Search results

Shame is a common, yet seldom acknowledged emotion. Shame signals a threatened social bond in which the claim of as what one wants to be seen (i.e., the claim for a certain relational identity and relative status positioning) is neglected by the other party. Using a case study approach, this chapter provides insights into how shame shapes the relationship and leadership structure in organizations. The case used is based on a documentary TV show; hence this chapter also provides insight in the use of visual/TV material to gain insight in relational leadership dynamics.

The over 125-year-old economic miracle called the Corporation is suddenly shaken in its foundations. The corporate business world is rapidly changing not only in the USA, but also across the globe. The front covers of business magazines and dailies, once dominated by names and faces of “Corporate Giants,” are now being replaced with success stories of great startups and small business entrepreneurs. The reasons for these radical changes progressively reveal the imperfections existing in the current corporation and the business boardroom paradigm. For over a century, huge corporate entities spawned by capitalism have established and entrenched themselves in their respective industry arenas and have since been ruling the world, dominating money, capital, cash, and market opportunity. Once they provided solutions to people’s employment and career needs, they have made a fortune for themselves thereby. In the course of their evolution, the businesses have transformed into corporations, seeking people’s money for doing business and, in turn, giving a share of proportionate ownership to the investor people in the form of dividends and capital gains. Such a brilliant method of raising capital has empowered the corporations to grow and expand beyond physical and political boundaries. Today, however, the corporations are run by the BOD, most of whom are representing gigantic promoter-investor institutions. That is, the main administrative role is now replaced by private equity firms and hedge funds that provide the required capital but who also exert undue pressures on CEOs to focus on short-term strategies that have massive profitability potential, thus defying the usual business management model and paradigm the CEOs were trained for in B-schools. The massive CEO exodus that has migrated from the traditional corporations to newly created startups and smaller business entrepreneurial ventures has also made the corporation an endangered species. In such a market turbulence, how do we redefine, redesign, and reinvent the morally embattled corporation? This chapter explores solutions.

In this chapter, we set out to demonstrate how organizational theory and analysis can benefit from the work of the distinguished philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. In the first part of the chapter we show how MacIntyre's conception of how rival traditions may move towards reconciliation has the potential to resolve the relativist conclusions that bedevil organization theory. In the second part, we show how MacIntyre's ‘goods–virtues–practices–institutions’ general theory provides a framework for reconciling the fields of organization theory and organizational ethics. In the third part, we provide a worked example of these two strands to demonstrate the implications of MacIntyre's philosophy for organizational analysis. We conclude with a research agenda for a distinctively MacIntyrean organization theory.

Freddie Mercury rose to fame as the lead singer of the UK pop group Queen. The group started working on tracks for their fourteenth studio album, Innuendo, in early 1989, and the album was finally released in February 1991. Progress on recording was slow as Mercury, who had been diagnosed with AIDS, was unable to work for more than a few days at a time. Innuendo became the final Queen album to be released during Mercury’s lifetime, and ‘The Show Must Go On’ is its final track. Its placing is arguably significant, given that both Mercury and the remaining band members must have assumed that this would be the last album that they would record together. In this chapter, I present an analysis of the song’s music and lyrics, along with the music video that accompanied the single release, with reference to Mercury’s illness and his wish to contribute vocals for as long as he possibly could, knowing the seriousness of his condition meant that this would be one of his last recordings.

This chapter investigates the political and economic contexts of the controversy about the causes of the increase of income concentration in Brazil during the 1960s. That was the most important economic debate that took place under the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1964 to 1985. The perceived sharp increase in income inequality posed a challenge to the economic legitimation of the military regime, which had by the early 1970s achieved high rates of economic growth. This chapter discusses the apparent paradox of relatively open economic debate during a period of political repression, as well as its international dimension as reflected in the role played by institutions such as the World Bank.

Business groups often contain banks or near banks that can protect group firms from economic shocks. A group bank subordinate to other group firms can become an “organ bank” that selflessly bails out distressed group firms and anticipates a government bailout. A group bank subordinating other group firms can extend loans to suppress their risk taking to default risk, preserving risk-averse low-productivity zombie firms. Actual business groups can fall between these polar cases. Subordinated group banks magnify risk taking; subordinating group banks suppress risk taking; yet both distortions promote business group firms’ survival. Limiting intragroup income and risk shifting, severing banks from business groups, articulating Business Group Law, or dismantling business groups may mitigate both distortions but also limits business groups’ internal markets, which are thought to be important where external markets work poorly.

In recent years there have been increasing calls for the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS) and associated drugs to be recognized as a public health issue. In the domain of the competitive athlete and professional bodybuilder, recent decades have seen the diffusion of AAS from the hardcore gyms of the 1980s and 1990s to the mainstream exercise and fitness environments of the twenty-first century. Alongside the apparent increases in the use of these drugs, there is a growing evidence base in relation to harms – physical, psychological and (to some extent) social. But is this form of drug use a public health issue? What criteria should we use to make this judgement? What is the available evidence and has our understanding of the issue improved? By drawing on the authors' research in the United Kingdom and the wider international literature this chapter will explore these issues and attempt to answer the fundamental question – is the use of anabolic steroids a public health issue?