Max Weber

This article concerns the extent to which corrupt behavior is dependent on the organizational power structure and the resources available for illegal exchange. This qualitative study is based on 42 in-depth interviews with organizational actors in different organizations in Hungary. Four core themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) isolated corruption at the bottom, (b) the middle level’s own corruption, (c) “technicization” when middle-level professionals and expert groups are used to legalize the corruption of the dominant coalition, and (d) “turning-off controls” when organizational elites intentionally deactivate internal and external controls to avoid detection.

"In this paper, we advocate a concept of broader social responsibility, based on constructivist sociological perspective (see Berger and Luckmann 1999, Morgan, 2006, Giddens 2003) which emphasizes the continuum of typifications that allow the description of the acts of the various organizational actors progressively. IT will be argued that the conceptual emergence of the concept of social responsibility has an intimate connection to the philosophical precepts of ethics and morals (Max Weber), also proposing the analysis of its role as extensive responsibility in a time of bankruptcy of the welfare state. From the sociological point of view, the "internal social responsibility" of the organization should stress the need to know the culture, values ​​and ethical climate, particularly the perceived sense and meaning produced by the actors in the creation, manifestation and understanding this social world.

Neste texto, defendemos um conceito de responsabilidade social mais amplo, baseado na  perspectiva sociológica construtivista (ver Berger e Luckmann 1999, Morgan 2006, Giddens 2003) que sublinha o contínuo de tipificações que possibilitam a descrição dos actos dos diversos agentes organizacionais de modo progressivo. Ensaia-se a emergência conceptual do conceito de responsabilidade social, a sua íntima ligação aos preceitos filosóficos da ética e da moral (Max Weber), propondo-se também a análise do seu  papel enquanto responsabilidade extensiva numa altura de falência do estado social. Perspectiva-se, do ponto de vista sociológico, a “responsabilidade social interna” da organização, invocando a necessidade de se conhecer a cultura, valores e o clima ético, nomeadamente o sentido apreendido e o significado produzido pelos seus actores, na criação, manifestação e compreensão desse mundo social."

A hasty reading of “Marginal utility theory” and “the fundamental law of psychophysics” (1908) might suggest that Weber was criticizing the idea that psychophysics could make any contribution whatsoever to sociological studies and that he favored instead a version of anthropology based on the marginalist homo oeconomicus model. In fact, though Weber rejected the idea that psychophysics could be a foundational science, he did outline a possible role for it, alongside marginalist economics, in explaining the complex causality of human action.

The first half of the 1910s were a crucial turning period for Max Weber's thought. Whereas he had initially considered the question of the emergence of modern capitalism in relation to religious ethics, he started to link the study of contemporary capitalism with that of a variety of other domains-law, music, and the press. With regard to the latter he sought to set up a broad survey in the context of the creation of the German Sociological Society. This paper narrates the story of the formulation of the survey plan and the failure of the project, before setting out to unravel the relation which Weber seems to have wanted to ascertain, between the 'information economy' and the economy itself.