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English

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Is restructuring an underhanded way to make the rich richer and the poor poorer? Or is it necessary, although bitter, medicine for an ailing economy?

In The Ethics of the New Economy: Restructuring and Beyond, professionals from the fields of philosophy, ethics, management, as well as those representing the groups affected by restructuring, tackle thorny ethical issues. Referring to concrete case studies, these timely essays discuss a variety of topics, including justified and unjustified restructuring; employers’ obligations during the restructuring process; equity issues; the rise of part-time employment; the effects of restructuring on communities; the internal risks faced by restructuring corporations; deprofessionalization in health care; the consequences of restructuring in the developing world; philanthropy and cause-related marketing; corporate “judo” and restructuring; and responsible and irresponsible restructuring.

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Publié par	Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Date de parution	30 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781554586936
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0087€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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The Ethics of the New Economy: Restructuring and Beyond
I downsized our staff so effectively, they promoted me to Executive Vice President. They also made me custodian, receptionist and parking garage attendant.
The Ethics of the New Economy: Restructuring and Beyond
Edited by Leo Groarke
Wilfrid Laurier University Press
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program publishing activities.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
The ethics of the new economy : restructuring and beyond
Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-311-3
1. Downsizing of organizations - Moral and ethical aspects. 2. Downsizing of organizations - Canada - Moral and ethical aspects. 3- Economic history - 1990- 4. Canada - Economic conditions - 1991- I. Groarke, Leo.
HD58.85.E83 1998 174 .4 C98-932401-X
Copyright 1998 WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY PRESS Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5
Cover design by Leslie Macredie. Interlocking block construction by Scott Reaume, Jazz Groarke and Kate Reaume. Photograph by Sandra Woolfrey.

