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Based on an empirical illustration of Onta pottery and more broadly a discussion of the Japanese Mingei movement, we study the intimacy between craft work, ethics and time. We conceptualize craft work through the temporal structure of tradition, to which we find three aspects: generational rhythms of making; cycles of use and re-use amongst consumers and a commitment to historically and naturally attuned communities. We argue these temporal structures of tradition in craftwork are animated by two contrasting but co-existing ideas of the good: the moral and the ethical. By developing the work of Elizabeth Grosz, we conceptualize this distinction between moral and ethical as a temporal phenomenon, specifically in differing relations to ideas of the future. Moral aspects of craft work understand the future as a progression from past, whether in preserving practices and norms, or improving upon them in relation to ideals. Ethical aspects understand the future as inherently open to chance and divergence, valuing difference, accident and the possibilities for creativity these entail. Empirically, we show evidence of both aspects in the case of Mingei—a organized movement dedicated to preserving and promoting traditional Japanese craft work. We contribute to studies of craft work by revealing and classifying its temporal aspects. We contribute to studies in business ethics by conceptualising a generative distinction between morals and ethics configured through differing understandings of time.

Drawing from Michel Foucault’s reading of Immanuel Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?,” and specifically his definition of ascesis, we associate maturity with a capacity for, and interest in, forming the self. On the basis of an empirical study of making vinyl records following the successful commercialization of digital media, we identify micro-disciplinary techniques of self-forming that emerge as enthusiasts steadily learn the craft of vinyl record manufacturing. It is, we argue, through technology, rather than against it, that organizational immaturity can be resisted. Craftwork involves testing and transforming, rather than just acquiring, traditional skills. Maturity involves an ongoing struggle of selectively and reflectively engaging with technologies via attempts to be the subject of one’s own subjection. The former contributes to the latter.

In this paper, prompted by Robert Cooper's reading of Elias Canetti's 'the sting', we attempt our own reading through Martin Heidegger's notion of the uncanny. We consider how the sting, as a cyclical process of command and its inevitable reversal, permeates attempts to enforce strategic direction in any organizational setting. We then consider how, at the topological moment of inflection when commands from the old order invert and become the commands of the commandeered, there is an equalising experience of organizational uncanniness in which strategy is no longer the struggle to define a distinct, coherent, well-ordered organizational form, but the struggle to question it.

The new world of work is being characterized by the emergence of what are, apparently, increasingly autonomous ways of working and living. Mobile work, coworking, flex office, platform-based entrepreneurship, virtual collaborations, Do It Yourself (DIT), remote work, digital nomads, among other trends, epitomize ways of organizing work practice that purportedly align productivity with freedom. But most ethnographical research already reveals many paradoxical experiences associated with these new practices and processes. Indeed, it appears that with autonomy comes surveillance and control, to a point where, as Foucault observed way back, subjectivity and subject become synonyms, and the current pandemic both strengthens and makes visible this situation. In this introduction to the special issue we make a foray into this situation, using four open and related themes developed in the five papers we selected: managerial control and technology; surveillance and platform capitalism; time and space; and new organizational forms and autonomy. Paradoxical movements are identified for each of them, before we conclude by reflecting on a grounding paradox which appears at the centre of this special issue and the themes it covers.

Do human rights make sense? They have been central to post-war political life, and our picture of moral self. But this is being eroded, Holt argues, and with it the viability of human rights discourse. The pre-social individual and its mental armoury is being challenged by an increasing awareness of genealogical forces in which the self is less a lone claimant than an exponent or rebel.Using Wittgenstein's philosophy, this book considers the liberal position on human rights, along with the communitarian and pragmatic attacks, and challenges the intelligibility of each from the perspective of what it is to be a language user. Wittgenstein, Politics and Human Rights argues that moral relations are not dead; but that their life resides with the on-going relations of selves governed by universal principles.

