Deconstruction of Business Ethics To Enhance Morality and Justice - Research Paper Example

Deconstruction of Business Ethics To Enhance Morality and Justice Introduction The corporation of today, big or small, has transcended itstraditional functions from its mere economic configuration to become both a political and social unit as well. It is a political unit in the sense that it circumscribes the working hours of employees in a greater degree than the governance that the regular political officials do. The corporation has also assumed the characteristics of a social unit because within its premises, people belong to a community with its own social patterns. Corporations are also finding that it makes good business sense to embrace a policy that contributes to the well being of society in general. As economic guru Peter F. Drucker put it back in 1960: "No policy is likely to benefit the business itself unless it also benefits the society at large." Frederick Lewis Allen (1965), one of America's leading social historians, recounts a conference in which a participant recalled: "When I was growing up, the word 'soulless' corporation was a very common term. In my lifetime, I have seen a remarkable change in this. I don't know whether it could be said that corporations have obtained souls, but at least they have obtained intelligence." Business executives are not putting on haloes but they have become a dynamic force for national growth and social uplift, as expressed in the buzzwords corporal social responsibility. For these reasons, organizational management in today's world is expected to be ethically sound and to observe moral codes of ethics. But regulations are needed more than ever to keep business in line. As early as 1949, Talcott Parsons recognized the need for order and regulation as the ultimate conditions for a better social life for all. In the absence of control, Parsons warned, men will use force and fraud to attain what he described the "most efficient means available." When you say a strong government is needed to prevent society from falling into chaos, it applies to corporations which, as earlier noted, host a society of their own. Society needs to be organized in such a way that people are prevented from pursuing their own inner passions (Jones, C., 1966). Organization forces us away from our desires into a productive, future-oriented order and security. Organization Theory This brings us to organization theory, which Derek Pugh (1970) defines as the study of the structure, functions and performance of groups and the behavior of individuals within them. Through the years, organization theory has expanded its dimensions to be animated by such issues as aesthetics, anti-capitalism, autonomy, identity, fashion and feminism, popular culture, resistance, representation and information, sexuality, social movements, etc. The word organization may thus involve diverse entities, from corporations and states to the village fairs and tennis clubs. Organizations are in effect the most rational answer to the egotistical human nature. Through organization, modern society benefits from rational laws and ethical codes that it engenders. Such a concept or organization, however, has been perverted in places and circumstances where people are reduced in human status to become tramps, refugees, migrants, sub-proletarians and political inmates. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, as cited in Jones, C. (1966) says in these cases, the concepts of the social sciences, from law to anthropology, must be radically altered to prevent an "urgent catastrophe." How does the organization theory fit in with the war on terrorism, preemptive wars in the Middle East, Guantanamo Bay, among others This is the reason why business organizations worldwide are being asked to finance the American political and military hegemony, and why the US is so keen on exporting its own version of democracy. What of the attitudes of the new-style managers toward the interests of their employees Allen, F. (1965) warns: "Speeches and pronouncements by a corporation head may be window-dressing arranged by a public relations department and that, in general, protestations of virtuous intent cannot always be taken at face value." In other words, motherhood statements may just be a ruse to keep exploitative and oppressive management styles out of sight. Deconstruction This is where deconstruction comes in. The word "deconstruction" was first popularized by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. It denotes undoing something that has been constructed in perfect order but gradually loses its desirability because of time and circumstance. It is not the same as reconstruction, which means building an entirely new structure or fortifying the old. In the present-day point of view, deconstruction is the key by which to change the perceptions and attitudes of business management that often impinge on the interest and long-term welfare of individuals. The complexities of business ethics is so finely interwoven that deconstruction would entail breaking open the whole structure of business. It involves changing the whole text and language of business management. (Derrida, J., 1976) Derrida, in a letter to a Japanese friend he addressed as Professor Izutsu, recalls how he came to use the word deconstruction to describe this process (Wood & Bernasconi, 1985). It was based on Oxford Dictionary's definition of the word as disarranging the construction of a word or sentence, the action of undoing the construction of a thing, or disassembling the parts of a whole. From there, Derrida came up with his theory of deconstruction that is "essentially replaceable in a chain of substitutions, that which can also be done from one language to another." To Nicholas Royle, deconstruction is the "opening of the future itself" and aside from business, it is happening today in society, politics, diplomacy, philosophy, historical reality and so on. It has also bee applied to literature, art, architecture, science, mathematics, psychology and other disciplines that involve the act of marking. Once the marks are made, the text involved can be considered "dead," its