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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to perform a philosophical interrogation of some assumptions that underpin management education. It offers an analysis of how these assumptions may influence the promotion the responsible management agenda within business schools. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is a theoretical exploration based on a literature review and philosophical analysis. Findings – The ontological and epistemological assumptions that underpin management education pose barriers to responsible management education. A combination of ontological and epistemological assumptions privilege an instrumental approach based on simplistic utilitarian premises. These assumptions make it difficult to engage with the long term, relational and complex nature of the ethics and sustainability concerns that are central to responsible management education. Practical implications – Understanding the assumptions that underpin management education may assist in challenging the current paradigm and rethinking our approaches to responsible management. Originality/value – The paper pursues the tacit assumptions that may underpin empirical findings around the blockages experienced when schools pursue responsible management education. It takes the research into the current state of business school education further by exploring what informs and sustains its current functioning.

This paper argues that many objections against, and limitations of, corporate codes of conduct can be addressed if a meaningful integration can be established between CSR and ethics management practices within corporations. It is proposed that the notion of the triple bottom‐line finally presents corporations with a mechanism to establish this integration. The paper draws on the second South African King Report on Corporate Governance, which succeeded in integrating corporate governance, ethics management and triple bottom‐line reporting by advocating what it called ‘Integrated Sustainability’. The paper argues that this is an example of how ethics management initiatives like code development become more meaningful, if they can be related to the corporation's CSR initiatives and reporting practices. Integration between ethics management and CSR in the context of triple bottom‐line reporting reframes corporate success in a way that makes both ethics management and CSR activities more meaningful. In fact, it is argued that in the absence of a social grammar that establishes this integration, neither codes nor CSR can foster meaningful organizational integrity.

In this essay we offer a critical investigation of talent management practices (TMP), which is an increasingly influential concept in contemporary organisations. We try to show how these organisational practices could have both a negative and a positive ethical impact on those identified as ‘talent’ within organisations. A critical analysis of how talent is defined, and how this impacts on individuals’ capacities for ethical reflection, allows us to highlight the ethical ambiguity inherent in talent management (TM). We then highlight examples of some ‘bad’ consequences of TM, and explore some ‘good’ counter‐examples. To highlight what may be ‘possible’ in talent management, we propose a more constructive relationship between talent management and ethics based on two dimensions: (1) the acceptance of ambiguity and personal struggle and (2) the development of more qualitative approaches to performance that could enable a better understanding of and sensitivity towards the broader context within which organisations function.

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emeraldsrm:239791 [] For AuthorsIf you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on industry-specific corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. Design/methodology/approach -Using a multiple-keyword search, the authors identified 302 articles reporting on such practices, published in 99 different academic journals between 1995 and 2014. These articles were analyzed to map the CSR literature, identify which industries have been under greater scrutiny and distinguish trends in the most researched industries. Findings -The authors' findings indicate that the CSR studies are very unevenly distributed and that the issues studied and the methods used vary widely across industries. The authors also map this field of study and propose suggestions on where research on industry-specific CSR should go in the future. Originality/value -The first extensive, systematic analysis of the industry-specific CSR literature is provided. The current research adds value to the literature by highlighting the key issues investigated, as well as those that require further inquiry.

This paper argues that corporate Codes of Ethics lose their ability to further moral responsiveness because of the narrow instrumental purposes that inform their adoption and use. It draws on Jacques Derrida's reading of Emmanuel Levinas to argue that, despite the fact that all philosophical language entails a certain violence, corporate Codes of Ethics could potentially play a more meaningful role in furthering ethical questioning within corporations. The paper argues that Derrida's reading of Levinas' notion of ‘the third’ could precipitate the emergence of a broader sense of ethical responsibility towards multiple others within corporations. Codes may also present the opportunity for corporations to engage in the reconsideration of their own purposes in the light of questions of justice towards multiple others. How these changes in the establishment and use of Codes may be accomplished is explored towards the end of the paper.

The author of this paper argues that the responsibility to nurture and encourage a relationally responsive ethical attitude among the members of an organizational system is shared by all who participate in it. In the dynamic environment of a complex adaptive organizational system where it is impossible to anticipate and legislate for every potential circumstantial contingency, creating and sustaining relationships of trust has to be a systemic capacity of the entire organization. Leadership is socially constructed, as the need for it arises within the complex interactions between individuals and groups within organizations, and can therefore not be described as a set of traits or behaviors possessed by only certain individuals who occupy positions of authority. If the sharing of this kind of relational responsiveness to the everyday realities of organizational life is to be properly understood, it is important to consider it in its concrete institutional manifestations. The last section of this paper therefore explores how an organization, in which leadership is understood in relational terms and is shared by all, looks and functions.

accountability, moral agency, stakeholder theory,