Abstract
Secrecy and ethics are often seen as opposing forces within organizations. Secret work is viewed as unethical, as it excludes others from knowing and is associated with self-interested behavior. We contend that this view does not account for the dynamic inherent to secrecy and to the fact that ethics is embedded in social relations. This paper suggests an alternative view. We consider secrecy as a social process which allows employees to maintain their ethics when faced with managerial policies that affect the quality of their work. Building on an in-depth case study of a team of journalists who worked in secret after their managers decided to prioritize the interests of shareholders and advertising firms, we show how these journalists managed to maintain collective ethics through secrecy and to do their work according to their own moral principles. This paper offers two primary contributions. First, we show a mutually beneficial relationship between ethics and secrecy in organizations, wherein secrecy helps maintaining ethics in everyday work. Second, the paper shows how secrecy can lead to ethical resistance, via a transformation of the power relationship with managers.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ackroyd, S., & Thompson, P. (1999). Organizational misbehaviour (1 edn.). London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Alakavuklar, O. N., & Alamgir, F. (2017). Ethics of resistance in organisations: A conceptual proposal. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3631-2.
Anteby, M. (2008). Moral gray zones side productions, identity, and regulation in an aeronautic plant. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bail, C. A. (2015). The public life of secrets deception, disclosure, and discursive framing in the policy process. Sociological Theory, 33(2), 97–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0735275115587388.
Bardon, T., & Josserand, E. (2011). A Nietzschean reading of Foucauldian thinking: Constructing a project of the self within an ontology of becoming. Organization, 18(4), 497–515.
Becker, H. S. (1997). Outsiders: Studies in sociology of deviances. New York: Simon & Schuster Ltd.
Birchall, C. (2011). Introduction to ‘Secrecy and Transparency’ the politics of opacity and openness. Theory, Culture & Society, 28(7–8), 7–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276411427744.
Blakely, S. (2011). Toward an archaeology of secrecy: Power, paradox, and the great gods of samothrace. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-8248.2012.01037.x.
Bloom, P. N., & White, P. J. (2016). The moral work of subversion. Human Relations, 69(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726715576041.
Bouilloud, J.-P., Deslandes, G., & Mercier, G. (2017). The leader as chief truth officer: The ethical responsibility of “Managing the Truth” in organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-017-3678-0.
Chan, C. S. (2009). Invigorating the content in social embeddedness: An ethnography of life insurance transactions in China. AJS, 115(3), 712–754.
Clegg, S. (1989). Frameworks of power. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Clegg, S., Kornberger, M., & Rhodes, C. (2007). Business ethics as practice. Scopus. https://lra.le.ac.uk/handle/2381/13306. Accessed 27 Feb 2017.
Contu, A. (2008). Decaf resistance on misbehavior, cynicism, and desire in liberal workplaces. Management Communication Quarterly, 21(3), 364–379. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318907310941.
Contu, A. (2013). On boundaries and difference: Communities of practice and power relations in creative work. Management Learning, 1350507612471926. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350507612471926.
Contu, A. (2014). Rationality and relationality in the process of whistleblowing. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(4), 393–406. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492613517512.
Cotton, R. D., Shen, Y., & Livne-Tarandach, R. (2011). On becoming extraordinary: The content and structure of the developmental networks of major league baseball hall of famers. Academy of Management Journal, 54(1), 15–46.
Courpasson, D. (2017). Beyond the hidden/public resistance divide: How bloggers defeated a big company. Organization Studies, 38(9), 1277–1302. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616685363.
Courpasson, D., Dany, F., & Clegg, S. (2012). Resisters at work: Generating productive resistance in the workplace. Organization Science, 23(3), 801–819. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1110.0657.
Courpasson, D., & Younes, D. (2018). Double or quits: Understanding the links between secrecy and creativity in a project development process. Organization Studies, 39(2–3), 271–295. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617727780.
Crozier, M. (2009). The bureaucratic phenomenon. London: Transaction Publishers.
Dalton M. (1959). Men who manage. NY: Wiley.
