How do firms manage ethically-contested organisational paradoxes? Insights from two historical case studies of modern slavery

Wong, Nicholas D. and Smith, Andrew and Cruz, Allan Discua and Burton, Nicholas and Charalambous, Elenia (2025) How do firms manage ethically-contested organisational paradoxes? Insights from two historical case studies of modern slavery. Business History. ISSN 0007-6791

Abstract

Management researchers, particularly those focused on socially important issues such as worker exploitation, are increasingly interested in what this study terms ethically-contested organisational paradoxes. Such paradoxes occur when there is an incongruity between the ethical dimensions of a firm’s action in one area, geographical or functional, and another. To understand how firms manage ethically-contested organisational paradoxes, this study conducts historical research on two twentieth century firms, Cadbury and Rowntree, who were lauded by contemporaries for their enlightened treatment of domestic workforces whilst simultaneously being engaged in labour practices overseas that were controversial and exploitative. This study examines how two multigenerational family firms managed the paradox inherent in the significant difference in how they treated their workers at home and abroad. This study identifies three types of strategies that firm leaders used to manage the existence of ethically-contested organisational paradoxes: disinforming, subordinating, and self-doubting.