Øyvind Kvalnes – författare

This book is open access under a CC-BY license. Moral dilemmas are a pervasive feature of working life. Moral Reasoning at Work offers a fresh perspective on how to live with them using ethics and moral psychology research. It argues that decision-makers must go beyond compliance and traditional approaches to ethics to prepare for moral dilemmas.The second edition has been updated with a range of examples from the author’s more recent research, to reflect  current issues affecting organizations in the digital age. With two new chapters on artificial intelligence and social media, this new edition provides an up-to-date overview of ethical challenges in organizations.

Social media is at the core of digital transformations in organizations. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms widen the scope for rapid and effective communication with stakeholders. They also create a range of new and challenging ethical dilemmas.This open access book categorizes the dilemmas organizations across a range of industries can face when they implement social media to communicate with stakeholders. This book provides a systematic framework for analyzing these ethical dilemmas in social media using the Navigation Wheel. This tool leads the decision-maker through a series of considerations such as legal questions, corporate identity, morality, reputation, and ethics. Finally, the author considers implications for leaders and presents potential solutions to these dilemmas.Based on five years of original research with 250 executive students at a European business school, all of whom work with social media communications in their organizations, this book is the first major study to explore the ethical use of social media across industries and is a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners alike.

This open access book brings together current childhood research and contemporary ethical theory to draw attention to how children depend upon a scope of action for risky play for their mental and physical development. In many countries, the opportunities for children to play away from adults' close attention have decreased. At both school and home, protection and avoidance of harm take increasing priority. This book draws a distinction between do-good ethics and avoid-harm ethics to highlight ethical tensions and dilemmas encountered by professionals who work with children, and suggests better ways to balance these ethical dimensions in approaching risky play.

This book explores how members of an organization or group speak to and with each other. An expansion of the author’s previous research on fallibility in organizations, the concept of communication climate is related to those of voice climate and psychological safety, both of which focus on the risk of speaking up and raising concerns at work. In this book the author  addresses the scope for criticism, dissent and disagreement, but also for praise and encouragement. He places friendly friction at the core of what characterizes a healthy communication climate. Beginning with a clear explanation of how and why communication climate is important in organizations, the author introduces the concept of critical quality moments, i.e. situations where a verbal intervention can crucially change the course of events for the better. The book then goes on to describe seven elements that characterize well-functioning communication climates before exploring the concept of communication ethics, and the balance between freedom of speech on the one hand, and speech responsibility on the other.Concluding with suggestions for further research, this book addresses issues that are at the core of establishing collaboration and excellence at work, making it highly relevant to executive students at business schools, researchers in organizational behavior and decision-makers in organizations.This is an open access book.

This book explores how members of an organization or group speak to and with each other. An expansion of the author’s previous research on fallibility in organizations, the concept of communication climate is related to those of voice climate and psychological safety, both of which focus on the risk of speaking up and raising concerns at work. In this book the author  addresses the scope for criticism, dissent and disagreement, but also for praise and encouragement. He places friendly friction at the core of what characterizes a healthy communication climate. Beginning with a clear explanation of how and why communication climate is important in organizations, the author introduces the concept of critical quality moments, i.e. situations where a verbal intervention can crucially change the course of events for the better. The book then goes on to describe seven elements that characterize well-functioning communication climates before exploring the concept of communication ethics, and the balance between freedom of speech on the one hand, and speech responsibility on the other.Concluding with suggestions for further research, this book addresses issues that are at the core of establishing collaboration and excellence at work, making it highly relevant to executive students at business schools, researchers in organizational behavior and decision-makers in organizations.This is an open access book.

Dieses praktisch ausgelegte Buch bringt aktuelle Kindheitsforschung und zeitgenössische ethische Theorie zusammen. Es zeigt, wie sehr Kinder für ihre geistige und körperliche Entwicklung auf einen Handlungsspielraum für riskantes Spiel angewiesen sind. In vielen Ländern sind die Möglichkeiten unbeobachteten und unbegleiteten Spiels für Kinder zurückgegangen. Sowohl in der Schule als auch zu Hause stehen Schutz und Schadensvermeidung zunehmend im Vordergrund. In diesem Buch wird zwischen einer Ethik des Guten und einer Ethik der Schadensvermeidung unterschieden, um ethische Spannungen und Dilemmata aufzuzeigen, mit denen Fachkräfte, die mit Kindern arbeiten, konfrontiert sind. Außerdem werden Wege vorgeschlagen, diese ethischen Dimensionen beim Umgang mit riskantem Spiel besser auszubalancieren.

This Open Access book introduces the Second Chances Framework, a practice-informed tool designed to evaluate whether individuals who have committed ethical wrongdoing in organizational settings should be granted another opportunity. Drawing from twelve years of Executive MBA classroom discussions, the framework is built on real-world cases shared by experienced professionals across diverse sectors. It identifies five key factors—precedent, reparation, trust, transparency, and fairness—that guide structured reflection and ethical judgment.The chapters delve into critical questions such as: How should organizations weigh the seriousness of the original wrongdoing? Can trust be rebuilt, and what role does transparency play in ethical decision-making? Through detailed case studies and expert analysis, the book explores the tensions and interplay between these factors, offering a flexible yet robust approach to navigating complex ethical dilemmas. The framework is not a prescriptive formula but a tool for informed judgment, making it an essential read for those involved in organizational ethics.Aimed at scholars, practitioners, and students of organizational ethics, this book provides a structured, practical guide for navigating second chance decisions. It answers the call to embed ethics more deeply in organizational practice, ensuring decisions are grounded in ethical integrity and transparency.

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book addresses how organizations can deal with human fallibility in order to create space for excellence at work. Some mistakes in work settings put lives at risk, while others create openings for innovative breakthroughs. In order to deal constructively with fallibility, an organization needs a communication climate where it is normal to voice opinions, admit mistakes, and ask for help in critical situations. The book builds on interviews with practitioners in healthcare, aviation, IT, public governance, and industry. It connects narratives from these fields with theories from organizational psychology and philosophy, as well as from positive organizational scholarship. In the final chapter, an overall ethics of fallibility at work is outlined. Fallibility at Work contributes to research in multiple academic disciplines, but also reaches out to practitioners who are interested in the connections between error and excellence in organizations.