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Anchoring Values In Nature: Toward A Theory of Business Values 1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

William C. Frederick
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Abstract

The dominant values of the business system—economizing and power-aggrandizing—are manifestations of natural evolutionary forces to which sociocultural meaning has been assigned. Economizing tends to slow life-negating entropic processes, while power-aggrandizement enhances them. Both economizing and power-aggrandizing work against a third (non-business) value cluster— ecologizing—which sustains community integrity. The contradictory tensions and conflicts generated among these three value clusters define the central normative issues posed by business operations. While both economizing and ecologizing are antientropic and therefore life-supporting, power augmentation, which negates the other two value clusters, is pro-entropic and therefore life-defeating. Business ethicists, by focusing on the contradictions between personal values, on the one hand, and both economizing and power-aggrandizing, on the other hand, have tended to overlook the normative significance of nature-based value systems. Learning to reconcile economizing and ecologizing values is the most important theoretical task for business ethicists.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 283 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 1992

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References

Notes

1 A condensed version of this paper was presnted as the presidential address to the Society for Business Ethics, Miami Beach, Florida, August 10, 1991.

2 Michael Hoffman, W., “Business and Environmental Ethics,” Business Ethics Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 2 (April 1991), pp. 169–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 The account given here is only a partial view of a more comprehensive theory of business values. This paper outlines the principal theoretical framework—the conceptual infrastructure, so to speak—but does not carry the analysis very far into the precincts of everyday business behavior. These latter features are given fuller treatment in the more comprehensive version.

4 Milton, Rokeach, The Nature of Human Values (New York: Free Press, 1973).Google Scholar

5 Clyde, Kluckhohn, “Values and Value Orientations in the Theory of Action,” in Talcott, Parsons and Shils, E. A. (eds.), Toward a General Theory of Action (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), pp. 388–433.Google Scholar

6 John, Dewey, “Theory of Valuation,” in Otto, Neurath (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, vol. II, no. 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939), published separately as a monograph.Google Scholar

7 This view is not equivalent to a simplistic Social Darwinian concept of evolutionary process whereby only those features survive that prove to be the “fittest.” Natural selection does indeed produce such outcomes but that is not the entire story. Morphological and behavioral variation and diversity of flora and fauna appear also as a function of genetic mutations, environmental changes, and—in the case of humans—cultural intervention. The evolutionary process that extrudes values is not predetermined or teleological nor is it destined to produce an ideal or satisfactory outcome. In fact, quite contrary to the rigidities of Social Darwinian thought, evolutionary process is remarkably open, variable, and highly probabilistic. For that reason, values extruded by it tend to reflect these diverse characteristics. For a discussion, see Konrad, Z. Lorenz, The Foundations of Ethology (English translation by Konrad, Z. Lorenz and Robert, Warren Kickert, [New York and Wien: Springer-Verlag, 1981], pp. 22–33ff).Google Scholar Lorenz has remarked in another place that “Life itself is a steady state of enormous general improbability …”, Evolution and Modification of Behavior (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), p. 32.Google Scholar

8 Presenting these values as linear lists, as in Exhibit 2, is problematical and potentially misleading as to their relationship with each other. Showing each cluster as an evolving dynamic helix or corkscrew, with intricate feedback loops, would more accurately capture their unstable, probabilistic, nonlinear, and non-teleological nature. It would also permit showing the possibility of disintegration of the helical relationship, which is fully capable of occurring at each point in each respective value matrix. Both reinforcing and disintegrative forces operate within each helix, making value stability within business a highly uncertain condition.

9 Economizing, in a sense, is a manifestation of the first law of thermodynamics because it consists largely of the transformation of energy and matter from one form to another, neither creating nor destroying any in the process. Entropy, on the other hand, is an expression of the second law of thermodynamics which operates even while economizing is occurring and in contradiction of its beneficial effects.

