ALBERT

Description: This article explores the emergence of leadership during implementation of a water saving initiative in the rural community surrounding Barren Box Swamp in the Murray Darling Basin, Australia. Qualitative data analysis indicated that the system elements affecting the type of leadership to emerge included the extent to which the groups were engaged in the process, the level of access to resources, and the level of investment in the outcomes of the project. Although these results reinforced key aspects of complex problem-solving through collaboration, they demonstrated varying degrees and types of both engagement and leadership within the case community. Given the current finding that these varying elements can coincide within one system, this case suggests that each community’s characteristics, resources and context will determine the optimal combination of leadership style and level of collaboration needed to facilitate sustainable community development.

Description: As organizations place greater emphasis on environmental objectives, business educators must produce the next set of leaders who can champion corporate environmental sustainability initiatives. However, environmental sustainability represents a polarizing topic with some students dismissing its importance and legitimacy. Limited research exists to understand student behavioral influences on sustainability education, especially as it translates to environmental sustainability behavior in the workplace. This gap challenges our ability as educators to understand how to best teach environmental sustainability in order to reach diverse student mindsets. We apply the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to address this gap, investigating the influence of student attitudes, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on environmental sustainability intention and behavior. A structural model tested with student survey data finds that student attitude represents the strongest influence on environmental sustainability intention. The model also validates that subjective norm affects sustainability intention with students considering professors along with business leaders and politicians as valid references for sustainability knowledge. To tie the results to effective educational interventions, we use the TPB to organize an extensive review of the sustainability pedagogy literature and identify specific teaching recommendations for increasing the effectiveness of environmental sustainability education.

Description: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational ethical context and the individual ethical decision-making process. In addition, a new statistical approach combining cluster and discriminant analyses was developed to overcome violations of regression assumptions, which are commonly not identified and/or ignored in behavioral and psychological research. Using regressions and this new alternative method, the findings indicated that ethical context does indeed influence the various components of ethical reasoning. However, social desirability was the strongest predictor of ethical decision making, which raises new concerns about how this bias can confound business ethics research. Finally, the findings showed that the alternative method provided more useful and interpretive results, indicating that it has the capacity to influence future empirical work in the field of business ethics, particularly when dealing with data that do not satisfy regression assumptions. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed, and several noteworthy suggestions for future research are provided.

Description: Some progress has been made in recent decades to articulate corporate social responsibility (CSR) and, more recently, to associate CSR with international enforcement of human rights. This progress continues to be hampered, however, by the ability of a multinational corporation (MNC) that violates human rights not only to shift liability from itself to a nation-state but even to win compensation from that nation-state for loss of profits due to restrictions on its business activities. In the process, the nation-state’s sovereignty is diminishing; and, in effect, though still attributed to nation-states, it is being transferred to the MNC. The main aim of this article is (1) to draw on normative considerations to claim that this MNC proto-sovereignty should be modified and (2) to contend that this can eventually be accomplished by adding to corporate adoption of CSR guidelines a regimen of global human rights enforcement. I base this contention on expectations about the internationalization of corporate criminal law and the globalization of civil society in general and of NGOs in particular. I consider various jurisdictions but I focus on US jurisprudence.

Description: Climate change, while potentially impacting many industries, appears to have considerable significance to the wine industry. Yet little is known about how firms acquire knowledge and gain an understanding of climate change and its impacts. This study, exploratory in nature and studying firms from the wine-producing region of Tasmania, is one of the first in the management literature to use cluster theory to examine the climate change issue. Firms are predicted to exchange knowledge about climate change more readily with other firms internal to the sub-cluster than with those external to the sub-cluster. The hypothesis does not find support. The study also proposes that the different characteristics of knowledge can either increase or decrease their flows in and around clusters. Specifically, “public” knowledge about climate change is predicted to flow more freely than “private” knowledge about climate change. The hypothesis does not find support. Finally, firms are expected to acquire knowledge about climate change from sources other than cluster-entrenched firms, and in particular peak national industry bodies. The hypothesis finds partial support. A discussion of the findings is presented along with future research directions.

Description: This paper investigates the effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm value and seeks to identify the source of that value, by disaggregating the effects on forecasted profitability, long-term growth and the cost of capital. The study explores the possible risk (reducing) effects of CSR and their implications for financial measures of performance. For individual dimensions of CSR, in general strengths are positively valued and concerns are negatively valued, although the effect is not universal across all dimensions of CSR. We show that these valuation effects are principally driven by CSR performance associated with better long run growth prospects, with an additional minor contribution made by a lower cost of equity capital.

Description: This article identifies an integrated teaching strategy that was originally developed for engineers, the so-called ‘micro-insertion’ approach, as a practical and effective means to teach ethics at business schools. It is argued that instructors can incorporate not only generic or thematic learning objectives for students into this method (i.e., the intended content of what is being taught: in our case, an underlying ethical base for doing business), but also do so via a strategically integrated approach regarding the appropriate mix and timing of these micro-insertions. With this in mind, we propose a qualitative and example-based approach that endeavors to provide a versatile way for business teachers to incorporate ethics into their general business classes. We also present a conceptual and theoretical framework that underpins this method, and we further provide a set of specific examples and a practical table that show how business instructors might integrate ethics-oriented micro-insertions into their teaching.

Description: The aim of this paper is to understand why some ethical behaviours fail to embed, and importantly what can be done about it. We address this by looking at an example where ethical behaviour has not become the norm, i.e. the widespread, habitual, use of ‘bags for life’. This is an interesting case because whilst a consistent message of ‘saving the environment’ has been the basis of the promotion of ‘bags for life’ in the United Kingdom for many years, their uptake has only recently become more widespread and still remains at low levels. Through an exploratory study, we unpack some of the contextual barriers which may influence ethical consumerism. We do this by examining the attitudes which influenced people to start using ‘bags for life’, and how people persuade others to use ‘bags for life’. We use a case study analysis to try and understand why ethical behaviour change has stalled and not become sustained. We find that both individuals and institutions play a significant interaction role in encouraging a sustained behavioural change towards ethical consumerism.

Description: The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate brand credibility, corporate brand equity, and corporate reputation. Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses from a sample of 867 consumers in South Korea. The results showed that CSR has a direct positive effect on corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. In addition, the results indicate that corporate brand credibility mediates the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Moreover, corporate brand credibility mediates the relationship between CSR and corporate reputation. Finally, the relationship between CSR and corporate brand equity is sequentially and fully mediated by corporate brand credibility and corporate reputation. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results and limitations are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.

Description: Management scholars and social scientists investigate dynamics of subjective fairness perceptions in the workplace under the umbrella term “organizational justice.” Philosophers and ethicists, on the other hand, think of justice as a normative requirement in societal relationships with conflicting interests. Both ways of looking at justice have neither remained fully separated nor been clearly integrated. It seems that much could be gained and learned by more closely integrating the ethical and the empirical fields of justice. On the other hand, it may simply not be possible to bridge the divide between the subjective empirical and the normative prescriptive justice as both fields pose different questions and rely on different assumptions and methods. In this paper, we propose a “reconciliation” model, as a third way of considering justice in the workplace, taking into account normative and psychological issues pertaining to justice. Through applying a reconciliation model, we provide a new way of looking at the interconnections between justice philosophy and organizational justice that could advance future research in both fields. Our model also implies that justice researchers can and should be concerned with the moral implications of their own subject of research.

Description: Using a sample of Chinese listed firms in polluting industries for the period of 2008–2010, we empirically investigate whether and how Buddhism, China’s most influential religion, affects corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In this study, we measure Buddhist variables as the number of Buddhist monasteries within a certain radius around Chinese listed firms’ registered addresses. In addition, we hand-collect corporate environmental disclosure scores based on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting guidelines. Using hand-collected Buddhism data and corporate environmental disclosure scores, we provide strong and robust evidence that Buddhism is significantly positively associated with CER. This finding is consistent with the following view: Buddhism can serve as social norms to evoke the consciousness of social responsibility, and thereof strengthen CER. Our findings also reveal that the positive association between Buddhism and CER is attenuated for firms with higher law enforcement index. The results are robust to various measures of Buddhism and a variety of sensitivity tests.

Description: This article analyzes the financial performance and managerial abilities of a sample of US and European socially responsible (SR) mutual funds. The period analyzed commences from January 1994 and concludes in January 2013 and yields 18 US and 89 European green funds. The results obtained for green fund managers are compared with those achieved for conventional and other forms of SR mutual fund managers. We control for the mutual fund investment objective (distinguishing between domestic and global portfolios) and for the effect of crisis market periods. For US SR funds, partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance in crisis periods but underperform relative to the market in normal periods. Furthermore, the findings indicate that green funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. For European SR funds partitioning the data into crisis and normal periods reveals that SR funds obtain statistically insignificant performance irrespective of market conditions. Similar to the US findings, green Europe SR funds do not perform worse than other forms of SR mutual funds. Managerial abilities are not evident in the findings though unsuccessful timing of the market is revealed for both Europe and US global green funds. When analyzing managerial abilities in crisis and non-crisis market periods, US green fund managers achieve better results in crisis market periods and the opposite occurs for green fund managers in European market.

Description: Using a sample of multinational firms in Germany, we develop and empirically examine a model to test the effects of ethical climate and its antecedents on purchasing social responsibility (PSR). Our results show different effects of benevolence dimensions of ethical climate on PSR: employee-focused climate has no effect, but community-focused climate is a significant driver of PSR. The results also show that top management ethical norms and code of conduct implementation impact PSR directly as well as indirectly through ethical climate.

Description: In this study, we examine the nature of the relationship between ethical leadership and unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), defined as unethical behavior conducted by employees with the aim of benefiting their organization, and whether the strength of the relationship differs between subordinates experiencing high and low identification with supervisor. Based on three-wave survey data obtained from 239 public sector employees in China, we find that ethical leadership has an inverted u-shaped (curvilinear) relationship with UPB. As the level of ethical leadership increases from low to moderate, UPB increases; as the level of ethical leadership increases from moderate to high, UPB decreases. Further, we find that the strength of this inverted u-curve relationship differs between subordinates with high and low identification with supervisor. That is to say, the inverted u-shaped relationship between ethical leadership and UPB was stronger when subordinates experienced high levels of identification with supervisor. The theoretical and managerial implications of our findings for understanding how to manage UPB in an organizational context are discussed.

