Search results

The purpose of this paper is to circumscribe the various philosophical connections between the classical and the modern notion of corruption from Enlightenment to post-modernity.

The paper analyzed to what extent the classical notion of corruption (Plato, Aristotle and Cicero) still influenced the way philosophers perceived the phenomenon of corruption during the Enlightenment (1625-1832), the transition period (1833-1900) and the post-modernity (1901 onward). Taking those historical periods as reference points, the author will see how literature about historical, social and political conditioning factors of corruption could convey the presence/absence of the classical or the modern notion of corruption.

The paper finds that the classical notion of corruption implies the degeneration of human relationships (Plato and Hegel), the degeneration of the body-and-mind unity (Aristotle, Pascal and Thomas Mann) or the degeneration of collective morality (Cicero, Locke, Rousseau, Hume and Kant). The modern notion of corruption as bribery was mainly introduced by Adam Smith. Nietzsche (and Musil) looked at corruption as degeneration of the will-to-power. The classical notion of corruption put the emphasis on the effects rather than on the cause itself (effects-based thinking). The modern notion of corruption as bribery insists on the cause rather than on the effects (cause-based thinking).

In this paper, the author has taken into account the main representatives of the three historical periods. Future research could also analyze the works of other philosophers and novelists to see to what extent their philosophical and literary works are unveiling the classical or the modern notion of corruption.

The paper presents a philosophical and historical perspective about corruption. It sheds light on the way philosophers (and sometimes novelists) deal with the issue of corruption, whether it is from an effects-based or from a cause-based perspective.

Past research on collectivist-democratic organizations has attributed their distinctiveness to their socio-political goals and democratic decision-making and largely ignored their work processes. This ethnographic study examines how such organizations resist alienating forms of work even in the face of direct competition with for-profit companies. It focuses on Scopix, a French cooperative sheet-metal factory where the first author spent one year as a shop-floor worker. Cooperators there developed various practices to retain an emancipatory dimension to their work, regularly putting forward “craft ethics” as a counterweight to the sheet-metal industry’s drive to rationalize work processes. Drawing on the sociology of worth, the authors analyze how these practices emerged from the arrangements that workers made between the industrial world on the one side and the domestic and inspired worlds on the other. This study contributes to the literature into two main ways. First, the authors refine the sociology-of-worth framework by conceptualizing the emancipatory dimension of work as the result of ad hoc arrangements between different worlds. Second, the authors highlight the need for the literature on collectivist-democratic organizations to increase its focus on work, introducing the concept of work degeneration as a step in that direction.

One of the surprising developments in the privatization processes of post-socialist economies was the high incidence of employee ownership. However, the available evidence suggests that the number of employee-owned firms is declining quite rapidly. This paper approaches the decline by using data on individuals in Estonian employee-owned firms. The key idea is that employee ownership can be sustainable only if it is extended also to new, incoming employees.We analyze the determinants of ownership in employee-owned firms and find out that new employees are excluded from ownership. While this finding is consistent with the literature on “degeneration” of employee-owned firms, it is not consistent with earlier empirical research. We argue that in developed economies, there are many countervailing forces that prevent the decline, but these are not in operation in Estonia. The peculiarity of Estonian findings is explained by different motives of entry of employee ownership vs. advanced market economies. However, the findings from this study may carry over to other transition economies as well.

The Mondragon cooperatives are the most thoroughly studied and well-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. Yet while there has been much discussion and wide recognition of the empirical growth of the Mondragon co-ops, there is substantial confusion about the lessons we can draw from this case in thinking about workplace democracy more broadly.

The normative and empirical literature on Mondragon is carefully analyzed to draw out the main implications from this case study for the broader issue of workplace democracy.

I contend that Mondragon teaches us two main lessons. First, that workplace democracy can indeed operate in a way that is economically sustainable and socially superior to conventional firms. Second, Mondragon sheds light on the question of whether co-ops are doomed to degenerate.

This paper advances our understanding and conceptualization of workplace democracy.

This paper provides practitioners with an up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of the world’s most successful cooperative network.

This paper provides insight into the practical feasibility and normative desirability of alternative organizations of workplaces in the form of worker cooperatives.

This paper will be of particular interest to scholars and activists interested in democratic alternatives to conventional hierarchical firms by illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the Mondragon cooperatives and drawing out the lessons that this specific yet influential example has for issues of workplace democracy more broadly.

This study examines the diffusion of 34 innovations among Israel's 240 nonreligious kibbutzim from 1990 through 2001. The changes involve transfers of the authority of the general assembly to independent boards of directors and specialized committees or experts, privatization of consumption, and increasing inequality in compensation. We track year-to-year transitions among six relationships toward each innovation: not considering, rejected, discussing, decided to adopt, implementing, and using. Single-year transitions from “not considering” to “using” are relatively rare. Most innovations go through periods of discussion or implementation before being adopted. Innovations face substantial risks of being rejected at every stage. At each stage, acceptance of innovations by other organizations increases the likelihood of acceptance, implementation, and retention. The effects of organizational size and age on innovations are not what classic theories of the “degeneration” of democratic workplaces predict. Recent changes in the kibbutzim appear instead to be an institutionalized response to market shocks.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an evidence‐base for home modification guidelines for people with visual impairment due to age‐related macular degeneration (AMD), from the perspective of people with AMD, by exploring the home modifications they find useful and would recommend to other people with visual impairment due to AMD as being effective.

