Article critique and topic analysis

¶ … Schumacher, Gunter & Wasieleski, David M. (2013). Institutionalizing ethical innovation in organizations: An integrated causal model of moral innovation decision processes. Journal of Business ethics 113:15 -- 37

DOI 10.1007/s10551-012-1277-7

A business' financial survival and pursuing an ethical course of action are often seen as mutually incompatible. However, according to the article "Institutionalizing ethical innovation in organizations: An integrated causal model of moral innovation decision processes," by viewing ethics as part of the process of business innovation, ethics is likely to be viewed in a more positive light. Just as organizations must change with the marketplace, so must their ethical schemas. Ignoring ethics can put a business at profound risk, just like ignoring other aspects of organizational innovation.

Ethics has usually been seen as separate from the process of innovation in the past: "managers are expected to compromise standards in order to innovate and create short-term economic value to the organization" (Schumacher & Wasieleski 2013: 16). Stability and change are seen as mutually incompatible, rather than as complementary. The processes of change must be built into the structure of the organization, including the processes of ethical change (Schumacher & Wasieleski 2013: 19). The organizational culture must support ethical conduct as well, rather than view it as anathema to the firm's survival.

Ethical systems have multiple components, including ontological imperatives "in the form of fundamental moral values" that are unwavering; functional imperatives which are defined as organizational necessities; and finally as 'grand options' which are "integrated in a context of choice" and exist in a "long-term" both of "non-permanence and particularity" (Schumacher & Wasieleski 2013: 22). In other words, there are certain aspects of an ethical system which are stable and unchanging, but this does not mean that the system must be insensitive to the day-to-day workings of the business. There is a need to be flexible with future market conditions and other environmental pressures which could affect the organization's evolution.

The authors integrate this philosophical view with the ethical worldviews of the social sciences (their emphasis is on organizational culture and structural functionalism) and also with an evolutionary view of change from the natural sciences. They have created their own ethical model called ICM (Integrated Causal Model) which embraces the fact that change is a constant process, but which also emphasizes certain stable values. From the natural and social sciences it offers a simultaneously objective and subjective view of reality: organizations must acknowledge 'hard data' but they must also reflect upon how decisions will filter through the unpredictable, subjective lens of human agency (Schumacher & Wasieleski 2013: 26).