Description: We develop a theoretical model, explore the relationship between temptation (both reflective and formative) and unethical intentions by treating monetary intelligence (MI) as a mediator, and examine the direct (temptation to unethical intentions) and indirect (temptation to MI to unethical intentions) paths simultaneously based on multiple-wave panel data collected from 340 part-time employees and university (business) students. The positive indirect path suggested that yielding to temptation (e.g., high cognitive impairment and lack of self-control) led to poor MI (low stewardship behavior, but high cognitive meaning) that, in turn, led to high unethical intentions (theft, corruption, and deception). Our counterintuitive negative direct path revealed that those who controlled their temptation had high unethical intentions. Due to the multiple faces of temptation (the suppression effect), maliciously controlled temptation (low cognitive impairment and high self control) led to deviant intentions. Subsequent multi-group analysis across gender (a moderator) reformulated the mystery of temptation: a negative direct path for males, but a positive indirect path for females. For males, the negative direct path generated a dark impact on unethical intentions; for females, the positive indirect path did not, but offered great implications for consumer behavior. Both falling “and” not falling into temptation led to unethical intentions which varied across gender. Our counterintuitive, novel, and original theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions may spark curiosity and add new vocabulary to the conversation regarding temptation, money attitudes, consumer psychology, and business ethics.

Description: Workplaces around the world have experienced extraordinary changes to the composition of their workforces and the nature of work. Few studies have explored workers from multiple countries of birth, with multiple religious orientations, working together within a single country of residence. Building on and extending the Work Values Ethic (WVE) literature, we examine 1,382 responses from employees working in three manufacturing companies. Differences were found in the mean WVE scores of groups of respondents from 42 countries of birth. Their WVE scores were strongly associated with their birth countries’ per capita Gross National Product (GNP), and the means of these scores did not change with variations in the respondents’ length of residence in a different country. These results have implications for developing cross-cultural management practices and for improving relationships with employees, with opportunities for increased commitment and, potentially, productivity.

Description: Loyalty is a much-discussed topic among business ethicists, but this discussion seems to have issued in very few clear conclusions. This article builds on the existing literature on the subject and attempts to ground a definite conclusion on a limited topic: whether, and under what conditions, it makes sense for an employee to offer loyalty to his employer. The main ways in which loyalty to one’s employer can contribute to human flourishing are that it makes the employee more trustworthy and therefore more valuable as an employee; makes it easier to form authentic relationships in other areas of the employee’s life; expands the employee’s field of interests and gives her or him a richer identity; provides greater motivation for the employee’s work; makes it possible to have a greater unity in the employee’s life; improves the performance of the organization for which the employee works; contributes to the protection of valuable social institutions; and, in so far as many employees share an attitude of loyalty towards the organization which employs them, it becomes possible for this organization to become a true community. Last, but not the least, loyal relationships have an inherent value. The article also reviews the main arguments that have been offered against employee loyalty and concludes that none of them offers a reason why it would be inappropriate in all cases for an employee to be loyal to her or his employer. The force of these arguments depends on the specific attributes of the organization for which the employee works. The main conclusion of the article is that while being a loyal employee involves risk, it has the potential to contribute significantly to the employee’s fulfilment. The main challenge for employees is to identify employers who are worthy of being loyal to.

Description: This study examines the relationships of empathy, moral identity and cynicism with the following dimensions of consumer ethics: the passive dimension (passively benefiting at the expense of the seller), the active/legal dimension (benefiting from questionable but legal actions), the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension (actions that do not harm anyone directly but are considered unethical by some) and the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension (pro-social actions). A survey of six hundred Australian consumers revealed that both empathy and moral identity were related to negative beliefs regarding the passive and the active/legal dimensions of consumer ethics and were related to positive beliefs regarding the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension. Cynicism was related to positive beliefs regarding the passive dimension of consumer ethics and was related to negative beliefs regarding the ‘doing-good’/recycling dimension. The role of moral disengagement in mediating these relationships was examined. Empathy and moral identity were only indirectly negatively related to the ‘no harm, no foul’ dimension of consumer ethics through moral disengagement, while cynicism was indirectly positively related to this dimension through moral disengagement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Description: China is the world’s second largest economy and the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, yet we know little about environmental proactivity in the most populated country in the world. We address this gap through a survey of 161 Chinese companies with two respondents per firm ( N  = 322), where we seek to identify the antecedents and consequences of environmental proactivity. We identify two categorizations of environmental proactivity: Environmental operational improvements and environmental reporting. We find that ecological motivations and regulatory stakeholder pressure are positively related to both types of environmental proactivity, and external stakeholder pressure is negatively related to environmental reporting. Furthermore, we find that (1) if a firm is environmentally proactive (as it relates to either measure) and they are ecologically motivated, there is a positive and significant cost advantage, and (2) if a firm makes use of environmental operational improvement and they are competitively motivated, there is a positive and significant reputation advantage. Implications for researchers, managers, and policy-makers in China are discussed.

Description: In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for constructing a diffusion index of changes in overall perceptions with respect to corruption. The corruption diffusion index we construct lies between 0 (the greatest overall deterioration in corruption perceptions) and 100 (the greatest overall improvement in corruption perceptions) with 50 (no change in corruption perceptions) as the critical reference. The proposed methodology is applied to the 2010/2011 global corruption barometer survey data. Possible refinements of the proposed methodology to capture the potentially multi-dimensional nature of corruption and the practical challenges associated with the empirical implementation are discussed.

Description: By exploring whether nanotechnologies have the potential to generate green innovations, we consider the paradox between the negative and positive side-effects that could come with the development of nanotechnologies. Starting from the conceptual framework of green product innovation, the potential green innovation activity of more than 14,000 firms of the nanotech sector is investigated. Using a query-search method, their patenting activity is explored. Results first show that there is an increasing trend toward the creation of fundamental green knowledge by firms involved in nanotechnologies; second, they demonstrate that energy efficiency is the main driver of green knowledge creation in the sector and third they reveal the main characteristics of nanotech firms creating green knowledge. Beyond their contribution to the debate between positive and negative outcomes of nanotechnology developments, these results also enrich the conceptual framework of green product innovation—a key route to achieving sustainability at the same time as growth.

Description: Given the increasing importance attached to both corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate governance, this study investigates the association between these two complimentary mechanisms used by companies to enhance relations with stakeholders. Consistent with both legitimacy and stakeholder theory and controlling for industry profile, firm size, stockholder power/dispersion, creditor power/leverage, and economic performance, our analysis of the annual reports for a sample of 222 listed companies suggests that firms providing more CSR information: have better corporate governance ratings; are larger; belong to higher profile industries; and are more highly leveraged. Our findings support the limited prior research suggesting a link between corporate governance quality and CSR disclosure in company annual reports and suggest that, rather than mandating specific disclosures, regulators might be better served focussing on corporate governance quality as a way of increasing CSR disclosures.

Description: This article presents two separate but closely related studies. We used a first sample to investigate the relationships among individuals’ reports of their income and their subjective well-being, and their approval of unethical behavior in 27 countries and a second sample to investigate the relationship between corruption in 55 countries and their populace’s aggregated feelings of subjective well-being (happiness). Analysis of data from 27,762 working professionals showed that, although reported feelings of subjective well-being were negatively related to their approval of unethical behaviors, income was positively related to their approval of unethical behaviors. In addition, the effects for feelings of subjective well-being were particularly strong for high-income people. Analyses also showed that, after controlling for economic development and other country-level factors, corruption was negatively related to a country’s feelings of happiness. These findings suggest that feelings of subjective well-being may lead to more ethical, less corrupt behavior and that the tolerance of unethical, corrupt behavior may lead to less collective happiness and subjective well-being.

Description: Downsizing remains a topic of great interest to both academics and practitioners. Yet, the impact of layoff decisions on perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has hardly been studied. We examine the impact of responsibility of business leaders making these layoff decisions, and characteristics of the downsizing implementation on convergence and divergence in (1) CSR perceptions, (2) victims’ perceptions of fairness, and (3) survivor commitment, in four countries. Using an experimental design, sixteen scenarios were distributed to (1) 163 managers in Estonia, (2) 152 MBA students in India and 125 MBA students in France, and (3) 186 (non-traditional) undergraduate students in the USA. Results suggest that when top managers are attributed with the responsibility for downsizing, the resulting perceptions of CSR are negative. A similar pattern of results is obtained for victims’ perceptions of fairness and survivor commitment. In addition, although there are differences in effect-size based on differences in power distance, these results hold good (are similar) across the four countries, from four different society clusters. We discuss implications, limitations, and future research directions.

Description: As concepts of corporate social responsibility (CSR) continue to evolve, the predicament facing CSR managers when attempting to balance the differing interests of various stakeholders remains a persistent management challenge. A review of the extensive literature in this field reveals that the conceptualisation of corporate approaches to responsible stakeholder management remains underdeveloped. In particular, CSR practices within the specific context of the pharmaceutical industry, a sector which particularly dramatically depicts the stakeholder management dilemmas faced by business managers, has been under-researched. To address this gap, this paper utilises qualitative, exploratory data, obtained via multiple research methods, to investigate the CSR practices of major pharmaceutical companies in the UK and Germany. The data are employed to critically re-examine and revise a previously published explanatory framework which identifies the management steps involved in CSR stakeholder engagement. The resulting revised explanatory framework is the main contribution of this paper. By abstracting those factors which influence CSR practice, it provides an analytical tool which is designed to be of practical use for business decision-makers when managing their stakeholder engagement activities. Given that the research addresses values and ideals and prescribes practical recommendations for practitioners, it is essentially applied and normative in nature. Ultimately, the framework proposes a set of steps for developing CSR strategies which could help CSR professionals to make a ‘mindset transition’ from a narrower ‘traditional’ approach to CSR to a more innovative way of thinking.

Description: The goal of this article is to evaluate the future of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting in terms of the harmonization of reporting standards. The evolution and convergence of financial reporting standards are compared to that of CSR reporting standards. In addition, four globally recognized CSR reporting standards are evaluated. The content of each standard is reviewed, a representative from each standard organization is interviewed, and the standards are evaluated for decision usefulness. This research suggests that the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) would be the best standard to provide decision useful information. This analysis is reinforced by recent events in the transformation of CSR reporting standards and provides insight into the possible future development of CSR reporting standards.

