This article offers a further extension of Albert Hirschman’s very generative EVL theoretical framework with respect to how alternative institution building as ethics action strategy can help solve structural problems. Alternative institution building is particularly applicable in situations where actors perceive that there is no place to exit to within their accessible fields. The article also explains how Hirschman’s “possibilist,” inductive, action-learning, and practitioner problem/solution based epistemology and theory building is different from much of deductive, academic literature gap based theory building and can be particularly appropriate for considering further practitioner problem/solution based extensions and elaborations of Hirschman’s EVL framework. Two examples are discussed: the Vanguard index cooperative mutual fund model; and, the Norwegian natural resources development and ethical investing sovereign wealth model. Implications for theory building in business ethics are considered.

This article offers a further extension of Albert Hirschman's very generative EVL theoretical framework with respect to how alternative institution building as ethics action strategy can help solve structural problems. Alternative institution building is particularly applicable in situations where actors perceive that there is no place to exit to within their accessible fields. The article also explains how Hirschman's "possibilist," inductive, action-learning, and practitioner problemisolution based epistemology and theory building is different from much of deductive, academic literature gap based theory building and can be particularly appropriate for considering further practitioner problemisolution based extensions and elaborations of Hirschman's EVL framework. Two examples are discussed: the Vanguard index cooperative mutual fund model; and, the Norwegian natural resources development and ethical investing sovereign wealth model. Implications for theory building in business ethics are considered.

This essay seeks to articulate the relationships between Ignatian and Quaker "seeking that of Go[o]d in all things" and the "servant leadership" method, and between "communal discernment" and the "service- based participative group decision- making" process methods. These core principles and processes are related to what has been termed "wider ecumenism," "bottom- up ecumenism," and "tactical ecumenism." Large Jesuit and Quaker universities have experienced similar marginalization and even the disappearance of meaningful Ignatian and Quaker presence and mission. These process methods can incorporate the key ecumenical principles within large secular university contexts and help preserve, adapt, harmonize, and partner with core cross- tradition and ecumenical foundations, even when the core principles are at some disconnect from contemporary secular organizational cultures and systems.

The overall objectives of this article are to help the reader see and under-stand through Aristotelian lenses: (1) positive and negative aspects of the Leveraged Buyout (LBO) business model; and, (2) how LBO practices can be reformed so as to retain positives and reduce negatives. Aristotelian lenses considered are: wealth acquisition through wealth expansion, wealth creation, and wealth transfers; distrib-utive and corrective justice; and, a dialectic analytic process of retaining positives, reducing negatives, and reforming. Key net positive wealth expansion aspects of the model are discussed with respect to: profitability for the owners, managers, and investors of LBO firms; potential productivity improvements on the cost and reve-nue sides; and, potentially greater credit availability. Negative wealth transfer and destruction aspects with respect to: a relatively high rate of bankruptcies in some countries and in economic downturns; LBO firm gains without responsibility for losses; wealth transfers from employees, creditors, ordinary vs "carried interest" taxpayers; and, damaged wealth expansion and creation capabilities of acquired organizations are discussed. Potential reforms that could reduce negatives, retain positives, and reform the model are discussed.

