Open this publication in new window or tab >>2023 (English)In: Journal of Business Ethics, ISSN 0167-4544, E-ISSN 1573-0697, Vol. 184, p. 317-331Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This article explores how ethical agency, as other-oriented caring, emerged from feelings of being different in a cultural organization by drawing on feminist ethics of care. By analyzing interview material from an ethnographic study, we centralize the relationship between feelings of being different, vulnerability and the development of sensibilities, practices and imaginaries of care. We elaborate on how vulnerability serves as a ground for caring with rather than for others, and illustrate how it allowed individuals to challenge both organizational, normative diversity discourses and essentialization of differences. We contribute to the literature on critical diversity management by furthering problematizations of instrumental diversity management from the perspective of care, and to the organizational literature on feminist care ethics by empirically exploring how ethical agency emerges from tensions related to feeling different. While previous studies have shown how marginalized individuals use their sense of otherness to negotiate, conform to and resist organizational norms, practices and discourses, we provide further insights on how it also can drive concern and care for others, and thus serve as possible ground for ethical change initiatives within organizations.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2023
Keywords
Vulnerability; Care ethics; Diversity; Difference
National Category
Ethics
Identifiers
urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-184729 (URN)10.1007/s10551-022-05121-1 (DOI)000785955400001 ()
Note
Funding Agencies|Flexit Project of the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond [RMP18-1034:1,2,3]
2022-05-052022-05-052023-10-26Bibliographically approved