Description: Recent corporate governance literature on gender diversity within boards has linked the effect of an increase in gender diversity to the firm’s corporate reputation. This paper analyzes the media impact of appointing new directors of Spanish companies at a particularly significant moment, during the period from 2007 to 2010, just a year before and 3 years after the Gender Equality Act was passed. By analyzing female and male board nominations in Spanish IBEX-35 companies, the paper examines whether appointing a female does have greater visibility than appointing a male, and thus a potential signaling effect for corporate stakeholders and an effect on the firm’s reputation. Results indicate that the effect on press visibility of appointing a female versus a male is negligible, although there is significant media visibility for new executive directors, in particular for the case of the only woman nominated as an executive director during the period. The paper contributes to the existing literature on gender diversity in corporate governance, specifically its effect on corporate reputation. The paper also offers information relevant to policy making and in particular to the current debate over quotas for women on boards.

Description: Here I advance two related evolutionary propositions. (1) Natural selection is most often considered to require competition between reproducing “individuals” , sometimes quite broadly conceived, as in cases of clonal, species or multispecies-community selection. But differential survival of non-competing and non-reproducing individuals will also result in increasing frequencies of survival-promoting “adaptations” among survivors, and thus is also a kind of natural selection. (2) Darwinists have challenged the view that the Earth’s biosphere is an evolved global homeostatic system. Since there is only one biosphere, reproductive competition cannot have been involved in selection for such survival-promoting adaptations, they claim. But natural selection through survival could reconcile Gaia with evolutionary theory.

Description: Society is increasing its demands for more ethical behaviour by managers of organizations. However, societal and workplace ethical attitudes are constantly evolving as generational differences and demographic diversity make the workplace more complex. While a number of studies have attempted to classify ethical attitudes into different categories, more work in this area is needed. This paper reports on a study that examined attitudes towards the acceptability of workplace behaviour that might be considered unethical. Graduate business students at an Australian university ( n  = 234) were asked to indicate the ethicality of 17 different behaviours, drawn from the business ethics literature. Exploratory factor analysis identified distinct factors, consisting of misuse of company resources, self-serving deceit, and the giving or receiving favours for personal gain. The derived factor structure was then tested with confirmatory factor analysis. Descriptive statistics indicated that misuse was considered less unethical than exchanging favours for personal gain. Deceit was considered the most unethical type of behaviour. Implications for managers and directions for further research are discussed.

Description: Molyneux’s question, whether the newly sighted might immediately recognize tactilely familiar shapes by sight alone, has produced an array of answers over three centuries of debate and discussion. I propose the first pluralist response: many different answers, both yes and no, are individually sufficient as an answer to the question as a whole. I argue that this is possible if we take the question to be cluster concept of sub-problems. This response opposes traditional answers that isolate specific perceptual features as uniquely applicable to Molyneux’s question and grant viability to only one reply. Answering Molyneux’s question as a cluster concept may also serve as a methodology for resolving other philosophical problems.

Description: Does language make moral cognition possible? Some authors like Andy Clark have argued for a positive answer whereby language and the ways people use it mark a fundamental divide between humans and all other animals with respect to moral thinking (Clark, Mind and morals: essays on cognitive science and ethics. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996 ; Moral Epistemol Nat Can J Philos Suppl XXVI, 2000a ; Moral Epistemol Nat Can J Philos Suppl XXVI, 2000b ; Philosophy of mental representation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 37–43 and discussion, 44–61, 2002 ). I take issue with Clark’s view and argue that language is probably unnecessary for the emergence of moral cognition. I acknowledge, however, that humans unlike other animals seem to posses what Haugeland in Philosophy of mental representation. Oxford University Press, Oxford ( 2002 ) terms ‘norm-hungriness’: an idiosyncratic need or desire to create and abide by a multitude of norms. Our peculiar norm - hungriness , I suggest, depends on what can be called florid control rather than on language.

Description: Much work in contemporary philosophy of mind and neurophilosophy hinges on the concept of ‘representation,’ but that concept inherits a problematic ambiguity from neuroscience, where scientists may distinguish between cognitive and physiological levels of representation only tacitly. First, I explicate two potentially distinct senses of representation corresponding to these levels. I then argue that ambiguity about the nature of representation in philosophy of mind is problematic for at least one prominent philosophical project that aims to use neuroscientific work on representation to defend the existence or explanatory relevance of intentional mental states, namely Schroeder’s ( 2004 ) scientific explication of desire in terms of the neurobiology of reward. I argue that philosophical treatments of the relationship between cognitive and neural architecture must attend more carefully to the ambiguity in the concept of representation. I conclude by outlining a strategy for addressing the gap between levels of representation, one that privileges a local or narrow philosophical approach to interpreting scientific concepts and data over a global or general approach.

Description: Regardless of leaders’ efforts to do the right thing and meet performance expectations, they make mistakes, with possible ramifications for followers’ and leaders’ well-being. Some leaders will apologize following transgressions, which may have positive implications for their followers’ and their own well-being, contingent upon the nature and severity of the transgressions. We examine these relationships in two separate studies. In Study 1, leader apologies had a positive relationship with followers’ psychological well-being and emotional health, and these relationships were moderated by the severity of the transgression. In Study 2, leader apologies had a positive relationship with their own psychological well-being, positive emotional health and authentic pride. In addition, the nature of transgressions moderated the relationship between leader apologies and leaders’ positive emotions and authentic pride, while the severity of transgressions moderated the relationship between leader apologies and their positive emotions, psychological health, and authentic pride. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Description: Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy which addresses the concerns of ethics, customer experience, and employee engagement while creating a unique organizational culture where both leaders and followers unite to reach organizational goals without positional or authoritative power. With employees viewed as one of the greatest assets for organizations, maintaining loyal, productive employees while balancing profits becomes a challenge for leaders, and drives the need to understand employee engagement drivers. Thus, the purpose of this study was to qualitatively explore servant leadership from the perspective of employees. Participants were 11 employees from a servant leadership led restaurant who took part in two focus groups. The modified van Kaam method (Moustakas 1994 ) contributed to data analysis, which examined employee responses for comparison and assessment. Several themes emerged including servant leader experience, servant leader traits, the impact of servant leadership, the application of servant leadership, and limited employee attrition. The themes revealed servant leadership positively influences employee engagement while contributing to employee loyalty to the workplace. Based on the servant leader experience, participants were more committed, built healthy work relationships, and actively participated in achieving organizational goals. Findings are discussed in light of current research and practical applications are provided.

Description: This research investigates the potential for a “fair” co-branding operation. A major corporate brand is fictitiously allied with a Fair Trade labelling organization brand. The sample for the study is composed of 540 respondents, representative of the French population. By considering commercial brands and Fair Trade labels as dissimilar in terms of customers’ perceived Fair Trade orientations, this article studies (1) how this lack of similarity impacts perceived congruence between both entities (i.e. perceived relevancy and expectancy of the alliance) and (2) how prior brand attitudes and congruence influence customers’ evaluation of the co-branded product. The results of this research demonstrate that: (1) Consumer prior brand attitudes toward the partner brands influence very little customers’ evaluation. (2) Perceived similarity of the partner brands has a strong influence toward congruence of the co-branding operation. Results also indicate that congruence (measured as relevancy and expectancy) has a strong influence upon customers’ evaluation. (3) An inverted U-shaped relationship exists between perceived similarity and relevancy of the alliance, and between expectancy and customers’ evaluation. The results obtained through the test of a partial least square model, and inverted U-shaped hypothesis, represent a new insight into co-branding theory. The high discursive power of fair co-branding is a key issue: the corporate brand provides the alliance with its leading position, while the Fair Trade brand provides the ethical attribute.

Description: In the first part of the article, an account of moral judgment in terms of emotional dispositions is given. This account provides an expressivist explanation of three important features of moral demands: inescapability, authority independence and meriting. In the second part of the article, some ideas initially put forward by Christopher Boehm are developed and modified in order to provide a hypothesis about the evolution of the ability to token moral judgments. This hypothesis makes evolutionary sense of inescapability, authority independence and meriting. It does so by referring to the selection pressures generated in the Late Pleistocene by large-game hunting. If the hypothesis is correct, we can say that, in a sense, meat made us moral .

Description: The ‘byproduct account’ of female orgasm, a subject of renewed debate since Lloyd (The case of the female orgasm, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005 ), is universally attributed to Symons (The evolution of human sexuality, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1979 ). While this is correct to the extent that he linked it to the adaptive value of male orgasm, I argue that the attribution of the theory as we understand it to Symons is based on a serious and hitherto unrecognised misinterpretation. Symons had a different explanation of why women can orgasm, and beneath this explanation lies an obscure line of argument, including a particularly obscure use of the word ‘homologous’.

Description: Despite the growing number of studies on supervisor–subordinate guanxi in Chinese society, there is a paucity of research on its antecedents. The purpose of this study was to determine Chinese people’s motives for building supervisor–subordinate guanxi . We interviewed 60 Chinese employees and found evidence that most of the respondents attached importance to building supervisor–subordinate guanxi . Their motives for building this guanxi spanned a wide range of issues, from personal benefits to other-oriented and organizational concerns. From the data we collected, we developed a preliminary model of the decision to build supervisor–subordinate guanxi .

Description: The recent financial crises (including the Asian and subprime crises) indicated the need to reinforce corporate governance mechanisms in emerging and developing market economies. Corporate governance refers to all the factors that affect firm processes (including, among others, financing strategies). Firms must avoid debt financing instruments and adopt financing instruments that allow for “risk-sharing” rather than “risk-shifting” because all recent financial crises were, in essence, debt crises. The primary objective of this paper is to examine the principles of risk-sharing promoted by Islamic finance and study their implications for corporate governance. The secondary objective of this paper is to propose a pricing model for a new risk-sharing financial instrument (Islamic preferred shares, IPS) that was recently discussed by Zarka and Al-Suhaibani (Shariah-compatible preference shares: The Sharia Basis and Economic Rationale. Working paper, SABIC Chair for Islamic Financial Market Studies, 2012 ). We study the implications of this new instrument as a powerful tool for corporate governance in the case of Islamic markets. We explain the possible contribution of IPS to agency cost reduction, Sharia screening costs and ethical corporate governance.

