Leadership Manipulation and Ethics in Storytelling

This article focuses on exerting influence in leadership, namely manipulation in storytelling. Manipulation is usually considered an unethical approach to leadership. We will argue that manipulation is a more complex phenomenon than just an unethical way of acting in leadership. We will demonstrate through an empirical qualitative study that there are various types of manipulation through storytelling. This article makes a contribution to the literature on manipulation through leadership storytelling, offering a more systematic empirical analysis and a more nuanced view of the topic than previously existed by outlining how managers engage in manipulative storytelling and what kind of ethics…

Kentältä kokemuksen kautta huipulle : narratiivinen tutkimus suomalaisten urheilujohtajien etenemisestä liikunnan ja urheiluhallinnon ylimpään johtoon

This study examines Finnish sport managers’ stories of their careers: how they had proceeded and what kinds of meanings they constructed in their stories. The data included interviews of sixteen Finnish operational and governmental managers from the top of Finnish sport administration. Four different story types were distinguished: the story of growth, drifting story, the story of coincidence and aspiration story. Sport managers’ stories illustrated at the individual level how the sport managers’ careers were constructed, but they also reflected the social reality and the wider sociocultural context of Finnish sport administration and management. Keywords: Sport manager, sport management, n…

Dark Leadership, Charisma and Trust

Trust, charisma and bad leadership are central concepts in the managerial psychology. The aim of this paper is try to put forth shortly some ideas to research these phenomena, and connections between them, empirically. Charismatic leaders have the power and the ability to manipulate and misguide people. To prevent this misbehaving, it is important to promote processes of transformative ethical leadership. Thus, commitment, value-congruence, and communality are in the play a key positions. Charismatic leaders could be weak persons with destructive narcissist power. Good management and leadership are also central factors influencing these processes. Destructive and narcissistic leaders are, o…

Ihmistieteelliset näkökulmat ja rinnakkaiset tulevaisuuspolut : katsaus metsäsuhdetutkimuksen kenttään

Ihmistieteelliset näkökulmat ovat lisääntyneet metsäsuhteiden tutkimuksessa viime vuosina. Tässä katsausartikkelissa esittelemme lyhyesti yhteiskuntatieteellisten, kulttuurintutkimuksellisten ja muiden ihmistieteellisten lähestymistapojen teoreettisia, käsitteellisiä ja empiirisiä sovelluksia. Ihmistieteelliset lähestymistavat tarjoavat metsiin ja tulevaisuuksiin liittyen näköaloja kestävyyssiirtymään ja tuovat esiin rinnakkaisten tulevaisuuspolkujen kirjon. The article introduces various theoretical, conceptual, and empirical approaches to human-forest relationship (HFR) research, a relatively new and broad field of multidisciplinary approaches to study the interactions and interfaces betw…

Apposition, contradiction, conflict and domination

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively describe and explain the contemporary Finnish discourse of municipal managers. The emphasis within is on analyzing the encounters of the public sector management discourse and the private sector management discourse, and the effects that these encounters have on the construction and representation of municipal management. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a three-phase discourse analysis, proceeding from the textual and linguistic level through interpretive analysis to critical analysis. This analysis is based on the proceedings and presentations of a seminar of municipal leadership and management, arranged in 2013 i…

Business and Leadership Ethics Conference – three current themes

Collects thoughts that emerged during the recent virtual conference, Business and Leadership Ethics. For the consumer, legislation often seems insufficient to control the activities of business and business suffers as a result. A company’s ethical stance is frequently as important as more traditional considerations like product, service and even pricing. Considers three themes as a basis for the ethical orientation of organizations. Postmodernism is important – after all, this new collective consciousness is largely responsible for the changing view of business that necessitates this study. Despite links with older business styles, competition can be used to shift the ethical base, provided…

Evolution of strategy narration and leadership work in the digital era

This paper examines the evolution of strategy narration, contributing to ongoing discussions in this field. Our empirical data, gathered from a large Finnish co-operative bank, cover three decades. According to our findings, digitalisation has brought about an epoch change in strategy narration, as top management has strongly adopted digital media in their leadership work, which has replaced ‘traditional’ face-to-face strategy meetings and public presentations by gatherings on digital platforms, including webcasting, intranet and Skype. This has brought about a leadership vacuum, and left organisational members long for their superiors to ‘exercise’ some traditional leadership practices, su…

