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It matters to be aware of the important direct or indirect role of the financial markets in the human development dynamics in a globalizing world. The purpose of this paper is to identify some main inter‐relations in the socio‐economic system. Deterministic technical factors are opposed to individual or political will. Invisible and visible hands of “players” are designing the future. Is fear justified?

This paper uses a systemic approach to describe the impact of the regulation rules through market forces (here the financial markets). But, these forces are not just anonymous; behind hide shareholders, stakeholders, financial funds and institutions, corporate managers, consultants and analysts, employees, retired individuals, politicians, etc. The socio‐economic game is asymmetric and often conflicting.

The paper tries to explain how the present winners of the game are powerful. The domination effect has its rationale. Applied skills and behaviour of the players are able to contribute to the general equilibrium or unbalance of the social system; but this is never a stable one. Evolution may lead to a paradigm shift or a dangerous clash.

The paper brings together diverse aspects, facts and theories that illustrate the relationship between monetary assets, business activities and human well‐being (both materialistic and intangible). It underlines also the role of policy that has to legitimate the finality of the system.

While defining the well‐being for all as the objective of human development, this paper aims to draw attention to the deficiencies resulting from the “simplification” inherent in its implementation, especially by institutions, and to the advantages to be derived from determining the concept's policy implications and the ensuing priorities and strategies via a bottom‐up‐ or grassroots‐approach.

The paper uses criteria from grassroots approaches to define well‐being for all.

The approach to well‐being for all could help moving towards a new “political culture” rather than a new measurement.

The analysis identifies the links between “components” of well‐being so that action does not continue to be blind, that is to say disregards the fact that, in a complex, changing world, it is necessary to identify the key areas and aspects that offer potential for a renewed organisation of responsibilities, in other words to achieve a new social compromise on the exercise of responsibility.

Apart from fine‐tuning the definitions what interests us is how to transform a concept into a shared political priority for all concerned in a given context. The paper clarifies this, since a gulf can emerge between a concept's origins (strongly rooted in theories concerning human potential to reason in terms of the common good) and the methods of designating the powers capable of implementing it (for instance the choice may be narrowed down to government agencies and market players alone, disregarding citizens or civil society organisations and the need to engage in new forms of co‐responsibility).

The aim of the paper is to present the causes and manifestations of the changed conditions of work for employees since the 1990s with a particular focus on the situation in Germany. These changes are characterized by a higher demand for expertise and a lower protection against life risks for employees. The paper seeks to address some of the issues surrounding this.

The desire to realize an individual concept of personal identity in work life is argued to be the main driving force of individual career development. It is set in relation to new normative guiding principles of employment (protean career model, boundaryless career model, employability construct).

Empirical studies support the importance of an individual work identity concept for individual career development. The political and, more importantly, the economic situation in Germany, Europe and other parts of the world has dramatically changed since 1989. The prospective demographic changes in Germany until 2050 and their effects on the job market are also considered.

The paper describes the underlying causes for the changes in the conditions of employment and how these are manifested in the conditions of work, and it also presents empirical findings about the individual coping with career changes.

It matters to be aware of the important role played by the brain in the progressive constitution and unification of the three major facets of the human being: a biological individual; a social actor; a self‐conscious, reflective, and deliberating subject. The aim is to discuss this role.

The dialogues carried on by each one of these facets with an environment of its own (the material environment; the social milieu; the subject's inner world) are related to the functioning of three distinct levels of integration, organization, and adaptation within the human brain.

The neural substrate of basic affective processes pervades the entire brain and the latter processes play a predominant role in the mediation and integration of the individual's interactions with his/her environments. The degree of “plasticity”, i.e. the sensitivity to the shaping influence of environmental conditions, increases markedly from the lower to the higher level of brain functioning. Any individual characteristic of brain functioning is the outcome of a series of complex and evolving interactions between genetic and environmental factors.

Since brain development highly depends on the early environment (the first years of life), it is of the utmost importance to ensure that every developing brain benefits from optimal environmental conditions.

The paper brings together a series of scientific facts in an integrated and dynamic bio‐psycho‐social perspective which aims at working out a “model of man” thought to be an appropriate basis for any study of human development.

The paper aims to integrate central ideas about corporate ethics into an overall framework of corporate governance in modern market economies. A proposal for an adequate understanding of corporate ethics is outlined and, with this understanding as a background, problems of justification and implementation of corporate ethics are to be discussed.

In its philosophical part, the paper draws heavily on ideas developed around the German philosophical school of “methodological constructivism” (not to be confused with “radical constructivism”) which goes back to the works of Lorenzen, Mittelstraß, Kambartel, Gethmann, Janich, Wohlrapp et al. and which unfolds and defends a concept which C.F. Gethmann proposed to designate as “cultural pragmatism” as against the concept of “natural pragmatism” which originated in the USA. In its management part the paper relies on an interpretive approach to understand (reconstruct) the “raison d'être” of the private corporation in today's market economies and its implications for management and management theory.

The process of justification of norms, intended to give useful orientation to our common life, must start on the pragmatic (instead of the semantic) level by reconstructing those basic differences and notions which have (thus far) proven as being successful for the coordination human actions. This is in our case the difference between peaceful conflict resolution (which is dialogic in character) and the use of power (in its manyfold forms). Corporate ethics is, thus, understood here as a dialogical concept which contributes to the public interest (and national law) of making peace in and between societies more stable, and this by peacefully solving such conflicts with corporate stakeholders which result (or may result) from the choice of means (strategy) with which a corporation tries to make profits. It is in this capacity that corporate ethics adds a second dimension to the economic responsibility of management of private corporations which is to make sufficient profits (for the firm to survive under competitive conditions). This second dimension is part of what is called today corporate social responsibility. Integrating corporate ethics into the management process (planning, organizing, staffing, directing, control) requires that the principle of “primacy of corporate ethics” dominates all decisions and activities of the corporation, especially in dilemma situations.

The paper is part of the old dispute (in management theory, company law, etc.) about the “modern corporation and private property” stimulated (anew) through the seminal work of Berle/Means as early as 1932 and, later on, through institutional economics (“corporate governance”). It contributes to this discussion the proposal to integrate some (new) philosophical ideas of “cultural pragmatism” (a term proposed by the German philosopher C.F. Gethmann to mark the difference to the well‐known “natural pragmatism” which originated in the USA) into management theory; moreover, some steps are made towards a conceptional framework of corporate ethics with the aim in mind to gain a new understanding of the relationship between private business and the public interest.