Neo-positivist or neo-kantian? Karl Popper and the Vienna Circle.

This paper re-contextualises Popper within a Kantian tradition by examining his interaction with the Vienna Circle. The complexity of Popper’s relationship to the Vienna Circle is often a point of confusion as some view him as a member of the Vienna Circle while others minimise his association with this group. This paper argues that Popper was not a member of the Vienna Circle or a positivist but shared many neo-Kantian philosophical tendencies with the members of the Circle as well as many of their philosophical problems and interests. By better understanding the influence of the Circle’s members upon Popper, we not only remove the myths surrounding Popper’s positivism, but also place the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle within its proper philosophical context. This paper further argues that it was Popper’s friend during his formative philosophical years in Vienna, Julius Kraft (1921–1960) who was responsible for the way in which Popper approached Kant. Through Kraft, Popper was introduced to the thought of Leonard Nelson (1882–1927) and Jakob Fries (1773–1843) as well as a tradition of critical rationalism which Popper would continue both in his methodological orientation as well as through his late German Enlightenment intellectual values.

Indigenous research ethics : new modes of information gathering and storytelling in journalism

Veteran Indigenous affairs reporter Tony Koch emphasises the importance of respect, trust and listening in his journalism practice. This paper draws on Koch’s insights as well as recent scholarship on the policies and value of listening to support the proposal that Indigenous research ethics provide a concrete framework for improving media representations of Indigenous people and their access to news media. The university ethics process cannot replicate the understanding Koch has gained from 25 years of interacting with Indigenous people and their communities. However, this paper argues it provides a pathway along which journalism academics and their students can learn to engage with Indigenous people, navigate Indigenous public spheres and produce high-quality reporting that reflects Indigenous people’s aspirations. Journalists within the academy, who are not subject to the commercial or organizational pressures of the news industry, are especially well placed to collaborate with Indigenous people to deliver new ways of conducting research and telling stories that privilege their perspectives. Koch’s newsgathering practice demonstrates that many principals of this progressive approach are also achievable in mainstream journalism.

Disquiet on the research front : surveying the battle ground between researchers and human research ethics committees

In this paper, I play with the metaphors of war and peace (with apologies to Leo Tolstoy) as a strategy for describing the relations between (some) social science researchers and human research ethics committees. Even a cursory survey of recent literature reveals a raft of grievances and grumblings amongst researchers about the operation and decisions of research ethics committees. This paper presents a partial survey from both sides of some of the claims that have triggered this unofficial declaration of war, and discusses the implications for ethical research. My central argument is that the truly ethical moment lies in mutual and constructive conversations and critique between ethics committees and researchers.

Rethinking ethics review as institutional discourse

In this article, the authors trace the emergence of an institutional discourse of ethical research and interrogate its effects in constituting what ethical research is taken to be and how ethical researchers are configured. They illuminate the dissonance between this regime of truth and research practice and the implications for the injunction to respect others, illustrating their case with instances from their interview study with anorexic teenage girls. The authors propose that conceptualising the regulation of research ethics as an institutional discourse opens up the possibility for asserting counterdiscourses that place relational ethics at the center of moral decision making in research.

A conceptual framework of corporate and business ethics across organizations

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to introduce and describe a conceptual framework of corporate and business ethics across organizations in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance.

Design/methodology/approach – A framework is outlined and positioned incorporating an ethical frame of reference in the field of organizational chain management.

Findings – A number of areas and sub-areas of corporate and business ethics are framed in the context across organizations.

Research limitations/implications – The introduced framework should be seen as a seed for further development and refinement. It provides opportunities for further research of ethical concerns across organizations.

Practical implications – Organizations may benefit from the findings and insights presented and they may be used to enhance their ability to manage, monitor and evaluate ethical business practices across organizations.

Social implications – Changing societal and market patterns may enforce organizations to address ethical concerns across organizations. A myopic approach restricted to the judicial system may become insufficient and unsatisfactory from the perspective of other stakeholders of the organization.

Originality/value – The framework makes a contribution bringing in ethical concerns across organizations, providing a basis for their ethical values and culture, as well as asymmetric relationships in terms of power and dependence. The authors believe that a true learning organization needs to realise the importance of an extended view of its endeavors of corporate and business ethics in terms of ethical structures, ethical processes and ethical performance across organizations.

Teleological business ethics : formative, rationalist and transformative – illustrations and analogies

The strategic, tactical and operational levels of an organization may have different perceptions and convictions on how the organization’s behaviours and practices of business ethics should be managed in the marketplace and the surrounding society. We examine organizations’ behaviours and practices of business ethics in the marketplace and the surrounding society with the aid of complexity sciences. The objective is to describe organizations’ behaviours and practices of business ethics using different teleological approaches. Unethical behaviours and practices may be the outcome of conscious actions, but they may also be subconscious. We will discuss reasons for both possibilities of unethical behaviours and practices by organizations, their managers and employees. An important insight based upon the presented illustrations and analogies is that the different teleological approaches to business ethics in behaviours and practices may be consecutive and simultaneous within an organization. An essential subject for further research is how to deal with the durabilty and variabitlity of behaviours and practices of business ethics of organizations in the marketplace and the surrounding society.