Responsibility at Work E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 676

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Filled with original essays by Howard Gardner, William Damon, Mihaly Csikszenthmihalyi, and Jeanne Nakamura and based on a large-scale research project, the GoodWork® Project, Responsibility at Work reflects the information gleaned from in-depth interviews with more than 1,200 people from nine different professions--journalism, genetics, theatre, higher education, philanthropy, law, medicine, business, and pre-collegiate education. The book reveals how motivation, culture, and professional norms can intersect to produce work that is personally, socially, and economically beneficial. At the heart of the study is the revelation that the key to good work is responsilibilty--taking ownership for one's work and its wider impact.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Acknowledgments

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Introduction

Work

Responsibility

Work and Responsibility

The Concept of Good Work

The GoodWork Project: Background, Model, Findings

Constituents of Good Work

Domains, Professions, Realms

Responsibility Across the Age Span

Values, Ethics, Morality

Organization of This Volume

PART ONE - POWERFUL MODELS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Chapter 1 - TAKING ULTIMATE RESPONSIBILITY

The Psychology of Ultimate Responsibility

Moral Identity and Moral Purpose

Ultimate Responsibility in the Workplace

Conclusions

Chapter 2 - THE ABILITY TO RESPOND

Methods

Who Cares? or What They Say

Receptive Attention

Motivational Displacement

Connection to Others: Focus On Restoring, Conserving, or Building Community

A Perfect Anomaly

Implications

Conclusion

Chapter 3 - CREATIVITY AND RESPONSIBILITY

Responsibility as a Call to Excellence

The Sources of Calling

The Implications of Creativity for an Expanded View of Responsibility

Chapter 4 - A CALL TO SERVE

Precollegiate Urban Educators: Creative Responses to Constraining Environments

Entrepreneurs in Business: What Is the Bottom Line?

Venture Philanthropy: Reconstituting the Notion of Giving

The Ripple Effect: Results of Humane Creativity

Conclusion

PART TWO - FACTORS THAT MODULATE RESPONSIBILITY

Chapter 5 - A BALANCING ACT

The Interview Sample

The Nature of Physician and Teacher Responsibility

Strategies for Managing Time Constraints and Demands

Discussion

Conclusion

Chapter 6 - PLACING GOD BEFORE ME

Orientations and Their Accompanying Features

Conclusion

Chapter 7 - RESPONSIBILITY AND LEADERSHIP

Methods

Established Leaders

Leaders-in-Formation

Generational Differences: Focus and Balance

Conclusions: Ongoing Individualization of Responsibility

Chapter 8 - SERVICE AT WORK

What Are the “Caring Professions”?

Methodology and the GoodWork Project

Considerations of Responsibility: Findings

Work and Family Balance

Personal and Professional Values

Conclusion

Chapter 9 - BEYOND THE GENDER STEREOTYPE

The Many Shades of Responsibility: Patterns in the Data

Responsibility to Self and Others

Conclusion

Chapter 10 - CONTROL AND RESPONSIBILITY

Studying Danish Leaders: Methodology

Findings

Conclusion

PART THREE - THE LIMITS OF RESPONSIBILITY

Chapter 11 - CONSTRAINING RESPONSIBILITY

Conforming to Consensus: The Example of Genetics

Weighing Conflicting Responsibilities: The Example of Primary Care Medicine

Straying from Tradition: The Case of Journalism

Stances Across the Professional Landscape: Philanthropy, Education, and Law

What Are Appropriate Limits?