10 Stanley, W. Angrist and Loren, G. Hepler, Order and Chaos: Laws of Energy and Entropy (New York: Basic Books, 1974);Google Scholar and Daniel, R. Brooks and Wiley, E. O., Evolution as Entropy: Toward a Unified Theory of Biology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).Google Scholar

11 The remarkable, revolutionary theoretical and empirical work that has established—just within the past quarter century—the possibility of the simultaneous existence of entropy and these counteracting, life-sustaining processes is summarized in Peter, Coveney and Roger, Highfield, The Arrow of lime (London: W. H. Allen, 1990),Google Scholar especially Chapters 5, 6, and 7. Those interested in elucidating ethics and values in the business realm might want to heed the authors’ statement that “theory which cannot accommodate this facet of time must inevitably be barren when it comes to describing whole parts of the real world.” (p. 219).

12 Most, and certainly the most fundamental, processes that allow economizing to proceed in humans are genetically encoded, taking the form of involuntary processes that operate according to DNA instructions. These include the digestive system (literally an input-output process), the heart-lung-circulatory system (also input-output), the immune system (to defend the integrity of the whole), the nervous system (to coordinate and defend), ovarian function (egg production, fertilization, gestation, lactation, menstruation, menopause), sexual stimulus-response and function (arousal, erection, insemination), the muscular and skeletal structures, the diurnal pattern of waking and sleeping, and other such functional processes. Each of these, we have learned, can be affected positively or negatively by an overlay of socip-cultural instructions and supplements. These latter condition, but do not substitute for or eliminate, the gene-based instructions embedded in a person's DNA.

13 This is not to say that any particular form or system of economy—for example, a Western-style free market system—reflects only nature and is therefore unassailable because created by the laws of nature. All economic systems, of whatever character, are a blend of nature-based economizing processes and cultural custom. Any economic system is an overlay of culture on nature, usually reflecting a society's prevailing system of power and priviledge. The best historical account of the relationship of economy and culture is found in the work of Karl, Polanyi, especially The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944),Google Scholar where Chapters 4 and 5 and items VI and VII in Notes on Sources are particularly enlightening.

14 While aggrandizement and growth may occur simultaneously, they need not. A company may become larger, through internal expansion or by merger or acquisition, without experiencing an increase in productive output; and a company may grow more productive without becoming larger. Aggrandizement frequently comes closer to explaining corporate mergers than does growth since the latter often does not occur with or following a merger and since many mergers thought to have been made in an economizing heaven lead rather to the divorce courts. For a discussion of the internal executive psychodynamics that drive some merger decisions, see Diane, L. Swanson, “Dysfunctional Conglomerates: A Dynamic Model of Dysfunctional Organizational States,” (Research Paper 91-05, Business Government, and Society Research Institute, Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh, June 1991).Google Scholar

15 This story has been told in all of its devastating detail by Robert, Jackall in Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988).Google Scholar An equally riveting account has been given by Howard, Schwartz in Narcissistic Process and Corporate Decay: The Theory of the Organizational Ideal (New York: New York University Press, 1990).Google Scholar See also Charles, M. Kelly, The Destructive Achiever: Power and Ethics in the American Corporation (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1988).Google Scholar

16 Irenaus, Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989), p. 719.Google Scholar

17 Konrad, Lorenz, The Waning of Humaneness (Boston: Little Brown, 1983, 1987), p. 141.Google Scholar

18 For an account of patriarchy's appearance and spread, see Gerda, Lemer, The Creation of Patriarchy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar Successive waves of cultural evolution over many millenia appear to have added a veritable multitude of power permutations to the simple melding of rudimentary patriarchy with gene-based aggressive power. The extent to which partiarchy owes a debt to genetically encoded male aggression is an open, intriguing question.

