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Much rhetoric around the construct of a work-ready graduate has focused on the technical abilities of students to fulfill the expectations of the future workplace. Efforts have been made to extend from the technical skills (e.g., skills in calculation for engineers) to include soft or behavioral skills (e.g., communication). However, within previous models of understanding of the work-ready graduate there has been little done to explore them as critical moral agents within the workplace. That is, whilst the focus has been on being work-ready, it is argued here that in current and future workplaces it is more important for university graduates to be profession-ready. Our understanding of the profession-ready graduate is characterized by the ability to demonstrate capacities in critical thinking and reflection, and to have an ability to navigate the ethical challenges and shape the organizational culture of the future workplace.

This chapter aims to explore a movement of thinking away from simply aspiring to develop work-ready graduates, expanding this understanding to argue for the development of profession-ready graduates. The chapter begins with an exploration of the debates around the characteristics of being work-ready, and through a consideration of two professional elements: professional identity and critical moral agency, argues for a reframing of work-readiness towards professional-readiness. The chapter then considers the role of work-integrated learning (WIL) in being able to support the development of the profession-ready graduate.

Recognizing the existence of corporate social responsibility (CSR), and more precisely a social impact related to diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI), organizations today are confronted with the question of what is considered as good. How is the good life created and communicatively constructed inside an organization? Who (agent) is responsible to realize, secure, and manage the process of value creation and social change, or moral agency? I offer a new perspective on the ethical duty of public relations (PR) practitioners to be revolutionary, to be communicative rebels. I conceptualize PR from a critical theoretical perspective as process of problematization, as process of cracking open common sense and underlying systems of power and norms in an organization. Then I offer strategies for creating shared (communication) spaces in which to imagine and experience transformation and social change. In these spaces (huddles), good life is courageously problematized to offer a new narrative of sustainability including DEI as communicatively codesigned. The aim is to highlight opportunities and tools for PR practitioners and PR scholars to be revolutionary – more than an organization's conscience, but an agent of change for exciting, innovative, and transformative communication practices at the core of the discipline.

This chapter addresses one of the most crucial areas for critical thinking: the morality of turbulent markets around the world. All of us are overwhelmed by such turbulent markets. Following Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2004, 2010), we distinguish between nonscalable industries (ordinary professions where income grows linearly, piecemeal or by marginal jumps) and scalable industries (extraordinary risk-prone professions where income grows in a nonlinear fashion, and by exponential jumps and fractures). Nonscalable industries generate tame and predictable markets of goods and services, while scalable industries regularly explode into behemoth virulent markets where rewards are disproportionately large compared to effort, and they are the major causes of turbulent financial markets that rock our world causing ever-widening inequities and inequalities. Part I describes both scalable and nonscalable markets in sufficient detail, including propensity of scalable industries to randomness, and the turbulent markets they create. Part II seeks understanding of moral responsibility of turbulent markets and discusses who should appropriate moral responsibility for turbulent markets and under what conditions. Part III synthesizes various theories of necessary and sufficient conditions for accepting or assigning moral responsibility. We also analyze the necessary and sufficient conditions for attribution of moral responsibility such as rationality, intentionality, autonomy or freedom, causality, accountability, and avoidability of various actors as moral agents or as moral persons. By grouping these conditions, we then derive some useful models for assigning moral responsibility to various entities such as individual executives, corporations, or joint bodies. We discuss the challenges and limitations of such models.

The study aims to highlight and understand, and bring the human agency into the debate on the theory of normative control. While, the previous literature has highlighted the problem of the missing subject. However, the actual human agency in terms of agential properties has not been seriously addressed. This study is an attempt to overcome this problem of the missing subject.

A two-phase design inspired by retroductive inference was adopted for this study. In the first phase, abduction was used to explore the literature on normative control to highlight the forces of attraction, which may pull the employees to participate willingly within normative control systems. In the second phase, following retroductive inference, agential explanations of the forces of attraction identified in the first phase were explored by venturing into other related fields, e.g. psychology and sociology.