Chapter 12 - IRRESPONSIBLE WORK

Irresponsible Work: Toward a Definition

Three Lenses on Journalism

Preventing or Countering Irresponsibility

PART FOUR - TOWARD GREATER RESPONSIBILITY

Chapter 13 - PRACTICING RESPONSIBILITY

Choosing the Schools to Study

Practicing Civic and Social Responsibility at Three Liberal Arts Colleges

Ways of Practicing Responsibility

Responsibility, Educational Workplaces, and Beyond

Chapter 14 - THE GOODWORK TOOLKIT

Background and Methodology

Structure of the Toolkit

How the Toolkit Can Be Used in School Settings

Conclusion

CONCLUSION

NAME INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

Copyright © 2007 by Howard Gardner. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-7879-9475-4 (cloth)

1. Leadership—Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Social responsibility of business.

3. Business ethics. I. Gardner, Howard.

HD57.7.R467 2007

174’.4—dc22

2007011634

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE GOODWORK PROJECT, WHICH FORMS THE BASIS FOR THIS BOOK, has involved over fifty researchers at seven universities since 1995. I want to thank these devoted individuals—some senior researchers, others researchers-in-training—for their valued contributions to this complex endeavor. Without their efforts neither the data collection nor the data analyses reported here would be possible.

The project has been generously and flexibly funded by several individuals and several foundations. Profound thanks are due to the following:

Atlantic Philanthropies Bauman Foundation Carnegie Corporation of New York COUQ Foundation Nathan Cummings Foundation J. Epstein Foundation Fetzer Institute Ford Foundation William and Flora Hewlett Foundation John & Elisabeth Hobbs Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Robert Wood Johnson Foundation John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Thomas H. Lee John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Jesse Phillips Foundation Fund Rockefeller Brothers Fund Louise and Claude Rosenberg Jr. Family Foundation Ross Family Charitable Foundation Spencer Foundation John Templeton Foundation

Finally, it has been a pleasure to work with Lesley Iura at Jossey Bass. I appreciate both her initial enthusiasm for the project and her excellent editorial suggestions throughout the process of preparing this book for publication. Thanks are also due to Dimi Berkner, Justin Frahm, Kate Gagnon, and Susan Geraghty.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

HOWARD GARDNER

June 2007

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

LYNN BARENDSEN is a project manager at the GoodWork Project. She has published articles on African American and regionalist literatures and taught courses in literature and film, English and American literature, and expository writing. Lynn has been working on the GoodWork Project since 1997 and has published work on young social and business entrepreneurs and the elements of leadership.

KENDALL COTTON BRONK is assistant professor of educational psychology at Ball State University. She received her doctoral degree in child and adolescent development at Stanford University and has published several papers on young people’s sense of purpose in life.

MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI is professor of positive developmental psychology at the Claremont Graduate University in California. He taught for thirty years at the University of Chicago and is the author of Flow and eighteen other books.

WILLIAM DAMON is professor of education at Stanford University, director of the Stanford Center on Adolescence, and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. For the past thirty years, Damon has studied moral commitment at all ages of life.

WENDY FISCHMAN is a project manager at the GoodWork Project. She has published a book and several articles on the development of young professionals and is currently working on an application of the research to be used in schools and other educational settings.

HOWARD GARDNER is the Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is a leading thinker about education and human development and he has studied and written extensively about intelligence, creativity, leadership, and professional ethics.

LAURA HORN was a researcher at the GoodWork Project for four years. She has a B.A. in psychology from Amherst College and a massage therapy license. She currently works in the Harvard Medical School Division of Medical Ethics and plans to pursue graduate work in psychology.

CARRIE JAMES is a project manager at the GoodWork Project. She has been studying higher education, medicine, philanthropy, and, more recently, young people’s conceptions of trust and their engagement with the new digital media at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include the relationship between gender and approaches to ethical dilemmas at work and at play. Carrie has an M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from New York University.

HANS HENRIK KNOOP has led the Nordic branch of the GoodWork Project since 1998, investigating the domains of education, journalism, and business. He is associate professor at the Danish University of Education and director of the Universe Research Lab, investigating learning, creativity, and the teaching of science. He has authored or co-authored five books and numerous articles on a broad range of topics related to learning, creativity, complexity, and social responsibility.

JEANNE NAKAMURA is assistant professor in the School of Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, Claremont Graduate University. Her current research interests include engagement, mentoring, and positive aging.

