Towards a framework for ethical innovation in children’s social care

Purpose Substantial government investment has accelerated innovation activity in children’s social care in England over the past decade. Ethical concerns emerge when innovation seems to be propelled by a drive for efficiency and over-reliance on process output indicators, as well as, or even instead of, improving the lives of children, families and societies. No ethical framework exists at present to act as a check on such drivers. This paper reviews the literature with the aim of considering how best to address this gap. Design/methodology/approach This paper draws on a review of innovation in children’s social care, conducted as part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project exploring innovation in services for young people exposed to extra-familial risk and harm. Findings This study proposes a new conception of “trustworthy innovation” for the sector that holds innovation in children’s social care to the standards and principles of the code of ethics for social work. This study offers an ethical framework, informed by the interdisciplinary school of organisational ethics, to operationalise this extended definition; the analytic framework guides policymakers and the practice sector to question at every stage of the innovation process whether a particular model is ethically appropriate, as well as practically feasible within a specific context. Implications for local decision-making and national policy are set out, alongside questions raised for future research. Originality/value This paper is the first to offer an ethical framework for innovation in children's social care. The conception of “trustworthy innovation” offers a guide to policymakers and the practice sector, which they can use to ethically test every stage of the innovation process and make decisions about whether a particular model is ethically appropriate, as well as practically feasible within a specific context.

‘Value, values and valued’: a tripod for organisational ethics

Public benefit corporations are National Health Service, that is, state, entities whose function to provide healthcare in discharge of public duties. If we regard value as the output of such organisations, it seems logical to connect the values of the organisation to the value produced by such organisations. But, on closer examination there are competing underlying logics in play: (1) those based on promoting organisational efficiency and efficacy; and (2) those based on the idea of building service provision around the clinician–patient relationship. Underlying these logics are differing value sets. These clash. Because of the clashing of underlying moral frameworks the connection between values and value becomes hard, if not impossible. This paper argues that (1) the clash in these moral frameworks must be addressed by the organisation rather than between individuals or groups of individuals within the organisation; (2) alloying duties within hybrid professionals submerges but does not resolve these conflicts; (3) one approach could be to impose on the organisation itself an ethical imperative to promote, enhance and protect from deterioration the welfare of the patients; (4) a board ethics committee is a possible organisational structure that could transparently and fairly balance clashes within the competing moral frameworks in a way that could reconcile the competing logics and (5) if such conflicts can be better resolved at the organisational level what the organisation must do to achieve its objectives will become clearer because what needs to be valued would naturally emerge connecting values, value and what is valued.

Ethics beyond leadership: can ethics survive bad leadership?

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the relaxion on what can be done to develop ethical cultures that may be less permeable and more resilient to changes in leadership from an ethical point of view. The influence of leaders on organisational ethics is recognised, and there are even those who consider that it is not possible to maintain an ethical culture when leaders are not engaged. But, if this theory is true, all business ethics programmes that can be created, and the cultures that can gradually be developed in organisations, will always have their existence and robustness suspended at each leadership change. How to maintain an ethical culture beyond leadership? Design/methodology/approach As a strategy, we used the case study with a narrative methodology, in which a chief executive officer (CEO) and a chief compliance officer (CCO) narrate in the first person a case of perceived collapse of the ethical culture of a multinational company. Findings The findings point to the difficulty in maintaining ethical leadership. Key aspects to protect an organization from leadership changes are as follows: the management of the succession process, the quality of the training on ethics and the mechanisms developed by the organization to foment speak up and take notice of the situations. Moral blindness and the banality of evil that also can be observed in organizations appear as facilitating elements for collapse. Originality/value Ethical leadership is generally presented as a necessary condition for an ethical culture. However, leaders often have unethical or ethically neutral leadership. This case helps to understand the difficulties experienced by leaders in adopting ethical leadership and proposes a set of instruments and procedures that, when included in an ethical programme, can protect the company's ethical culture against unethical leaders. Some characteristics of our case study make it particularly relevant: action occurs in a multinational, a context where, by size and complexity, achieving uniformity in culture becomes particularly relevant, and actions happen in the context of a CEO succession process, something that may occur in any company and which is often a trigger for ethical misconducts. Additionally, our case is narrated by a CEO and a CCO, which makes it rare, as it is especially difficult to have access to these executives.

Afrocentric Attitudinal Reciprocity and Social Expectations of Employees: The Role of Employee-Centred CSR in Africa

In view of the limited consideration for Afrocentric perspectives in organisational ethics literature, we examine Employee-Centred Corporate Social Responsibility (EC-CSR) from the perspective of Afrocentric employees’ social expectations. We posit that Afrocentric employees’ social expectations and the organisational practices for addressing these expectations differ from conventional conceptualisation. By focusing specifically upon the psychological attributes evolving from the fulfilment of employees’ social expectations, we argue that Afrocentric socio-cultural factors could influence perceived organisational support and perceived employee cynicism. We further draw upon social exchange theory to explore rational reciprocity (i.e. attitude and behaviour) evolving from the fulfilment and breach of employees’ social expectations at work. Contrary to the rational norm of reciprocity, we identify a reciprocity norm within which the breach of employees’ social expectations could in fact engender positive reciprocity rooted in esan reciprocity ideology—an ideology that emerged from the ethical tradition of the Yoruba people from Nigeria, West Africa. Overall, our paper elucidates the implications of Afrocentric peculiarities for employees’ social exchange within the African workplace, thus extending the present understanding in this regard.