Ideological Foundation

Based on the insights of the ontological foundation, the ideological foundation presents normative and ethical considerations about enterprises and the human beings affected by them. After reflecting on the question as to why enterprises exist, the chapter provides empirical evidence and theoretical considerations for the importance of employee involvement for enterprise operational and strategic performance. Traditional views on obtaining adequate performance are criticized, and radically different views are presented. Given the importance of employee involvement, special attention is paid to employee behavior and motivation, and the enterprise conditions that determine behavior and motivation. For understanding these conditions, the conceptual enterprise model introduced in the chapter about the ontological foundation is indispensable. The chapter further argues that adequate employee behavior critically depends on enterprise coherence and consistency, which is thereby an important concern in enterprise design. As a consequence of the needed involvement of employees, the employee-centric theory of organization is outlined, which harmonizes ethical imperatives concerning employees and society at large with enterprise performance requirements. Despite strong arguments to adopt this theory of organization, the chapter sketches the disquieting discrepancy between the ideological viewpoints and the all-too-often bleak enterprise reality. Finally, the implications of the ideological foundation for enterprise governance and enterprise engineering are summarized.