Albert Hirschman (1915-2012) developed an actor-agent based theoretical framework for politically and ethically acting in contexts of decline, including ethical decline, in “organizations, institutions, and states” which he termed “Loyalty, Voice, and Exit.” Bernstein (1971) interpreted joined ethical and political activity as a form of Aristotelian praxis. The business ethics literature is reviewed to consider how the Hirschman model has been utilized in this literature. Initially, Hirschman considered these methods as mutually exclusive alternatives (Hirschman, 1970). Over the next 40 years Hirschman (1995, 1998; Adelman, 2013), as well as others in the area of business ethics who were influenced by the framework, expanded consideration of Hirschman’s three praxis archetypes beyond use as alternatives to include sequential and simultaneous applications of the methods as well as a wide variety of different types of internal and external organizational voice methods. However, there is a type of situation and a key action method that Hirschman and the literature has not considered where employees-members of an organization simultaneously are loyal to the organization’s espoused historical ethics mission, cannot support what they consider the current problematical organizational deviation from the ideals, do not believe that any internal or external voice methods can be effective, and believe that other organizations in the actors’ accessible institutional field that they might exit to are not substantially different. The ethics leadership, engagement, and praxis method of “alternative institution building,” in a sense a creative, developmental schism and then transformation, can: expand Hirschman’s theoretical framework; and, provide a practical imitative model for how the organization the actor is exiting from as well as other organizations and institutions can transform to be more consistent with their espoused ethical missions. Two case examples are discussed from the perspectives of the historical agents: (1) the Norwegian ethical natural resources development and ethical investing model; and, (2) John Bogle’s experience in developing the Vanguard alternative low-cost index and consumer-investor cooperative ownership and governance model of mutual fund investing. The agent-actor based historical case method of Jonas Ahlskog (2021: 59) which he referred to as “invoking the perspective of meaning of historical agents….is committed to understanding the meaning and significance of actions and events from the perspective of historically situated agents” is used in analyzing the cases. We do not all have to agree with the ethical action choices of the specific actors or the contemporary contexts where the method might be applicable, but it is a method that has succeeded for many actors, and can extend the Hirschman agent-actor based theoretical framework.

The overall objectives of this article are to help the reader see and understand through Aristotelian lenses: (1) positive and negative aspects of the Leveraged Buyout (LBO) business model; and, (2) how LBO practices can be reformed so as to retain positives and reduce negatives. Aristotelian lenses considered are: wealth acquisition through wealth expansion, wealth creation, and wealth transfers; distributive and corrective justice; and, a dialectic analytic process of retaining positives, reducing negatives, and reforming. Key net positive wealth expansion aspects of the model are discussed with respect to: profitability for the owners, managers, and investors of LBO firms; potential productivity improvements on the cost and revenue sides; and, potentially greater credit availability. Negative wealth transfer and destruction aspects with respect to: a relatively high rate of bankruptcies in some countries and in economic downturns; LBO firm gains without responsibility for losses; wealth transfers from employees, creditors, ordinary vs “carried interest” taxpayers; and, damaged wealth expansion and creation capabilities of acquired organizations are discussed. Potential reforms that could reduce negatives, retain positives, and reform the model are discussed.

The average annual profits before fees of the $10 billion plus Renaissance Technologies’ hybrid Medallion “Leveraged, High Frequency, Artificial Intelligence (LHFAI)” trading hedge fund between 1988 and 2019 were about 66 percent. Total trading profits during this period were over $100 billion. The fund has never had a losing year. The fund is not open to the general public. First, distinctions among, in more or less historical order, the traditional market-maker trading model, the hedge fund trading model, the artificial intelligence trading model, and the hybrid LHFAI trading model are discussed. Second, the micro components of the LHFAI trading model are explained in the context of Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund. Third, key positive contributions of the model with respect to profitability, low annual volatility, market liquidity, and intellectual property development; negative ethical issues concerning exclusive access, tax fairness, financial transparency, shared responsibility for losses and systemic risk, and short vs. long-term capital allocation are discussed. Potential reforms that retain the positives, reduce the negatives, and that could positively transform the model are discussed. Fourth, potential impacts that the potential reforms might have on the macro LHFAI form of finance capitalism and the larger finance capitalism political-economic system are considered. Fifth, conclusions are offered and discussed.

This article considers the problem of how employees and observers of business ethics behaviors often do not know how to safely and effectively engage with business ethics issues and cases. The ameliorative method of social situational business ethics framing was analyzed. Key parts of the related literature from philosophy, sociology, organizational studies, and business ethics are reviewed. A literature gap between general framing theory and business ethics was identified with respect to the need for social situational framing in business ethics at the micro individual, meso organizational, and macro institutional levels. Theoretical propositions for bridging the literature gap and a wide variety of business ethics engagement case examples are developed as illustrations of and support for the propositions. Practical social situational business ethics framing implications for safe and effective business ethics engagement are considered.

