Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the relationships between business organizations, local communities, and the environment. It discusses the relationships between firms and workers in several contexts around several issues, including workplace safety issues, and human rights in the global supply chain and in the movie industry. The book also discusses the larger question of ethics in private firms and in public organizations, including universities. These cases provide material for discussion on the blurry boundaries between the Dark Side and/or "business as usual" in the strategies and practices of business and public organizations. The competition rewards critical teaching cases that challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions and practices of contemporary organizations and offer alternatives to mainstream corporate and management conceptual frames, mental models, values, paradigms, practices, processes, and systems.