From Scarcity to Abundance : Food Waste Themes and Virtues in Agrarian and Mature Consumer Society

Uusitalo and Takala address the food waste problem as a societal phenomenon and examine ethical virtues, values linked to them and food practices in two different time periods: agrarian society (1885–1917) and mature consumer society (2008–2017), in Finland. They use data from newspapers to uncover how ethical principles can underpin understanding of the food waste phenomenon. The study shows how the virtues adopted by food chain actors guide their practices towards sustainable ways of handling excess food. While societal themes of food waste are changing, virtues and food practices are changing as well, but some deep-rooted societal virtues and values persist. The chapter concludes with re…

Kuntien johtoryhmien kertomuksia työuupumuksesta

Burnout Narratives of Municipal Management Teams.This study aims to gain an understanding of personal experiences of burnout phenomenon among members of municipal management teams. Fourteen managers were interviewed. Four types of burnout narratives were iden-tified: denier, persevering, recovered and de-fender. These data were analysed using Labov & Walezky’s model of the structural types of narra-tive clauses. The analysis reveals similarities and differences of burnout experiences within each of the identified narrative types. Particularly, the study explores the role of workplace community in burnout recovery.

An alternative view of relationship marketing: a framework for ethical analysis

At present, a continuing widespread debate on the moral nature of business is widely recognized. However, it seems that the ethical evaluation of business practices is not very common in the area of relationship marketing. Analyses relationship marketing from the viewpoint of ethical theories. The theories applied are deontology, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and emotivism. Reviews and analyses studies on relationship marketing issues in order to construct a framework for the ethical analysis of relationship marketing principles. Finally presents a framework for ethical analysis in the form of a constructive solution. Includes a model or code of business ethics for relationship marketers. …

Power and strategic change in a multinational industrial corporation

PurposeThe aim of the study was to analyze the use of power in a strategic change process within a large forest industry company. The organization in question had a total of 7,700 employees, 6‐8 organizational levels, over 30 production units and a widespread international sales network. The study highlighted the organization's internal narration as an important element in the use of power. It started in conjunction with the appointment of the new management group and continued throughout the two‐year monitoring period, so that gradually all organizational layers were involved in interpreting their roles and positions in the new structure.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical data were c…

Antenarratives in Ongoing Strategic Change : Using the Story Index to Capture Daunting and Optimistic Futures

Strategic organizational change is a complex, future-oriented phenomenon that is critical for any organization. Traditional means of inquiry have struggled with the difficulty of capturing the future; thus, the methods for managing things to come remain scarce. In this chapter, we contribute to managing strategic change, and thereby the future of the organization, by developing the Story Index (SIX) method. The method facilitates a better understanding of how organizational change takes shape in the discursive reality before materializing in concrete terms. SIX is an analytical process combining antenarratives and narrative rationality to reveal the emerging meanings and rationales of chang…

Plato on leadership

Dark-side of Charisma: Elements of Irresponsible Management

Elements and concepts, and relations between them, of “bad” charisma are rather ambiguous, deserving closer examination. The aim of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework for several empirical studies on charisma. The means for better leadership are searched. This paper draws upon earlier research by the author as well as upon published works of other researchers. The study can be classifi ed as qualitative conceptual study. The nature of the research is explorative. The base for empirical studies are built. The study offers new information about the relation between charisma, good leadership, commitment, and follower-behavior - especially from the perspective of darkside of char…

The War Heroine in the Finnish Organization : Lotta Svärd

This paper focuses on a Finnish women’s paramilitary organization called ‘Lotta Svärd’ in a wartime context, from 1939 to 1944. During the Second World War, thousands of members of the organization served as volunteers with the Finnish Army. The primary data for this study consist of the organization’s magazine, Lotta Svärd, as well as archival documents stored in the Finnish War Document Archives. This study seeks to explore what kind of war heroine was constructed in Lotta Svärd. We found four representations of the heroine: Mother, Soldier, Body and Holy Sacrifice. While war histories are mainly written by men and for men, this study is intended to contribute to research by presenting wo…

