Organizational Corruption as Theodicy

This paper draws on Weber’s theodicy problem to define organizational corruption as the emerging discrepancy between experience and normative expectation. Theodicy describes the attempts to explain this discrepancy. The paper presents four normative principles enlisted by observers to respond to per...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kayes, D. Christopher (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2006
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2006, Volume: 67, Issue: 1, Pages: 51-62
Further subjects:B Theodicy
B organizational corruption
B Mount Everest
B conceptual importation
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Description
Summary:This paper draws on Weber’s theodicy problem to define organizational corruption as the emerging discrepancy between experience and normative expectation. Theodicy describes the attempts to explain this discrepancy. The paper presents four normative principles enlisted by observers to respond to perceived corruption: moral dilemma, detachment, systematic regulation, and normative controls. Consistent with social construction, these justifications work to either reaffirm or challenge prevailing social norms in the face of confusing events. An exemplar case involves perceived corruption in the business of mountain climbing as represented through the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing disaster. The events illustrate how theodicy informs descriptive accounts of corruption and expose two limitations of normative models of ethics.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9004-x