Week 3 Flashcards
after greek philosophers what was the source of moral guidance?
- religious studies provided ‘laws’ of divine background for how people should lead their lives
what is the idea of good and evil about?
- they are eternal combatants where God would be on the correct and loving side whereas the Devil or Satan would be on the incorrect or bad side and would hate
- human thoughts are guided by these divine ideas of love and righteousness
who challenged the idea of good and evil?
western enlightenment - as philosophers tried to get rid of the idea of being ‘ruled’ by these moral ideas of superstition and instead replace them with moral ideas of rational human behaviour and thinking.
what are the arguments on morality?
- morality is set by our reason (Kent, 1785), character and personality
- as we are in many different social contexts daily, out moral selves is moulded by the way we socialise with others and how we perceive these social values as individuals (Smith, 1790)
- if our morality is determined by our environment, can we really be responsible for anything?
what is Hobbes’ psychological theory of human nature?
- he believes that people show unsatisfiable desire for the same things, but their viewpoints about how to see these desires differ
- says people are egotistical and vain which results in them trying to dominate things
what is ‘The Nature of Man’ about?
- Jenson and Meckling (1994) says that all humans are ‘resourceful, evaluative, maximisers (REM model)’
- the model implies that as humans we respond to the choices present in our environment in an organised, creative and rational way
- talks about the idea that as individuals we ‘care’ about everything and work towards breaking down the barriers that prevent us from doing this
- challenge in society and firms is to find a pathway that points us to using this idea of resourcefulness towards efficiently using scarce resources. this provides the basis for an ‘agency model’ - rules of the game
what is the historical intro to management and ethics?
- society had two differing ways for how people should live
- the idea of duty and responsibilities was dominant until the 20th centruy
- entrepreneurial morality was seen as something of self-interest and important but also as a threat to society
- neo-liberal individualism and self interest is now socially accepted as seen with humans changing lifestyles, consumerism and the increase in personal communications
what were/are the sources of morality in business?
- protestant ethic of hard work and thrift
- owners of bigger firms had strong religious beliefs
- era of ‘big bureaucracy’ - time period of ideas surrounding loyalty and responsibility
- ‘era of the market’ - time period of pursuing self interested individualism, emphasis on moral actor
what are the origins of managerialism?
- main reason for the divorce of ownership and control in the growth of bigger businesses was to solve the problems of managerial constraint not just capital constraint, the organisation is separate from its management who has its own functionality which is to work around capital constraint
- the class of managers meant they were loyal and in accords with the capital class therefore meaning that the upper two classes interests and needs were protected
what was Berle’s (1960) idea of managerialsm?
Berle and Means (1932) found there was a change in the ownership of businesses from the owner and manager to shareholders instead
- they operated as separate entities initially for the purpose of financial constraints but then moral ones
- they saw this as a problem of divorce of ownership and that the actual control should lie with mangers, create problems of understanding of responsibility
- they viewed this problem as one of ‘agency’, how do you make sure managers will act in your best interest or the shareholders?
what is the shareholder controversy and social responsibility problem?
- Dodd (1932) believed that managers held powers for the community, meaning that managers were technically/socially responsible for all stakeholders through meeting all their wants and claims of profits, wages and employee welfare and meeting customer expectations
- Berle (1932) replied to this idea by stating that managers should strive for maximum profit as agents on behalf of shareholders, but later said that a ‘corporate conscience’ might emerge in management to run business responsibly
what did Ladd and Friedman believe?
they claimed that social and political concerns are not a managers responsibility, but instead should only be concerned with profit maximizing
what were the stages of capitalism and management?
- in the 18th and 19th century there was free market capitalism/ social darwinism and proprietary capitalism
- in the 20th century there was social welfare capitalism and neo-liberalism and managerialism
- in the 21st century financialization and dominance of shareholder priority, the shifted firms from growth to profits and shareholder value
what is an ideology?
its a belief system that leads to actions, it usually linked to the idea that the power to persuade people the ideas of a dominant group are the same as those who are dominated
what is neo-liberal political ideology?
- as its core has the idea of free markets: means minimal government intervention, property rights, privatisation
- individualism: means the idea that we are the ‘entrepreneurs of the self’
