Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:38:30.791Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Commons and the Moral Organization1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Abstract:

A complex organization is in effect a commons, which supervisory techniques cannot preserve from free riding. A corporate culture strong enough to create the requisite community-minded second-order desires and beliefs may be morally illegitimate. What morality requires is not local enforcement of foundational moral principles—a futile undertaking—but that the organization be a good community in that it permits the disaffected to exit, encourages reflective consideration of morality and the good life, and creates appropriate loyalty.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allaire, Yvan and Firsirotu, Mihaela E.. 1984. “Theories of Organizational Culture.” Organization Studies 5, 193226.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1894. Ethica Nicomachea. Edited by Bywater, I.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1957. Politica. Edited by Ross, w. D.. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Bowie, Norman E. 1991. “Challenging the Egoistic Paradigm.” Business Ethics Quarterly 1, 121.Google Scholar
Brink, David O. 1989. Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, John M. 1986. Reason and Human Good in Aristotle. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Cox, Susan Jane Buck. 1985. “No Tragedy on the Commons.” Environmental Ethics 7, 4961.Google Scholar
Darwall, Stephen, Gibbard, Allan, Railton, Peter. 1992. “Toward Fin de siecle Ethics: Some Trends.” The Philosophical Review 101, 115189.Google Scholar
Dixit, Avinash and Nalebuff, Barry. 1991. Thinking Strategically: The Competitive Edge in Business, Politics, and Everyday Life. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Gerald. 1988. The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989. The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1985. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1984. Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality. Revised edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai. 1988. The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Frank, Robert H. 1988. Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry G. 1982. “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” In Free Will, edited by Watson, Gary, 8195. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fucini, Joseph J., and Fucini, Suzy. 1990. Working for the Japanese: Inside Mazda’s American Auto Plant. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Gauthier, David. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1983. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, George G. 1991. “Industry Determinants of Organizational Culture.” The Academy of Management Review 16, 396415.Google Scholar
Hardin, Garrett. 1968. “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Science 162, 12431248.Google Scholar
Hardin, Garrett. 1977. Exploring New Ethics for Survival. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1978. “Relativistic Ethics: Morality as Politics.” Midwest Studies 3, 109121.Google Scholar
Heller, Joseph. 1974. Something Happened. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Huxley, Aldous. 1932. Brave New World. New York: Harper and Row. (Perennial Library Edition, first published in 1969.)Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, Knetsch, Jack, Thaler, Richard. 1986. “Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics.” Journal of Business 59, S285S300.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas H. 1971. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, Michael. 1989. Liar’s Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.Google Scholar
Maclntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maitland, Ian. 1989. “Rights in the Workplace: A Nozickian Argument.” Journal of Business Ethics 8, 951954.Google Scholar
Marcus, George E. and Fischer, Michael M. J.. 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Maslow, Abraham H. 1970. Motivation and Personality. 2nd edition. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Pastin, Mark. 1986. The Hard Problems of Management: Gaining the Ethics Edge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Rapoport, Anatol and Chammah, Albert M.. 1965. Prisoner’s Dilemma: A Study in Conflict and Cooperation. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ray, Carol Axtell. 1986. “Corporate Culture: The Last Frontier of Control?” Journal of Management Studies 23, 287197.Google Scholar
Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sathe, Vijay. 1985. Culture and Related Corporate Realities. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.Google Scholar
Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey (editor). 1988. Essays on Moral Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Schein, Edgar H. 1985. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.Google Scholar
Schmidtz, David. 1991. The Limits of Government: An Essay on the Public Goods Argument. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya K. 1987. On Ethics and Economics. New York: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Solomon, Robert C. 1992. Ethics and Excellence: Cooperation and Integrity in Business. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sturgeon, Nicholas L. 1988. “Moral Explanations.” In Essays on Moral Realism, edited by Sayre-McCord, Geoffrey, 229255. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1977. “What is Human Agency?” In The Self: Psychological and Philosophical Issues, edited by Mischel, Theodore, 103135. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Watson, Gary. 1982. “Free Agency.” In Free Will, edited by Watson, Gary, 96110. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Weick, Karl E. 1979. The Social Psychology of Organizing. 2nd editon. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Werhane, Patricia. 1992. “Justice, Impartiality, and Reciprocity: A Response to Edwin Hartman.” Unpublished.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1973. Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Alan. 1989. Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar