Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Beings' Productive Capacities

Breen, Keith

doi:10.1007/s11158-007-9039-6

Cited by 37 publications

(26 citation statements)

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“…(cf. Breen 2007Breen , 2012Schwartz and Sharpe 2010; for similar arguments directly tied to structures and virtue ethics;or Schwartz 1982;Walsh 1994;Michaelson 2011;Michaelson et al 2014, for similar arguments in the context of meaningful work).…”

Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Weaver (2006) acknowledges the potentially positive influence of structures (particularly related to ''job-design and social network structure,'' p. 359) and calls for more research. Likewise, Moore (2005a, b), Beadle and Knight (2012), and Breen (2007 explore the conditioning role of structures for exercising virtues (given their MacIntyrian notion of virtue ethics). Moore (2005a, p. 251), for example, suggests that virtue-supportive jobs require ''team-building and empowerment'' as well as ''more information and power to make decisions'' so that ''employees are able to exercise self-control and self-direction.…”

Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Beadle and Knight also call for more research into job redesign in the context of virtue ethics, so that we can come to understand how to ''[…] develop the types of workplaces in which virtues are cultivated and people flourish'' (p. 446). Likewise, Breen (2007Breen ( , 2012 introduces the idea of ''phronetic production'' in which the work organization comprises ''complex and coherent'' tasks (Breen 2012, p. 621), allowing employees to have ''an overview of the entire work'' (p. 612) and in which '' […] there is no categorical distinction between those who lead and those who follow'' (p. 621). In addition, Bernacchio and Couch (2015) argue that structures should enable participatory governance so as to enable organizational members to align the goals of the organization to overarching goods of the community.…”

Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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Virtuous Structures

2016

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To discuss moral behavior in organizations, a growing number of authors turn to a 'virtue ethics' approach. Central to this approach is the so-called moral character of individuals in organizations: a well-developed moral character enables organizational members to deal with the specific moral issues they encounter during their work. If a virtue ethics perspective is seen as relevant, one may ask how organizations can facilitate that their members can exercise and develop their moral character. In this paper, we argue that the way tasks are defined and interlinked (the organization's structure) has a profound influence on ''exercising and developing moral character''-it can enhance and frustrate it. In order to show how structures may support organizational members to exercise and develop their moral virtues, the paper first describes what it means to exercise and develop virtues in an organizational setting and what is required for it. Next, the paper sets out to explain how specific values on different structural parameters (formalization, decentralization, specialization, and unit grouping) at different structural levels (micro, macro, and network) relate to exercising virtues in organizations.

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Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Importance Of a Systematic Treatment Of Organizational Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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Virtuous Structures

2016

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“…But this limitation can easily Footnote 21 continued (forthcoming), where I argue that Habermas's discussion of European identity and its political culture point to serious problems (additional to those discussed here) in his account of ethical-political reasoning. 22 I would broadly endorse the criticisms of the system-lifeworld distinction (Habermas 1987) presented by Berger (1991) and Breen (2007); see also McCarthy (1991). In Keat (2008b) it is argued that although Habermas tried to exclude (what he now calls) 'ethics' from his critique of colonisation, that critique in fact depends on ethical concepts.…”

Section: Choosing Between Capitalisms: Habermas's Approachmentioning

confidence: 92%

Choosing Between Capitalisms: Habermas, Ethics and Politics

Keat

2009

Res Publica

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In Between Facts and Norms Habermas both accepts the place of distinctively ethical considerations about 'the good' in political deliberation, and advances a particular view of the nature and justification of ethical judgments. Whilst welcoming the former, this paper criticises the latter, with its focus on issues of identity and self-understanding, and suggests instead a broadly Aristotelian alternative. The argument proceeds, first, through a detailed engagement with Habermas's theoretical claims about ethical reasoning in politics, in which it is argued that he fails to show how different ethical possibilities can be critically evaluated, and second, through the analysis of a practical example, that of a political choice being made between different kinds of capitalism. Here the paper draws on recent work in comparative political economy on the institutional differences between varieties of capitalism, and uses this to contrast the implications of Habermas's conception of ethics, according to which what would matter is the congruence between economic institutions and a political community's historically shaped identity, with those of its preferred alternative, which requires a comparison between the different conceptions of the good that each kind of capitalism institutionally favours, and collective judgments about their respective contributions to human well-being.

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“…It views work mainly negatively, as a burden or cost, merely a means to an end, or else is neutral about it, rather than seeing it as a source of meaning and fulfilment-a good in its own right (Breen 2007). Social benefits are viewed in terms of what we receive, not what we do.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work

Sayer

2009

Res Publica

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The dominant focus of thinking about economic justice is overwhelmingly distributive, that is, concerned with what people get in terms of resources and opportunities. It views work mainly negatively, as a burden or cost, or else is neutral about it, rather than seeing it as a source of meaning and fulfilment-a good in its own right. However, what we do in life has at least as much, if not more, influence on whom we become, as does what we get. Thus we have good reason also to be concerned with what Paul Gomberg has termed contributive justice, that is, justice as regards what people are expected and able to contribute in terms of work. Complex, interesting work allows workers not only to develop and exercise their capacities, and gain the satisfaction from achieving the internal goods of a practice, but to gain the external goods of recognition and esteem. As Gomberg's analysis of the concept of contributive justice in relation to equality of opportunity shows, as long as the more satisfying kinds of work are concentrated into a subset of jobs, rather than shared out among all jobs, then many workers will be denied the chance to have meaningful work and the recognition that goes with it. In this paper I examine the contributive justice argument, suggest how it can be further strengthened, arguing, inter alia, that ignoring contributive injustice tends to support legitimations of distributive inequality.

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Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Beings' Productive Capacities

Cited by 37 publications

References 1 publication

Virtuous Structures

Virtuous Structures

Choosing Between Capitalisms: Habermas, Ethics and Politics

Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work

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