Roundtable

The Hedonistic Way:

Deconstructing the Classic Dilemma between Altruism and Utilitarianism

Anne Ellerup Nielsen, chair and organizer

In the era of globalisation and experience economy, one of the challenges that individuals and organisations have to respond to is how they engage themselves in other peoples’ welfare and living conditions around the globe. This explains why in recent years a range of initiatives such as social partnerships, cause-related marketing, donation campaigns, philanthropic engagements, etc. have appeared on the arena (Kotler and Lee, 2005).  The question is how this global challenge is being handled, motivated and balanced in the intertwining of culture and economy which increasingly characterises contemporary societies (Pine and Gilmore, 1999, Boswijk, Thijssen, Peelen, 2 007).

The panel aims at exploring how individuals and organisations transgress the paradox of business and ethics, forming a hedonistic sense making configuration in which globalisation, experience and responsibility walk hand in hand and bring everyday life projects of consumers, organisations and society closer to each other.

In the experience economy individual and organisational identity construction are created and maintained through social interaction: consumption for individuals, strategic alliances for businesses. Both of these interaction forms are motivated by a) a searching for meaning and b) a searching for recognition (e,g, Østergaard & Jantzen 2000). For consumers value is looked upon and produced in terms of the immaterial and existential experience it generates and the empowerment it attributes: e.g. avoidance of everyday life routines, intensifying phenomena, events and relations for the individual, consumption as an expression of the desire for transformation and change and through the consumer’s active investment in experience. Like consumers who stage themselves through consumption, organisations express themselves through social commitment amongst consumers, activist groups, NGO’s, etc. They must show an equal will to contribute to society in order to keep their ‘licence-to-operate, obtaining legitimacy for their business activities in civil society (Paine 2003). Businesses’ CSR activities may be reactively problem driven (risk management, functional positioning, market positioning, civic positioning, etc.) or proactively opportunity-driven (‘a better way’). However, a classical dilemma referring to two ethical oppositions between altruism and utilitarism still seams to appear in the discussion of organisations’ and consumer’s ethical commitment, which can be traced back to the works of philosophers of ethics such as Kant, Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, etc. The question is how this dilemma is deconstructed, how this deconstruction is practiced and which types of questions are raised by the hedonistic alignment to ethics.

In order to discuss how different relations are established between consumers, organisations and society in the era of globalisation and experience economy it is necessary to draw on a multidisciplinary framework and to invite discussants from different areas of research and practice. Consequently the panel discussion includes the following four approaches:

-Consumption studies and branding

-Aesthetics, culture and media studies

-Strategic communication and CSR

-Philosophy

Roundtable presenters:

Researchers:

1.  Associate Professor Ph D. Britta Timm Knudsen with colleagues, Scandinavian Department, University of Aarhus

2.  Associate Professor Ph.D. Anne Ellerup Nielsen with colleagues, ASB Centre for Corporate Communication, University of Aarhus

3.  Associate Professor Ph.D. Morten Raffnsøe-Møller, Department of Philosophy, University of Aarhus

4.  Associate Professor Ph.D. Adam Arvidsson, Media Studies, University of Copenhagen

5.  Professor Roy Langer, Department of Communication, Roskilde University

6.  Associate Professor, Ph.D. Lisa Ann Richey,International Development Studies Dept. of Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University

Practitioners:

7.  Kresten Schultz Jørgensen, CEO, Lead Agency

8.  Catrine Esmand Andersen, Strategic Planner, ScanAd Development Agency