2018-06-20, Nathan, Ganesh

Meaningfulness work has been gaining significance since the beginning of the 21st Century. This paper attempts to clarify the meaning of meaningful work as a moral issue and how it is linked to employee’s well‐being by introducing a concept of ‘employeeship’ to bring dignity at workplace. It critiques work-life balance and argues for integrating meaningful work within the work-life continuum. Employee engagement has recently become a significant topic both within human resources management consultancy and academic research. However, there are many different meanings associated with employee engagement and a variety of factors have been identified and proposed for employee engagement. These factors although may contribute to meaningfulness of work, meaningful activity is not clearly liked to well‐being. Therefore, this paper shows the link between meaningful activity and well‐being and argues for the just context rooted in self-respect to bring employees’ dignity at workplace. It introduces a concept of ‘employeeship’ and shows the importance of normative context of well‐being. It conceptualizes employeeship for ‘self‐leading’ which is constituted by autonomy, ownership and responsibility. Leadership without counterpart of employeeship can lead to undermining employees’ dignity through depriving their self-respect. This paper further attempts to show that the minimal and common conditions of freedom as non‐domination and recognition for employeeship can lead to skilful performance of employees facing fair challenges. Based on these conceptual understanding, this paper briefly discusses some implications for management in terms of leadership and concludes with further research directions in this important topic of interest.

