Moralische Arbeitsteilung

In modernity, organizations are the most powerful actors. All the more important is the “dark side” of organizational morality. While organizations, on the one hand, ensure or claim to ensure efficiency and reliance they have, on the other, a considerable potential to suppress the moral point of view and to produce or fabricate legitimation. The paper concentrates on this dark side—on problems of the moral division of labor, the organization of hypocrisy, legitimation through procedures, rent-seeking and the related corporate power vis-à-vis law, regulation and politics.     

Do Donors Care About the Price of Giving? A Review of the Evidence,with Some Theory to Organise It

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - We study how donors decide about which charity to give to. To this end, we construct a theoretical model that clarifies...     

Macht in Organisationen und die Bürde des Entscheidens

How to make use of theories in practice is the business of the practitioners. The ??beauty?? of a theory??its usefulness??is in the eye of the beholder. In this sense, theoretical insights are recommended to practitioners: insights into power and micro-politics (by authors such as Max Weber, Crozier/Friedberg, Anthony Giddens, Jon Elster and Werner Patzelt), into performative speech acts (John Searle), into ??states that are essentially by-products?? and into pertinent limits of power, planning and decision making (Jon Elster, Karl Weick).     

Trust, repute and the role of non-profit enterprise

This article examines the trust hypothesis: the claim that asymmetric information can explain the existence of non-profit enterprise in certain markets. We argue that this hypothesis, in order to be viable, has to meet three challenges: ‘reputational ubiquity’, ‘incentive compatibility’ and ‘adulteration’. Drawing on modern agency theory, we conclude that the trust hypothesis stands on shaky ground. It can be sustained only under particular conditions that have been neither carefully described in theory nor subject to empirical assessment. The available evidence, patchy and inadequate as it is, seems to suggests that there are some ownership-related differences in aspects of organisational performance connected with asymmetric information. However, there is little evidence that this relates to trustper se or provides a rationale for the existence of non-profit ownership in these industries. We conclude with a plea for substantial research on consumer expectations and provider motivations. Visiting Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.