Driven by the ambition to transform their organization as a force for social good, a rising number of employees are starting grassroots movements to lead positive change from within their workplace (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016; Scully & Segal, 2002; One Young World, 2022). Principally investigated in the literature on insider social change agents, scholars usually draw on psychology to study the identity conflicts and motivations animating these individuals (Creed et al., 2010; Heucher et al., 2024; Meyerson & Scully, 1995). Whilst essential to shed light on who these agents are, we remark that they have given surprisingly less attention to the philosophical concept of moral character. In parallel, there has been a growing trend in leadership research which, acknowledging the importance of character in effectively leading people, has largely relied on Aristotle’s moral philosophy of virtue ethics to unpack the ontological and epistemological foundations of leader character (e.g. Hackett & Wang, 2012; Hannah & Avolio, 2011; Hannah & Jennings, 2013; Newstead et al., 2021). Importing some of these leadership insights into the literature on insider social change agents, our objective is to dress a comprehensive overview of the moral profile of these change agents. For that, we suggest adopting a critical realist lens which has the peculiarity of viewing reality as composed of three interrelated dimensions – the real, actual, and empirical (Bhaskar, 1978 & 2016). Following these dimensions, we argue that moral character might best be described as a multi-layered concept that includes 1) an authentic moral core (inartistic character or ethike), 2) a rhetorical expression of a subset of this core (artistic character or ethos), and 3) an empirical observation and impression of this rhetorically expressed subset (perceived ethos). Specifically, whereas this authentic moral core is not directly accessible to the human mind as it belongs to the dimension of the real, we contend that it might be inferred upon actualization as change agents rhetorically portray themselves in front of others. It is this rhetorical portrait that eventually reaches the empirical domain and is observed by other organizational members. Informing their general impressions about the moral goodness of these agents, we assert that it is on this basis that members decide whether to attribute them influence power or not. Given the significant potential of insider social change agents in establishing corporate purposes that deviate from the prevalent business paradigm of profit-making, we consider that tailoring our knowledge of their moral character is particularly relevant as this might enhance our understanding of why and how they successfully influence others (Girschick et al., 2022; Solinger et al., 2020; Wickert & De Bakker, 2018). Practically, we recommend placing these change agents in visible positions where frequent interactions with them would inspire members to cultivate moral excellence in their daily work activities. Moreover, we propose that their moral character informs the design of tools and programs that promote character development across corporate ladders.

In the age of the Sixth Extinction, biotech companies pursue the de-extinction of long time gone animals. In contrast to these technocratic projects, speculative design combines art and science with a different approach. Some imagine beings that entangle their life trajectories with plastics, others imaginatively reconstruct the vocal organs of extinct animals. What does it mean, philosophically, to focus not on language but on the voices of extinct nonhuman individuals? Can listening to these sounds and their counter-narratives help us navigate the complexities of our polluted present and orient us toward a feral future?

Between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s, Turin has been the setting of a unique and multifaceted interplay between artistic practice and conceptual theory. To further complicate the picture, in the same years the city was traversed by political tensions that brought together not only factory workers and university students, but also artists, gallerists and critics. The paper investigates the events occurred in Turin in that timeframe, aiming at showing the ways in which – more or less tacitly – the birth of Arte Povera (1967) was influenced by the aesthetic and political theories that were being developed in the same context by theorists and philosophers, while, in turn, the activities of the artists who participated in the movement had the ability to shape, to some extent, the conceptual thought of thinkers working in their vicinity. By focusing on the work of two artists in particular, Giuseppe Penone and Piero Gilardi (whose practices shared many theoretical points while diverging profoundly in motivations and results), I will consider the vexata quaestio of the relationships between art and life, and of whether the former should be framed as a mere representation of the latter. Luigi Pareyson’s theory of formativity (first outlined in 1954 and refined throughout the 1960s) along with Umberto Eco’s theory of The Open Work (1962), on the one hand, and the political thought developed in the same years by primo and secondo Operaismo (mainly by Mario Tronti and Toni Negri/Michael Hardt respectively), on the other, dealt extensively and critically with the status and role of representation – which is echoed in the poveristi’s artistic production and its anti-representationalism. Conversely, as will be shown by closely examining specific case studies, such artistic production served not only to corroborate the theoretical positions of aesthetic and political philosophy, but also, time and again, to challenge them, mold them, develop them in more radical directions.

Enterprise-level Digital Transformation (DT) efforts often fall short of their intended outcomes, despite the availability of targeted solutions for individual challenges. This is frequently due to the complex and insufficiently coordinated interplay of initiatives, decisions, and stakeholders – driven in part by ineffective steering mechanisms and fragmented information logistics. Drawing on the revelatory case of OTTO, we demonstrate how enterprise-level steering can be systematically informed and supported through targeted business analytics, facilitated by enterprise architects. We show how business analytics not only inform but also support steering by shaping narratives and enabling timely interventions. Our findings contribute to the literature on steering committees by emphasizing their informational role and the subjective use of data in complex DT. We also outline future opportunities for design-oriented research, to further develop data-driven steering of DT.

In recent years, process mining has emerged as the leading Big Data technology for business process analysis. By extracting knowledge from event logs readily available in information systems, process mining provides new ways to discover, monitor, and improve processes while being agnostic to the source system. Despite its undisputed practical relevance, we have a limited understanding of how organizations realize value potentials from applying process mining in different organizational contexts. Addressing this gap, we conduct an assessing literature review by analyzing 58 papers from the literature on process mining to synthesize the existing knowledge on business value realization from process mining. Our analysis is guided by adopting the perspective of process mining embedded within its organizational context. By analyzing the dimensions of the nomological net around process mining, we contribute to the broader research field of Big Data value realization twofold. First, we uncover which benefits organizations gain by applying process mining. Second, we analyze the organizational capabilities and practices that influence how organizations use and implement process mining. In addition, we reveal how process mining leads to business value realization. Based on these results, we suggest directions for future research on process mining in the organizational context.

Although German companies have a strong innovative tradition, they must use intellectual property creatively if they are to be successful in meeting the economic challenges of the 21st century.