2016-06-10, Nathan, Ganesh

There is growing interest and importance for responsible research and innovation (RRI) among academic scholars and policy makers, especially, in relation to emerging technologies such as nanotechnology. It is also to be noted, although design thinking approach has been around since 1960s, there is renewed interest in this approach to innovation with increasing number of related publications over the last couple of decades. It is also currently introduced in a number of schools and community projects. This paper attempts to show that design thinking approach is potentially conducive to ethical (responsible) innovation due to its emphasis on human centred design. This paper first introduces why we should be concerned about ethical aspects of technological innovation. Then it shows why these problems pose challenges and constraints to address them. Following this section, it discusses about the shortcomings of linear innovation process models and introduces an improved circular innovation process model to embed ethical decision-making taking into consideration both internal and external stakeholders and networks at organizational level. However, many emerging technologies may introduce ethical issues at machine level; for example: autonomous vehicles, drones and next generation robotics. These concerns have been increasingly addressed by the emerging new field of machine ethics. However, it is important to integrate both ethical-decision making at organizational level on innovation process and machine ethics. From this perspective, this paper introduces design thinking approach to innovation and attempts to demonstrate that it is potentially conducive to ethical (responsible) technological innovation. It concludes with potential benefits and challenges with some directions for further research. ‘Technologies can be not only contentious – overthrowing existing ways of doing things – but also morally contentious – forcing deep reflection on personal values and societal norms’ (Cole & Banerjee, 2013; quoted in Nathan, 2014). Technological innovations can have undesirable consequences for society and environment. Just to give some examples: DDT as pesticide; the pharmaceutical thalidomide, prescribed as morning sickness treatment for pregnant women; chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used as refrigerants and propellants; etc. (Bessant, 2013; Nathan, 2014). These examples illustrate that organizational level decision-making during innovation process can have impacts on the linkages at macro level towards the market within socio-cultural-political-ecological context (see Hanekamp, 2010; Nathan, 2014). Furthermore, it is plausible to argue that many innovation decision-making processes have been blind to ethical impacts and concerns – ‘innovation ethical blindness’ (Nathan, 2014) and these can have economic impacts as well. For example, the Dutch government had to cancel the EPRS (Electronic Patient Record System) due to unresolved privacy issues after the investment of 300 million Euros over a 15-year period and the initiative to introduce smart electricity meters in every household within the Netherlands was also rejected by the upper house of the Dutch parliament due to privacy concerns after some years of R&D efforts (Van den Hoven, 2013; also Nathan, 2015). From social constructivism perspective, reality is socially constructed and technological innovations shapes this reality; however, this reality raises many ethical concerns and dilemmas (Nathan, 2014). For example, social media raises ethical issues of cyber bullying and infringement on privacy and installation of surveillance cameras in public places introduces ethical dilemma of public safety versus privacy concerns. Technological innovations can be supportive to new constructive possibilities or can be exploitative for destructive purposes by actors within the technological field; for example, 3D printer can be used for reconstructive surgery and to make prototypes for architectural designs; however, 3D printer could also be used to print hand guns. Therefore, it is also important to consider moral contestation through exploitation that can have impacts on other intersecting fields (Cole & Banerjee, 2013; Nathan, 2014). Emerging technologies in many forms can introduce ethical concerns and dilemmas that are predictable as well as most critically less predictable ones (Matter, 2011; Nathan, 2014 & 2015). These emerging technologies such as ICT and nanotechnology can converge into new forms of converging technologies such as nanomedicine and nanopharmacy that may introduce ethical dilemmas and concerns; these may be hard to predict at the early stages of innovation and to resolve them at later stages (Nathan, 2015). These new forms of technologies may raise some fundamental ethical questions such as how we should understand human identity and dignity. The above examples lead us to ask: what are the challenges and constraints in addressing these ethical concerns? Some of the problems may be considered as wicked problems. These are ill-formulated or ill-structured with confusing information along with contradicting or conflicting values among those stakeholders such as decision-makers and customers or end users; moreover, requirements may be changing and dynamic and therefore ramifications can be confusing (Buchannan, 1992). Furthermore, it is also complicated with Collingridge dilemma; as already briefly mentioned, some of the ethical concerns and dilemmas may not be obvious and predictable at the early stages of innovation process and by the time they become clearer, it may be too late to remedy them due to technological lock-in (Collingridge, 1980; Nathan, 2015). Another challenge that one may face is moral overload; even if one identifies those ethical dilemmas it may be difficult to resolve those conflicting moral obligations or values or to implement them at the same time (Van den Hoven, 2013; also Nathan, 2015). So the next question is what sort of innovation process models may be suitable to address the above mentioned challenges and constraints? There are variety of innovation process models such as traditional –stage-gate and funnel phased approach– as well as open innovation model; however, these are all linear innovation process models (Nathan, 2015). These models simplify complex innovation processes in order to emphasize critical innovation elements and stages. A simplified innovation process model consists of critical stages: searching for innovation opportunities, selecting the most suitable or viable ones and then implementing them for capturing the benefits in the market (Tidd and Bessant, 2009 & 2013). However, it is a linear progressive stage model that may not be suitable for wicked problems that require iterations with progressive and regressive processes. Furthermore, these models do not explicitly integrate ethical-decision making at each stage to identify potential ethical concerns and dilemmas among various stakeholders. Most importantly, as it is a linear open ended model, there is no explicit feedback loop to capture any unpredictable ethical concerns as early as possible following the launch of products and services in order to re-evaluate and take back these issues through the innovation process stages to rectify and to re-launch or to terminate those products or services (see Nathan, 2015). However, this simplified model could be modified as a circular innovation process model embedding ethical decision-making incorporating internal and external stakeholders at the organizational level (Nathan, 2015). A stakeholder map identifying all stakeholders, their interests along with ethical concerns and dilemmas as well as their rights and responsibilities may enable us to embed ethical decision-making within the innovation process at the organizational level; this framework could also integrate multiple perspectives and systems thinking approach (Nathan, 2015). However, new forms of emerging and converging technologies may be problematic to embed moral code into intelligent autonomous machines such as drones, next generation robots and autonomous transport vehicles. These problems have fostered growing interest in the emerging field of machine ethics over the last decade (Anderson & Anderson, 2006). Building ethical robots is a challenge; embedding rule based ethical decision-making in predictable situations may not be effective in unpredictable situations and enabling machine-learning to make ethical decisions in new situations may create a problem of trust (Deng, 2015). Against the above background, this paper attempts to explore the potential application of design thinking approach. Design thinking has been around since 1960s. However, design movement evolution can be traced back to 1980s with cognitive reflections towards user centred design to service design towards human centred design in 2000; from 2010 onwards, the movement has evolved to design thinking with approaches to experience design and creative class (Curedale, 2013). Design thinking may be understood in many different ways with some core attributes; there is no single definition for design thinking and in fact defining design thinking may defeat the very essence of it. The core elements of design thinking approach to innovation are technology, business and most importantly human. It is not about consumer or customer centred; rather it is about human centred and from this perspective it is not about existing or target customers. Therefore, it can also take into consideration potential new customers. However, I would add that these need to be contextualized within the social and ecological environment as these elements invariably interact with the environment and ethical concerns may arise due to these interactions. IDEO has popularized design thinking to innovation with a simplified model consisting of six critical elements: understand, observe, point of view, ideate, prototype and test with iterative feedback processes. The core attributes of design thinking approach are: ambiguity, collaborative, constructive, curiosity, empathy, holistic, iterative, non-judgemental and open mindset (Curedale, 2013). It appears that some of these core attributes may be conducive to address the ethical problematic context. These core attributes are integrated with certain design thinking principles such as: action oriented, comfortable with change, human centric, integrates foresight, a dynamic constructive process, promotes empathy, reduces risks and creates meaning (Mootee, 2013). Again, we can see that these principles appear to be conducive to address ethical challenges to technological innovation. Design thinking approach could be integrated with multiple perspectives and system thinking approach to embed ethical decision-making. This paper attempts to show that this path could potentially address ethical challenges in technological innovation and provides some directions for further research.

