ABSTRACT:U.S. Organizational Sentencing Guidelines provide firms with incentives to develop formal ethics programs to promote ethical organizational cultures and thereby decrease corporate offenses. Yet critics argue such programs are cosmetic. Here we studied bank employees before and after the introduction of formal ethics training—an important component of formal ethics programs—to examine the effects of training on ethical organizational culture. Two years after a single training session, we find sustained, positive effects on indicators of an ethical organizational culture (observed unethical behavior, (...) intentions to behave ethically, perceptions of organizational efficacy in managing ethics, and the firm’s normative structure). While espoused organizational values also rose in importance post-training, the boost dissipated after the second year which suggests perceptions of values are not driving sustained behavioral improvements. This finding conflicts with past theory which asserts that enduring behavioral improvements arise from the inculcation of organizational values. Implications for future research are discussed. (shrink)

In _The Fragility of Things_, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to (...) Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. (shrink)

Scholarly and political interest in the controversial 20th Century German thinker Carl Schmitt has exploded in the last twenty years. This volume, focusing directly on Schmitt’s complex ideas about law, situates his views within broader debates about the rule of law and its fate, taking seriously his Nazi-era political and legal writings.

This paper examines fraudulent financial reporting within the context of Jones' (1991) ethical decision making model. It was hypothesized that quantitative materiality would influence judgments of the ethical acceptability of fraud, and that both materiality and financial risk would affect the likelihood of committing fraud. The results, based on a study of CPAs employed as senior executives, provide partial support for the hypotheses. Contrary to expectations, quantitative materiality did not influence ethical judgments. ANCOVA results based on participants' estimates of the (...) likelihood that a "typical CPA" would manipulate reported results indicated that both materiality and risk significantly influenced the likelihood of fraud, but that the perceived morality of the action did not. In contrast, results based on participants' self-reported behavior indicated that materiality and the perceived morality of the action would influence the likelihood of fraud, but that financial risk would not. Regardless of the measure used for the likelihood of fraud, the results indicate that financial executives continue to be influenced by quantitative materiality when misstatements are clearly material on qualitative grounds. (shrink)

Recent estimates suggest that the number of people seeking mental health treatment has increased significantly in the past 20 years (Kessler et al., 2005; Lipson et al., 2019; Mojtabai, 2005). Many...

William E. Stempsey, S.J.; Institutional Identity and Roman Catholic Hospitals, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 7, Issue.

An impressive body of recent literature posits that traditional notions of civil disobedience prevent us from properly considering potentially legitimate types of ‘uncivil’ political lawbreaking. When might uncivil (covert, legally evasive, morally offensive and potentially violent) lawbreaking prove normatively acceptable? If justifiable, what conditions should its practitioners be reasonably expected to meet? Despite some important insights, defenders of uncivil disobedience rely on a narrow and sometimes misleading view of civil disobedience, as previously practiced and theorized. Notwithstanding legitimate skepticism about Rawlsian (...) notions of civil disobedience, they reproduce its troublesome binary or ‘all-or-nothing’ view of political lawbreaking. Uncivil disobedience’s proponents tend to group a vast array of distinctive types of lawbreaking under one amorphous categorical rubric, impeding the suitably complex, nuanced analysis we need. A superior approach would pay careful attention to uncivil disobedience’s ambivalent historical record, a record suggesting that UD is more likely to reproduce authoritarian populism’s disturbing political logic than counteract it. (shrink)