Description: Drawing from research on person–organization fit, work engagement, and emotional intelligence, this study investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the link between goal congruence and organizational deviance, as well as how this mediating effect might be moderated by emotional intelligence. Data captured from 272 employees of four IT companies show that the goal congruence between employees and their supervisor negatively affects the former’s organizational deviance, though this effect disappears when controlling for the intermediate role of work engagement. Further, emotional intelligence moderates both the positive relationship between goal congruence and work engagement and the negative relationship between work engagement and organizational deviance, such that these relationships become invigorated at higher levels of emotional intelligence. The findings also reveal that the indirect effect of goal congruence on organizational deviance through work engagement is more pronounced at higher levels of emotional intelligence, which offers evidence of moderated mediation. These findings have significant implications for research and practice.

Description: The globalization of production and trade has contributed to the rise in complex global value chains where the reach of state regulation is limited. As an alternative, private regulation, developed and administered by companies, industry associations, and nongovernmental organizations, has emerged to safeguard economic, environmental, and social sustainability in producer countries and along the value chain. The academic literature on private regulation in global value chains has grown over the last decade, but currently few major reviews of the research have been undertaken. This paper examines peer-reviewed research in the relevant disciplines published in academic journals up to December 2011. Our goal is to identify and classify the topics and theories in the global value chain literature. We conclude that the number of articles explicitly examining private regulation, in a global value chain context, is relatively small when considering the importance and growth of these chains in the world’s economy. We also conclude that agriculture, forestry, and apparel manufacturing are the most often studied economic sectors; in contrast, other sectors, such as the information, communication and technology, with their complex global value chains, and often problematic environmental and social conditions, are understudied.

Description: Whereas in the past ‘free’ and ‘illegal’ were nearly synonymous in the music industry, consumers nowadays face a myriad of music platforms with widely different characteristics in terms of business model (advertising supported, fee based, etc.), delivery mode (streaming, downloading, etc.), and others. The current research examines music consumption preferences in this new context. In order to break with the outmoded free-illegal versus paid-legal dichotomy, the present research studies consumer preferences for a broader range of music platform attributes, including free versus paying business models, (il)legality of use, artist revenues, downloading versus streaming, and audio quality. Based on a literature review and a qualitative study with in-depth interviews ( N  = 92), an online conjoint survey ( N  = 764) quantifies online music preferences. Results show that consumers of all ages clearly and consistently prefer legal and ethical options if available, but favor different ways of making this economically viable. Youngsters and young adults are more open to advertising, while middle-aged adults are more often willing to pay for advertising-free platforms. Thus, in real-life choices, youngsters may appear to be less ethical and law abiding, but the driving force behind this is mainly economical. Finally, a market segmentation provides deeper insights into online music consumer preferences and leads to recommendations on how to define viable legal and ethical music offerings.

Description: The explosion of health-related costs in U.S. firms over more than a decade is a huge concern for managers. The initiation of Health and Safety (H&S) programs at the firm level is an adequate Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative to contain this evolution. However, in spite of their documented efficiency, firms underinvest in those programs. This appears as a puzzle for health economists. In this paper, we uncover a strong negative relation of financial leverage to the implementation of H&S programs. The negative impact of debt on investment and CSR activities is generally interpreted as an efficient disciplinary effect of debt on managers. H&S are particularly well suited to revisit this evidence, given their strong profitability and homogeneity across firms. Very interestingly, the negative effect is stronger for firms with high free cash flows, for which debt is used to prevent overinvestment. This strongly suggests that debt, while disciplining managers, also discourages investments which are valuable both for firms and society.

Description: This paper explores the strategies organizations use to demonstrate their accountability for biodiversity and legitimize their impact in this area through the use of techniques of neutralization. Neutralization aims to manage stakeholder impressions on very socially sensitive issues. Based on the content analysis of 148 sustainability reports from mining organizations, the study sheds light on the successful use of rhetoric in reports on non-measurable and potentially unaccountable issues. Specifically, the study shows that mining organizations use four main techniques of neutralization when they explain their impact on biodiversity. When they address stakeholders, they defend their social legitimacy and environmental responsiveness using one of the four techniques: they claim of a net positive or neutral impact on biodiversity, they deny that they have a significant impact, they distance themselves from the impact of their actions, and they play down their responsibilities. The study contributes to the literature on corporate sustainability and accounting for stakeholders. It focuses on under-researched issues such as the management of biodiversity and the tactics used to rationalize negative impacts. The study also bridges the gap between theories about organizational legitimacy, impression management, and techniques of neutralization.

Description: Historical scientists frequently face incomplete data, and lack direct experimental access to their targets. This has led some philosophers and scientists to be pessimistic about the epistemic potential of the historical sciences. And yet, historical science often produces plausible, sophisticated hypotheses. I explain this capacity to generate knowledge in the face of apparent evidential scarcity by examining recent work on Thylacoleo carnifex , the ‘marsupial lion’. Here, we see two important methodological features. First, historical scientists are methodological omnivores, that is, they construct purpose-built epistemic tools tailored to generate evidence about highly specific targets. This allows them to produce multiple streams of independent evidence and thus maximize their epistemic reach. Second, investigative scaffolding: research proceeds in a piece-meal fashion, information only gaining evidential relevance once certain hypotheses are well supported. I illustrate scaffolding in a discussion of the nature of functional ascription in paleobiology. Frequently, different senses of ‘function’ are not discriminated during paleobiological investigation—something which can mar adaptationist investigations of extant organisms. However, I argue that, due to scaffolding, conflating senses of ‘function’ can be the right thing to do. Coarse-grained functional hypotheses are required before it is clear what evidence could discriminate between more fine-grained ones. I draw on omnivory and scaffolding to argue that pessimists make a bad empirical bet. It is a bad idea to bet against the epistemic fortunes of such opportunistic and resourceful scientists, especially when we have reason to think we will systematically underestimate the amount of evidence ultimately available to them.

Description: The paper documents the post-war retrenchment and failure of the post-war British Consumer Co-operative Movement. In contrast to the general failure one CEO, Terry Thomas stands out both for his success in co-operative rebranding and returning to profitability the UK Co-operative Bank and because he alone amongst the top echelons of the Co-operative Groups Management based his strategies on a clearly articulated philosophy based on his understanding of the values and purpose of the co-operative movement rooted in its historical traditions grounded in the writings and achievements of Robert Owen, The paper goes on to provide a case study of the bank’s process of transformation from loss-making subsidiary to the first positive co-operative national brand in the post-war period of its history. The author argues that lack of appropriate vision based on the founding values and purposes of the Co-operative Movement is the principal reason for the management’s and governance failures that have beset the UK Co-operative Group. Instead of using the past to help in understanding the present and planning for the future, the UK Co-operative Group Leadership ignored it or worse used the past successes to congratulate itself and disguise its manifest failures. In this, they were supported by an uncritical Co-operative Union (later renamed Co-operatives UK). Davis argues large co-operatives cannot be managed by a civil service responsible to an elected board. Co-operatives need a servant-leadership model of professional management dedicated to the transformational goals set by the founders of the co-operative movement. This needs a radical rethink and promotion of co-operative management education and a dedicated executive recruitment that seeks out value-based professionals whose attitudes and values are compatible with Co-operative values, ownership and purpose.

Description: While most studies dealing with waste reduction at the consumer level focus on recycling, this paper rather concentrates on precycling strategies and purchasing behaviors in order to understand how to promote waste reduction at the source. More specifically, the purpose of this work is to grasp consumers’ perceptions of overpackaging and understand the mechanisms underlying their choice of overpackaged versus non-overpackaged food products. Based on the different themes that emerged from a qualitative study (study 1, n  = 11), a quantitative research was conducted among French interviewees (study 2, n  = 327) in order to identify relevant groups of consumers. Five profiles emerged from the cluster analysis: the supporters, the self-sacrificing, the detractors, the indifferent, and the self-centered. Finally, an experiment was conducted (study 3, n  = 808) that highlights the influence of range positioning and salience of non-overpackaging on consumer choice. Implications for public policy makers and companies are discussed.

Description: The notion of shared value presents business with a challenge: to generate social benefit and profit simultaneously. This challenge involves resolving tensions/paradoxes inherent when integrating the apparent contradictory elements of social and economic values. Unfortunately, resolving such tensions is difficult due to the habitual, automatic nature of sensemaking. This paper offers a mechanism whereby individuals can, over time, begin to overcome habitual sensemaking and potentially resolve tensions inherent in shared value. The mechanism is labeled inner knowledge creation (IKC). IKC is described and its role in creating shared value for businesses is illustrated through a conceptual model. The model shows how IKC develops metacognitive capabilities, builds capacities to resolve tensions/paradoxes, and cultivates openness to others’ perspectives.

Description: We develop and use an integrated individual-level model to explain the driving forces behind digital piracy (DP) practice in two nations. The proposed model combines the Norm Activation model and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology models. This study also explores the effect of culture on intention (INT) to practice DP in two nations: US (individualistic) and India (collectivistic). A survey instrument was used to collect data from 231 US and 331 Indian participants. Use of the integrated model proves to be a powerful and a viable approach to understanding DP across cultures. In each nation, all 10 path coefficients on the research model are statistically significant thereby establishing the fact that personal norm, together with other factors, influences INT to engage in DP, which in turn, may influence the actual practice. The results reveal a support for cross-cultural generalizability and applicability of the proposed model. Culture clearly plays a strong moderating role in two out of the three paths tested. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Description: While research has focused on why certain entrepreneurs elect to create innovative solutions to social problems, very little is known about why some social entrepreneurs choose to scale their solutions while others do not. Research on scaling has generally focused on organizational characteristics often overlooking factors at the individual level that may affect scaling decisions. Drawing on the multidimensional construct of moral intensity, we propose a theoretical model of ethical decision making to explain why a social entrepreneur’s perception of moral intensity of the social problem, coupled with their personal desire for control, can significantly influence scaling decisions. Specifically, we propose that higher levels of perceived moral intensity will positively influence the likelihood of scaling through open as opposed to closed modes in order to achieve greater speed and scope of social impact. However, we also propose this effect will be negatively moderated by a social entrepreneur’s higher levels of desire for control. Our model has implications for research and practice at the interface of ethics and social entrepreneurship.

Description: Ethical debate exists on the effect of gender diversity of the top management teams (TMTs) on organizations. This study aims to contribute to this debate by analyzing the effects of gender diversity of TMTs on the relationship between knowledge combination capability and organizations’ innovative performance. We use a sample of 205 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) belonging to the sector of Spanish technology-based firms (TBFs). Our results indicate that gender diversity positively moderates the relationship between knowledge combination capability and innovation performance. Implications for theory and practice are discussed—among them, ways to contribute to more equal gender distribution and to the benefits of gender diversity in top management positions.

