reflexivity and anticipate various ethical dilemmas that emerge from the research endeavour. This paper provides an overview of the philosophy of ethics and focuses on a researcher's ethical reasoning. It provides a framework for understanding causes of ethical dilemmas in the context of management research and provides strategies for a way forward through such dilemmas. The paper, finally, outlines exercises pertinent to research ethics and ‘hands on’ research praxis. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Dilemma of Privatized Public Services: Philosophical Frames in Understanding Failure and Managing Partnership Terminations

This paper uses social theory to explicate the competing perspectives on the on-going and, increasing, privatization of public services in the U.K. It suggests that if business ignores these perspectives then political imperatives will come into play that will inevitably turn privatization initiatives commercially sour.Contrary to political rhetoric, public/private partnerships (PPPs) constitute a more strategic form and process of out-sourcing, demanding that wherever public funding flows, private rent-seeking opportunities be created for the private sector. Seen in these terms, managerial elites will need to understand and anticipate conditions under which the state would seek to terminate lucrative partnering arrangements in the public interest.Political–administrative dialogue on partnerships can involve an unresponsive discourse or a dialogue of the deaf, both constituting a threat to business through the imposition of undefined community service obligations or hostile and unprofitable terminations by the state. Performance required of PPPs goes beyond market success and requires co-optation of strategic stakeholders, raising significant issues about corporate governance directions. Business leaders will need to develop communicative rationalities that build pluralized decision structures and implementation capacities. The paper concludes by outlining design features of more effective regulatory regimes to avoid hostile and unprofitable terminations of increasingly contested PPPs. The conclusion is less sanguine about the ability, or even the wish, of governments to do so.     

The potential of the SSI program to reduce poverty among the elderly

Is it more effective to reduce poverty among the elderly by increasing the benefits paid by the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program or by increasing eligibility for the program? This paper answers that question from a policymaker's perspective. At given program cost levels, we compare the potential reduction in poverty from increasing benefit levels to the potential reduction associated with a variety of policy proposals that would increase eligibility for the program. This paper employs a microsimulation model containing an eligibility and benefits calculator, a participation model, and an optimization algorithm. The data are from the Survey of Income and Program Participation supplemented by the administrative records of the SSI program. The results show that increasing eligibility by relaxing the restrictions of the means tests can be more effective in reducing poverty than raising benefit levels.     

Men and women who like continuous shiftwork are more ‘hardy’: But what does it mean?

Abstract

Continuous shiftworkers of both genders who like shiftwork and report fewer digestive problems have higher scores on hardiness than those who dislike shiftwork. Whether this is a causal, consequential or accidental relationship requires a longitudinal investigation. It is also not clear how far ‘hardiness’ is a personality measure, a behavioural style, a coping strategy, or a consequence of the stress of shiftwork.     

Potential for economic development: A quantitative approach

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Canadian Economic Association Annual Meeting, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, June 1987.     

Begging as work: a study of people with mobility difficulties in Accra, Ghana

Even though begging is illegal in Ghana, an increasing number of disabled people engage in it. Begging is not only abhorred by the law, but also regarded by many Ghanaians as stigmatizing and devaluing. Successive governments of the country and some non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have made efforts either to reduce or eliminate begging. The attempts made have, however, been unsuccessful and the disabled beggars involved have returned to the streets of Accra. The question is why is it difficult to reduce begging in the research area. While poverty, mobility needs, lack of education and employable skills and employment avenues are factors that explain the decision to start begging, it also seems that the ways in which beggars justify their activities contribute to its perseverance. The study aims at sensitizing policy-makers and other stakeholders in attempts to find empowering alternatives to begging.     

Labor Unions and Life Satisfaction: Evidence from New Data

While a growing literature demonstrates the impact of socio-political factors on citizens’ quality of life, scholars have paid comparatively little attention to the role political organizations such as labor unions play in this regard. We examine labor organization as a determinant of cross-national variation in life satisfaction across a sample of advanced industrial polities. Our findings strongly suggest that unions increase the life satisfaction of citizens, and that that this effect holds for non-union members as well. Moreover, we also find that labor organization has the strongest impact on the subjective well-being of citizens with lower incomes. We confirm these hypotheses using both individual and aggregate-level data from fourteen nations. We show these relationships to have an independent and separable impact from other economic, political, and cultural determinants. The implications for the study of life satisfaction and of labor unions as political actors in general are discussed.     

A Social Psychology of National and International Group Relations

This concluding article provides a framework for a social psychological analysis of intergroup conflict and conflict resolution. The framework highlights the individual and intergroup factors that shape the nature of perceptions of intergroup relations and group representations, and describes how these perceptions lead to cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses toward groups. Included in the framework are the metatheoretical, theoretical, and practical contributions of the articles in this issue toward understanding intergroup relations. The potential and responsibility of social psychologists to move beyond the laboratory to applied national and international issues is also discussed.