Leaking legitimacies: the Finnish forest sector's entanglement in the land conflicts of Atlantic coastal Brazil

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to focus on the legitimacy problems faced by the Finnish forest industry in the Brazilian context, specifically from the perspective of the region's indigenous communities: the Tupinikim, the Guarani and the Pataxó.Design/methodology/approachThe method used is qualitative research with a case study approach. The empirical data are based on the fieldwork in the states of Espírito Santo and Bahia. The aim was to scrutinize the corporate tactics in gaining societal legitimacy, both in Brazil and in Finland; these were categorized into thematic groups.FindingsThe legitimacy of the Finnish companies becomes questionable due to the unethical tactics of their Brazil…

Individual, Collective and Social Responsibility of the Firm

The main concern of this paper is the moral responsibility of the firm, as well as of the individuals in a firm, to uphold environmental protection. Much of the business ethics literature defines corporate social responsibility in terms of stakeholder relationships, and the emphasis is frequently on collective as opposed to individual responsibility. This paper has three objectives. The first is to clarify the nature of moral responsibility, and the distinction between legal and moral responsibility. The second objective is to steer academicians and others towards a new vision of the firm. We argue that a firm is not just a singular legal entity but also a collectivity of morally responsibl…

The Finnish pulp and paper industry: a case study in media as stakeholder

Presents and analyses a current discourse surrounding social and environmental responsibility in the Finnish paper industry between 1970–1995. Addresses theoretical modes of social responsibility and related environmental issues. Media as forum for debate and discourse are described and the campaign to protect Finnish wild forestry is discussed. Implications for strategic communication theory and practice are considered.

Sivutoimisen tohtoriopiskelun kehykset kauppatieteissä - johtajat tohtoriputkessa ja opetushallinnon pyörteissä

On Denial of Individuals' or Organizational Activities : Decisionism Considered

The purpose of this article is to put forth some relevant, but complex, issues which still exist in modern ethics. I shall present axiology and deontology shortly. After this, I take a not so well-known ethical theory called decisionism into consideration. In this context, we are interested in the one burning ethical problem or phenomenon “Why prohibit or deny the action of an organization or association?” At the end of the paper, some considerations are provided to solve some issues of misbehaving, or to solve actual social problems like discrimination, abuse of workforce, or racial or gender-based discrimination. peerReviewed

Ethical Dilemmas in Finnish Debt Collection – An Explorative Case Study

It is inevitable that ethical questions arise in debt collection organizations and leadership, which is then good ground to identify whether debt collection is good or evil. Therefore we consider that a good standpoint for qualitatively explain the ethical dilemmas arising in our case study context. The article adopts a case study approach to examine Finnish Collection Agency Ltd., and applies a qualitative content analysis of interview data gathered by asking five employees to answer ten questions about how they see conflicts between their work and their own ethical thoughts. We obtained a rich description of the issues facing the debt collection business in Finland. In addition, the conce…

Racism and ethics in the globalized business world

This paper analyzes the concept of racism in the context of business ethics and globalization. It first introduces three ethical traditions to understand moral issues in business: deontological, utilitarian and virtue ethics. Then it discusses about the challenges and demands that globalization has set to multicultural and multinational business operations. Third, it clarifies how racism works when it is understood as an ideology‐based phenomenon. It argues that there is a great value of knowing how racism works for the development of an anti‐racist and nondiscriminating organization. Although any of the three traditions on ethical thinking does not give direct answer to the question of how…

Narratives as a tool to study personnel wellbeing in corporate mergers

This article presents the methodological solutions used in a study investigating personnel wellbeing in the context of mergers and acquisitions in the Nordic electricity business. There have happened rapid changes in working conditions in general and in the electricity business today in the Nordic countries as on a global scale. As a result, the notion of a secure job with the same employer lasting a whole lifetime career seems to have lost its meaning also in the Finnish electricity distribution sector. This has challenged the traditional idea of wellbeing. We wanted to see how a corporate integration is experienced by those whom it affects most: namely, personnel at different levels of th…