The study highlights four strategies used by organizations using normative control, i.e. comfort zoning, relational bonding, moral trapping and elitist appeal. These strategies rely on attractive forces. These forces of attraction pull employees to participate in the normative control system. The attractive element in the identified strategies is due to the fact that these strategies target specific agential properties, i.e. the need for comfort, sense of belonging, moral agency and pride. Overall, the findings suggest that individuals drive their concerns from culture but in relation to their capacity as needy beings for being enculturated.

Theoretically, this study adds conceptual strength to the explanations of normative control. It is suggested that neglect of human agency renders explanations conceptually weak. The study fills this gap in the research. Practically, this study would be beneficial for better design and implementation of normative control. Several studies have pointed out that normative control does not yield the intended results. Out of many reasons, a lack of understanding of human agency is a major cause of unsuccessful attempts to normatively control employees. This study provides some basis to understand the human subject for better design of soft systems of control.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research study that explores agential properties with reference to normative control systems. This study is important for researchers and practitioners.

While much of the existing research regarding moral exemplarity has focused on living individuals, examination of the lives of historical figures can also prove invaluable in understanding moral motivation. Consequently, this paper sought to apply Frimer and Walker’s (2009) reconciliation model and methodology in examining themes of agency and communion in the motivation of Miep Gies. Frimer and Walker’s (2009) Self-Understanding Interview and the VEiN coding method (Frimer, Walker, & Dunlop, 2009) served as guides for examining published and audio-recorded interviews, biographical and autobiographical information, as well as video-recorded speeches given by Gies. Aspects of an integrated moral identity appeared evident in the personality of Miep Gies as indicated in statements reflecting an overlap of both agency and communion. The study was limited in its reliance on publically available documents about or by Gies. Further, reliance on these documents, as opposed to a “live” interview, limited the ability of the author to identify responses to all questions included in Frimer and Walker’s (2009) interview or fully utilize the VEiN coding method (Frimer et al., 2009). Exploration of life narratives of historical figures can provide insight into an integrated moral identity as well as examples of developmental crossroads Frimer and Walker (2009) cited as essential in their reconciliation model. Comprehension of this reconciliation process is critical to understanding what lies at the heart of moral motivation and action as well as the ability to promote such growth in the lives of others.

The relationship between ontology, realism, and normativity is complex and contentious. While naturalist and realist stances have tended to ground questions of normativity in ontology and accounts of human nature, critical theories have been critical of the relationship between ontological and normative projects. Queer theory in particular has been critical of ontological endeavors. Exploring the problem of normativity and ontology, this paper will make the case that the critical realist ontology of open systems and complex, contingent, conjunctural causation deeply resonates with queer theory, generating a queer ontology that both allows for and undermines ontological and normative projects.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept of a whole‐person approach to educating for sustainability (EfS), with a focus on persons' identity, motivation and higher order dispositions. To propose that approach as an alternative to the prevalent focus on specific capabilities and competencies in higher education for sustainability. The paper brings to bear psychological research on the development of critical moral consciousness, research on dispositions for learning in higher education, and field research on spiritually inspired service‐learning.

In this paper, critical analysis is undertaken on the discourses that represent two fields of study in order to explore the application of the theory of the ontogenesis of “critical moral consciousness”. The model is applied to two discrete areas to consider implications for higher education – field research on grass‐root Baha'i‐inspired service‐learning and EfS, and students involved in design education.

The findings suggest that a whole‐person approach to EfS may yield more fruitful societal and personal benefits than traditional, and predominantly, behavioural approaches.

The paper only refers to two case studies. One case study is of a faith based organisation used to represent a whole‐person approach to EfS in a social context. It could be that the findings of this case are influenced by perceptions of religious activity (for both authors and readers). The second case study is of a particulate discipline area – design. Whilst the findings represent learners in the design context, it may be that learners in different contexts have different (or similar) results.

Sustainability has now become a common orientation for learning. The paper contributes conceptual understanding of the types of dispositions higher education needs to foster, as well as congruent pedagogies, in order to nurture human motivations necessary to advance sustainability. In particular, there is a need for EfS to focus on the cultivation of critical moral consciousness and higher order dispositions as a specific orientation towards studies, work, and social interactions.