William E. Connolly’s writings have pushed the leading edge of political theory, first in North America and then in Europe as well, for more than two decades now. This book draws on his numerous influential books and articles to provide a coherent and comprehensive overview of his significant contribution to the field of political theory. The book focuses in particular on three key areas of his thinking: Democracy: his work in democratic theory - through his critical challenges to the (...) traditions of Rawlsian theories of justice and Habermasian theories of deliberative democracy - has spurred the creation of a fertile and powerful new literature Pluralism - Connolly's work utterly transformed the terrain of the field by helping to resignify pluralism: from a conservative theory of order based on the status quo into a radical theory of democratic contestation based on a progressive political vision The Terms of Political Theory - Connolly has changed the language in which Anglo-American political theory is spoken, and entirely shuffled the pack with which political theorists work. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of ethical pressure on management accountants' perceptions of organizational-professional conflict, and related work outcomes. It was hypothesized that organizational pressure to engage in unethical behavior would increase perceived organizational-professional conflict, and that this perceived conflict would reduce organizational commitment and job satisfaction, and increase the likelihood of employee turnover. A survey was mailed to a random sample of Certified Management Accountants to assess perceptions of the relevant variables. The results of a structural equations model indicated (...) that, as hypothesized, ethical pressure was associated with higher levels of perceived organizational-professional conflict. Also as hypothesized, higher levels of conflict were associated with lower levels of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Finally, lower levels of commitment and satisfaction were associated with higher turnover intentions. (shrink)

In _Facing the Planetary_ William E. Connolly expands his influential work on the politics of pluralization, capitalism, fragility, and secularism to address the complexities of climate change and to complicate notions of the Anthropocene. Focusing on planetary processes—including the ocean conveyor, glacier flows, tectonic plates, and species evolution—he combines a critical understanding of capitalism with an appreciation of how such nonhuman systems periodically change on their own. Drawing upon scientists and intellectuals such as Lynn Margulis, Michael Benton, Alfred North (...) Whitehead, Anna Tsing, Mahatma Gandhi, Wangari Maathai, Pope Francis, Bruno Latour, and Naomi Klein, Connolly focuses on the gap between those regions creating the most climate change and those suffering most from it. He addresses the creative potential of a "politics of swarming" by which people in different regions and social positions coalesce to reshape dominant priorities. He also explores how those displaying spiritual affinities across differences in creed can energize a militant assemblage that is already underway. (shrink)

In this new installation of his work, William E. Connolly examines entanglements between volatile earth processes and emerging cultural practices. He highlights relays between extractive capitalism, self-amplifying climate processes, migrations, democratic aspirations, and fascist dangers. In three interwoven essays, Connolly takes up thinkers in the "minor tradition" of European thought who, unlike Cartesians and Kantians, cross divisions between nature and culture. He first offers readings of Sophocles and Mary Shelley, asking whether close attention to the Anthropocene could perhaps have (...) arrived earlier had later humanists absorbed their lessons. He then joins Deleuze and Guattari's notion of an abstract machine with contemporary earth sciences, doing so to compare the Antique Little Ice Age in late Rome to relays today between extractive capitalism and accelerating climate processes. The final essay stages a dialogue between Alfred North Whitehead and Michel Foucault about the pursuit of truth during a time of planetary turbulence. With _Climate Machines, Fascist Drives, and Truth_, Connolly forges incisive interventions into key issues of our time. (shrink)

To be ashamed of one's immorality—that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality. Friedrich Nietzsche.

Drawing support from Nietzsche and Foucault, Connolly argues that the Augustinian Imperative contains unethical implications: its carriers too often convert living signs that threaten their ontological self-confidence into modes of otherness to be condemned, punished, or converted in order to restore that confidence. With a lucidity and rhetorical power that makes it readily accessible, The Augustinian Imperative examines Augustine's enactment of the Imperative, explores alternative ethico-political orientations, and subsequently reveals much about the politics of morality in the modern age.

Qualitative research occupies a useful and important role in social science inquiry. Nonetheless, when ethical issues surrounding this research are discussed, elements of risk may be neglected. Qualitative research often raises concerns about the protection of the confidentiality of not only the participants but also of 3rd parties mentioned in transcribed narratives. Moreover, we argue that, in some instances, qualitative research has considerable potential of inducing negative psychological states. We conclude by presenting a series of recommendations that can be used (...) to address such ethical concerns. (shrink)

But in Why I Am Not a Secularist, distinguished political theorist William E. Connolly argues that secularism, although admirable in its pursuit of freedom and diversity, too often undercuts these goals through its narrow and intolerant ...