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Care Ethics, Knowledge Management, and the Learning Organization

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Part of the book series: Issues in Business Ethics ((IBET,volume 34))

Abstract

This chapter explores the overlooked epistemological aspects of care ethics, including its inherent particularism and engagement of tacit knowledge, to argue that care can and should participate in an organization’s program of knowledge management en route to building a robust learning organization that holistically flourishes—financially, culturally, and ethically. Accordingly, a caring culture is a culture of learning. The chapter suggests that if caring is conceptualized as fostering fundamental respect, engaging intellectual inquiry, and facilitating a moral atmosphere, then perhaps a culture of care will be more palatable to business professionals who often regard “caring” with suspicion as a nonproductive emotional disposition. This chapter focuses on caring as intellectual inquiry that inspires the moral imagination in the service of creating a culture of care. A culture is a system of shared meaning held by a group of people. That meaning includes values and attitudes as well as transmitted knowledge. Much has been written about corporate culture, but little about a caring culture. In this regard, care should be distinguished from friendship. A corporate culture of care does not suggest that members of the organization must become friends or develop strong relationships. It does suggest that people are attentive to one another as part of a willingness to grow.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A note about the theoretical context of this chapter: In many ways, care ethics is a postmodern project without the flight from materiality often associated with postmodernism. It challenges traditional philosophical categories and the rigidity of definitions. However, care ethics also transcends modernist feminist categories such as “liberal” and “radical.” Some might accuse an application of care ethics to business organizations as a cooptation of the revolutionary potential of care (Ferguson 1997). I am not inclined to be concerned about cooptation because care is so foundational to human experience that whether one is engaged in liberal reforms or radical change care has an essential moral role to play. Therefore, facilitating a corporate culture of care should not be read as an unqualified endorsement of free market capitalism or unfettered globalization.

  2. 2.

    There are warranted concerns that knowledge management has been theorized to a much greater extent than it has been actualized. See, for example, Frappaolo (2006) or Spender and Scherer (2007). Perhaps Drucker’s full expression of a knowledge society is still to be realized.

  3. 3.

    In C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel’s original work on core competencies, three definitional conditions were offered: (1) consumer benefit; (2) difficult for competitors to imitate; and, (3) ability to leverage widely to many products and markets (1990). Care does not fit condition number 2 in a strict sense. However, caring is such a rich and complex response that there is room for wide variation in how care is communicated to stakeholders.

  4. 4.

    DeMoss and McCann contend that business schools are inadequately infusing care ethics into the business ethics curriculum (1997) leaving organizations desiring to create a caring culture at a disadvantage.

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Correspondence to Maurice Hamington .

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Hamington, M. (2011). Care Ethics, Knowledge Management, and the Learning Organization. In: Hamington, M., Sander-Staudt, M. (eds) Applying Care Ethics to Business. Issues in Business Ethics, vol 34. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9307-3_13

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