R:ETRO webinars - Reputation: Ethics, Trust, and Relationships at Oxford
Information about upcoming R:ETRO webinars and links to recordings and abstracts from past webinars. To be added to the mailing list, email reputation@sbs.ox.ac.uk.
Hilary term 2025
23 January – Still standing tall in the face of adversity: the formation of organisational character
Antonino Vaccaro, Professor of Business Ethics at the IESE Business School, University of Navarra
Abstract: In this study, Antonino will examine the endogenous process through which organisations develop their character following a crisis. He will discuss the in-depth qualitative study of a leading European consumer health company that faced high-profile public accusations regarding the safety and efficacy of some of its products; and the development of a process model that details the specific processes and mechanisms through which organisational character is formed. The model examines how a character attack triggers concurrent deliberative and emotional processes that collectively lead members to gradually find the resolve to ‘stand up’ to public accusations and develop a shared moral self-concept at the level of the organisation (i.e., organisational character). The findings provide valuable insights into the dynamics of organisational character formation, offering significant implications for ongoing research about this under-theorised concept that has recently been garnering increasing interest among scholars.
6 February – 21st-Century corporate business models and the Protestant work ethic
Elizabeth Anderson, John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies, University of Michigan
Abstract: Today's profit-maximising business models might seem to be exemplars of the Protestant work ethic in their relentless focus on maximising profits and productive efficiency. However, the 17th-century Puritan inventors of the work ethic stressed the importance of avoiding business models that depend on relating to others in unjust ways such as taking advantage of the vulnerable, tyrannising workers, breaching trust with the community, and making money in ways that do little good for others. Elizabeth draws lessons from Puritan business ethicists for problematic business models such as 21st-century private equity.
20 February 4-5pm GMT – Understanding the wrong of exploitation
Brian Berkey, Associate Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Abstract: In this talk, I’ll argue that the wrong of exploitation is best understood as consisting, most fundamentally, in the extraction by the exploiting party of an unjustifiably large share of the benefits that are produced by economic activity conducted on terms that they have used their bargaining power to secure, in conditions in which they had a positive duty to benefit others by refraining from seeking or accepting benefits of that magnitude. An important feature of this view is that, contrary to the dominant views in the literature, it doesn’t rely on the claim that the exploiter’s transaction partner(s), in particular, are necessarily entitled to a greater share of the benefits than they in fact receive. This view, I claim, has at least three important advantages over rival views. First, it allows us to accept some of the plausible claims made by proponents of the 'nonworseness claim', who often defend the permissibility of intuitively exploitative economic behaviour, without accepting that this behaviour is in fact permissible. Second, it allows us to capture the ways in which, on reflection, many individuals who are not parties to exploitative transactions nonetheless seem to be wronged by those who are guilty of wrongful exploitation. Lastly, unlike the dominant views, it allows to hold that our concern about exploitation is closely connected to our more general concern for the interests of those who are unjustly disadvantaged and vulnerable to exploitation.
6 March 4-5pm GMT – Unpacking the status of token women in corporate boardrooms
Tanusree Jain, Associate Professor in the Department of Management, Society and Communication at Copenhagen Business School
Abstract: Tanusree will critique the existing understanding of the concepts of tokens and tokenism within the particular context of women on corporate boards. She argues that extant tokenism scholarship tends to adopt a reductive logic that equates tokens with tokenism and numerical underrepresentation of women as an implied signal of lack of power. This tendency fails to fully reflect the latent power of tokens as potential agents of both personal and inter-group change. Integrating perspectives from socio-psychological theories, Tanusree argues that the (negative) experience of tokenism for a token appointment depends on their post-appointment outcomes. She proposes a categorisation of women directors that reflect a spectrum of differential post-appointment outcomes for token appointments arguing that while not all token women on boards are necessarily champions of diversity, they are also not necessarily reduced to experiences of tokenism.
Michaelmas term 2024
The ethics of explainability in human and AI decision-making
Carlo Cordasco, Lecturer in Management and Organisation Studies at the University of Manchester
Abstract: A key issue with machine learning techniques is the lack of explainability, that is the ability to provide sound explanations for how a machine makes its decisions/predictions, also known as the black-box problem. Such concerns are prompting theorists and regulators to support a Right to Explanation, which would underpin a set of correlative duties for organisations developing and/or adopting AI. In this paper, I argue against such a right and illustrate that a meaningful approach to the Right to Explanation requires a commitment to ex-ante and rules-based decision-making procedures which entail large costs in terms of accuracy, both in human and AI decision-making. I conclude by suggesting that a Right to Explanation is warranted for Public Administration decisions, as explainability is a key component of predictability which, in turn, shapes adherence to the Rule of Law.
Order as a value in corporate governance: or, corporate governance for turbulent times
Matthew Caulfield, Assistant Professor of Business Ethics at the Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University
Abstract: Socially-oriented models of corporate governance often prize the dynamic and unmediated influence of different stakeholder groups on governance schemes. That is, they not only understand stakeholder influence as a descriptive phenomenon, but also value it as a mode of informal stakeholder participation in the governance of the firm that can punish or reward firms, inculcating pro-stakeholder incentives accordingly. In this paper, I argue a core value has been overlooked in these and other models of corporate governance: order. Where order, as a concept, is a near-unifying touchstone value in liberal political philosophy (across Locke, Rawls, Hayek, etc.), it has appeared rarely (and when it has, only implicitly) in primary discussions of good or just corporate governance. I develop a normatively thin conception of ‘order’ fit for application to the business firm, and argue for its free-standing moral importance with reference to organizational and stakeholder autonomy. I argue the costs of disordered corporate governance have become most evident as firms navigate capricious socio-political winds; that the worst institutional responses to these events can be characterized as an antithesis of ordered corporate governance (or, ‘mob rule corporate governance’); and that further development of the concept and value of order may contribute to righting the ships. Beyond informing firms’ own governance, the acknowledgement of order as a value also suggests fundamental changes in widely-shared ideals of how corporations should be socially controlled.
Higher ground: stakeholder trust and the limits of reputational risk management
Alison Taylor, Clinical Associate Professor at the New York University Stern School of Business
Abstract: Corporations are powerful actors in society, their decisions matter profoundly, and we all want to work for and buy from ethical companies whose values align with our own. But what are we really asking of business? While demanding that they address poverty, pollution, and human rights abuses in their supply chains, we still want the stuff we ordered, right now. In this discussion, Alison Taylor will explore key themes from her book, Higher Ground, on how common frames in responsible business, and particularly reputational risk and social license to operate, have trapped corporations into unconvincing overpromising, worsened polarization, and prevented us from learning about more effective practices. Alison will make the case that stakeholder trust is distinct from reputational risk management, and argue that we can only advance the responsible business agenda if we let go of some of its most entrenched and pervasive myths.