Theoretical Foundation of Organizational Ethics

It is widely recognized that the goals and structures of an organization influence the decision-making of individuals. But what role do other aspects of the organisation's design play in the daily work of employees? And what role should they play? The joint project at the University of Tübingen deals with these and other fundamental questions.

Project leadership

Associates

N.N.

Cooperation partners

Prof. Dr. Jörg Eisele (Chair of German and European Criminal Law and Law of Criminal Procedure, Criminal Business Law and Criminal Computer Law)
Prof. Dr. Bernhard Schmidt-Hertha (Chair for Educational Science with a Focus on Vocational Continuing Education and On-the-Job Training)
Prof. Dr. Stefan Thomas ( Chair of Private Law, Business Law, Competition and Insurance Law)
Dr. Bernd Villhauer (Weltethos-Institut)

Funding

Universität Tübingen, Exzellenzinitiative, Plattform 4

The project

Almost all organizations show unique internal structures which, respectively, pursue different objectives by various means. Considering ethical conflicts, the first thing that comes to one’s mind are individuals facing difficult decisions, which, in turn, have always something to do with (basic) ethical convictions. It is widely recognized, that an organization, its objectives and its internal structure, play an important part of the decision making process of individuals. But what is the role of the organization’s structure in the everyday working life of the employees? And – what role should it play? These are two fundamental questions of organizational ethics, which the joint project addresses.

The main objective of the project is to establish the issue of organization ethics in research and in the future development of academic teaching more broadly. We purse this objective in accordance with the basic idea of an “Ethics in the Sciences” of the IZEW. Thus, we deal with ethical questions in a practice-oriented way by grounding the scientific approaches within the practical fields.

Publications and lectures

Brand, C., Schopp, K., Müller, U. (2017): Diversity as Core-Value in Organisations. Tübingen Symposium on Ethics 2017: The Value of [Not] Being Diverse. Tübingen, 25.07.2017.
Burmeister, C., Müller, U., Brand. C. (2017): Ethische Reflexion (in) der Sterbebegleitung. In: Praxis Palliative Care. 34, 17-19.
Ranisch, R., Brand C. (2016): Clinical Ethics Consultation and the Challenge to Implement what is Right. Open Peer Commentary on Megelssen et al. „Four roles of ethical theory in cli-nical ethics consultation. In: American Journal of Bioethics, 16:9, 38-39, DOI: 10.1080/15265161.2016.1196256
Ranisch, R., Burmeister, C., Müller, U., Brand, C. (2016): Ethische Entscheidungsfindung in der beruflichen Praxis: Didaktische Herausforderungen im Spannungsfeld von Erfahrungs-wissen und Theorie am Beispiel des Weiterbildungsangebotes „Ethik in Organisationen“. In: Dietrich, J., Rohbeck, J., Brand, C. (Hg.) (2016): Empirische Forschung in der Philo-sophie- und Ethikdidaktik. Jahrbuch für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik Dresden: Thelem, 236-257.