Description: It is widely assumed that emotions have particular intentional objects. This assumption is consistent with the way that we talk: when we attribute states of anger, we often attribute anger at someone, or at something. It is also consistent with leading theories of emotion among philosophers and psychologists, according to which emotions are like judgments or appraisals. However, there is evidence from the social psychology literature suggesting that this assumption is actually false. I will begin by presenting a criterion for determining whether a mental state has a particular object. It is not sufficient for that state to be caused by an object or by a representation of a given object—the state must influence the subject’s thought and behavior in ways that are specific to that object. I will present evidence that emotions fail this test, and describe some of the reasons why we persistently attribute objects to our emotions. My view may seem untenable, because the literature on various aspects of emotional life such as normativity, linguistic expression, and behavioral influence consistently appeals to intentional objects. I will conclude by presenting a sketch of how I could address this concern.

Description: When I think of the single change that would most successfully transform our teaching practice and leverage truly significant benefits, it would be to bring much more of what learners already know into the classroom so that it can be shared, examined, refined and improved. At present, it would seem that the majority mode of teaching in the areas of ethics and social responsibility does a rather poor job of this, tending instead towards silencing the wisdom that is in the room in order that external perspectives can be more easily “instilled”. From many years of experimenting with a wide variety of approaches to teaching the subject, I find this to be deeply suboptimal and would seriously suggest that we ought to shift our practices in ways that make learners’ perspectives our primary material of interest.

Description: A growing body of literature documents the important role played by moral outrage or moral anger in stakeholders’ reactions to cases of corporate social irresponsibility. Existing research focuses more on the consequences of moral outrage than a systematic analysis of how appraisals of irresponsible corporate behavior can lead to this emotional experience. In this paper, we develop and test, in two field studies, an extended model of moral outrage that identifies the cognitions that lead to, and are associated with, this emotional experience. This research contributes to the existing literature on reactions to corporate social irresponsibility by explaining how observers’ evaluation of irresponsible corporate behavior leads to reactions of moral anger. The paper also helps clarify the difference between moral outrage and other types of anger and offers useful insights for managers who have to confront public outrage following cases of irresponsible corporate behavior. Finally, the analysis of the causes of stakeholders’ anger at irresponsible corporations opens important avenues for future research that are presented in the paper.

Description: Motivated by contemporary debates concerning whether directors inappropriately deploy corporate funds for corporate political donations and the limited research into managerial influence on corporate political donations, we examine the impact of director influences from a network perspective. Using a sample of large listed Australian corporations and their political party donation activity during 2000–2007, we find that both the professional and non-professional networks of directors influence corporate political donations. We observe these influences in relation to donations at the federal and state levels, and with respect to the choice of recipient political parties.

Description: We explore the language of leadership of global media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 2010, the year before the phone-hacking scandal in the UK came to public attention. Subsequent public enquiries in the UK exposed unethical conduct by staff of News Corporation, a global corporation whose Chairman and CEO was Rupert Murdoch. We focus on the ethical climate fashioned by ‘A Letter from Rupert Murdoch’ that appeared in the opening pages of the annual report of News Corporation for the year ended 30 June 2010. Plausibly, Murdoch’s discourse in that letter helped condition the inapt, unethical conduct of News Corporation staff. We highlight the cultural and ethical signs that were embedded in Murdoch’s letter and which reflected the company’s tone at the top and ethical values. We identify signs of a perverse leadership thinking that possibly help explain the inappropriate cultural values and ethical behaviours that were revealed subsequently in evidence presented to public inquiries.

Description: The concept of business responsibility, usually termed as corporate social responsibility (CSR), originated in the early 1930s after the Wall Street crash of 1929 exposed corporate irresponsibility in large organisations. The understanding of CSR has evolved since then and its scope has now broadened from mere compliance to corporate laws to active alignment of internal business goals with externally set societal aspirations. Unfortunately, the significance of this multidimensional concept within the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector has continued to be overshadowed by its application in large and multinational organisations. More importantly, this has led to the practice of judging SMEs, which are experiencing increasing pressure to engage in social activities, as if they are no different from their larger counterparts. This study therefore investigates CSR from the perspective of SMEs in Australia without any theoretical presumptions and then comments on the relevance and applicability of the two theories that have been commonly used to investigate business responsibility, namely, stakeholder theory (ST) and social capital theory (SCT). The research findings indicate that CSR within the SME sector is more aligned to the fundamentals of SCT, mainly owing to the unique resource and survival challenges that they face, and which are, arguably, not so pronounced in large organisations.

Description: Drawing on a survey of nursing staff of nursing homes in a Midwestern state in the United States, the study examines how the relationships between employee–organization value congruence and job attitudes vary between nonprofit and for-profit organizational types. Statistical comparison of the levels of employee value congruence and job attitudes does not suggest significant difference between the two types of employees. Although value congruence is found positively associated with nursing home employees’ job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and negatively associated with intent to quit, consistent with prior research, the difference in the magnitude of the relationships between the two types of employees is not found. These findings suggest inconsistency with conventional wisdom of profiling employee value according to organizational ownership type.

Description: This study examined the relationship between job involvement and the five dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs, altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship, conscientiousness, and civil virtue), using a sample of 1,110 from the People Republic of China. Results showed that job involvement related positively to all dimensions of OCBs. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between job involvement and three dimensions of OCBs (altruism, courtesy, sportsmanship), with males having a stronger, positive relationship between these constructs than females. The results further showed that party affiliation moderated the relationship between job involvement and three dimensions of OCBs (altruism, courtesy, and civil virtue), with party members having a strong, positive relationship between these constructs than non-party members. The results are interpreted in light of the literature both on job involvement and OCBs, and limitations of this study are discussed.

Description: In business schools, there is a persistent myth according to which management education is, and should be, ‘value-free’. This article reflects on the experiences of two business schools from Finland and Australia in which the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) have been pragmatically used as a platform for breaking with this institutionalized guise of positivist value neutrality. This use of PRME makes it possible to create learning environments in which values and value tensions inherent in management education can be explored and exposed. Inspired by Rorty’s understanding of ethics—notably his discussion of ‘final vocabularies’ and ‘moral imagination’—and Flyvbjerg’s reading of phronēsis, the article discusses an approach to learning that helps both teachers and students in exploring and exposing values in management education by problematizing dominant business school vocabularies, thereby leading to moral development, in the Rortian sense. The article presents a number of final vocabularies that business students come to class with, some learning methods used to challenge these vocabularies through discussion of alternative vocabularies, and the new directions for moral imagination that may result.

Description: Whistle blowing programs have been central to numerous government, legislative, and regulatory reform efforts in recent years. To protect investors, corporate boards have instituted numerous measures to promote whistle blowing. Despite significant whistle blowing incentives, few individuals blow the whistle when presented with the opportunity. Instead, individuals often remain fallaciously silent and, in essence, become passive fraudsters themselves. Using the fraud triangle and models of moral behavior, we model and analyze fallacious silence and identify factors that may motivate an individual to rationalize fallacious silence. We use a survey of graduate accounting students to test hypothesized factors that contribute to fallacious silence rationalizations in an academic setting. We find evidence that the ability to rationalize fallacious silence is related to community influences and personal traits such as awareness and moral competence.

Description: Two cultures are at play in the field of social entrepreneurship: an age-old culture of charity, and a more contemporary culture of entrepreneurial problem solving. These cultures permeate activities from resource providers to front line operations. Both have roots in our psychological responses to the needs of others and are reinforced by social norms. They can work hand-in-hand or they can be at odds. Some of the icons of the social entrepreneurship movement have spoken harshly about charity, yet most of them rely to some degree, at least early in their development process, on resources that are given out of a charitable impulse. The success of social entrepreneurship requires an integration of values from each of these cultures, in which the satisfactions of giving are correlated with social benefits of rigorous problem solving.

Description: In this article, we examine the factors determining the representation of women on boards of directors by considering three main questions. The first question deals with the relationship between characteristics of ownership and governance on one side, and female directorship on the other. The second major question concerns the demographic attributes of women directors, such as nationality, foreign experience, educational level, business expertise, and connections to external sources. The third important question refers to women in senior positions on French boards (e.g., as independent members or board subcommittee members) in relation to firm characteristics and women’s demographic attributes. Our study focuses on French large- and mid-capitalized companies belonging to the SBF120 stock market index during a 5-year period running from 2000 to 2004. First, our results give evidence that the appointment of women directors is strongly related to family ownership and board or firm size. Second, the appointment of women directors is related to their professional services, valuable skills, and network links. Furthermore, we show that women face a double glass-ceiling problem, and note that French firms rely more on the demographic attributes of their women directors when they are appointed to senior board positions. Our study sheds light on issues concerning the law that comes into force in 2016, which imposes quotas of women members on boards of directors in French companies.

Description: The tension between organizational values and the operation of aged care as a business is often characterized as the “mission versus margin” dilemma. It is common across the industry in both not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. However, in for-profit aged care facilities, there is no question about the intention to make a profit or the purpose of the profits. This is not so clear in not-for-profit aged care organizations. This article explores the tension through the examination of a detailed case study of one of the larger not-for-profit social service organizations—All Saints Christian Care. It analyses the culture and managerial decisions though the lens of the political philosophy value pluralism. Finally, based on the value-plural theory, recommendations are made that would create greater operational transparency in not-for-profit aged care service.

Description: Designed to facilitate economic development, the corporate form now threatens human survival. This article presents an argument that organisations are yet to be ‘fit for purpose’ and that the corporate form needs to be re-designed to reach sustainability. It suggests that organisations need to recognise their agent status amongst a much wider and highly complex array of interconnected, dynamic economic, environmental and social systems. Human Factors theory is drawn on to propose that business systems could be made sustainable through re-design. They could fit their environment more appropriately by improving: Efficiency, Adaptability and Social Cohesion. Leaders of organisations would also need to take a holistic approach to alter the organisation proactively to adapt to the systems within which it is embedded.

