Virus lays bare the frailty of the social contract

Editorial Board
Financial Times
Originally published 3 April 20

If there is a silver lining to the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has injected a sense of togetherness into polarised societies. But the virus, and the economic lockdowns needed to combat it, also shine a glaring light on existing inequalities — and even create new ones. Beyond defeating the disease, the great test all countries will soon face is whether current feelings of common purpose will shape society after the crisis. As western leaders learnt in the Great Depression, and after the second world war, to demand collective sacrifice you must offer a social contract that benefits everyone.

Today’s crisis is laying bare how far many rich societies fall short of this ideal. Much as the struggle to contain the pandemic has exposed the unpreparedness of health systems, so the brittleness of many countries’ economies has been exposed, as governments scramble to stave off mass bankruptcies and cope with mass unemployment. Despite inspirational calls for national mobilisation, we are not really all in this together.

The economic lockdowns are imposing the greatest cost on those already worst off. Overnight millions of jobs and livelihoods have been lost in hospitality, leisure and related sectors, while better paid knowledge workers often face only the nuisance of working from home. Worse, those in low-wage jobs who can still work are often risking their lives — as carers and healthcare support workers, but also as shelf stackers, delivery drivers and cleaners.

The info is here.

Business and the Ethical Implications of Technology

Martin, K., Shilton, K. & Smith, J.
J Bus Ethics (2019).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-019-04213-9

Abstract

While the ethics of technology is analyzed across disciplines from science and technology studies (STS), engineering, computer science, critical management studies, and law, less attention is paid to the role that firms and managers play in the design, development, and dissemination of technology across communities and within their firm. Although firms play an important role in the development of technology, and make associated value judgments around its use, it remains open how we should understand the contours of what firms owe society as the rate of technological development accelerates. We focus here on digital technologies: devices that rely on rapidly accelerating digital sensing, storage, and transmission capabilities to intervene in human processes. This symposium focuses on how firms should engage ethical choices in developing and deploying these technologies. In this introduction, we, first, identify themes the symposium articles share and discuss how the set of articles illuminate diverse facets of the intersection of technology and business ethics. Second, we use these themes to explore what business ethics offers to the study of technology and, third, what technology studies offers to the field of business ethics. Each field brings expertise that, together, improves our understanding of the ethical implications of technology. Finally we introduce each of the five papers, suggest future research directions, and interpret their implications for business ethics.

The Introduction is here.

There are several other articles related to this introduction.

A Two-Factor Model of Ethical Culture

Caterina Bulgarella
ethicalsystems.org

Making Progress in the Field of Business Ethics

Over the past 15 years, behavioral science has provided practitioners with a uniquely insightful
perspective on the organizational elements companies need to focus on to build an ethical culture.
Pieced together, this research can be used to address the growing challenges business must tackle
today.

Faced with unprecedented complexity and rapid change, more and more organizations are feeling the
limitations of an old-fashioned approach to ethics. In this new landscape, the importance of a proactive ethical stance has become increasingly clear. Not only is a strong focus on business integrity likely to reduce the costs of misconduct, but it can afford companies a solid corporate reputation, genuine employee compliance, robust governance, and even increased profitability.

The need for a smarter, deeper, and more holistic approach to ethical conduct is also strengthened by
the inherent complexity of human behavior. As research continues to shed light on the factors that
undermine people’s ability to ‘do the right thing,’ we are reminded of how difficult it is to solve for
ethics without addressing the larger challenge of organizational culture.

The components that shape the culture of an organization exercise a constant and unrelenting influence on how employees process information, make decisions, and, ultimately, respond to ethical dilemmas.  This is why, in order to help business achieve a deeper and more systematic ethical focus, we must understand the ingredients that make up an ethical culture.

The information is here.

A Unified Code of Ethics for Health Professionals: Insights From an IOM Workshop.

Matthew K. Wynia, Sandeep P. Kishore, & Cynthia D. Belar
JAMA, 2014;311(8):799-800.

Here is an excerpt:

Professional obligations under these social contracts are often expressed in codes of ethics; although, unlike laws and regulations, the level of public engagement in developing professional codes has traditionally been limited. Still, when professional codes have failed to meet societal expectations, they have been publicly criticized and eventually changed, such as when the American Medical Association's code initially failed to fully obligate physicians to care for patients with human immunodeficiency virus infection.

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First, a new social contract should be articulated in a code of ethics that does not focus on the roles and obligations of just 1 subset of health professionals. The traditional approach to professionalism in health care has separated health professionals according to education and credentialing, with each group seeking to establish its own social contract. In negotiating their social roles, this separation has allowed groups at times to ignore, show little regard for, or even be overtly hostile toward the roles of other groups (for example, in debates over scope of practice and payment issues). This approach is counterproductive in today's health care environment, which demands teamwork.

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Second, transdisciplinary professionalism demands more than a 1-time listing of shared values by a multidisciplinary group. A meaningful transdisciplinary professionalism will entail the creation of new institutional frameworks, which are required for 'defining, debating, declaring, distributing and enforcing" the expectations and standards that health care professionals and the public agree should govern work in the health care arena'.

The article is here.

Ethics is Contagious

By Linda Fisher Thornton
Leading in Context
Originally posted April 16, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Ethics is catching, and leaders set the tone for the ethics of the organization. What would happen if everyone in the organization followed our lead? Would the organization be more or less ethical?  What kind of ethics are people catching as they work in our organization?

10 Reasons Why Ethics is Contagious:

1. We are social creatures.
2. People tend to “follow the leader.”
3. If their leader is unethical, people may be less likely to report ethical problems.

The entire article.

As Families Change, Korea’s Elderly Are Turning to Suicide

By Choe Sang-Hun
The New York Times
Originally published February 16, 2013

Here is an excerpt:

The woman’s death is part of one of South Korea’s grimmest statistics: the number of people 65 and older committing suicide, which has nearly quadrupled in recent years, making the country’s rate of such deaths among the highest in the developed world. The epidemic is the counterpoint to the nation’s runaway economic success, which has worn away at the Confucian social contract that formed the bedrock of Korean culture for centuries.

That contract was built on the premise that parents would do almost anything to care for their children — in recent times, depleting their life savings to pay for a good education — and then would end their lives in their children’s care. No Social Security system was needed. Nursing homes were rare.

But as South Korea’s hard-charging younger generations joined an exodus from farms to cities in recent decades, or simply found themselves working harder in the hypercompetitive environment that helped drive the nation’s economic miracle, their parents were often left behind. Many elderly people now live out their final years poor, in rural areas with the melancholy feel of ghost towns.

The entire story is here.