Ghostbusters! On the Narrative Creation of (Absent) Leader Characters

We seek to “bust out” ghost leaders, narrated leader(ship) characters manifesting leadership influence, to discuss the inherent challenges related to leaderless management. By taking the non-corporeal aspect of leadership into account, we challenge the notion of leaderless management—which we argue has turned out to be more of an inspiring and empowering idea rather than a standing practice. We illustrate, with a Finnish high-tech organization, how organizational members narrate leader characters into existence in the non-corporeal realm during an organizational change to fill the void of a corporeal leader. While organizations may declare themselves to be leaderless, they, in fact, are not…

Ownership, responsibility and leadership – a historical perspective

The aim of this article is to present the great lines of managerial thoughts concerning ownership, business, social responsibility and leadership. The perspective of consideration is historical, and especially conceptual. We noticed that in the twentieth century a modern business ideology began to take form. Old suppositions according to the classical economic theory about the nature of economic activities started to give way when the modern professional manager type came into the management of the firm. At that time also there developed the idea of the firm as an institution with many targets. The position of the firm in society changed, people started to make demands for a wider social re…

Näkökulmia valtaan karismaattisuuden ja tarinankerronnan valossa

USING THE METHOD OF NARRATIVE CHANGE ACCOUNTING IN THE RESEARCH OF A LARGE FOREST INDUSTRY COMPANY. POWER AND CHANGE IN FOCUS

The aim of the study was to analyze the use of power in a strategic change process within a large forest industry company. The organization in question had a total of 7 700 employees, 6–8 organizational levels, over 30 production units and a widespread international sales network.

Before and after: employees' views on corporate social responsibility: energy‐sector stakeholders in Nordic post‐merger integration

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to describe and qualitatively explain certain observations concerning corporate social responsibility from the personnel standpoint with special reference to various stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachThe observations were made in connection with earlier studies on organizational change. The paper draws on stakeholder thinking and offers a view regarding the way employees perceive business issues concerning CSR in relation to corporate stakeholder groups. Should a business give priority to the interests of its owners or take all stakeholder groups equally into account? How do employees see their own relations with other stakeholder groups, and do their v…

Organizational identity construction as a control mechanism

This study examines how identities become constructed and regulated during a strategic organizational change process. Planning and implementing a strategy is a social process, which consists of constructing, delivering, compelling, receiving, resisting and multiple contradicting meanings. The process includes multiple social factors influencing the strategy. The visions, notions, images, conceptions, assumptions and appreciation of members of an organization make the process dynamic and flexible. Thus, the strategy process is also always a matter of organizational change. By participating in the strategy process, the members produce meanings for the process and receive meanings produced som…

The development of mobile banking services in a large Finnish financial organization

The chapter, based on an ongoing qualitative study, provides answers to the following questions: what are the case organizations’ rationales in developing mobile banking services? how are customer perspectives considered in developing them? and what are the implications of digitalization and m-banking for the bank and the client? Based on the findings, m-banking is seen to allow ubiquitous availability and efficiency of service provision, offering a sound rationale for their development. The flipside is that digital and m-banking services dilute the human interaction, which challenges the rationale of improving the customer experience. The service development follows the software industry m…

Building interpersonal trust in business networks: enablers and roadblocks

Purpose - This study examines how interpersonal trust forms in business networks and anchors relationships. Trust can be seen as a required factor and enabler for co-creation that is needed when business models are created. This study draws on empirical data from a case study of a Finnish business network in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. It seeks to answer the research question: How does interpersonal trust start to develop at the business network level and how it can be supported? Design/ methodology/approach – This article draws on a case study of a Finnish business network which was developed through theme interviews and observation conducted in 2012. Findings - The findi…

Charismatic leadership: a key factor in organizational communication

Based on Plato's thinking, connects several aspects of communication and leadership theory to focus on charismatic leadership. Speculates on the application of Plato's ideas to managerial communication and makes recommendations.