2015-05, Nathan, Ganesh

Mainly based on the article published: Nathan, G. 2015. A non‐essentialist model of culture: Implications of identity, agency and structure within multinational/multicultural organizations, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 15(1): 101‐124

2014-06, Nathan, Ganesh

Innovation governance models, dealing in general with organizational structure, innovation process, strategy and leadership, are becoming increasingly important for innovative companies within the changing complexity of innovation ecosystems. Traditionally, governance is related to risk management and corporate governance is concerned with the rules and conduct of management to minimize risks to shareholders. With the increasing importance of ethical concerns and issues of governance in general, and in particular with technological innovations for responsible innovation (Owen et al., 2013), this paper focuses on the need for technological innovation processes to embed an ethical decision-making framework with a view to responsible innovation governance.

2017-07-03, Nathan, Ganesh

Power discrepancies, especially, asymmetrical power relations among cultural contexts manifest on multiple levels (organizational, societal, national and international etc.) along with identity (critical diversity) markers whether they are biological (gender, sexuality, age, race etc.) and/or socio-cultural (religion, language, ethnicity, nationality of origin, social status etc.). However, it is not very clear how power is conceptualized within Critical Cross-Cultural Management Studies. Cultural models with essentialist characteristics such as Hofstede’s model of culture tend to reproduce those asymmetrical power relations and reinforce those stereotypic distinctions of otherness (Nathan, 2015). In this paper, an approach to conceptualization of power drawing from sociological and political theories is presented and discussed. It is mainly from the works of Nathan (2010) in which he argues that asymmetrical power relations arise due to three basic social facts: i. human diversity is inevitable; i.e. we differ in our multiple intersecting identities and capabilities in pursuing our complex of purposes; ii. we live in an ethical plural society; i.e. we differ in our ideas and lived experiences of what is a good life for us; and iii. we are interdependent (including intergenerational) in pursuing our complex of purposes. These were derived from Dilthey’s social interactionism (see Nathan, 2010). These basic social facts invariably introduce asymmetrical power relations even within liberal democratic societies for social participation and engagement. In this regard, we need to move away from explaining culture from essentialist perspectives to non-essentialist perspectives in order to understand the meanings of those who participate in the social world from their viewpoints but not from an observer’s interpretation (Nathan, 2015). Moreover, identities need to be understood as multiple intersecting collective identities as well as personal ones instead of giving priority to a singular notion of identity. Meanings and identities may change over time and therefore it is also important to understand the dynamic nature of these attributes and resist reifying meanings of those identities and ossify individuals in their identities. This paper attempts to show how power may be conceived from sociological and political theoretical perspectives and then show the implications of asymmetrical power relations within critical CCM. Finally, it attempts to show how we may overcome certain power structures within organizational and political settings.