ANDREAS SCHRÖER is director of research at the Center for Social Investment at Heidelberg University. He has published on change management in nonprofit organizations and is currently studying philanthropic and nonprofit leadership.

JEFFREY SOLOMON spent several years as a researcher on the GoodWork Project, at Harvard University. His published work has focused on how professionals create and maintain a sense of meaning for themselves. He also has published on how professionals carry out work that embodies qualities of wisdom. Currently he is a researcher at the Center for Health Quality, Outcomes and Economics Research at the Bedford, Massachusetts, VA Medical Center.

SUSAN VERDUCCI is assistant professor of Humanities at San Jose State University and former researcher at the GoodWork Project. Her primary interests include moral philosophy, moral education, and the ethics of professional work. She recently edited Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble Intentions to Responsible Giving with William Damon (Indiana University Press, 2006).

SETH WAX was a researcher at the GoodWork project. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in Buddhist philosophy, meditation theory, and the contemporary adaptation of meditative practices.

INTRODUCTION

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR GOOD WORK?

Howard Gardner

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

—Viktor Frankl

The price of greatness is responsibility.

—Winston Churchill

THE GREAT PSYCHIATRIST VIKTOR FRANKL, who escaped the death camps of World War II and became a leading thinker of the twentieth century, believed that responsibility must go hand in hand with liberty. He had a vision that one day a large statue would greet visitors, including immigrants, to the western shores of America. That statue would remind us of the responsibilities that all human beings should assume by virtue of their being human (www.sorfoundation.org). Efforts to construct such a statue are under way, and perhaps by the time you read these words, the Statue of Responsibility will already be in place. Meanwhile, such a monument—envisaged to be a 330-foot structure, with the hand of liberty clasping the hand of responsibility—serves as a virtual icon for the topic of this book.

As individuals living at a time of affluence, most of us are accustomed to thinking in terms of rights—our individual rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the right of every human being to a good and comfortable life. If we have attained global consciousness, we broaden our perspective to include the provision of medical care, education, and political and economic freedom to those who live in less privileged corners of the globe. Of course we all recognize in principle that we have certain responsibilities, and at least some of us take these responsibilities seriously. Yet a monument that forefronts the concept of human responsibilities rather than human rights can still jar.

Once we begin to think in terms of responsibilities, the ledger fills up quickly. Productive adults are expected to assume responsibility in a number of realms: for our own health and welfare; for those who depend on us—spouses, offspring, and as they age, grandparents and parents; for those at our workplace; for those in the various communities—such as professional, neighborhood, and regional—in which we live; and to the extent that we have the opportunity and the means, for our global society. No wonder many of us find it more comfortable to perseverate on the abstract concept of human rights: the numerous and disparate areas for which we could assume responsibility threaten to overwhelm us.

Most human beings spend a third of our lives, and at least one half of our waking hours, at work. We give a great deal of ourselves at work, and over the years we have gained some measure of control over the conditions in the workplace. For many of us, especially the less fortunate, work entails burdens; for a smaller, more fortunate number, work is a privilege garlanded with rewards. The latter is especially true for professionals—individuals who are accorded status, prestige, and a comfortable livelihood in return for which they are expected to offer high-level services and clear-minded judgment.

Always timely, issues of responsibility have taken on new urgency in recent years. Across the professions, examples abound of work that is clearly irresponsible. The energy-trading giant—Enron—and the accounting titan—Arthur Andersen—have become the poster children for work that flouts every ethical convention. Companies such as World.com, Global Crossing, and Adelphi are almost as notorious. Within government, personal corruption and policy misrepresentations are reported with numbing regularity. Questions of responsibility arise when physicians enter into special arrangements with high-paying patients and when lawyers seem indistinguishable from corporate executives. And the news media, on whom the public depends to learn about flagrant instances of irresponsibility, have themselves been subject to searing (and often deserved) critiques. Serious inquiry into this troubling state of affairs is overdue. We need to understand better both implications of this book’s title: how responsibility at work is apportioned and how it can and should operate.