Sign-In
Cart
Durable Goods: A Covenantal Ethic for Management and Employees
Paperback
Series: Soundings: A Books on Ethics, Economics, and Business
ISBN13: 9780268008857
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: Feb 1 1998
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.94
Height: 0.66 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.04
Language: English
Perhaps no other aspect of business ethics is today more germane to Christian belief and practice than the quality of relationship between management and employees. Here the raw forces of the global market and the more subtle currents of power relations within corporations have tangible impacts upon millions of lives. How can managers and employees work together toward an atmosphere of mutual trust and fairness? For people of faith, what does it mean to covenant under conditions of recurrent labor conflict? What moral claims are evident in the long struggle by management to run their enterprises as they see fit, as opposed by the efforts of employees to achieve a collective voice through unions?
By melding the biblical account of covenant with a social-scientific understanding of organizations, Stewart W. Herman presents a groundbreaking theory. Herman examines the strategies and tactics which management and employees have used to control each other. He explores the deep historical roots and complexities of the management-employee relationship in the US, taking into account the initiatives and responses of both sides during the past two hundred years. As this narrative unfolds, the rudiments of a covenant become evident, not in a steady evolution, but in a turbulent intertwining of achievement with failure. The author tracks the development of two enduring goods which have emerged tentatively in this history: the enlarged freedom both management and employees have gained by seeking cooperation from each other, and the respect they have internalized for the moral principles central to the action of each other.
Genuine cooperation requires that the moral claims of both sides must receive impartial consideration. To achieve such fairness, this book sets aside both the easy optimism of managerial ideology and the pessimism of disillusioned employees and takes an unsparing look at labor-management history in light of the long covenanting experience narrated in the Bible. In both histories, genuine cooperation emerges from a passionate dialectic between ideal possibilities and realistic human limitations. This shared struggle engages the will and spirit-and the creativity and insight-of both managers and employees. In Durable Goods, the disciplines of biblical theology, organization theory and labor history cross-fertilize to produce a rich harvest of insight about the nature and costs of genuine cooperation between management and employees. Those who teach in the fields of business and Christian ethics as well as business and labor leaders will find here a lucid guide for discerning the possibilities and limits upon covenantal cooperation in the employment relation.
Also in
Philosophy
Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-Changing Idea
Hunt-Hendrix, Leah
Taylor, Astra
Hardcover
In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument
Williams, Bernard
Paperback
The American Indian Mind in a Linear World: American Indian Studies and Traditional Knowledge
Fixico, Donald Lee
Paperback
Dreaming of Cinema: Spectatorship, Surrealism, and the Age of Digital Media
Lowenstein, Adam
Paperback
Machine Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Spiritual Freedom and the Re-Animation of Matter
Lafitte, Luke
Paperback
The Sociogony: Social Facts and the Ontology of Objects, Things, and Monsters
Worrell, Mark P.
Paperback
On Quality: An Inquiry Into Excellence: Unpublished and Selected Writings
Pirsig, Robert M.
Pirsig, Wendy K.
Hardcover
The Electromagnetic Brain: Em Field Theories on the Nature of Consciousness
Joye, Shelli Renée
Paperback
The New Science of Giambattista Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the Addition of Practic of the New Science
Vico, Giambattista
Paperback
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida
Roudinesco, Elisabeth
Paperback
The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy
Giridharadas, Anand
Hardcover
The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance
Gottlieb, Anthony
Paperback
The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations
Barnes, Jonathan
Julia, Annas
Annas, Julia
Paperback
Friendship and Society: An Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Burt, Donald X.
Paperback
Essays V2: Moral And Entertaining On The Various Faculties And Passions Of The Human Mind (1815)
Clarendon, Edward Hyde Earl of
Paperback
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Holiday, Ryan
Hanselman, Stephen
Hardcover
The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us
Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger
Hardcover
The Obstacle Is the Way Expanded 10th Anniversary Edition: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials Into Triumph
Holiday, Ryan
Hardcover
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
Self-Help from the Middle Ages: What the Seven Deadly Sins Can Teach Us about Living
Jones, Peter
Hardcover
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Fifth Anniversary Limited Edition: The Global Bestseller
Mackesy, Charlie
Hardcover
Bless & Release: The physics of letting go-and wanting what's meant for you.
Laporte, Danielle
Paperback
My Big TOE Awakening Discovery Inner Workings: The Complete My Big TOE Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics and Metaphysics
Campbell, Thomas
Hardcover
The Ethical Slut, Third Edition: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships, and Other Freedoms in Sex and Love
Easton, Dossie
Hardy, Janet W.
Paperback
The Courage to Be Ordinary: Discover Your Surprising Superpower for a Thriving Life
Kishimi, Ichiro
Paperback
Self-Reliance and Nature: The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Hardcover
Make Your Home in This Luminous Dark: Mysticism, Art, and the Path of Unknowing
Smith, James K. A.
Hardcover