People with impairments may not be aware of their own coping with inability strategies until they are asked to express their strategies. A qualitative approach using semi‐structured individual interviews was used to elicit the perspectives of people with AMD with regards to their preferred home modification interventions. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim into text for thematical analysis using Nvivo 8.

In total, 31 individuals (aged 79.1±5.6 years) with AMD and no other ocular diseases were recruited from a low vision clinic or the Macular Degeneration Foundation database in a metropolitan city. Interviewees had not received any formal home modification assessment from a government provider. Nevertheless, 70 per cent of participants stated that they undertook home modifications themselves or with the assistance of family and friends. The most important functional modifications as perceived by the participants concerned the installation of hand rails, non‐slip matting, colour contrasting safety stair nosing, single lever taps, slip resistant flooring, lift chairs and motion sensors that activated pathway lighting. Kitchens, steps and bathrooms were perceived as hazardous locations. Most participants had difficulties with reading fine‐print material on kitchen appliances, washing machines, microwave ovens and remote controls for electronic devices in the home.

An evidence‐base for useful home modifications as suggested by people with visual impairment was perceived to be a valuable resource for other people with visual impairment who may not yet have developed adaptive strategies. Industrial and interior designers and low vision rehabilitation services who aim to improve functionality of the home environment will also find these suggestions useful.

An assessment is made of a 4‐node quadrilateral membrane element with one rotational and two translational degrees of freedom per node, as formulated by Taylor and Simo. The element, QC9, is formed by degeneration of the 9‐node Lagrange element and condensation of the centre degrees of freedom. An 8‐point, modified reduced integration scheme is implemented in this element, QC9(8), to improve on the 3 × 3 quadrature performance, yet avoid the additional rank deficiency due to reduced integration (2 × 2). QC9(8) performs as good or better than all elements surveyed. It is shown that a similar degeneration of the 16‐node Lagrangian element can be carried out, but that the resulting element fails the patch test.

In this paper, my claim is that employee ownership of industrial companies enables economic survival, democracy, and joint responsibility. My main focus is a case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik and its change to employee ownership. In 1980, 36 of the 42 employees became owners. My research question is how have the economy and democracy in an employee-owned industrial company changed over the years? My main research method includes a 35-year in-depth longitudinal case study of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik since its employee takeover. The empirical material includes documents, interviews, participant observations, and informal talks over the entire study period. My theory is based on the study by Connell Fanning and McCarthy (1983, 1986), who have compiled the critical literature on employee-owned companies and have asked why so few employee-owned companies exist in Western economies. They formulate six non-viability hypotheses for employee ownership, against which I present my empirical study and conclude that employee ownership is possible. From my case study in combination with the literature about organizational changes, I formulate a recipe for a successful employee takeover and collective entrepreneurship. The experience of Ljuders Nickelsilfverfabrik shows that a more complete business idea can subsequently unfold with the help of different people’s knowledge and experiences. Degeneration from democratic to more traditional ownership and control can be avoided by placing new people in leadership positions. The management must create legitimacy for a different organizational form for internal and external stakeholders.

Purpose – This chapter aims to analyze the pandemic situation in a legal and political point of view, to find what measures have been adopted by States to face the spread of the contagion, and whether those measures have been determinant in the redefinition of democracy. Emergency dispositions were enacted when an “emergency state” was declared, containing a series of dangerous elements for the correct application of the rule of law.

Methodology/Approach – The approach considers a “pluralistic methodology” that refers to a comparative law study, but also uses the approach of political science, history of institutions, and sociology. From this point of view, this chapter regards similarities and differences, between two or more legal systems, as coincidences or dissonances, comparing cases in a diachronic and synchronic way at the same time to evidence what is the democratic erosion.

Findings – This chapter doesn’t want to provide a mere chronicle of what happened during the COVID-19 situation, but it finds that in some peculiar cases emergency affected a degeneration of democratic institutions, and an acceptance of a new model of state, with hypertrophic executives, weak legislative bodies, not equilibrated balance of fundamental rights, and a rise of technocracy.

Originality/Value – Based on other studies focused on state-by-state oversights during the pandemic, our theory intends to enlighten the COVID-19 as a “black swan” in the international political and legal scenario, or a sort of turning point in an inevitable and unstoppable transformation of the state model that appears to aspire to a return of some autocratic attitudes.

Literature on nontraditional firms has focused on behavioral differences with for-profit firms. Less attention has been given to the variations in behavior among nontraditional firms. This chapter examines differences across three types of Uruguayan nonprofit health care organizations.

This chapter draws on a unique dataset of Uruguayan health care organizations during the period 1982–1990, as well as interviews with doctors working in the three types of nonprofits during spring 2010. We use a simple OLS regression to identify differences in average behavior, and differences in reaction to a regulatory change.

The chapter shows that structure of stake holding and governance significantly affect behavior, even where many behaviors are highly regulated.

These findings highlight the importance of specifying governance structure when predicting behavior of nontraditional firms. Empirical tests of behavioral differences between traditional and nontraditional firms will be more meaningful if the governance structure of nontraditional firms is common and specified. A limitation of our study is our inability to control for the timing of degeneration of producer cooperatives. This would be one element of governance structure to consider in future data collection.

These findings highlight the need to avoid drawing broad policy conclusions from the behavior of a specific subset of nontraditional firms.

This chapter highlights the importance of carefully specifying stakeholder and governance structure when predicting behavior of nontraditional firms. It is of interest to anyone using a sample of nontraditional firms to test general hypotheses about their behavior.