The dark side : critical cases on the downside of business
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The dark side : critical cases on the downside of business
Greenleaf, c2009
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Description and Table of Contents
Description
The discredit of a certain brand of capitalism - and the managers that practice it - continues apace. The increasing lack of tolerance for short-term thinking and a systematic neglect of the social, regulatory, and economic conditions in which business ought to operate means we are entering a time of trouble and questions - an era of economic, social, and environmental turbulence.
There is a critical need for business educators and trainers to expose students and managers to these issues to examine, explore, and understand the different multifaceted, complex phenomena of our late capitalist era. There is also a need to foster a climate for future and current business managers to reflect, feel, and think differently both ethically and cognitively. The 16 innovative case studies in The Dark Side: Critical Cases on the Downside of Business are designed for this very purpose: to provoke reflection and debate; to challenge and change perceptions; and to create responsible managers.
The cases are innovative in two ways. First, in terms of content they acknowledge the diversity of actors and interests in and around organizations. They contain different levels of analysis, and propose different points of view and logics. They recognize that decisions that seem sound when they are made may actually contain the seeds of their later failure. Second, these cases are innovative in terms of format. Whereas most cases are formatted around decision-making situations, these are more diverse and open-ended. This stimulates the use of "judgment" - the capacity to synthesize, integrate, and balance short- and long-term effects, appreciate effects on different groups, and learn to listen and evaluate. Whereas decision-making is the key skill when confronting complicated issues and situations, "judgment-making" relies on experience and is a far better tool in the complex, murky, gray areas typical of business ethics.
The cases included here are all finalists or award-winners from the first seven years of the Dark Side of Business Case Competition, a joint event of the Academy of Management's Critical Management Studies Section and Management Education Section. In many areas of management, case studies are almost exclusively devoted to "best practice" cases or difficult decisions faced by basically well-managed firms. When educators look for resources to illustrate to students the more typical cases, let alone the really scandalous practices of the worst firms, the cupboard is almost entirely bare. From the beginning, the Dark Side competition aimed at encouraging case studies that integrate socio-political issues with organizational dynamics, thus contextualizing organizational and management problems within the broader system of capitalism.
These cases comprise a diverse and rich collection from a range of countries, continents, and issues and focus on interactions in business organizations as well as between business organizations and groups and societies. The Dark Side: Critical Cases on the Downside of Business is divided into four sections. The first sheds light on gray areas in the behavior of businesses. The second concerns the interactions between business and local communities in diverse countries. The third concerns crises, and specifically how firms may create or manage them. Finally, the fourth section concerns gray areas in business behavior in the global context.
The Dark Side: Critical Cases on the Downside of Business will be an essential purchase for educators and is expected to be a widely used resource at all levels of management education.
Online Teaching Notes to accompany each chapter are available on request with the purchase of the book.
Table of Contents
1. Gray areas in the behavior of businesses
1.1. Leading the team out of the hazing blues yonder: the case of the Windsor Spitfire hockey team
Francine K. Schlosser
1.2. John Hamilton's work and eldercare dilemma. Break the silence? Sustain the silence?
Rosemary A. McGowan
1.3. Hugh Connerty and Hooters: what is successful entrepreneurship?
Mary Godwyn
1.4. Antiquorum Auctioneers: building brands on ignorance?
Benoit Leleux
1.5. The Lidl international career opportunity: from dream to nightmare in eight weeks
Matt Bladowski and Rosemary A. McGowan
2. Business and local communities
2.1. Food Lion vs. the UFCW: time for a change?
Paul Michael Swiercz
2.2. Manipulation, placation, partnership or delegated power: can community and business really work together when surface mining comes to town?
Sherry Finney
2.3. The smell of power: Yves Rocher in La Gacilly, France
Emmanuel Raufflet and Monique Le Chene
2.4. Who takes responsibility for the informal settlements? Mining companies in South Africa and the challenge of local collaboration
Ralph Hamann
3. Creating (or managing) crises
3.1. The Westray mine explosion
Caroline J. O'Connell and Albert J. Mills
3.2. The story behind the water in Walkerton, Ontario
Elizabeth A. McLeod and Jean Helms Mills
3.3. Dark territory: the Graniteville chlorine spill
Jill A. Brown and Ann K. Buchholtz
4. Gray areas in the global context
4.1 The dark side of water: a struggle for access and control
Latha Poonamallee and Anita Howard
4.2. Mattel, Inc.: Lead-tainted toys
Adenekan (Nick) Dedeke and Martin Calkins
4.3 Google, Inc.: Figuring out how to deal with China
Anne T. Lawrence
4.4. Genocide in Rwanda: Leadership, ethics and organizational `failure' in a post-colonial context
Brad S. Long, Jim Grant, Albert J. Mills, Ellen Rudderham-Gaudet, and Amy Warren
by "Nielsen BookData"