Description: In this article, we explore the implicit conceptions of business ethics and social responsibility of owners−managers of small and medium enterprises (SME) in Cameroon. While using a hermeneutical approach, our main objective is to clarify how Sub-Saharan African business people themselves understand and define corporate responsibility in their particular economic and political environment. Our aim is not to deliver an empirical study of business practices and management behavior in SMEs. We wish to discuss which responsibilities they themselves judge to be relevant and which can legitimately be attributed to them by third parties. Secondly, we relate our findings to other empirical work on SMEs, in Africa and elsewhere. It is shown that there are similarities with the way in which SMEs in Europe interpret their responsibility, but also striking differences. Further, we relate our findings to some theoretical controversies around corporate social responsibility (CSR) in SMEs, to questions about evaluation tools for CSR in the SME context, and to the role of CSR with respect to poverty alleviation in developing countries.

Description: Given the growing importance of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), it is surprising that there is no consensus of what the term SRI means to an investor. Further, most studies of this question rely solely on the views of investors who already invest in SRI funds. Our study surveys a unique pool of approximately 5,000 investors that contains both investors who have used SRI criteria in investment decisions and those who have not, and involves a broad array of criteria associated with SR investing. Our findings offer new insight into the SRI debate. For both sets of investors, environmental and sustainability issues dominate as the major category associated with SR investing. We find strong agreement in the ranking of the relative importance of various SRI factors despite differences between these two groups in their opinion of their overall importance. We also find that investors prefer to consider the SRI question in more holistic terms rather than using the exclusionary format favored by most SRI funds. Investors seem to prefer to reward firms who display overall positive social behavior rather than to exclude firms on the basis of certain products or practices. These findings can help providers of SR investment vehicles to improve the SRI products that they offer to the general investor, thus both encouraging the initial adoption of SR criteria by investors and increasing overall investment in SR choices.

Description:    Matthen (Philos Sci 76(4):464–487, 2009 ) argues that explanations of evolutionary change that appeal to natural selection are statistically abstractive explanations , explanations that ignore some possible explanatory partitions that in fact impact the outcome. This recognition highlights a difficulty with making selective analyses fully rigorous. Natural selection is not about the details of what happens to any particular organism, nor, by extension, to the details of what happens in any particular population. Since selective accounts focus on tendencies , those factors that impact the actual outcomes but do not impact the tendencies must be excluded. So, in order to properly exclude the factors irrelevant to selection, the relevant factors must be identified, and physical processes, environments, and populations individuated on the basis of being relevantly similar for the purposes of selective accounts. Natural selection, on this view, becomes in part a measure of the robustness of particular kinds of outcomes given variations over some kinds of inputs. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9342-2 Authors Jonathan Michael Kaplan, Philosophy Department, Oregon State University, 208 Hovland Hall, Corvallis, OR 97331-3902, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    Keller explains the persistence of the nature/nurture debate by a chronic ambiguity in language derived from classical and behavioral genetics. She suggests that the more precise vocabulary of modern molecular genetics may be used to rephrase the underlying questions and hence provide a way out of this controversy. I show that her proposal fits into a long tradition in which other authors have wrestled with the same problem and come to similar conclusions. Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9343-1 Authors Karola Stotz, Department of Philosophy, Main Quadrangle A 14, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    In a recent article, “Wayward Modeling: Population Genetics and Natural Selection,” Bruce Glymour claims that population genetics is burdened by serious predictive and explanatory inadequacies and that the theory itself is to blame. Because Glymour overlooks a variety of formal modeling techniques in population genetics, his arguments do not quite undermine a major scientific theory. However, his arguments are extremely valuable as they provide definitive proof that those who would deploy classical population genetics over natural systems must do so with careful attention to interactions between individual population members and environmental causes. Glymour’s arguments have deep implications for causation in classical population genetics. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Research Pages 813-835 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9268-0 Authors Peter Gildenhuys, Lafayette College, Quad Drive, Easton, PA 18042, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 6

Description:    The story of the fall and rise of Zahavi’s handicap principle is one of a battle between models. Early attempts at formal modeling produced negative results and, unsurprisingly, scepticism about the principle. A major change came in 1990 with Grafen’s production of coherent models of a handicap mechanism of honest signalling. This paper’s first claim is that acceptance of the principle, and its dissemination into other disciplines, has been driven principally by that, and subsequent modeling, rather than by empirical results. Secondly, there is a vast literature on biological signalling but few studies that make all of the observations necessary to diagnose the handicap mechanism. My final claim is that many of the applications of “costly signalling theory” in other disciplines are conceptually confused. Misinterpretations of what is meant by “costly signalling” are common. Demonstrating that a signal is costly is insufficient and is not always necessary in order to prove that, and explain why, a signal is honest. In addition to the biological modelling of signals, there is an economic literature on the same subject. The two run in parallel in the sense that they have had little mutual interaction. Additionally, it is the biological modelling that has been picked up, and often misapplied, by other disciplines. Content Type Journal Article Pages 677-696 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9275-1 Authors Jonathan Grose, Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    Adaptationists explain the evolution of religion from the cooperative effects of religious commitments, but which cooperation problem does religion evolve to solve? I focus on a class of symmetrical coordination problems for which there are two pure Nash equilibriums: (1) ALL COOPERATE, which is efficient but relies on full cooperation; (2) ALL DEFECT, which is inefficient but pays regardless of what others choose. Formal and experimental studies reveal that for such risky coordination problems, only the defection equilibrium is evolutionarily stable. The following makes sense of otherwise puzzling properties of religious cognition and cultures as features of cooperative designs that evolve to stabilise such risky exchange. The model is interesting because it explains lingering puzzles in the data on religion, and better integrates evolutionary theories of religion with recent, well-motivated models of cooperative niche construction. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-27 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9295-x Authors Joseph Bulbulia, Victoria University of Wellington, FHSS, Wellington, New Zealand Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    The paper explores how, in economics and biology, theoretical models are used as explanatory devices. It focuses on a modelling strategy by which, instead of starting with an unexplained regularity in the world, the modeller begins by creating a credible model world. The model world exhibits a regularity, induced by a mechanism in that world. The modeller concludes that there may be a part of the real world in which a similar regularity occurs and that, were that the case , the model would offer an explanation. Little concrete guidance is given about where such a regularity might be found. Three modelling exercises in evolutionary game theory—one from economics and two from biology—are used as case studies. Two of these (one from each discipline) exemplify ‘explanation in search of observation’. The third goes a step further, analysing a regularity in a model world and treating it as informative about the real world, but without saying anything about real phenomena. The paper argues that if the relation between the model and real worlds is understood in terms of similarity, and if modelling is understood as an ongoing discovery process rather than as the demonstration of empirical truths, there can be value in creating explanations before finding the regularities that are to be explained. Content Type Journal Article Pages 717-736 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9280-4 Authors Robert Sugden, School of Economics and Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Science, University of East Anglia, Norwich, NR4 7TJ UK Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    Altruism is a deep and complex phenomenon that is analysed by scholars of various disciplines, including psychology, philosophy, biology, evolutionary anthropology and experimental economics. Much confusion arises in current literature because the term altruism covers variable concepts and processes across disciplines. Here we investigate the sense given to altruism when used in different fields and argumentative contexts. We argue that four distinct but related concepts need to be distinguished: (a) psychological altruism , the genuine motivation to improve others’ interests and welfare; (b) reproductive altruism , which involves increasing others’ chances of survival and reproduction at the actor’s expense; (c) behavioural altruism , which involves bearing some cost in the interest of others; and (d) preference altruism , which is a preference for others’ interests. We show how this conceptual clarification permits the identification of overstated claims that stem from an imprecise use of terminology. Distinguishing these four types of altruism will help to solve rhetorical conflicts that currently undermine the interdisciplinary debate about human altruism. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9317-3 Authors Christine Clavien, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, UNIL-Sorge Biophore, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Michel Chapuisat, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, UNIL-Sorge Biophore, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    The view that mirror self-recognition (MSR) is a definitive demonstration of self-awareness is far from universally accepted, and those who do support the view need a more robust argument than the mere assumption that self-recognition implies a self-concept (e.g. Gallup in Socioecology and Psychology of Primates, Mouton, Hague, 1975 ; Gallup and Suarez in Psychological Perspectives on the Self, vol 3, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, 1986 ). In this paper I offer a new argument in favour of the view that MSR shows self-awareness by examining the nature of the mirror image itself. I argue, using the results of ‘symbol-mindedness’ experiments by Deloache (Trends Cogn Sci 8(2):66–70, 2004) , that where self-recognition exists, the mirror image must be functioning as a symbol from the perspective of the subject and the subject must therefore be ‘symbol-minded’ and hence concept possessing. Further to this, according to the Concept Possession Hypothesis of Self-Consciousness (Savanah in Conscious Cogn 2011 ), concept possession alone is sufficient to demonstrate the existence of self-awareness. Thus MSR as a demonstration of symbol-mindedness implies the existence of self-awareness. I begin by defending the ‘mark test’ protocol as a robust methodology for determining self-recognition. Then follows a critical examination of the extreme views both for and against the interpretation of MSR as an indication of self-awareness: although the non-mentalistic interpretation of MSR is unconvincing, the argument presented by Gallup is also inadequate. I then present the symbol-mindedness argument to fill in the gaps in the Gallup approach. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9318-2 Authors Stephane Savanah, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD), Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    Gene-selectionists define fundamental terms in non-standard ways. Genes are determinants of difference. Phenotypes are defined as a gene’s effects relative to some alternative whereas the environment is defined as all parts of the world that are shared by the alternatives being compared. Environments choose among phenotypes and thereby choose among genes. By this process, successful gene sequences become stores of information about what works in the environment. The strategic gene is defined as a set of gene tokens that combines ‘actor’ tokens responsible for an effect with ‘recipient’ tokens whose replication is thereby enhanced. This set of tokens can extend across the boundaries of individual organisms, or other levels of selection, as these are traditionally defined. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9315-5 Authors David Haig, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    This paper explores an important type of biological explanation called ‘homology thinking.’ Homology thinking explains the properties of a homologue by citing the history of a homologue. Homology thinking is significant in several ways. First, it offers more detailed explanations of biological phenomena than corresponding analogy explanations. Second, it provides an important explanation of character similarity and difference. Third, homology thinking offers a promising account of multiple realizability in biology. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9313-7 Authors Marc Ereshefsky, Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB T2N 1N4, Canada Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    The problem of plant individuality is something which has vexed botanists throughout the ages, with fashion swinging back and forth from treating plants as communities of individuals (Darwin 1800 ; Braun and Stone 1853 ; Münch 1938 ) to treating them as organisms in their own right, and although the latter view has dominated mainstream thought most recently (Harper 1977 ; Cook 1985 ; Ariew and Lewontin 2004 ), a lively debate conducted mostly in Scandinavian journals proves that the issues are far from being resolved (Tuomi and Vuorisalo 1989b ; Fagerström 1992 ; Pan and Price 2001 ). In this paper I settle the matter once and for all, by showing which elements of each side are correct. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-41 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9309-3 Authors Ellen Clarke, All Souls College, Oxford University, High Street, Oxford, OX1 4 AL UK Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description:    Our closest relative the chimpanzee seems to display proto-moral behavior. Some scholars emphasize the similarities between humans and chimpanzees, others some key differences. This paper aims is to formulate a set of intermediate conditions between a sometimes helpful chimpanzee and moral man. I specify these intermediate conditions as requirements for the chimpanzees, and for each requirement I take on a verificationist stance and ask what the empirical conditions that satisfy it would be. I ask what would plausibly count as the behavioral correlate of each requirement, when implemented. I take a philosophical look at morality using the chimpanzees as a prism. We will talk of propositional attitudes, rationality and reason in relation to the chimps. By means of the chimps I intend to arrive at a notion of objective morality as conceived from a first person point of view in terms of propositional attitudes and reasons. Content Type Journal Article Pages 891-904 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9283-1 Authors Jelle de Boer, Philosophy Department, University of Amsterdam, Oude Turfmarkt 141-147, 1012 GC Amsterdam, The Netherlands Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 6

