Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T12:09:46.407Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Conditions of Our Freedom: Foucault, Organization, and Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Andrew Crane ,
David Knights  and
Ken Starkey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The paper examines the contribution of the French philosopher Michel Foucault to the subject of ethics in organizations. The paper combines an analysis of Foucault’s work on discipline and control, with an examination of his later work on the ethical subject and technologies of the self. Our paper argues that the work of the later Foucault provides an important contribution to business ethics theory, practice and pedagogy. We discuss how it offers an alternative avenue to traditional normative ethical theory that both converges and diverges with other extant alternatives. By situating ethics as practices of the self, and by demonstrating the conditions under which freedom in organizations can be exercised, Foucault’s ethics attempt to connect an understanding and critique of power with a personal project of self. He therefore provides a theory of subjectivity that potentially informs a reshaping of contemporary virtue ethics theory, value-based management, and business ethics teaching.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 299 - 320
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barsker, J. R., 1993. Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38: 408–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, I., 1966. The two faces of power. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Bernauer, J. W., & Rasmussen, D. (Eds.). 1994. The final Foucault. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Best, S., & Kellner, D. 1991. Postmodern theory: Critical interrogations. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burrell, G. 1988. Modernism, post-modernism and organizational analysis 2: The contribution of Michel Foucault. Organization Studies, 9(2): 221–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calàs, M. B., & Smircich, L., 1999. Past postmodernism? Reflections and tentative directions. The Academy of Management Review, 24: 649–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassell, C., Johnson, P., & Smith, K., 1997. Opening the black box: Corporate codes of ethics in their organizational context. Journal of Business Ethics, 16: 1077–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, A., & Garrick, J., 2002. Organization theory in turbulent times: The traces of Foucault’s ethics. Organization, 9(4): 683–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chikudate, N., 2002. Collective myopia and disciplinary power behind the scenes of unethical practices: A diagnostic theory on Japanese organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 39(3): 289–307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cordner, C., 2004. Foucault and ethical universality. Inquiry, 47: 580–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Danaher, G., Schirato, T., & Webb, J., 2000. Understanding Foucault. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Deetz, S., 1992. Disciplinary power in the modern corporation. In Alvesson, M. & Willmott, H. (Eds.), Critical management studies: 21–45. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Derrida, J., 1992. The gift of death, trans. David, Wills. Chicago: Univresity of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Elliott, A., 2001. Concepts of the self. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Ethical Corporation. 2006. Special Report on CSR in Europe’s business schools. Ethical Corporation, May, www.ethicalcorp.com.Google Scholar
Ezzy, D., 1997. Subjectivity and the labour process: Conceptualising “good work.” Sociology 31(3): 427–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, S., 2002. Memory as a moral decision: The role of ethics in organizational culture. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Flyvberg, B., 1998. Habermas and Foucault: Thinkers for civil society? British Journal of Sociology, 49(2): 210–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucault, M., 1979a. Discipline and punish. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1979b. The history of sexuality, volume 1: The will to knowledge. Harmond-sworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1982. The subject and power. In Dreyfus, H. L. & Rabinow, P., Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Brighton, Sussex Harvester Press, 208–26.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1985a. The history of sexuality, volume 2: The use of pleasure. Harmond-sworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1985b. Sexuality and solitude. In Blonsky, M. (Ed.), On signs: A semiotics reader. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1988a. The history of sexuality, volume 3: The care of the self. Harmonds-worth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1988b. Technologies of the self. In Martin, L. H., Gutman, H., & Hutton, P. (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault: 16–49. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1988c. Truth, power, self: An interview with Michel Foucault, October 25, 1982. In Martin, L. H., Gutman, H., & Hutton, P. (Eds.), Technologies of the self: A seminar with Michel Foucault: 9–15. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1994. The ethic of care for the self as a practice of freedom. In Bernauer, J. & Rasmussen, D. (Eds.), The Final Foucault. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, M.. 1997 Ethics: Subjectivity and truth. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Ghoshal, S. 2003. Business schools share the blame for Enron. Financial Times, July 18, 2003.Google Scholar
Ghoshal, S.. 2005. Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(3): 75–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, J., 1987. Some questions concerning the theory of power: Foucault again. The philosophical discourse of modernity: Twelve lectures (Lawrence, F., Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J.. 1990. Moral consciousness and communicative action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, J.. 1994. Three normative models of democracy. Constellations, 1(3): 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hiley, D. R., 1987. Power and values in corporate life. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(5): 343–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Infinito, J., 2003. Jane Elliot meets Foucault: The formation of ethical identities in the classroom. Journal of Moral Education, 32(3): 67–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jermier, J. M., Knights, D., & Nord, W. R. (Eds). 1994. Resistance and power in organizations. London: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar
Jones, C., 2003. As if business ethics were possible, “within such limits.” Organization, 10(2): 223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelemen, M., & Peltonen, T., 2001. Ethics, morality and the subject: The contribution of Zygmunt Bauman and Michel Foucault to “postmodern” business ethics. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 17(2): 151–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D., 1992. Changing spaces: The disruptive power of epistemological location for the management and organisational sciences. Academy of Management Review, 17(3): 514–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D.. 2002. Writing organization analysis into Foucault. Organization, 9(4): 575–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D., & Collinson, D., 1987. Disciplining the shopfloor: A comparison of the disciplinary effects of managerial psychology and financial accounting. Accounting, Organisations and Society, 12(5): 457–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knights, D., & McCabe, D., 2003 Organization and innovation: Guru schemes and American dreams. Milton Keynes: Open University Press/McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Knights, D., & Willmott, H., 1989. Power and subjectivity at work: From degradation to subjugation in social relations. Sociology, 23(4): 535–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolodny, N., 1996. The ethics of cryptonormativism: A defense of Foucault’s evasions. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 22(5): 63–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuna, M., 2005. Macintyre on tradition, rationality, and relativism. Res Publica, 11(3): 251–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, A., 1984. After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed.). Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maclagan, P., 2007. Hierarchical control or individuals’ moral autonomy? Addressing a fundamental tension in the management of business ethics. Business Ethics: A European Review, 16(3): 48–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markula, P. 2003. The technologies of the self: Sport, feminism, and Foucault. Sociology of Sport Journal, 20(2): 87–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, J. D., 1996. Michel Foucault: Personal autonomy and education. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, A., & Starkey, K., 1998. Foucault, management, and organization theory. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Moore, G., 2002. On the implications of the practice-institution distinction: MacIntyre and the application of modern virtue ethics to business. Business Ethics Quarterly, 12: 19–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, G. 2005. Humanizing business: A modern virtue ethics approach. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15: 237–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nehamas, A., 1998 The art of living. Socratic reflections from Plato to Foucault. Berekeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nietzsche, F., 1975. Beyond good and evil, trans. Hollingdale, R. J.. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, M., 1997 Cultivating humanity. A classical defense of reform in liberal education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Paine, L. S., 1994. Managing for organizational Integrity. Harvard Business Review (March–April): 106–17.Google Scholar
Paras, E., 2006. Foucault 2.0: Beyond power and knowledge. New York: Other Press.Google Scholar
Peter, E., Lunardi, V. L., & Macfarlane, A., 2004. Nursing resistance as ethical action: Literature review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 46: 403–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Posner, R. A., 2001. Public intellectuals: A study of decline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prado, C. G., 2000. Starting with Foucault: An introduction to genealogy (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Probyn, E., 1999. Beyond food sex: Eating and an ethics of existence. Theory Culture & Society, 16(2): 215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rabinow, P., (Ed.). 1984. The Foucault reader. Harmonsdsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rabinow, P.. 1997. Introduction: The history of systems of thought. In Foucault, M., Ethics: Subjectivity and truth, ed. Rabinow, P.. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Rajchman, J., 1991. Truth and eros: Foucault, Lacan, and the search for ethics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ransom, J. S., 1997 Foucault’s discipline. The politics of subjectivity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, R., 2006. Is philosophy relevant to applied ethics? Business Ethics Quarterly, 16: 369–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, S. B., & Buchholz, R. A., 2000. Rethinking business ethics: A pragmatic approach. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roth, J. 1992. Of what help is he? A review of “Foucault and Education” [Book Review]. American Educational Research Journal, 29(4): 683–94.Google Scholar
Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G., 2007. Toward a political conception of corporate responsibility: Business and society seen from a Habermasian perspective. Academy of Management Review, 32: forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, B., 1986. The battle for human nature. New York: Norton and Co.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M., 2000. Why ethical codes constitute an unconscionable regression. Journal of Business Ethics, 23: 173–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sewell, G., 1998. The discipline of teams: The control of team-based industrial work through electronic and peer surveillance. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43(2): 397–427.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sewell, G., & Wilkinson, B., 1992. Someone to watch over me: Surveillance, discipline and the JIT labour process. Sociology 26(2): 271–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, A., 1993. Approaches to organizational culture and ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 12: 63–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosteric, M., 1996. Subjectivity and the labour process: A case study in the restaurant industry. Work, Employment and Society, 10(2): 297–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stansbury, J., & Barry, B., 2007. Ethics programs and the paradox of control. Business Ethics Quarterly, 17: 239–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starkey, K., 1998. Durkheim and the limits of corporate culture: Whose culture? Which Durkheim? Journal of Management Studies, 35(2): 125–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starkey, K., & Tiratsoo, N., 2007. The business school and the bottom line. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Styhre, A., 2001. Kaizen, ethics, and care of the operations: Management after empowerment. Journal of Management Studies, 38(6): 795–810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sybylla, R. 2001. Hearing whose voice? The ethics of care and the practices of liberty: A critique. Economy and Society, 30(3): 66–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, P., & Ackroyd, S., 1995. All quiet on the workplace front? A critique of recent trends in British industrial sociology. Sociology, 29(4): 615–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townley, B., 1993. Foucault, power/knowledge, and its relevance for human resource management. Academy of Management Review, 18: 518–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treviño, L. K., Weaver, G. R., Gibson, D. G., & Toffler, B. L., 1999. Managing ethics and legal compliance: What works and what hurts. California Management Review, 41(2): 131–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vandekerckhove, W., & Commers, M. S. R., 2003. Downward workplace mobbing: A sign of the times? Journal of Business Ethics, 45(3): 41–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wain, K., 1996. Foucault, education, the self and modernity. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 30(3): 345–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, G. R., & Treviño, L. K., 1999. Compliance and values oriented ethics programs: Influences on employees’ attitudes and behavior. Business Ethics Quarterly, 9: 315–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werhane, P. H., 1998. Moral imagination and the search for ethical decision-making in management. Business Ethics Quarterly, Ruffin Series, 1: 75–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werhane, P. H., & Gorman, M., 2005. Intellectual property rights, moral imagination, and access to life-enhancing drugs. Business Ethics Quarterly, 15: 595–613.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed