Articles.Steven E. Tozer,Debra Miretzky,Steven I. Miller &Ronald R.Morgan -2000 -Educational Studies 31 (2):106-131.detailsSince publication of the 1986 Carnegie Commission report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, the professional teaching standards movement has gained noticeable momentum. The professional standards movement in teaching has been fueled by national organizations such as the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the Interstate New Teachers Assessment and Support Consortium, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future, and by close collaboration among these four entities. Further, nearly all (...) of the fifty states are embracing the professional standards movement through formal participation in the work of one or more of these organizations. Although the professional standards movement in teaching is strong and growing stronger, its implications are not clear for instructional programs in social foundations of education, either at the teacher preparation or the advanced graduate levels. In response to the standards movement, social foundations educators have a number of options before them, three of which are to (1) largely ignore these developments, as "this too shall pass"; (2) critically interpret and resist these developments through scholarship and collective professional action, as social foundations scholars did with Competency Based Teacher Education in the 1970s; and (3) critically interpret these developments while working to strengthen the potential of the professional teaching standards movement to achieve its stated goal of providing caring and qualified teachers for every classroom in the nation. Of these three options, the last is most advisable, but it presents a considerable challenge to social foundations educators. Although the absence of social foundations skills, perspectives, and understanding should make it very difficult for teacher candidates and teachers to perform well on standards-based teaching assessments, there is no guarantee that these assessments will hold candidates accountable for social foundations learning. Implications for social foundations educators and activists are significant. (shrink)
Designing and Delivering Business Ethics Teaching and Learning.Ronald R. Sims &Edward L. Felton -2006 -Journal of Business Ethics 63 (3):297-312.detailsThe recent corporate scandals in the United States have caused a renewed interest and focus on teaching business ethics. Business schools and their faculties are reexamining the teaching of business ethics and are reassessing their responsibilities to produce honest and truthful managers who live lives of integrity and ethical accountability. The authors recognize that no agreement exists among business schools and their faculties regarding what should be the content and pedagogy of a course in business ethics. However, the authors hold (...) that regardless of one’s biases regarding the content and pedagogy, the effective teaching of business ethics requires that the instructor in designing and delivering a business ethics course needs to focus particular attention on four principal questions: (1) what are the objectives or targeted learning outcomes of the course? (2) what kind of learning environment should be created? (3) what learning processes need to be employed to achieve the goals? and (4) what are the roles of the participants in the learning experience? The answers to these questions provide the foundations for any business ethics course. The answers are major determinants of the impact of a business ethics course on the thinking of students and the views on the ethical and professional accountabilities and responsibilities of managers in the workplace. (shrink)
Increasing applied business ethics courses in business school curricula.Ronald R. Sims &Serbrenia J. Sims -1991 -Journal of Business Ethics 10 (3):211 - 219.detailsBusiness schools have a responsibility to incorporate applied business ethics courses as part of their undergraduate and MBA curriculum. The purpose of this article is to take a background and historical look at reasons for the new emphasis on ethical coursework in business schools. The article suggests a prescription for undergraduate and graduate education in applied business ethics and explores in detail the need to increase applied business ethics courses in business schools to enhance the ethical development of students.
Toward a profile of student software piraters.Ronald R. Sims,Hsing K. Cheng &Hildy Teegen -1996 -Journal of Business Ethics 15 (8):839 - 849.detailsEfforts to counter software piracy are an increasing focus of software publishers. This study attempts to develop a profile of those who illegally copy software by looking at undergraduate and graduate students and the extent to which they pirate software. The data indicate factors that can be used to profile the software pirater. In particular, males were found to pirate software more frequently than females and older students more than younger students, based on self-reporting.
Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction.Ronald R. Sundstrom -2024 - London: Oxford University Press.detailsJust Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction is a work of political philosophy that examines the core injustices of the contemporary U.S. housing crisis and its relation to enduring racial injustices. It posits that what is required to achieve justice in social-spatial arrangements—what is otherwise called “spatial justice”—is to prioritize, in the crafting and enforcement of housing policy, individual moral equality and liberty; distributive justice; equal citizenship; and, due to history and continuing practice and effects of racial discrimination in housing (...) policy and the housing market in the United States, corrective justice in the form of rectification programs to address the history of racism in housing policy that should be implemented by local, state, and federal governments. To arrive at and illustrate this conclusion, it investigates aspects of the housing crisis closely related to the history of American racial injustice, such as gentrification, segregation, desegregation, integration, and, to a lesser extent, homelessness, and offers liberal reform gestures toward a broad view of reconstructive justice. (shrink)
Ethics and organizational decision making: a call for renewal.Ronald R. Sims -1994 - Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books.detailsThe importance of institutionalizing ethics within an organization cannot be underestimated.
Changing an organization's culture under new leadership.Ronald R. Sims -2000 -Journal of Business Ethics 25 (1):65 - 78.detailsTurning around and changing an organization's culture does not happen by chance. The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into what is needed for an organization to successfully transform itself from a culture and experience that does not support individual ethical behavior. The recent bond trading scandal at Salomon Brothers will be used to demonstrate that a successful ethical turnaround does not just happen spontaneously. In particular, we argue that new leadership, altering policies, structure, behavior, and beliefs are (...) paramount to successfully change to an organizational culture that supports ethical behavior. Schein's five primary mechanisms available to leaders for embedding and reinforcing culture will be used to systematically analyze efforts to change Salomon Brothers' culture. (shrink)
The challenge of ethical behavior in organizations.Ronald R. Sims -1992 -Journal of Business Ethics 11 (7):505 - 513.detailsThis paper is designed to do three things while discussing the challenge of ethical behavior in organization. First, it discusses some reasons why unethical behavior occurs in organization. Secondly, the paper highlights the importance of organizational culture in establishing an ethical climate within an organization. Finally, the paper presents some suggestions for creating and maintaining an ethically-oriented culture.
Experiences in teaching business ethics.Ronald R. Sims &William I. Sauser (eds.) -2011 - Charlotte, N.C.: Information Age.detailsA volume in Contemporary Human Resource Management: Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities Series EditorRonald R. Sims, College of William and Mary The primary purpose of this book is to stimulate dialogue and discussion about the most effective ways of teaching ethics. Contributors to the book focus on approaches and methodologies and lessons learned that are having an impact in leading students to confront with accountability and understanding the bases of their ethical thinking, the responsibilities they have to an enlarged (...) base of stakeholders (whose needs and interests often are conflicting), and their stewardship to use their talents responsibility not only in fulfilling an enterprise's economic goals but also to recognize the impact of their actions on both individuals and larger society. The primary audiences for the book are those individuals responsible for teaching management, especially those with responsibilities for teaching business ethics. But the book is also designed for practicing managers, for these managers have among their most important responsibilities the development of people in their organizations who have the integrity, values, and competences to be effective managers of economic resources while at the same time to recognize the roles of their enterprise in shaping society. (shrink)
Teaching business ethics for effective learning.Ronald R. Sims -2002 - Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books.detailsA sensible, workable approach to the teaching of business ethics, based on an understanding of how people actually learn and on the need to start with a clear ...
Cybernetics as a usable past: Andrew Pickering: The cybernetic brain: Sketches of another future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010, x+526pp, US$55.00 HB.Ronald R. Kline -2011 -Metascience 20 (3):519-524.detailsCybernetics as a usable past Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9497-x AuthorsRonald R. Kline, Science and Technology Studies Department, 334 Rockefeller Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
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The institutionalization of organizational ethics.Ronald R. Sims -1991 -Journal of Business Ethics 10 (7):493 - 506.detailsThe institutionalization of ethics is an important task for today's organizations if they are to effectively counteract the increasingly frequent occurrences of blatantly unethical and often illegal behavior within large and often highly respected organizations. This article discusses the importance of institutionalizing organizational ethics and emphasizes the importance of several variables (psychological contract, organizational commitment, and an ethically-oriented culture) to the institutionalization of ethics within any organization.... institutionalizing ethics may sound ponderous, but its meaning is straightforward. It means getting ethics (...) formally and explicitly into daily business life. It means getting ethics into company policy formation at the board and top management levels and through a formal code, getting ethics into all daily decision making and work practices down the line, at all levels of employment. It means grafting a new branch on the corporate decision tree — a branch that reads right/wrong (Purcell and Weber, 1979, p. 6). (shrink)
Ethics and corporate social responsibility: why giants fall.Ronald R. Sims -2003 - Westport, Conn.: Praeger.detailsThis book seeks to enhance our understanding of the causes of ethical debacles in an era when ethical missteps can often lead to corporate bankruptcies or worse ...
Using Computer-Assisted Instruction and Developmental Theory to Improve Argumentative Writing.Ronald R. Irwin -1995 -Informal Logic 17 (2).detailsA study is described in which the effectiveness of a computer program (Hermes) on improving argumentative writing is tested. One group of students was randomly assigned to a control group and the other was assigned to the experimental group where they are asked to use the Hermes program. All students were asked to write essays on controversial topics to an opposed audience. Their essays were content-analysed for dialectical traits. Based on this analysis, it was concluded that the experimental group wrote (...) more dialectically effective essays than the control group, and the amount of difference between the control and experimental groups was related to the students' intellectual developmental level, as assessed by the Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER). It is concluded that argumentative writing, operationalized here as dialectical writing, can be improved by computer-assisted instruction, but that attempts to teach such forms of thinking and writing need to take into account students' capacity to benefit from such instruction. Such capacity is defined here as intellectual development. (shrink)
Race as a human kind.Ronald R. Sundstrom -2002 -Philosophy and Social Criticism 28 (1):91-115.detailsIn this article I present a positive ontology of 'race'. Toward this end, I discuss metaphysical pluralism and review the theories of Ian Hacking, John Dupre and Root. Working within Root's framework, I describe the conditions under which a constructed kind like 'race' would be real. I contend these conditions are currently satisfied in the United States. Given the social presence and impact of 'race' and the unique way 'race' operates at differing sites, I will argue that it is site-specific, (...) it is socially constructed, and it is real. Key Words: human kinds metaphysical pluralism philosophy of race promiscuous realism race race theory racial realism. (shrink)
Resisting Development, Reinventing Modernity: Rural Electrification in the United States before World War II.Ronald R. Kline -2002 -Environmental Values 11 (3):327-344.detailsThe essay examines local resistance to the New Deal rural electrification program in the United States before World War II as a crucial aspect of sociotechnical change. Large numbers of farm men and women opposed the introduction of the new technology, did not purchase a full complement of electrical appliances, and did not use electric lights and appliances in the manner prescribed by the government modernisers and manufacturers. These acts of 'transformative resistance' helped to shape artefacts and social practices.
Reformulating the question in US Presidential debates: A device for adjusting the question and the subsequent answer to one's audience.Ronald R. Jacobsen -2016 -Pragmatics and Society 7 (3):391-412.detailsThis paper analyzes the role of question reformulations in the 2004 US presidential debates. While formulations used for questioning have received quite some attention in the literature, no studies, to my knowledge, with the exception of Clayman, have been concerned with question reformulations, that is, formulations given in response to questions. In contrast to Clayman who examined the ‘directness/evasiveness’ of a reformulation as a collaborative achievement involving a question-answer-pursuit sequence, this paper analyzes it as a collaborative achievement involving a question-answer-answer (...) sequence. The analysis shows that the reformulations in the 2004 US presidential debates involve a device for adjusting the question and the subsequent answer to the candidate’s audience. Thus, the relative ‘directness/evasiveness’ of a candidate’s answer depends on which of the ‘three’ perspectives presented by the question-answer-answer sequence that the overhearing audience is most willing to adopt. (shrink)
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Race and place: Social space in the production of human kinds.Ronald R. Sundstrom -2003 -Philosophy and Geography 6 (1):83 – 95.detailsRecent discussions of human categories have suffered from an over emphasis on intention and language, and have not paid enough attention to the role of material conditions, and, specifically, of social space in the construction of human categories. The relationship between human categories and social spaces is vital, especially with the categories of class, race, and gender. This paper argues that social space is not merely the consequent of the division of the world into social categories; it is constitutive of (...) social categories. To put it more bluntly, if who we are is bound up with place, then not only do we inhabit a divided America; divided America inhabits us. The second, and equally dramatic, conclusion is that attempts to transform social categories must involve the transformation of social space. When we sort people by categories, we do so spatially: with race come racialized spaces. And because our place comes to inhabit us, when we divide spatially we cannot help but to inscribe and produce categories and identities associated with our spatial divisions: with racialized spaces come race. Recognition of this dialectic is a direct challenge to the one-way considerations of social identity and social space that occurs in much urban sociology and history. Moreover, it demonstrates that there is an internal contradiction in policies--often based in urban sociology and history--that assume that integration can be accomplished along with the conservation of ethnic and racial identity. (shrink)
Ethic of Christian freedom and discipleship.Ronald R. Ray -2023 - Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications.detailsEthics of Christian Freedom and Discipleship is written for teachers and students of Christian ethics within the English-speaking world. It demonstrates the basis of Christian ethics in Christian theology. Twenty-nine years ago, before leaving the Nigerian theological college where the author had been teaching, Between Two Worlds: An Ethic of Christian Freedom was privately printed. In Kenya, at what became St. Paul's University, the author primarily used copies of this book for eleven years of teaching Christian ethics. Ethics of Christian (...) Freedom and Discipleship manifests continuity with the author's earlier book, but is a distinctly different work. (shrink)
Linking groupthink to unethical behavior in organizations.Ronald R. Sims -1992 -Journal of Business Ethics 11 (9):651 - 662.detailsThis paper is designed to do four things. First, the paper discusses the importance of groupthink in contributing to unethical behavior. Second, the paper discribes how groupthink contributed to unethical behavior in three organizations (Beech-Nut, E. F. Hutton, and Salomon Brothers). Third, symptoms of groupthink (such as arrogance, overcommitment, and excessive loyalty to the group) will be presented along with two methods for programming conflict (devil's advocate and dialectic) into an organization and group's decisions. Finally, the paper introduces some prescriptions (...) for reducing the probability of groupthink. (shrink)
Leaders as moral role models: The case of John gutfreund at Salomon Brothers. [REVIEW]Ronald R. Sims &Johannes Brinkman -2002 -Journal of Business Ethics 35 (4):327-339.detailsThe paper describes and discusses unethical behavior in organizations, as a result of (interacting) disputable leadership and ethical climate. This paper presents and analyzes the well-known bond trading scandal at Salomon Brother to demonstrate the development of an unethical organizational culture under the leadership of John Gutfreund. The paper argues that leaders shape and reinforce an ethical or unethical organizational climate by what they pay attention to, how they react to crises, how they behave, how they allocate rewards, and how (...) they hire and fire individuals. (shrink)
Schutz's theory of relevance: a phenomenological critique.Ronald R. Cox -1978 - Boston: M. Nijhoff.detailsCHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Relevance was one of the most important concerns in the philosophy of Alfred Schutz. In a sequence of articles dealing with a number ...