place taken over by the deconstructed text. Deconstruction has been criticized for being silly and nihilistic, the latter accusation based on the supposed desire to destroy Western scientific and ethical values. Some scientists also wonder if it's nothing more than an academic word game that discredits a text without refuting any of the text's arguments. But Derrida maintains that deconstruction is useful for raising issues of justice, responsibility and fair treatment in many fields, including business and management. He argues this relationships in his view that: "1) deconstruction can question the boundaries that determine who is the proper subjects of justice or to whom justice is owed; 2) deconstruction demands a 'responsibility without limits;' 3) it requires one to address the Other in the language of that Other; and 4) deconstruction is opposed to all forms of totalitarianism, political or otherwise." Deconstruction is not opposed to law but insists that the law does not always means justice (Derrida, 1992). The law can protect certain relations with others but the applications of rules or law is not equal to ethics or justice. "The code of ethics and other legalistic standards may well promote morality, but not unless we accept the inevitability of presently constituted morality can we let it stand in for ethics as such." We cannot deconstruct business ethics in one fell swoop (Jones, C. & Munro, R., 1966) and by smashing glass. Rather the goal of deconstruction is to open business ethics to changes that would expunge the elements that debase the purity of its concept. It is not a method that can be applied in the usual sense, putting an end to all of our theoretical and practical struggles. Deconstruction often focuses on elements that are most alien and incongruous to the text when such elements have the greatest potential for revealing hidden ideological assumptions (Moi, 1985). In a male-dominated organization, for example, a pregnant employee is one such element, especially when the woman occupies a high position usually reserved for men. As the woman's pregnancy becomes more pronounced, this projects images to management of infants, nurturing and childcare, which as a whole runs against the organizational norm of predictability and inefficiency. Pregnancy and child rearing are thus taken as interferences with the work structure, leading to conflict. In other words, a pregnant employee upsets the sexual status quo in an organization since it is an alien element to a male-dominated organizational context. The normal reaction of management in this condition is to adopt a perverted business ethics that deprives the pregnant woman of her just and moral entitlements. Let us assume that the pregnant woman in our story, who is in charge of a new company product, is about to give birth in a few days. The company president makes the announcement: "We have a young woman who is extraordinarily important to the launching of a major new child. We will be talking about her baby next Tuesday in its first worldwide introduction. She arranged to have her product introduced early yesterday in order to be prepared for this birth." Gendered Characterization This statement is fraught with sexual double entendre that betrays the popular attitude of management towards pregnant employees. The product and baby are delivered at the same time, but the metaphor leaves a bad taste in the mouth because launching a product is given male sexual undertones that are inappropriate for describing women-related issues like childbirth. There is a need to deconstruct this management stance not only for reasons of propriety but in order to enshrine "justice, responsibility and fair treatment" in this particular employer-employee relationships. To achieve this end, the text or language of the said company president will have to avoid the double entendre meaning by comparing a product to a "major new baby." A new product may be "major" but not a baby, except in the eyes of the family concerned. Also, the phrase "worldwide introduction" is out of line as metaphor for product and baby, except perhaps when it has royalty or celebrity parents. Spivak (1987) says this is how our habits of language use reinforce a gendered characterization of the public and private dichotomy, which puts women in male-dominated organizations at a clear disadvantage. The deconstruction advocate, in the words of Jack Balkin (1999), "criticizes present conditions for purposes of betterment, seeks out unjust or inappropriate concepts to assert a better ordering." Deconstruction eyes possible alternatives to existing norms that are not only different but more just, even if its results are imperfect and subject to further deconstruction. Deconstruction in this sense is again called for after the mother in question decides to get back to work after childbirth, bringing her baby to the workplace. In this situation, social scientists propose the reconstruction approach, which is a less elaborate process of deconstruction. Reconstruction in this context is described as a kind of proactive deconstruction in which the text or language of the president is revised and rewritten to open the road to change that would alleviate the problems. Reconstruction Management is expected to resist an arrangement where a female employee nurtures her child mostly on company time. But if the woman insists, the company president is likely to say: "She has insisted that she comes to work and this new baby is going to be brought to the office, so she's having this done for herself, and she is working for three months. She is finding ways of filling in to create this void because she thinks it's an important thing for her to do." In this reconstruction-ripe situation, management assumes that the woman's attention will be split between work and infant. The company is concerned more about work than the infant. In fact, the said company statement on the part "she thinks it's an important thing for her to do" immediately conveys the impression that the company does not share her perception of the importance of her childcare activities. Relevant literature on the subject indicates that such conflict of