Milton Friedman argues that moral development is not a proper concern for managers in their public role as agents of principals. For managers the sole criterion of good behaviour is the lawful promotion of the owners' interests; their moral development is presumed an entirely personal affair. From a critical perspective, Alasdair Mac In tyre also argues that moral concerns are antithetical to the technical and instrumental activities that characterize management. In this article, I argue that this separation of morality and management is neither necessary nor desirable. The purpose is to show that the development of a moral character is integral to good managerial practice. I describe this moral character as the more or less successful development of phronesis: a sensitivity to the appropriateness and limits of value convictions set within communities of practically oriented, purposive action. To further expand on this, I discuss the relevance of Aristotle's theory of rhetoric and how rhetorical practice might contribute to the phronetic development of managers.

Craft and industrial manufacture are often seen as dichotomous, with craft being marginalized during the process of industrialization. We want to look beyond this position, searching for craft in places where it has gone unnoticed and where it might have bloomed anew in the interstices created by industrialization. We explore these questions by studying Josiah Wedgwood's innovative craft and experimental practices, developed through a close reading of his extensive published correspondence. What we offer is a reinterpretation of Wedgwood's practices positioned against the existing historiography, both standard and revisionist. Our reinterpretation is developed through application of a theoretical-methodological framework of phenomenological micro-history, in which craft is thought of primarily as a space that makes possible what Martin Heidegger called 'occasioning'.

Recently, the ethical rather than just the economic resonance of entrepreneurship has attracted attention with researchers highlighting entrepreneurship and ethics as interwoven processes of value creation and management. Recognising that traditional normative perspectives on ethics are limited in application in entrepreneurial contexts, this stream of research has theorised entrepreneurship and ethics as the pragmatic production of useful effects through the alignment of public—private values. In this article, we critique this view and use Kant's concept of reflective judgement as discussed in his Critique of the Power of Judgement to theorise ethical entrepreneurial practice as the capacity to routinely break free from current conventions through the imaginative creation and use of self-legislating maxims. Through an analysis of the narratives of 12 entrepreneurs, we suggest there are three dimensions to reflective judgement in entrepreneurial contexts: (1) Social Performance; (2) Public Challenge and; (3) Personal Autonomy. Whilst the entrepreneurs were alive to the importance of commercial return, their narratives demonstrated further concern for, and commitment to, standards that they rationally and imaginatively felt as being appropriate. In our discussion, we integrate the findings into existing theoretical categories from entrepreneurship studies to better appreciate ethics within the context of value creation.

Purpose - The paper seeks to draw on the work of Engeström to set out an activity theory framework for the analysis of entrepreneurs engaged in the creation of new business ventures (NBVs). Adopting an activity-based approach involves analysing the actions of individual and groups that are mediated through a range of devices, including language and physical artefacts.Design methodology approach - The empirical data are based on a small sample of \"scholars\" taking part in a UK government-sponsored initiative to promote enterprise: the New Entrepreneur Scholarship (NES). The data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with the entrepreneurs. NVivo software was then used to systemise the data according to the six dimensions of the activity theory triangle.Findings - The cases illustrate the contradictions and tensions that confront nascent entrepreneurs as they consider the horizon of possibilities associated with their business idea. The paper demonstrates that the new business actually emerges from a contested set of relationships within which the entrepreneur plays a critical, creative, but far from solitary, role.Research limitations implications - The use of activity theory helps provide a better understanding of how entrepreneurs engaged in relatively mundane business start-ups actually identify and develop \"new\" opportunities. This is in contrast to many studies of entrepreneurial activity which focus on \"high-tech\" or fast-growing firms.Originality value - This is an exploratory study which utilises the activity theory framework to understand the difficulties and rewards for individuals with limited human and social capital to create successful new firms.

The use of risk management as a response to ‘strategic’ organizational uncertainties is investigated. The deconstruction of uncertainties to rationalized probabilities is argued to be symptomatic of a specific conceptualization of problems as ‘tame’, a narrow epistemology that fails to account fully for organizational experience. By introducing ‘messes’ and ‘wicked problems’, a new mode of rhetorical, allegorical risk management is argued for. Insights from Machiavelli and psychoanalysis provide frameworks by which this can be achieved.