Retailers' professional and professio-ethical dilemmas: The case of Finnish retailing business

The main purpose of this paper is to put forth the concept of ethics, present ethical theories and, finally, consider some business ethics issues in the context of retailing practices. In the first part of this paper we seek to motivate the research task. The importance of conducting ethical analysis is stressed. In the second part of the paper several ethical theories: utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics are presented. This part serves as a basis for research interviews, e.g. it is possible to examine retailers' opinions about their professional virtues, and try to position these opinions in relation with utilitarianism and deontology. In the third part the empirical findings abou…

Fyysinen tila strategian jalkauttamisen apuvälineenä

The relationship between organizational efciency and employee motivation has long been an object of interest in management and organization research. In other words, how can an organization improve its efciency by increasing its employees’ inner willingness to be productive? A noteworthy factor that organizations have not been able to utilize adequately in concretizing change is the physical space of the organization. Yet, physical space and related elements (e.g. colours and shapes) are among the most concrete features of an organization. If the space is so designed that it does not enable a change in work practices, it may become a limiting factor and decrease efciency. This is why it …

Managers’ Moral Struggle : A Case Study on Ethical Dilemmas and Ethical Decision-making in the Context of Immigration

This qualitative study explores the types of ethical dilemmas that Finnish managers working in reception centres for asylum seekers have encountered and whether the moral intensity of the ethical issues was observable in the ethical decision-making. It concludes that the majority of the managers interviewed encountered ethical dilemmas relating to the termination of reception services. The ethical dilemmas were stratified into seven groups: ambiguous or complete absence of relevant instructions, lack of support, conflicting values, withholding information, pressure, discretionary stress, and unjust decisions on asylum applications. In addition, various dimensions of moral intensity were obs…

(De)Stigmatization of Political Leadership : The Case of a Right-Wing Populist Presidential Candidate in the Finnish Media

In this article, we examine the discursive practices of (de)stigmatizing right-wing populist party leaders. We draw on a recent example from Finland by examining how the female presidential candidate of a right-wing populist party was portrayed in the Finnish media during the 2018 presidential campaign season. We examine the stigmatization by the press media and the stigma-management tactics used by the presidential candidate to resist stigmatization. The media representation of the right-wing party leader is highly tensioned, and the media positions her political leadership within the duality of charisma and stigma. In our analysis, we extend earlier literature by unveiling the emotional t…

Arvot suoritusmittareiden aiheuttamien ohjausjännitteiden hallinnassa suuressa osuustoiminnallisessa organisaatiossa

“Practicing care in qualitative organizational research: moral responsibility and legitimacy in a study of immigration management”

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the reciprocal relations between the caregiving imparted by immigration centre managers and the role of the researcher in responding to the care that is given by managerial caregivers. To enable this, we draw on a feminist theory of care ethics that considers individuals as relationally interdependent.Design/methodology/approachThe analysis draws on a semi-structured interview study involving 20 Finnish immigration reception centre managers.FindingsInsight is generated by reflecting on moments of care that arise between research participants and the researcher in a study of immigration centre management. We emphasise the importance…

Efficiency vs. values : Institutional logics, situated rationality, and performance measurement in a cooperative bank

This qualitative case study explores how situated rationality is achieved and maintained between two coexisting institutional logics, ‘global’ financial efficiency and ‘local’ customer-owners, around a performance measurement system in a large cooperative bank. We focus especially on the relationship between financial performance measures and softer, cooperative and communal organisational values. The results highlight that communal values may be effectively used to smooth and manage managerial contradictions; thus, situated rationality for operations can be achieved and maintained. This may also explain the resilience and success of communal values and cooperatively formed organisations in…

Strategy implementation as fantasising – becoming the leading bank

In this empirical case study we explore the fantasy nature of strategy work and propose fantasising as a framework contributing to the nascent literature dealing with the previously overlooked fantasy nature of strategy. More specifically, our interest is on examining how the meaning of official strategy gets constructed as it is being implemented, as well as and how and why the perceptions may evolve during implementation. Our data consists of official strategy documents and interviews from Finland's largest financial services group and its largest unit. The interviews cover all organisational levels, enabling us to reveal the variations of perceptions of strategy as it is being implemente…

Accountability of Corporate Boards in Finland

This paper focuses on accountability and reporting from a corporate governance (CG) perspective. Drawing on a theoretical framework, empirical analysis was conducted on a dataset collected using a questionnaire implemented with a sample of board members of Finnish listed companies. We had two study questions. 1) To whom are the board members accountable? and 2) What information is required to deliver adequate reporting to meet accountability requirements? The findings show that board members are accountable to shareholders and stakeholders, and their accountability encompasses responsibilities to society and the environment. They see that current financial reporting does not provide suffici…

