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The aim of this paper is to give theoretical and empirical arguments for new forms of communication and structure of organizations within the media and information society. Organizations must legitimate their “licence to operate” through social discourses and stakeholder communication. Possibilities to institutionalize ethics within organizations and possible barriers to such a programme are analysed.

First, some theoretical arguments as to why mediatisation challenges organizations to prove ethical commitment are depicted, using a rights‐based and social contract approach. Second, empirical examples for structural and communicational barriers in Austrian companies show possible practical constraints.

Theoretical findings refer to the usefulness of applying business ethical models (especially rights‐based, and social contract models) to reorganize mediatised organizations. Empirical findings concern the lack of institutionalized ethics management in companies and the corresponding problem of “PR‐style” communication instead of stakeholder discourses.

The research reported in one section of the paper relies on the qualitative survey of 14 experts in different branches of the Austrian economy. While interviews can give a picture on how respondents understand the relevant research question and construct the respective reality, they are far from providing a representative picture of communicative ethical problems in mediatised organizations.

Practical consequences should be possible, if companies understand the mediatised and communicative nature of their relationship with society and stakeholders and therefore react to that challenge by building up reputation through ethics management.

The paper gives new insights to the important relationship between organizations and the public and shows how, e.g. enterprises can legitimate their business models and secure their long‐term existence. New empirical research concerns cases from Austrian companies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment model for intellectual capital in companies.

A brief historical review of former approaches to evaluate intellectual capital construction of a new formula for an intellectual capital value. A possible empirical survey of influence factors on intellectual capital is suggested. Both, taken together, are the grounding of an integrative management model for intellectual capital still to be developed.

Shows that a quantitative figure for intellectual capital can be found and that such a figure is needed to convince managers and the public of the usefulness of activities to promote intellectual (and especially human) capital.

A quantitative measure can never picture the complete interrelations of organizational development, influence factors on intellectual capital, and performance of employees. The formula can only be a starting‐point for management and further research. Possible management tools are only touched on briefly.

Gives the manager a tool to argue his decisions regarding the promotion of human and intellectual capital. Managers talk about figures and often dislike purely philosophical arguments. Their awareness of the topic can be raised.

Even though there is a growing scientific body of quantitative models for measuring intellectual capital, this paper uses a new approach: the usage of approximation factors for motivation, commitment and job satisfaction in one formula.

This paper aims to understand how managers in an Australian financial institution coordinated different organisational actions for the management of the work health of employees, by adopting “work‐life balance” initiatives.

The paper uses a narrative approach to analyse various internal and external documents and has also collected “self‐accounts” of employees.

It was found that management used “work‐life balance” initiatives to manage both the physical and emotional health of employees. Management's main focus was on community volunteering, which was satisfying for employees, but also of significant benefit to the organisation in terms of marketing and branding. Thus, management was able to use these initiatives to motivate employees to work towards organisational goals.

The paper contributes to the developing literature on human competence accounting by using employee “self‐accounts” to compare with organisational statements in relation to worker health.