Davies, P. H. J., Grey, C., & Sturdy, A. (2010). A chaos that worked: Organizing Bletchley Park. Public Policy and Administration, 25(1), 47–66. https://doi.org/10.1177/0952076709347075.
Denzin, N. K. (1989). Interpretive biography (Vol. 17). London: Sage.
Fleming, P. (2013). ‘Down with Big Brother!’ the end of ‘Corporate Culturalism’? Journal of Management Studies, 50(3), 474–495. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2012.01056.x.
Fleming, P. (2015). Work and illness under neoliberal capitalism: How to use your virus as a weapon of refusal. In A. Pullen & C. Rhodes (Eds.), The routledge companion of ethics, politics and organizations. Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group.
Fleming, P., & Sewell, G. (2002). Looking for the good soldier, Švejk alternative modalities of resistance in the contemporary workplace. Sociology, 36(4), 857–873. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803850203600404.
Fleming, P., & Spicer, A. (2014). Power in management and organization science. The Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 237–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2014.875671.
Flyverbom, M., Christensen, L. T., & Hansen, H. K. (2015). The transparency–power nexus: Observational and regularizing control. Management Communication Quarterly, 29(3), 385–410. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318915593116.
Foucault, M. (2001). Fearless speech. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e).
Gordon, R., Clegg, S., & Kornberger, M. (2009). Embedded ethics: Discourse and power in the New South Wales police service. Organization Studies, 30(1), 73–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840608100515.
Greenbaum, R. L., Mawritz, M. B., Mayer, D. M., Priesemuth, M. (2013). To act out, to withdraw, or to constructively resist? Employee reactions to supervisor abuse of customers and the moderating role of employee moral identity. Human Relations, 66(7), 925–950.
Grey, C. (2014). An organizational culture of secrecy: The case of Bletchley Park. Management & Organizational History, 9(1), 107–122. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2013.876317.
Grey, C., & Costas, J. (2016). Secrecy at work: The hidden architecture of organizational life. Stanford: Stanford Business Books.
Grey, C., & Sturdy, A. (2008). The 1942 reorganization of the government code and cypher school. Cryptologia, 32(4), 311–333. https://doi.org/10.1080/01611190802114411.
Hanlon, G., & Mandarini, M. (2015). On the impossibility of business ethics. Leadership, heterogeneity and politics. In A. Pullen & C. Rhodes (Eds.), The routledge companion of ethics, politics and organizations. Routledge: Taylor and Francis Group.
Hazelrigg, L. E. (1969). A reexamination of Simmel’s “The secret and the secret society”: Nine propositions. Social Forces, 47(3), 323–330.
Hebb, T. (2006). The economic inefficiency of secrecy: Pension fund investors’ corporate transparency concerns. Journal of Business Ethics, 63(4), 385–405. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-005-3968-9.
Horn, E. (2011). Logics of political secrecy. Theory, Culture & Society, 28(7–8), 103–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276411424583.
Jackall, R. (2010). Moral mazes: The world of corporate managers (20th Anniversary edn.).). New York: Oxford University Press.
Labeff, E., Clark, R., Haines, V., & Diekhoff, G. (1990). Situational ethics and college-student cheating. Sociological Inquiry, 60(2), 190–198. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1990.tb00138.x.
Laidlaw, J. (2002). For an anthropology of ethics and freedom. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8(2), 311–332.
Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. The Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710. https://doi.org/10.2307/259349.
Larmer, R. A. (1992). Whistleblowing and employee loyalty. Journal of Business Ethics, 11(2), 125–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00872319.
Mainemelis, C. (2010). Stealing fire: Creative deviance in the evolution of new ideas. Academy of Management Review, 35(4), 558–578.
Maria, W. D. (2006). Brother secret, sister silence: Sibling conspiracies against managerial integrity. Journal of Business Ethics, 65(3), 219. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-005-4710-3.
Mumby, D. K., Thomas, R., Martí, I., & Seidl, D. (2017). Resistance redux. Organization Studies, 38(9), 1157–1183. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840617717554.