This article (a) reviews parts of the general literature on internal and external whistleblowing, (b) reviews parts of the national security whistleblowing literature and context, (c) discusses theoretical and legal reasons for considering whistleblowing as a countervailing ethics method, (d) discusses problems with the current national security internal whistleblowing system, (e) proposes developmental changes and reforms, (f) considers why potential reforms might reduce the need for ethically and legally problematic external whistleblowing, and (g) concludes that if reforms are not made, which may be likely, then what the Founders of the U.S. Constitution referred to as “unauthorized disclosures [external whistleblowing]” and even strengthened First Amendment protections remain necessary.

This chapter considers how observers can effectively and safely engage with unethical organizational behaviors. Engagement methods need to be aligned with the situational contexts of specific cases. Micro-level individual, meso-level organizational, and macro-level environmental contextual obstacles to effective and safe engagement are considered. Five types of observer ethics engagement methods are considered in the context of specific cases and contextual obstacles. Engagement methods considered are as follows: (1) evocation and framing of dialogic engagement as consistent with the identity, vision, and values of the organization; (2) win-win incentive and ethics networking methods; (3) internal and external whistle-blowing methods; (4) if the observer is in a position of organizational power, top-down forcing methods; and (5) linking of observed unethical behaviors with strong external social movements.

It is well established within the ethics and institutional theory literatures that institutions can have conflicting logics with ethical dimensions and that there are solutions to the conflicts. Within institutional, ethics, and change leadership theory, quantitative, mixture solutions such as distributive solutions have been frequently considered. The ethics, institutional, and change leadership theory literatures have recognized that there are qualitative transformational solutions that are different than quantitative mixture solutions. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the Thornton et al. (Am J Sociol, 105(3):801–843, 2012) typology of solutions, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational solutions. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, change leadership, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational solutions to institutional logic conflicts with ethical dimensions. This article: (1) develops a typology of transformational solutions; (2) applies the typology with historical examples of conflicting institutional ethics logics within factory, cultural, and institutional social change leadership cases; and, (3) considers practical and theoretical implications for institutional ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational solutions.

Andre Delbecq was a scholar who combined high level praxis based theory building with important spiritual and religious foundations. Delbecq’s Aristotelian and Ignatian praxis based epistemology and theory building method contains four process moments: (1) inductive experience based attention to the good, the true, and the beautiful that is naturally and potentially in all things; (2) hermeneutic interpretation (what Aristotle referred to as theoria and is different from the fourth moment theory building); (3) ethical praxis, service to others; and, (4) praxis based theory building. Delbecq integrated that fourth theory building Aristotelian moment with with Ignatian epistemological process. This integration can be considered from both a theological “In All Things” perspective and a philosophical “In All Things” Aristotelian perspective. Examples of explicitly Ignatian influenced and other social scientists who have used this four moment epistemological process are considered. Implications for research and theory building are discussed.

This commentary proceeds as follows. First, it is argued from both ethical and legal perspectives through an analysis of Court precedents that Etzioni’s has improperly developed a too narrow First Amendment interpretation and conclusion that Apple should comply with the FBI’s demand to provide the FBI with a key to open iPhones. That is, broad First Amendment considerations and not solely narrow First Amendment “compelled speech” or only Fourth Amendment privacy issues are offered and analyzed from both ethical and legal perspectives. A key point here is that broad First Amendment considerations protect, with exceptions, political and ethical discretion space for “Press” organizations to exercise, or not, ethical responsibilities, including rights to publish or not publish information and opinions, rather than compliance with government orders to publish or not publish. Further, Court cases are discussed from both legal and ethical perspectives where the Courts have established that social media organizations such as Facebook and Twitter do and should have broad First Amendment protection of free expression and peaceful assembly as traditional media such as newspapers have. It is suggested that Apple can and should be considered a social media organization. In addition, special First Amendment protection and limitations concerning national security are analyzed. Second, it is suggested that Etzioni’s point that Apple protected its clients soley for “business profitability” reasons is also a too narrow interpretation since there are more complex, mixed, and combined ethical and political-economic reasons for protecting clients and First Amendment protections. Third, the philosopher Paul Ricoeur’s ethics process responsibility framework concerning relationships between ethics and law and the need for an ethics responsibility rather than a compliance approach, which is similar to Brandeis’ legal ethics approach, is compared with and offered as an alternative to Etzioni’s compliance based “Liberal communitarian” approach. It is suggested that the difference between the Rocoeur and Etzioni approaches is similar to the difference between compliance and ethics responsibility process programs in organizations.