interest can be avoided if management sees that it promotes its long-term interest too by accommodating the mothers who need to combine work with childcare, a less visible angle of the picture. To achieve this end, the president's statement has to be edited thus: "She has insisted that she comes to work and this new baby is going to be brought to the office. She's having this done for us, and she is working for three months. We are finding ways of filling in this void because we think it's an important thing for us to do." Campbell Jones & Rolland Munro (1966) proposed changes through reconstruction in a wide range of organizational policies if the organization is really intent on taking responsibilities for helping men and women live comfortably with the "interconnections between the public and private realms of their lives." For one, the organization involved may provide on-site pediatricians and childcare specialists to assist the working mothers. It may also set flexible working hours for the mothers and build comfortable, safe and supervised places for children to play, preferably near where their mothers work. Far from kowtowing to humanitarian theories of management, this approach actually redounds to the benefit of the company by increasing the working mothers' productivity. Indeed, some organizations provide a place where work and family, and public and private interests, are merged. This innovative approach is by its very nature costly and entails a tremendous amount of time and effort, but the handsome dividends are worth all the investment made by the companies involved. . Government Intervention It is not enough to create an innovative organizational form. Change in the broader public domain is as important. An experimental organizational form may be viable but it will not survive if most organizations do not change their ways too. This may require government intervention. Stretching the example of the working mother, a broader scope of change in business ethics that the situations calls for may well mean bringing into the picture the baby's father. If the father is willing to stay at home and care for the baby, this is terrific since the organization concerned does not need to change its ways. Once the woman's birth wounds heal, she entrusts the baby to her husband and gets back to work, at no disruption to the company whatsoever. But this poses some problems in the sociological context because men generally earn more than women and not many husbands would willingly stay home to give way to their working wives. It is in this situation where legislation is badly needed for such steps as equalizing pay for men and women. Laws can also be useful that forbid discrimination against men who return to the workplace after childcare. There are other forms of discrimination that need the strong hand of government. If it's tough enough for working women occupying relative high positions, what more of those women at the bottom of the economic ladder For these women, disability insurance, maternity leaves, legal constraints and medi-care offer only limited protection. There are other marginalized sectors of the workforce that include the black, the minorities and the handicapped. All such laws representing government intervention should be accompanied by the adoption of new organizational policies that would eradicate all forms of discrimination within organizations (Campbell & Munro, 1966). These in effect are rational laws that Bauman (1993) believes would "organize" modern society when combined with new ethical codes adopted by organizations. Conclusion On the reconstruction of text, simple substitutions might do the trick - baby for product, employee's interests for employer's interests, man for woman. But the implications of such a reconstitution process is so limited that the reforms it would yield are likely to be confined to a few organizations. For business organizations to serve as agents of justice, responsibility and fair play, Derrida supports a reconstruction effort that would analyze the inter-relations of gender and class with race and ethnicity. Political strategies on the part of government have to be broadened accordingly. Jack Balkin (1999) says however that reconstruction is an important first step. "Deconstruction always depends on reconstruction, even though the reconstruction effort may be subject to further deconstruction." There is an interesting theory on why the "subjects of justice," which include employees getting a raw deal from employers, have narrowed through the years when deconstruction was becoming a byword in the analysis of management styles. The popular notion in Western civilization, the theory goes, is that justice and injustice are applicable only to persons capable of language, with whom one can speak to and reason with. "One would not speak of injustice or violence towards an animal An animal could be made to suffer but we would never say it is a wrong subject or the victim of abuse." (Derrida, 1989) For this reason Derrida advocates widening the number of subjects of justice "to increase justice." Clearly, companies can jump-start the process by changing their business ethics and increasing the subjects of justice in their own premises. References: Allen, Frederick Lewis (1965). "The Big Change: 1900-1950." Bantam Book, Harper & Row. Balkin, Jack (1999). "Transcendental Deconstruction, Transcendental Justice." Part 1. Culler, Jonathan. "On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism after Structuralism" Derrida, Jacques (1989). "Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority." Cardoso Law School, 1989. Derrida, Jacques (1976). "Of Grammatology." Derrida, Jacques (1985). "Letter to a Japanese Friend." Derrida and Difference, ed. Jones, Campbell & Munro, Rolland. "Contemporary Organization Theory." Blackwell Publishing, 1966. Jones, Campbell (1966). "As If Business Were Possible." Organization 10 (2). Royle, Nicholas (2000). "What is Deconstruction" in Nicholas Royle (ed.) Deconstruction: A User's Guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Wood & Bernasconi (1985). "Derrida and Difference." Warwick, Parousia Press; 1985, pp. 1-5. Read More