2015-11-05, Nathan, Ganesh

This paper attempts to explore whether there is a role for business in effectively contributing to the implementation of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine through the links between guiding principles of business and human rights which endorses Ruggie’s framework of respect, protect and remedy and the UN global compact within the umbrella term of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In response to the failures of preventing mass atrocities in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo, despite having many conventions and charter on human rights, R2P framework was originally devised by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty in 2001 and later adapted by the UN (Alleblas, 2015). R2P was also pointed out as a necessity in the case of Syria crisis (Williams et al. 2012). It is a challenging doctrine with regard to intervention in the sovereignty of the state on mass atrocities. Although R2P acknowledges that the primary responsibility lies with the state, it also calls for other non-state actors of international community, including private businesses, to play a role in preventing mass atrocities within the state. There are practical examples to illustrate how private business could contribute to preventing mass atrocities such as Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) (Alleblas, 2015). However, there is no clear guidance on how and why should private business actors contribute to R2P obligations. There are many research articles on conflict prevention and business; moreover, there is some correlation between conflict prevention and prevention of mass atrocities. However, further research is required on the importance of business and R2P in relation to the guiding principles on business and human rights framework which was recognized by the UN Human Rights Council in 2011 and the UN Global Compact (UNGC).

2015, Nathan, Ganesh

This presentation is based on the forthcoming article: Nathan, G. 2015 (forthcoming). Innovation Process and Ethics in Technology: An approach to ethical (responsible) innovation governance, Journal on Chain and Network Science, Wageningen Academic Publishers; A special issue on Responsible Innovation

2017-06-15, Nathan, Ganesh

This paper attempts to clarify the meaning of meaningful work and how it is linked to employee’s well‐being and thereby suggests some managerial implications for leadership, organizational structure and employee engagement. First, it briefly shows the different kinds of work performed for both market‐based wages such as manual work and knowledge work and non‐wages work such as domestic work, charity work etc., and traces the value of work from Marxist to the capitalist perspectives. In doing so, this paper attempts to illustrate that many types of work have become a commodity and disconnected to the essence of being performed by human. Although this is not surprising as many of the manual and repetitive works are being replaced by robots, there are many types of work that are still performed by humans without much regard to their well‐being. The meaning of work is heavily emphasized on the economic value and neglects the social value along with how a meaning may be ascribed by an employee in terms of affective, cognitive and attitudinal aspects. Second, it attempts to identify leadership and organizational factors that affect employee engagement that can contribute to their meaningful work and well‐being. Employee engagement has recently become a significant topic both within human resources management consultancy and academic research. However, there are many different meanings associated with employee engagement and a variety of factors have been identified and proposed for employee engagement. These factors although may contribute to meaningfulness of work, meaningful activity is not clearly liked to well‐being. Therefore, third, this paper shows the link between meaningful activity and well‐being and raises the concept of ‘employeeship’. The idea here is not to develop a theory of well‐being or to reduce to a master value with a reductionist impulse to say ‘happiness’ per se or to any other values but to show the importance of normative context of well‐being and how a work consisting of meaningful activities for an employee can contribute to positive employee engagement and thereby contributing to their well‐being. Hence, employeeship for ‘self‐leading’, constituted by autonomy, ownership and personal responsibility, is advocated instead of leadership focused on employees to be led or to be managed as resources. This paper further attempts to show that some minimal and common conditions, freedom as non‐domination and recognition, for employeeship can lead to skilful performance of employees facing their fair challenges. Based on these conceptual understanding, this paper briefly discusses some implications for management in terms of leadership, organizational design and employee engagement and suggests further research both theoretical and empirical in this important topic of interest.

2015-10, Nathan, Ganesh

Corporate culture is too often equated with national culture without much regard to specific corporate culture that differ in many aspects from national culture; not all corporations have similar culture within a nation. Moreover, widely practised paradigm of 5-7-9 cultural dimensions (Hofstede (5), Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner (7) and GLOBE (9)) tends to essentialize national culture; such essentialist notions of culture in practice can lead to treating employees as ‘cultural dopes’ based on the nationality of origin suppressing their agency for change and choice with singular identity disregarding multiple intersecting and shifting identities in space and time (Nathan, 2015). This sort of treatment of employees can restrict employeeship constituted by autonomy, ownership and responsibility and encourage leadership subordinated to essentialist notions of culture. Employeeship can foster personal responsibility. Against this background, this workshop attempts to provide hands-on experience putting into practice of the non-essentialist model of culture presented by Nathan (2015), bringing together practitioners, towards an understanding corporate culture and fostering employeeship.

2014-09, Nathan, Ganesh

Technological Innovation, ethics and governance