Organizational values are extremely topical, as private and public
organizations are not only evaluated according to their products and profits, but also
according to the circumstances of the product – labour conditions, materials, risks,
human rights and social responsibilities.
Faced with dramatic innovations in modern societies, ideas of right and wrong are
changing. No simple moral intuition is able to solve new dilemmas. No fixed rules can
handle organizational learning processes. Constantly values are clashing with no objective
solution. Instead, values are defining the identity of organizations, and organizations
are engaged in ongoing discussions of values, integrating new values as premises for their
decision making.
Business Ethics and Organizational Values operates on three levels – society,
organization and values.
First, the dynamics of modern society are analyzed. Secondly,
organizations are viewed an autopoietic systems constantly engaged in value debates with
its stakeholders. Thirdly, values are placed in a business context presenting conflicting
stakeholder values and showing how values make organizations sensitive to their
environment. A practical method, Ethical Accounting, is outlined, making it possible to
measure the degree of values fulfilment. Also the dark side of values is discussed under
the headline of hypocrisy.
Business students, managers in private and public organizations will face a wholly new
vision of the interrelations between society, organizations and values.
OLE THYSSEN is a well-known Danish philosopher, who for the last
40 years has published more than 30 books on psychoanalysis, Marxism, systems theory,
ethics and aesthetics. He has worked on five Danish universities and is now Professor at
the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School,
Denmark.
Table of Contents
Functional Subsystems
Forms of Compulsion
Growth as Inflation of Demands
What is an Organization?
Four Systems of the Organization
Values
Why Values in Organizations?
Changing Values of Labour
Values and Stakeholders
From Values to Morality to Ethics
Values and Accounting
Beautiful Lies - Values in Practice
264 pages, Hardcover