Description:    This paper argues that philosophers should pay more attention to the idea of ecosystem engineering and to the scientific literature surrounding it. Ecosystem engineering is a broad but clearly delimited concept that is less subject to many of the “it encompasses too much” criticisms that philosophers have directed at niche construction . The limitations placed on the idea of ecosystem engineering point the way to a narrower idea of niche construction. Moreover, experimental studies in the ecosystem engineering literature provide detailed accounts of particular empirical situations in which we cannot neglect the O term in d E /d t  = g ( O , E ), which helps us get beyond verbal arguments and simple models purporting to show that niche construction must not be ignored as a factor in evolution. Finally, this literature demonstrates that while ecosystem engineering studies may not require us to embrace a new evolutionary process, as niche construction advocates have claimed, they do teach us that the myriad abiotic factors concealed by the abstract term ‘environment’ are often controlled in large part by organisms. Content Type Journal Article Pages 793-812 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9282-2 Authors Trevor Pearce, Department of Philosophy, Rotman Institute of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, Stevenson Hall 2150G, London, ON N6A 5B8, Canada Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 6

Description:    Theoretical biology and economics are remarkably similar in their reliance on mathematical models, which attempt to represent real world systems using many idealized assumptions. They are also similar in placing a great emphasis on derivational robustness of modeling results. Recently philosophers of biology and economics have argued that robustness analysis can be a method for confirmation of claims about causal mechanisms, despite the significant reliance of these models on patently false assumptions. We argue that the power of robustness analysis has been greatly exaggerated. It is best regarded as a method of discovery rather than confirmation. Content Type Journal Article Pages 757-771 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9278-y Authors Jay Odenbaugh, Department of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR, USA Anna Alexandrova, Department of Philosophy, University of Missouri-St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    When social scientists began employing evolutionary game theory (EGT) in their disciplines, the question arose what the appropriate interpretation of the formal EGT framework would be. Social scientists have given different answer, of which I distinguish three basic kinds. I then proceed to uncover the conceptual tension between the formal framework of EGT, its application in the social sciences, and these three interpretations. First, I argue that EGT under the biological interpretation has a limited application in the social sciences, chiefly because strategy replication often cannot be sensibly interpreted as strategy bearer reproduction in this domain. Second, I show that alternative replication mechanisms imply interpersonal comparability of strategy payoffs. Giving a meaningful interpretation to such comparisons is not an easy task for many social situations, and thus limits the applicability of EGT in this domain. Third, I argue that giving a new interpretation both to strategy replication and selection solves the issue of interpersonal comparability, but at the costs of making the new interpretation incompatible with natural selection interpretations of EGT. To the extent that social scientists seek such a natural selection interpretation, they face a dilemma: either face the challenge that interpersonal comparisons pose, or give up on the natural selection interpretation. By identifying these tensions, my analysis pleas for greater awareness of the specific purposes of EGT modelling in the social sciences, and for greater sensitivity to the underlying microstructure on which the evolutionary dynamics and other EGT solution concepts supervene. Content Type Journal Article Pages 637-654 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9273-3 Authors Till Grüne-Yanoff, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 4, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    The pheneticist philosophy holds that biological taxa are clusters of entities united by a form of all-things-considered resemblance. This view of taxonomy has come in for almost universal criticism from philosophers, and has received little praise from biologists, over the past 30 years or so. This article defends a modest pheneticism, understood as part of a pluralist view of taxonomy. First, phenetic approaches to taxonomy are alive and well in biological practice, especially in the areas of microbiology and botany. Second, the pheneticist notion of overall similarity is defensible, and is implicitly endorsed even by those (such as Quine) usually implicated in attacks on similarity. Third, there are limited biological domains within which pheneticism’s conception of species as kinds (rather than heterogeneous individuals) remains applicable. Content Type Journal Article Pages 159-177 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9302-2 Authors Tim Lewens, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RH UK Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2

Description:    Among naturalist philosophers, both defenders and opponents of moral relativism argue that prescriptive moral theories (or normative theories) should be constrained by empirical findings about human psychology. Empiricists have asked if people are or can be moral relativists, and what effect being a moral relativist can have on an individual’s moral functioning. This research is underutilized in philosophers’ normative theories of relativism; at the same time, the empirical work, while useful, is conceptually disjointed. Our goal is to integrate philosophical and empirical work on constraints on normative relativism. First, we present a working definition of moral relativism. Second, we outline naturalist versions of normative relativism, and third, we highlight the empirical constraints in this reasoning. Fourth, we discuss recent studies in moral psychology that are relevant for the philosophy of moral relativism. We assess here what conclusions for moral relativism can and cannot be drawn from experimental studies. Finally, we suggest how moral philosophers and moral psychologists can collaborate on the topic of moral relativism in the future. Content Type Journal Article Pages 95-113 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9270-6 Authors Katinka J. P. Quintelier, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences and Research Unit ‘The Moral Brain’, Ghent University, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Daniel M. T. Fessler, Department of Anthropology and Center for Behavior, Evolution & Culture, University of California, Los Angeles, 375 Portola Plaza, 341 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1553, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    Genes are thought to have evolved from long-lived and multiply-interactive molecules in the early stages of the origins of life. However, at that stage there were no replicators, and the distinction between interactors and replicators did not yet apply. Nevertheless, the process of evolution that proceeded from initial autocatalytic hypercycles to full organisms was a Darwinian process of selection of favourable variants. We distinguish therefore between Neo-Darwinian evolution and the related Weismannian and Central Dogma divisions, on the one hand, and the more generic category of Darwinian evolution on the other. We argue that Hull’s and Dawkins’ replicator/interactor distinction of entities is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for Darwinian evolution to take place. We conceive the origin of genes as a separation between different types of molecules in a thermodynamic state space, and employ a notion of reproducers. Content Type Journal Article Pages 215-239 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9298-7 Authors John S. Wilkins, Department of Philosophy, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia Clem Stanyon, Institut des science biologique, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, Lyon, France Ian Musgrave, Discipline of Pharmacology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2

Description:    The new millennium has opened with a perfectly splendid decade of scholarship relating to the ‘Species Problem’. So, at least we now have a clear idea of what this is, but still no clear solution that will suit both biologists and philosophers. Richards (The species problem. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010 ) has recently attempted to capture this story and to fill the void with two projects in one book. The first project (Chapters 1–4) is a descriptive and analytical history of the problem, which provides links to other recent works and thereby allows one to fully reconstruct the literature. The second (Chapters 5–7) is prescriptive and presents Richards’s solution via a ‘ division of labour in a conceptual framework ’ followed by recapitulation and conclusions. It is my assessment as presented here that the first project will appeal more to biologists and the second one to philosophers. There is much of value in Richards ( 2010 ) approach including an excellent evaluation of the essentialism story in the descriptive project and clear exposition of several key issues such as the ‘ species - as - individuals ’ versus ‘ species - as - categories ’ debate which are covered in the second project. Interesting and informative as these arguments undoubtedly are, something still seems to be missing here. In this essay I suggest that this perception arises from Richards’ (and others) failure to embrace ideas about the importance of relativity and contingency in species definitions and further that his new conceptual framework lacks one hierarchical level to link overarching lineage concepts of species as evolutionary units with practical definitions for their recognition. In my view, the missing link is reproductive isolation and I conclude my review by presenting a prescriptive project for biologists to balance the one that Richards has delivered to philosophers. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10539-012-9314-6 Authors Geoff Chambers, School of Biological Sciences, Victoria University, PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867

Description: Peter Corning: The Fair Society: The science of human nature and the pursuit of social justice Content Type Journal Article Category Review Essay Pages 313-320 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9304-0 Authors Holly Lawford-Smith, Centre for Applied Ethics and Public Philosophy, Charles Sturt University, Canberra, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2

Description:    Two decades ago, the eminent evolutionary biologist George C. Williams and his physician coauthor, Randolph Nesse, formulated the evolutionary medicine research program. Williams and Nesse explicitly made adaptationism a core component of the new program, which has served to undermine the program ever since, distorting its practitioners’ perceptions of evidentiary burdens and in extreme cases has served to warp practitioner’s understandings of the relationship between evolutionary benefits/detriments and medical ones. I show that the Williams and Nesse program more particularly embraces the panselectionist variety of adaptationism (the empirical assumption that non-adaptive evolutionary processes are causally unimportant compared to natural selection), and argue that this has harmed the field. Panselectionism serves to conceal the enormous evidentiary hurdles that evolutionary medicine hypotheses face, making them appear stronger than they are. I use two examples of evolutionary medicine texts, on neonatal jaundice and on asthma, to show that some evolutionary medicine practitioners have allowed their fervent panselectionism to directly shape their recommendations for clinical practice. I argue that this escalation of panselectionism’s influence is inappropriate under Williams’ and Nesse original stated standards, despite being inspired by their program. I also show that the examples’ conflation of clinical and evolutionary considerations is inappropriate even under Christopher Boorse’s controversial evolution-rooted concepts of disease and health. Content Type Journal Article Pages 241-261 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9305-z Authors Sean A. Valles, Lyman Briggs College and Department of Philosophy, Michigan State University, 25C West Holmes Hall, East Lansing, MI 48825, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2