19 George England, in a prescient empirical study of the 1960s, differentiated between the “operative values” and “intended values” held by corporate managers. The former directed decisions compatible with the firm's goals, while the latter were personal value commitments that tended to be submerged and subordinated to organizational needs and disciplines. Both of these value categories, but especially the one labeled “intended values,” capture the meaning of X-factor values. See George, W. England, “Personal Value Systems of American Managers,” Academy of Management Journal, vol. 10 (1967), pp. 53–68.Google Scholar

20 The boundaries and substantive content of any given X-factor box would normally be set by the firm's host society, but such a boundary can be breached by intruders from other societies who carry somewhat different values. Other value dissonances and variations in any given X-factor box can arise from personal intellectual exploration and philosophical speculation. So, the bounded nature of X-factor boxes is by no means absolute.

21 For a discussion of the various contradictions and inconsistencies one sometimes finds between corporate strategy and the X-factor values of employees, see Edward Freeman, R. and Daniel, R. Gilbert Jr., Corporate Strategy and the Search for Ethics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1988).Google Scholar

22 The horizon of ecological awareness my be quite ancient in human affairs. A “respect for nature” is said to have been a trait of many cultures in the past, often expressed through religious ritual and beliefs. These stories may be exaggerated and give too much credit for ecological balance. It also becomes difficult to distinguish between mere sentimental attachment to “nature” and a conscious awareness of ecological linkages that have adaptive significance for human communities; the two are sometimes confused by retrospective historical or anthropological analysis.

23 The severest form of this position is found in Richard, Dawkins' book, The Selfish Gene (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).Google Scholar He argues that the unit of evolution is the gene, not the individual life form that carries the gene. In this view, genes replicate themselves within an arena of natural selection; successive generations of genes are thus selected for adaptation and survival. The argument is important for genetic theorists but does not appear to be central to the point of view being developed here, unless one might wish to think of an individual life-unit (a plant, animal, or human) as an ecological community of genes. This latter interpretation would not disturb or invalidate the notion of ecologizing values that is being developed here; it would simply reconceptualize those values as operating at a genetic, as contrasted with an individual life-unit level of analysis. Such a shift strains the normal usage of the term “value.” See also Richard, Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype: The Gene as the Unit of Selection (Oxford: W. H. Freeman, 1982).Google Scholar The question of priority as between economizing and ecologizing remains an open one, for a case might be made also that rudimentary organization, a process that underlies and sustains all ecological relationships, can arise at a very early point in the emergence of entropically-affected systems. Several examples and a discussion are contained in Coveney and Highfield, op. cit., Chapters 6 and 7.

24 “Nature” of course, “does” nothing whatsoever. This quaint usage is but a mythopoeic remnant of earlier times, comparable to similar anthropomorphizing of the planets, sun, moon, wind, tides, and other features thought to possess human-like qualities, Unable to comprehend cosmic processes for what they are, humans have apparently found some psychological comfort in imputing human (teleological) meaning to them. This ancient habit of thought is reflected in the language forms used here, although there is no intention to encourage or perpetuate the philosophy that gave rise to such usage. For the distinctive traits of mythopoeic reasoning, see Henri, Frankfort, Frankfort, H. A., John, A. Wilson, and Thorkild, Jacobsen, Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1949),Google Scholar original edition: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1946).Google Scholar

25 Garrett, Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, vol. 162 (1968), pp. 1243–1248;Google Scholar and Garrett, Hardin, “Second Thoughts on ‘The Tragedy of the Commons,’” in Day, H. E. (ed.), Economics, Ecology, Ethics (San Francisco: Freeman, 1980).Google Scholar

26 For some theorists, they speak only to individual persons. See Manuel, Velasquez, “Why Corporations Are Not Morally Responsible for Anything They Do,” Business and Professional Ethics Journal, vol. 2, no. 3 (Spring 1983), pp. 1–13.Google Scholar This is not to say that business ethicists do not acknowledge or show awareness of social magnitudes, as when social contract theories, notions of social justice, and various social problems are analyzed. The work of Thomas Donaldson, Norman Bowie, and Richard DeGeorge is ample evidence of this kind of social awareness. Nevertheless, long-established intellectual traditions in the field tend to bias analysis toward concern for the individual person.