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Business ethics provide a potent source of competitive advantage, placing increasing pressure on organizations to create and maintain an ethical workforce. Nonetheless, ethical breaches continue to permeate corporate life, suggesting that there is something missing from how we conceptualize and institutionalize organizational ethics. The current effort seeks to fill this void in two ways. First, we introduce an extended ethical framework premised on sensemaking in organizations. Within this framework, we suggest that multiple individual, organizational, and societal factors may differentially influence the ethical sensemaking process. Second, we contend that human resource management plays a central role in sustaining workplace ethics and explore the strategies through which human resource personnel can work to foster an ethical culture and spearhead ethics initiatives. Future research directions applicable to scholars in both the ethics and human resources domains are provided.

Michael Beyerlein is Director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations (www.workteams.unt.edu) and Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology at the University of North Texas. His research interests include all aspects of collaborative work systems, organization transformation, work stress, creativity/innovation, knowledge management and the learning organization, and complex adaptive systems. He has published in a number of research journals and has been a member of the editorial boards for TEAM Magazine, Team Performance Management Journal, and Quality Management Journal. Currently, he is senior editor of the Elsevier annual series of books Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams and the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Work Systems series. He has authored or edited 15 books. His most recent are Beyond Teams: Building the Collaborative Organization (2002), The Collaborative Work System Fieldbook (2003), and Team-based Organizing (2003). He has been involved in projects at the Center for Collaborative Organizations (formerly, The Center for the Study of Work Teams) with such companies as Boeing, Shell, NCH, AMD, Raytheon, First American Financial, Westinghouse, and Xerox and with government agencies such as Veterans Affairs, DCMAO, EPA, and the City of Denton.Douglas A. Johnson is director of the Industrial/Organizational psychology program, professor of psychology, and associate director of the Center for Collaborative Organizations at the University of North Texas. He has published research in a variety of areas ranging from teams, leadership and job satisfaction, to operant conditioning and interpersonal attraction. He co-founded and served as president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Organizational Psychology Group (now Dallas Area Industrial/Organizational Psychologists), and participated in the creation of the Dallas office of the consulting firm, Personnel Decisions International, from whom he recently retired.Susan Tull Beyerlein holds a Ph.D. in organization theory and policy with a minor in education research from the University of North Texas. Since 1995, she has been an instructor of business and psychology at Our Lady of the Lake University in Irving, Texas. Susan has served as a research scientist/project manager with the Center for Collaborative Organizations at the University of North Texas, and has been a recipient of research grant awards from the Association for Quality and Participation, the National Science Foundation, and corporate donors. Since 1995, she has co-edited the Elsevier/JAI Imprint annual book series entitled, Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams, and has served as an ad hoc reviewer for The Academy of Management Review. She has been a member of the Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer Collaborative Works Systems series since its inception. Susan has published book reviews on contemporary business offerings in Business and the Contemporary World, and her work has also appeared in Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, Journal of Management Education, Empirical Studies of the Arts, and Multiple Linear Regression Viewpoints. She is a member of the Academy of Management, Beta Gamma Sigma – the honor society for collegiate schools of business, and Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, in addition to his broad popular appeal. Since his transition from a successful pro-wrestling career to a full-time actor, his onscreen persona has transitioned from one dimensional action hero to more balanced star ‘type’ (Dyer, 1991), alternating action films with more family-friendly fare. Johnson's starring role in the Fast and the Furious franchise has been central to the growth of his career, yet as I will argue, this success is fuelled by his apparent rivalry with other action stars onscreen (Jason Statham) and offscreen (Vin Diesel). As I will show, these rivalries are rooted in the star ‘types’ formulated by Richard Dyer (1991), and this tension is central to the ongoing fan interest in the series.

Johnson's expanding profile has also led to the establishment of his own production company, Seven Bucks, and transition into television series Ballers (2015–2019) and Young Rock (2021–), both of which allowed him to explore autobiographical elements of his early life. As I will demonstrate via a case study of Hobbs and Shaw (2019), Johnson's success as a transnational action star and creative control allowed by Seven Bucks has allowed more explicit on-screen engagement with his Sāmoan heritage. The production history of Hobbs and Shaw illustrates both the successful co-existence of rivalry between action stars as a successful marketing strategy for action franchises, and the evolving action genre which allows a more personal exploration of race and masculine identity.

Complex collaboration refers to situations where working together effectively across boundaries is critical for complex projects and problems. This work often involves projects of large scope and long duration. The knowledge of a variety of disciplines may be involved. Such projects may cross organizational, national, and/or cultural boundaries. The problem of managing such situations includes ambitious schedules, conflict of cultures and practices, massive amounts of information, multiple languages, and ambiguity of roles and responsibilities. Complex collaboration represents a capability that is essential to effective execution in such situations as new product development, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and supply chain management, as well as large government projects. A number of issues emerge in examining complex collaboration, including: unit of analysis, critical relationships, resource development, virtual teaming, key skills, and improvement processes.

The research uncovers an increase in the disapproval of Congress and a drop in public trust in government associated with exposed congressional corruption in the post-Watergate era. The tools Congress holds to punish members caught up in scandal are discussed and the chapter considers five major scandals to rock Congress since the 1970s. Importantly, we uncover evidence that government institutions and actors are somewhat resilient and can bounce back after experiencing negative public sentiment for a period of time. Yet, it seems in the aftermath of exposed corruption, the corresponding drop in public support has policy implications. We determine that movement in public disapproval of Congress and overall trust in government help explain public law output and the ability of Congress to pass its contemporary legislative agenda.