Munro, I. (2015). Organizational resistance as a vector of deterritorialization: The case of WikiLeaks and secrecy havens. Organization. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508415591362.
Munro, I. (2017). Whistle-blowing and the politics of truth: Mobilizing ‘Truth Games’ in the WikiLeaks case. Human Relations, 70(5), 519–543. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726716672721.
Nemeth, C. J. (1997). Managing innovation: When less is more. California Management Review, 40(1), 59–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/41165922.
Parker, M. (2015). Secret societies: Intimations of organization. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840615593593.
Pérezts, M., & Picard, S. (2015). Compliance or comfort zone? The work of embedded ethics in performing regulation. Journal of Business Ethics, 131(4), 833–852. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2154-3.
Pompa, V. (1992). Managerial secrecy: An ethical examination. Journal of Business Ethics, 11(2), 147–156. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00872322.
Pullen, A., & Rhodes, C. (2014). Corporeal ethics and the politics of resistance in organizations. Organization, 21(6), 782–796. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508413484819.
Pullen, A., & Rhodes, C. (2015). The routledge companion to ethics, politics and organizations. Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.
Puyou, F. -R. (2018). Systems of secrecy: Confidences and gossip in management accountants’ handling of dual role expectations and MCS limitations. Management Accounting Research. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mar.2018.01.001.
Rendtroff, J. D. (2014). French philisophy and social theory. A perspective for ethics and philosophy of management. Dordrecht: Springer.
Rhodes, C., Pullen, A., & Clegg, S. R. (2010). ‘If I should fall from grace… stories of change and organizational ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(4), 535–551. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0116-y.
Ringel, L. (2018). Unpacking the transparency-secrecy nexus: Frontstage and backstage behaviour in a political party. Organization Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840618759817.
Schaffer, S. (2004). Resisting ethics. New York: Springer.
Simmel, G. (1906). The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. American Journal of Sociology, 11(4), 441–498.
Simmel, G. (1950). The sociology of Georg Simmel. Simon and Schuster.
Smith, W., Higgins, M., Kokkinidis, G., & Parker, M. (2015). Becoming invisible: The ethics and politics of imperceptibility. Culture and Organization, 0(0), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2015.1110584.
Solomon, R. C. (1992). Ethics and excellence: Cooperation and integrity in business. New York: Oxford University Press.
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedures and technique, 2nd Edn. Sage: London.
Thomas, R., Sargent, L. D., & Hardy, C. (2011). Managing organizational change: Negotiating meaning and power-resistance relations. Organization Science, 22(1), 22–41. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1090.0520.
Turco, C. (2012). Difficult decoupling: Employee resistance to the commercialization of personal settings. American Journal of Sociology, 118(2), 380–419. https://doi.org/10.1086/666505.
Vallas, S. (2011). Work: A critique (1 edn.). Malden: Polity Press.
Vallas, S. P. (2016). Working class heroes or working stiffs? Domination and resistance in business organizations. In A. L. Kalleberg, S. P. Vallas (Eds.), A Gedenkschrift to Randy Hodson: Working with dignity (Vols. 10–28, pp. 101–126). Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Weiskopf, R., & Willmott, H. (2013). Ethics as critical practice: The “Pentagon Papers”. Truth-telling, and the unsettling of organizational morality. Organization Studies, 34(4), 469–493. https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840612470256.
Wexler, M. N. (1987). Conjectures on the dynamics of secrecy and the secrets business. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(6), 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383289.
Willer, R. (2009). Groups reward individual sacrifice: The status solution to the collective action problem. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 23–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/000312240907400102.
Willmott, H. (2013). ‘The substitution of one piece of nonsense for another’: Reflections on resistance, gaming, and subjugation. Journal of Management Studies, 50(3), 443–473. https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12019.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Younes, D., Courpasson, D. & Jacob, MR. Ethics from Below: Secrecy and the Maintenance of Ethics. J Bus Ethics 163, 451–466 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-4029-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-4029-5