It is well established within the organizational change, ethics, and institutional theory literatures that organizations and institutions can have conflicting ethics logics and that there are change outcomes from the conflicts. Quantitative, mixture changes such as distributive change outcomes have been frequently considered. The ethics, institutional, and organizational change theory literatures have recognized that there are qualitative transformational changes that are different than quantitative mixture changes. However and for the most part, with the notable exception of the Thornton, Ocasio, and Lounsbury (2012) typology of transformational changes, the institutional, organizational change, and ethics literatures have not considered typologies of transformational changes. And more specifically with respect to this article, the institutional, organizational change, and ethics literatures have not considered different types of transformational changes to institutional and organizational ethics logic conflicts. This article: (1) borrows metaphorically from the biochemistry transformation literature to develop a typology of transformational changes; (2) applies the typology with historical examples to conflicting ethics logics; and, (3) considers implications for institutional and organizational ethics change leadership for achieving and/or resisting different types of transformational changes.

Action research is combined research and practical action where the researcher joins with and acts with practitioners to help improve practice and theory building. Action research can be a form of Aristotelian critical, ethical praxis that developmentally changes the action researcher and the external world. Bernstein’s (Praxis and action, 1971) and Eikeland’s (The ways of Aristotle, 2008) interpretations of Aristotelian ethics praxis are considered. The Argyris et al. (Action science: concepts, methods, and skills for research and intervention, 1985) “action-science” and the van de Ven (Engaged scholarship: A guide for organizational and research knowledge, 2007) “engaged scholarship” forms of action research with their differently nuanced interpretations of Aristotelian philosophy as foundations for action research are considered and compared as examples of action research as an ethics praxis method with respect to (1) a key similarity with respect to joining of critical ethics and actionable knowledge; (2) another key similarity with respect to action research practice that can developmentally change the action researcher and the external world; and (3) a key difference with respect to academic literature versus practitioner-based theory building is also considered (Nielsen J Bus Ethics 93:401–406, 2010a). Examples in the cases of the political economist and action researcher, Hirschmann’s “Exit,Voice, Loyalty” approach and Greenleaf’s “Servant Leadership” approach to action research as forms of Aristotelian critical, ethical praxis are analyzed.

For research to be meaningful to both academics and practitioners, knowledge co-production is very helpful. However the conceptual and practical challenges of partnering in joint academic-practitioner ventures demand particular capabilities and careful navigation between contradictory organizational demands. For example, the context for research in universities and academic communities is quite distinct from the context for research in commercial or public sector organizations. Further, what is relevant for each constituency largely unfolds in isolated dialogues and is evaluated through different filters. Yet, if business and management research are to deliver the broadest value to society, theory and research should be useful for improving organizational practice, which can only occur when realities of practice truly inform theorizing. This symposium aims to be a provocation and guide for scholars learning to navigate the complexity involved. It is based on an edited book (Bartunek & McKenzie, in process) and offers a concise and up to date review of contemporary scholarly engagement with the world of management. The symposium includes the conceptual challenges that create tensions in academic-practitioner relationships, the capabilities academics need to collaborate effectively with practitioners and illustrations of good practice from acknowledged centers of excellence. Thus, it explores both conceptually and practically what it takes to sustain engaging and fruitful knowledge-creating partnerships that are meaningful, mutually beneficial, further the advance of theory, and provide expositions of the praxis of those who have been successful in sustaining these productive relationships.

AbstractWorkplace democracy is the practice of democratic, political principles in the workplace. Democracy, and derivatively, workplace democracy are considered both ethical ends in themselves as well as ethical and productive means to the end of economic and social development. Workplace democracy is motivated by the belief that a person and society can achieve greater flourishing and ethical development though citizenship responsibilities and rights than by simply obeying and implementing orders with technical efficiency.Workplace democracy is different from participatory management which allows lower level employees to offer opinions to upper level management. Participatory management is practiced primarily for psychological motivational rather than ethical, democratic reasons. There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that employees are more motivated to implement decisions that they had some participation in advising about than decisions they had no participative role in even when the decisions were not what they advised.