Printed in Canada
All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means-graphic, electronic, or mechanical-without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6.
Dedicated to my father, John Cuthbert Groarke, in the hope that the independent spirit that infused his work as the editor of small town newspapers is to some extent mirrored in the make up of this book.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Part I: Introduction
1. Editor s Introduction Leo Groarke
2. What Are the University s Obligations in the New Economy? A. Scott Carson
3. The Ethics of Restructuring Barry Hoffmaster
Part ll: The Case Against Restructuring
4. Restructuring the Welfare State: Leaner, Meaner, and Inequitable Ken Hanly
Part III: Responsible and Irresponsible Restructuring
5. Responsible Restructuring in the Private Sector Wayne F. Cascio
6. Corporate Judo ToddJ. Hostager, David T. Bastien, and Henry H. Miles
Part IV: Methods of Restructuring
7. Cause-Related Marketing: A Restructuring Alternative? Peggy Cunningham and Pamela J. Gushing
8. Realism, Restructuring, and Amalgamation: What Can We Learn from the Mega-mess in Toronto? Leo Groarke
9. Ethics and Regional Health Boards Michael Yeo, John R. Williams, and Wayne Hooper
10. Downsizing, Change, and Ownership Vincent Di Norcia
Part V: The Process of Restructuring
11. What Restructuring Can Learn from EBDM Sharon Dewey and Leo Groarke
12. Discharging Employer Responsibilities to Employees during Major Organizational Change David Drinkwalter
13. Fair Change: Employment Equity and Restructuring Norma J. MacRae
Part VI: Pitfalls of Restructuring
14. Managing Risks in the Restructured Corporation: The Case of Dow Corning and Silicone Breast Implants Conrad G. Brunk
15. De-Professionalization in Health Care: Flattening the Hierarchy Andrea Baumann and Barbara Silverman
Part VII: The Restructuring Economy
16. Underemployment and the New Economy Louis Groarke and Nebojsa Kujundzic
17. Losing Community Robert C. Evans
18. Restructuring beyond the First World Darryl Reed
Part VIII: Case Studies
19. Rebuilding the Province of New Brunswick The Honourable Edmond P. Blanchard, QC
20. Community Health at the Willett Hospital Mary Sylver
21. Alberta Education: Retooling through Deschooling J.L. Kachur and Derek Briton
22. Bell Canada-from the Bottom Up: An Employee s Perspective Monica Collins
23. The Banking Sector: Avoiding the Pitfalls of Restructuring Sylvia D. Chrominska
Part IX: Overview Part
24. Ethics and Restructuring: Obstacles, Challenges, and Opportunities Wesley Cragg
List of Contributors
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
The present book is a collaborative project which has involved many authors over an extended period of time. As editor, I am grateful to the various contributors for their patience and their willingness to rewrite and rework their initial contributions in order to make this collection a unified whole. We are all grateful to the two anonymous academic referees, whose comments and initial criticisms played an essential role in the reworking of the book. On behalf of all contributors, I would like to thank Sandra Woolfrey, our copy editor Windsor Viney, and the staff at WLU Press for their commitment to academic publishing.
Both the book and the conference from which some of the papers are derived ( Ethics and Restructuring: The First Laurier Conference on Business and Professional Ethics, October 24-25, 1996) were possible thanks to the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Research Office at Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Office of the Vice President Academic at Wilfrid Laurier. I speak for all contributors when I say that we are grateful for their support.
-L.G.
PART I Introduction
I Editor s Introduction
Leo Groarke
Restructuring and its effects surround us. The driver of the Airways Transit van on a recent trip from the airport told me that he had, one-and-a-half years earlier, been the CEO of a publishing company that employed sixty people. For fourteen years I gave one hundred and fifty percent. I put on overalls and helped in the stockroom when they could not keep up with orders. I knew the families of all my workers.
One day he was told the company was restructuring. He was replaced by a new CEO who had no experience in publishing and was given three months salary as a severance package. During the six months that followed he tried to adjust to life without his six-figure salary. In the process, he lost his house, his wife divorced him, and he searched unsuccessfully for a new position. His participation in a government retraining plan was cancelled because of technicalities surrounding his eligibility. After a great deal of effort on his part the eligibility issue was resolved, but by then the program had ceased to operate. A year and a half after losing his position, he drives airport vans for minimum wage and lives in a condo which he shares with his twenty-two-year-old son-a young man trained in architectural design who works as a manual labourer in two part-time jobs.
This is a very personal snapshot of the negative side of a new economy that is characterized by the restructuring of private and public enterprise, by the consequences of this restructuring, and by the new economic order it creates. Within this new economy, decisions to downsize, lay-offs, government cutbacks, and the closing or merger of businesses, hospitals, boards of education, schools, and health care services are the order of the day. The fundamental changes this implies have been fuelled by many forces: most obviously, by technological advances which continually reduce the need for human workers, by government attempts to eliminate their budget deficits and reduce their debt load, and by the competitive pressures of a globalized economy. The new economy which results is characterized by change rather than stability, by continual restructuring, by ever-increasing competition in the marketplace, and by a social safety net that is increasingly threadbare.
Despite its human costs, opinions about restructuring and the economy it produces are divided. Many argue that economic sacrifices are necessary-if bitter-medicine for an ailing economy that is behind the times and too frequently characterized by inefficiencies and outmoded modes of operation. This economy needs, such commentators argue, to be overhauled in order to create more responsible government, more competitive private enterprise, and a brighter future with more and better jobs. Their opponents answer by decrying restructuring and its effects, and by arguing that restructuring serves primarily as a way to widen the gap between the rich and poor.
The radically divergent views of restructuring this debate implies have sparked many heated exchanges in the popular press but, peculiarly, relatively little discussion among those who study ethics and the ethical issues that arise in business, health, and education. The present collection is an attempt to change this, both in the context of short-term questions about the process of restructuring and in the context of longer-term questions about the economy it produces. The questions discussed include:
When is restructuring justified, and when is it not?
What are the ethical concerns -which characterize the new economy that restructuring produces?
What are an employer s obligations to employees during the kinds of major transformational change that characterize restructuring?
What can past experience teach us about responsible restructuring, and how does it affect the bottom line ?
How can the negative social consequences of the restructuring economy be minimized?
How can the increasingly competitive world economy that restructuring produces be made to promote ethical behaviour in public and private enterprise?
How does restructuring affect local, national and international communities, and what should be done in this regard? <