Description:    Two recent overviews of costly signalling theory—Maynard-Smith and Harper ( 2003 ) and Searcy and Nowicki ( 2005 )—both refuse to count signals kept honest by punishment of dishonesty, as costly signals, because (1) honest signals must be costly in cases of costly signalling, and (2) punishment of dishonesty itself requires explanation. I argue that both pairs of researchers are mistaken: (2) is not a reason to discount signals kept honest by punishment of dishonesty as cases of costly signalling, and (1) betrays too narrow a focus on certain versions of costly signalling theory. In the course of so arguing, I propose a new schema for classifying signal costs, which suggests productive research questions for future conceptual and empirical work on costly signalling. Content Type Journal Article Pages 263-278 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9297-8 Authors Ben Fraser, Department of Philosophy, School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies, Monash University, Building 11, Melbourne, VIC 3800, Australia Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2

Description:    The brain is often taken to be a paradigmatic example of a signaling system with semantic and representational properties, in which neurons are senders and receivers of information carried in action potentials. A closer look at this picture shows that it is not as appealing as it might initially seem in explaining the function of the brain. Working from several sender-receiver models within the teleosemantic framework, I will first argue that two requirements must be met for a system to support genuine semantic information: 1. The receiver must be competent —that is, it must be able to extract rewards from its environment on the basis of the signals that it receives. 2. The receiver must have some flexibility of response relative to the signal received. In the second part of the paper, this initial framework will be applied to neural processes, pointing to the surprising conclusion that signaling at the single-neuron level is only weakly semantic at best. Contrary to received views, neurons will have little or no access to semantic information (though their patterns of activity may carry plenty of quantitative, correlational information) about the world outside the organism. Genuine representation of the world requires an organism - level receiver of semantic information, to which any particular set of neurons makes only a small contribution. Content Type Journal Article Pages 49-71 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9292-0 Authors Rosa Cao, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    Dubreuil (Biol Phil 25:53–73, 2010b , this journal) argues that modern-like cognitive abilities for inhibitory control and goal maintenance most likely evolved in Homo heidelbergensis , much before the evolution of oft-cited modern traits, such as symbolism and art. Dubreuil’s argument proceeds in two steps. First, he identifies two behavioral traits that are supposed to be indicative of the presence of a capacity for inhibition and goal maintenance: cooperative feeding and cooperative breeding. Next, he tries to show that these behavioral traits most likely emerged in Homo heidelbergensis . In this paper, I show that neither of these steps are warranted in light of current scientific evidence, and thus, that the evolutionary background of human executive functions, such as inhibition and goal maintenance, remains obscure. Nonetheless, I suggest that cooperative breeding might mark a crucial step in the evolution of our species: its early emergence in Homo erectus might have favored a social intelligence that was required to get modernity really off the ground in Homo sapiens . Content Type Journal Article Pages 115-124 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9286-y Authors Krist Vaesen, Philosophy and Ethics, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    The time is ripe for a greater interrogation of assumptions and commitments underlying an emerging common ground on the ethics of animal research as well on the 3 R (replacement, refinement, reduction) approach that parallels, and perhaps even further shapes, it. Recurring pressures to re-evaluate the moral status of some animals in research comes as much from within the relevant sciences as without. It seems incredible, in the light of what we now know of such animals as chimpanzees, to deny that these animals are properly accorded high moral status. Barring the requirement that they be human, it is difficult to see what more animals such as chimpanzees would have to possess to acquire it. If the grounds for ascribing high moral status are to be non-arbitrary and responsive to our best knowledge of those individuals who possess the relevant features, we should expect that a sound ethical experimental science will periodically reassess the moral status of their research subjects as the relevant knowledge demands. We already can observe this reassessment as scientists committed to humane experimental science incorporate discoveries of enrichment tools and techniques into their housing and use of captive research animals. No less should this reassessment include a critical reflection on the possible elevation of moral status of certain research animals in light of what is discovered regarding their morally significant properties, characteristics or capacities, or so I will argue. To do anything short of this threatens the social and moral legitimacy of animal research. Content Type Journal Article Pages 73-93 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9291-1 Authors Andrew Fenton, Department of Philosophy, California State University-Fresno, 2380 East Keats Ave., M/S MB105, Fresno, CA 93740-8024, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    Social scientific and humanistic research on synthetic biology has focused quite narrowly on questions of epistemology and ELSI. I suggest that to understand this discipline in its full scope, researchers must turn to the objects of the field—synthetic biological artifacts—and study them as the objects in the making of a science yet to be made. I consider one fundamentally important question: how should we understand the material products of synthetic biology? Practitioners in the field, employing a consistent technological optic in the study and construction of biological systems, routinely employ the mantra ‘biology is technology’. I explore this categorization. By employing an established definition of technological artifects drawn from the philosophy of technology, I explore the appropriateness of attributing to synthetic biological artifacts the four criteria of materiality, intentional design, functionality, and normativity. I then explore a variety of accounts of natural kinds. I demonstrate that synthetic biological artifacts fit each kind imperfectly, and display a concomitant ontological ‘messiness’. I argue that this classificatory ambivalence is a product of the field’s own nascence, and posit that further work on kinds might help synthetic biology evaluate its existing commitments and practices. Content Type Journal Article Pages 29-48 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9288-9 Authors Pablo Schyfter, Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Y2E2 Building, MC 4201, 473 Via Ortega, Stanford, CA 94305, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 1

Description:    Homeostatic property clusters (HPCs) are offered as a way of understanding natural kinds, especially biological species. I review the HPC approach and then discuss an objection by Ereshefsky and Matthen, to the effect that an HPC qua cluster seems ill-fitted as a description of a polymorphic species. The standard response by champions of the HPC approach is to say that all members of a polymorphic species have things in common, namely dispositions or conditional properties. I argue that this response fails. Instances of an HPC kind need not all be similar in their exhibited properties. Instead, HPCs should instead be understood as unified by the underlying causal mechanism that maintains them. The causal mechanism can both produce and explain some systematic differences between a kind’s members. An HPC kind is best understood not as a single cluster of properties maintained in stasis by causal forces, but as a complex of related property clusters kept in relation by an underlying causal process. This approach requires recognizing that taxonomic systems serve both explanatory and inductive purposes. Content Type Journal Article Pages 857-870 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9284-0 Authors P. D. Magnus, Department of Philosophy, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY 12222, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 6

Description:    This paper distinguishes between causal isolation robustness analysis and independent determination robustness analysis and suggests that the triangulation of the results of different epistemic means or activities serves different functions in them. Circadian clock research is presented as a case of causal isolation robustness analysis: in this field researchers made use of the notion of robustness to isolate the assumed mechanism behind the circadian rhythm. However, in contrast to the earlier philosophical case studies on causal isolation robustness analysis (Weisberg and Reisman in Philos Sci 75:106–131, 2008 ; Kuorikoski et al. in Br J Philos Sci 61:541–567, 2010 ), robustness analysis in the circadian clock research did not remain in the level of mathematical modeling, but it combined it with experimentation on model organisms and a new type of model, a synthetic model. Content Type Journal Article Pages 773-791 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9279-x Authors Tarja Knuuttila, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 A), 00014 Helsinki, Finland Andrea Loettgers, California Institute of Technology, 1200 E. California Blvd., MC 114-96, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    Thinking about organisms as if they were rational agents which could choose their own phenotypic traits according to their fitness values is a common heuristic in the field of evolutionary theory. In a 1998 paper, however, Elliott Sober has emphasized several alleged shortcomings of this kind of analogical reasoning when applied to the analysis of social behaviors. According to him, the main flaw of this heuristic is that it proves to be a misleading tool when it is used for predicting the evolution of cooperation. Here, I show that these charges raised against the heuristic use of this analogy are misguided. I argue, contra Sober, that such a heuristic turns out to be a perfect predictive tool in all relevant contexts where cooperation can at least evolve. Moreover, I argue that it constitutes a powerful and sufficient methodological framework for the analysis of social evolution. Content Type Journal Article Pages 697-715 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9276-0 Authors Johannes Martens, IHPST, Paris 1 Sorbonne-University, 13 rue du Four, Paris, 75006 France Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 5

Description:    In this paper I distinguish and characterize two strategies, both prominent in contemporary biology, for investigating the evolution of behavior. The ‘Lorenzian Strategy’ is taxon-focused, holistic, and particularistic, and relies heavily on naturalistic observation as well as careful experimental manipulation of target systems; it tends to produce detailed knowledge of concrete historical instances of the evolution of behavior in particular lineages. The ‘Analytic Strategy’ is principle-focused, generative, and taxonomically universal; it relies on the development of mathematical principles (simple analytic models) of the evolution of behavior at an abstract level, and uses experimentation to garner support for the empirical relevance for these. The strategies hence employ different methods and produce different sorts of knowledge, hence they are neither inconsistent nor redundant, but complementary, and indeed they both play important roles in the contemporary biology of animal behavior. Content Type Journal Article Pages 871-889 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9287-x Authors Michael Trestman, Davis, CA, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 26 Journal Issue Volume 26, Number 6

Description:    Stem cell biology and systems biology are two prominent new approaches to studying cell development. In stem cell biology, the predominant method is experimental manipulation of concrete cells and tissues. Systems biology, in contrast, emphasizes mathematical modeling of cellular systems. For scientists and philosophers interested in development, an important question arises: how should the two approaches relate? This essay proposes an answer, using the model of Waddington’s landscape to triangulate between stem cell and systems approaches. This simple abstract model represents development as an undulating surface of hills and valleys. Originally constructed by C. H. Waddington to visually explicate an integrated theory of genetics, development and evolution, the landscape model can play an updated unificatory role. I examine this model’s structure, representational assumptions, and uses in all three contexts, and argue that explanations of cell development require both mathematical models and concrete experiments. On this view, the two approaches are interdependent, with mathematical models playing a crucial but circumscribed role in explanations of cell development. Content Type Journal Article Pages 179-213 DOI 10.1007/s10539-011-9294-y Authors Melinda Bonnie Fagan, Department of Philosophy, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA Journal Biology and Philosophy Online ISSN 1572-8404 Print ISSN 0169-3867 Journal Volume Volume 27 Journal Issue Volume 27, Number 2