Racial politics in residential segregation studies.Ronald R. Sundstrom -2004 -Philosophy and Geography 7 (1):61-78.detailsMost research about race has been influenced by values of one sort or another. This started with the inception of race as a biological category. Cognitive values about race were concerned with the worth of distinctive taxonomic divisions, and political values about it were concerned with the moral, aesthetic, and political meanings of these human distinctions. The presence of cognitive and non‐cognitive values in contemporary social science concerning race is no less present or important. The role of racial politics is (...) exposed in the debate over the nature of contemporary residential housing patterns, as well as in examinations of the methods and measures of segregation research. Such examinations uncover not only a sociology of the segregation studies, but also certain values about race and segregation. This leads us to richer explanations, given our public political desires, than we would have without those values. (shrink)
After Aquinas.Ronald R. Bernier -2016 -Philosophy and Theology 28 (1):91-100.detailsThis article centers on the modes of maintaining an equivalence of the moral and the good that lies behind and within Augustine’s and Aquinas’ understandings of beauty. Beauty, in the medieval experience of it, never derived exclusively from sense impression; it was neither purely pleasure in the sensuous nor a wholly intuitive contemplation of the transcendent occurring exclusively in the mind. Rather, beauty was the intelligible form of some higher reality, the quality of things that reflects their origin in the (...) divine. Beauty, then, like meaning itself, could never be fully present in its material sign, as it appears to us only as a promise of presence through embodied absence, neither fully here and now nor entirely elsewhere and beyond. This, ultimately, may be the very purpose of beauty, a hopeful pull toward the perfect and yet never fully knowable God who is beauty. (shrink)
Introduction: place and the philosophy of race.Ronald R. Sundstrom -2004 -Philosophy and Geography 7 (1):3-7.details[I]n the beginning, all the world was America… John Locke The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. Fred...
A contemporary look at business ethics.Ronald R. Sims -2017 - Charlotte, NC: IAP - Information Age Publishing.detailsA Contemporary Look at Business Ethics provides a 'present day' look at business ethics to include the challenges, opportunities and increased need for ethical leadership in today's and tomorrow's organizations. The book discusses current and future business ethics challenges, issues and opportunities which provides the context leaders and their organizations must navigate. The book includes an in‐depth look at lessons learned about the causes of unethical behavior by examining a number of real‐world examples of ethical scandals from around the world (...) that have taken place over the past few decades. The analysis of the various ethical scandals focuses on concepts like ethical versus unethical leadership, received wisdom, the bottom‐line mentality, groupthink and moral muteness, all of which contribute to the kind of organizational culture and ethical behavior one finds in an organization. The book discusses ethical decision making in general and the increased role of religion and spirituality, in confronting unethical behavior in contemporary organizations. The book also takes an in‐depth look at the impact ethical scandals have on employees and more specifically the psychological contract and person‐organization ethical fit with the goal of identifying, along with other things, what leaders can do to restore relationships with employees and rebuild the organization's reputation in the eyes of various stakeholders. (shrink)
Executive ethics II: ethical dilemmas and challenges for the C-suite.Ronald R. Sims &Scott A. Quatro (eds.) -2016 - Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.detailsThis 2nd edition of Executive Ethics provides a variety of contemporary and timely readings squarely focused on the ethical dilemmas and challenges faced by today's C-suite executives. In addition to identifying these dilemmas and challenges, the contributors provide both knowledge and insight on how C-suite executives can proactively address such ethics issues. The contributors provide unique value propositions for the C-suite regarding the most critical ethical issues facing organizations today while also highlighting useful information for senior executives interested in integrating (...) ethics into the leadership and management practices of their organizations. In the end, the book empowers C-suite executives to build a long-term, strategic, and enterprise-wide approach to ethics. (shrink)
Dialect Variants and Linguistic Deviance.Ronald R. Butters -1971 -Foundations of Language 7 (2):239-254.detailsAmong the types of strings which are technically ungrammatical but fully intelligible, dialect variants form a special class. They can be viewed as generated by alternate transformations within the grammar; the means by which they are interpreted is therefore identical with the means by which interpretations are assigned to well-formed strings. Such language-specific rules thus differ from the universal procedures by which other types of ungrammatical strings are apparently derived.
Enron ethics (or: Culture matters more than codes). [REVIEW]Ronald R. Sims &Johannes Brinkmann -2003 -Journal of Business Ethics 45 (3):243 - 256.detailsThis paper describes and discusses the Enron Corporation debacle. The paper presents the business ethics background and leadership mechanisms affecting Enron''s collapse and eventual bankruptcy. Through a systematic analysis of the organizational culture at Enron (following Schein''s frame of reference) the paper demonstrates how the company''s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees.