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Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/series/reio

Call for Papers, volume 16:

The Contribution of Love, and Hate, to Organizational Ethics.

Michael Schwartz and Howard Harris, editors

In our forthcoming issue we seek to explore the role of love and hate in organizations. We are interested in love and happiness, hate and war, conflict and co-operation and what their implications are for organizational ethics. One aspect of our interest is in what some have termed the virtuous agent: and whether such an agent can be virtuous within an organization which contributes to vice. Or whether that same virtuous agent can remain virtuous in an organization that contributes to doing good but is a nasty and embittered place. Our approach will include both for profit and non-profit organizations, and what the ethical implications are of such attributes as love and happiness, hate and war, and appeasement, conflict and co-operation.

Abraham Maslow who "believed in human beings' innate capacity for goodness" (Gabor, 2000, p. 155) is a most remarkable character. Maslow came from a family of coopers and whilst resentful of his father's behaviour "developed an abiding hatred of his mother" (Gabor, 2000, p. 156). P. G. Wodehouse's fictional character, Bertram Wooster, had an abiding hatred of his aunts. That he did, critics tell us, provides much of the humour in the books. But they add that if it was his mother he hated Wodehouse's books would not be funny but tragic. Unfortunately, Maslow did not hate his aunts but his mother.

That he did should not completely surprise us. All families are not happy families and many contain their fair share of hate and conflict with the members of those families caught in a perpetual state of war of one against the other. Fortunately there are others where love and happiness prevail. These realities are depicted in fiction. As Alan Goldman explains "great works of literature contain themes of central human interest: love and conflict, honour and shame, self and other" (2013, p. 12). Much like those great works of literature so do our organizations. They too contain such themes. They like families are also beset by the conflicting emotions of those who work there: by love and hate, conflict and co-operation. Anyone who has spent time working in different organizations knows that some are happy and that others are miserable, and that understanding why some are happy and some are not is never easy.

It should therefore not astonish us that an organizational psychologist such as Maslow was interested in this topic as Maslow sought "to set up a work situation in which (as) self-actualisation and personal growth becomes more possible . . . everybody's both happier and more efficient" (Maslow as quoted by Wilson, 1972, p. 170). Some, such as Peter Drucker (1985), have asked whether happiness leads to efficiency or whether efficiency leads to happiness. That of course for us leads to another question and that is what love, happiness, appeasement and co-operation within the organization means for organizational ethics. And in turn what hate, war and conflict within the organization means for organizational ethics.

Arguably there are organizations in which love, happiness and co-operation prevail but that cannot guarantee that the organizational ethics within such entities is worth mentioning. In short there are no obvious reasons why love, happiness and co-operation are compatible with beneficial organizational ethics; and, alternatively, there are no reasons why hate, war and conflict are incompatible with highly positive organizational ethics. That, seemingly, makes little sense. As we remarked earlier there are happy organizations and there are miserable organizations. Why the latter should sometimes display a positive organizational ethic whilst the former a negative organizational ethic seems absurd but they do. For all we know a gang of arsonists in a given town causing much mayhem and distress may constitute an organization whose members feel love and happiness to one another and co-operate in all they do. Meanwhile, the local fire brigade might be a nasty and embittered place filled with hate and conflict with all at war with one another.

Empirical research including case studies, as well as conceptual pieces, are sought.

Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

• Innate human capacity for goodness
• Organizational happiness
• Ethics in organizations committed to vice
• Love as a management virtue
• Conflict between personal and organizational values
• Surviving in a vicious organization
• Fictional portrayals of love and hate in organizations
• Ethics in war and military organizations
• Role of emotion in organizational ethics
• Links between organizational performance, ethical climate and purpose
• Contribution of wellbeing to organizational ethics

Submission

Please submit completed papers which conform with the author guidelines  http://www.emeraldinsight.com/products/ebookseries/author_guidelines.htm  by email to Michael Schwartz at  michael.schwartz@rmit.edu.au before the 24th of December 2015. All papers will be double blind reviewed.

Queries

If you have any enquiries please do not hesitate to contact Michael Schwartz (michael.schwartz@rmit.edu.au) or Howard Harris (howard.harris@unisa.edu.au).

References:

Drucker, P. F. 1985. Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Harper & Row, New York.

Gabor, A. 2000. The Geniuses of Modern Business – Their Lives, Times, and Ideas, Times Books, New York.

Goldman, A. H. 2013. Philosophy and the Novel, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Wilson, C. 1972. New Pathways in Psychology: Maslow and the Post-Freudian Revolution, Mentor Books, New York.