"Valinta tehtiin kahden hakijan väliltä ja sain ajettua oman kantani läpi" : tutkimus korkeakouluopiskelijoiden edunvalvontajärjestöjen hallitusten puheenjohtajien vallankäytöstä

Tämä tutkimus kuvaa laadullisesti korkeakouluopiskelijoiden edunvalvontajärjestöjen hallitusten puheenjohtajien käsityksiä käyttämästään vallasta organisaatioissaan. Organisaatioteorian valtatutkimus muodostaa tutkimuksen teoreettisen viitekehyksen. Vallankäytön taktiikoiden ilmentymiä luokitellaan pfefferiläisittäin. Tutkimuksen aineisto on kerätty hallitusten puheenjohtajien itsensä kirjoittamina kertomuksina ajalta, jolloin he toimivat luottamustoimissaan. Kerätty aineisto on analysoitu teemoittain. Aineistosta nousi 11 teemaa, jotka muodostivat edelleen neljä kategoriaa tarkemman sisältönsä perusteella. Tutkimuksen tuloksista käy ilmi, että valta ja vallankäyttö ovat monimuotoisia ja tu…

Karisma on moni-ilmeinen ilmiö ja hankala käsite määritellä

Debtors' Ethical Perceptions of the Debt Collection Process

This study researches debtors’ perception of debt collection agencies. The research data shows that a debtor perceives the debt collection as expensive, greedy and uncompromising as well as even sometimes extortionate and threatening. Yet positive perceptions appeared such as flexible, well mannered and polite. The debtor’s attitude towards debt collection agencies defines a significant part of the working environment of a debt collection agent – this study provides valuable information to inform the conduct of debt collection agents. peerReviewed

Recognised but not Acknowledged: Searching for the Bad Leader in Theory and Text

The aim of this article is to qualitatively explain different elements of bad leadership, especially elements relating to the leader her/himself. The study reported here consists of a literature review and an empirical analysis. The literature review covers the most important trends and theories, presenting scientific articles during the last 15 years. The aim of the literature review is to synthesize the core elements of the bad leader. The empirical analysis consists of three different analysis methods to one volume of Talouselämä (The Economic Life), a leading Finnish business magazine. Methodologically the study proceeds from content analysis via interpretative discourse analysis to cri…

Altruism in business – an empirical study of philanthropy in the small business context

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine corporate philanthropy from the perspective of small business owner‐managers to find out whether there is room for altruism in business life.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on 25 thematic interviews with small business owner‐managers. The data analysis is based on a method of qualitative content analysis.FindingsBased on the analysis, it is shown that reactivity, an emphasis on personal interests, the willingness to utilize philanthropy as part of marketing and lack of planning are typical of philanthropy in the small business context. Small businesses often emphasize strategic business reasons as the main motive for their philan…

The Discursive Dance : The Employee Co-operation Negotiations as an Arena for Management-by-fear

The purpose of this article is to qualitatively describe and critically explain the discursive construction of employee co-operation negotiations in Finland as an arena for management-by-fear. The article consists of a theoretical review, covering the legislative basis of co-operation negotiations and recent research on management-by-fear. The empirical study consists of media texts and company media releases in Finland in 2012–2013. The main conclusions are that there are distinctive features in the co-operation negotiations that enable and enforce the possibility of management-by-fear, and thus destructive leadership. The process, supported by law and very much against the original aim, e…

Managers and lying: Constructing a framework for empirical analysis

Ethical Investment Policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland

Multiculturalism and Ethics [Editorial]

Editorial: An ethical enterprise - What is it?

From Social Responsibility to Environmental Responsibility - Changes in the Finnish Business Discourse from 1970 to 1995

Towards More Radicalized Business Ethics Studies [Editorial]

Salomon sananlaskujen etiikkaa

Plato and Charisma

A Tentative Tool for Making Morally Better Decisions in Business - a Rossian Approach

New Insights in Applied and Business Ethics [Editorial]

Letter from the editor in chief: Yrityksen yhteiskunnallinen vastuu

Päätoimittaja Tuomo Takala piti alla olevan professorin virkaanastujaisesitelmän ke 17.4.2002 Jyväskylän yliopistossa.