Ansattprofil

Øyvind Kvalnes

Professor - Institutt for ledelse og organisasjon

Romnummer A3Y-023
Telefon +4795204496
E-post oyvind.kvalnes@bi.no

Biografi

The philosopher Øyvind Kvalnes is an associate professor at the Department of Leadership and Organizational Management, BI Norwegian School of Management. He is an experienced facilitator, lecturer and researcher. In 1998 he defended his PHD-thesis entitled “Living with Moral Luck”. For ten years he was the CEO of Humanistisk Akademi in Oslo, a small unit of philosophical consultants. He has written three books on practical philosophy in the workplace. His main interests outside academia is family, football and music. Research areas
Human flourishing and fallibility, ethics, communication, personal integrity, organizational identity, self-determination and autonomy, wisdom in leadership

Ekspertområder

Publikasjoner

Vitenskapelige publikasjoner I media Andre

Carlsen, Arne & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2023)

Home Alone and All Together: Lightness of agency in social inquiry

Organization Studies, 44(8), s. 1333- 1352. Doi: 10.1177/01708406231166806

Research has provided limited knowledge of how people in organizations experience growth of agency during circumstances that seem hopeless and stuck, and how such growth emerges. Drawing from the study of the turnaround processes at a nursing home and the Pragmatism of Dewey and Mead, we contribute with a theory of how agency is produced in social inquiry. We suggest that the puzzling accounts of lightness in the experiences of people at this nursing home help explain how a field of social inquiry may be charged with creative and agentic force. We show how agency emerged through a series of action sequences related to inviting people into inquiry through the opening of a troublesome situation, the resulting voicing of needs and ideas for improvement, as well as the subsequent experimenting and surfacing of tales of meaningful progress from such actions. Furthermore, our empirical observations suggest that the emergence of collective desire to meet the needs of the Generalized Other is a central, yet understated, part of agency produced through social inquiry. Lightness of agency may be accentuated, paradoxically, by the weight of a more generalized situation – in this case that of institutionalized care for elderly – that the local inquiry exemplifies and in which it resonates.

Sandseter, Ellen Beate Hansen & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2022)

Mod i børns leg - at skabe rammer for at tage risici

Brostrom, Stig & Mellon, Karsten (red.). Mod i pædagogikken

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2020)

Digital Dilemmas: Exploring Social Media Ethics in Organizations

Palgrave Pivot.

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2019)

Moral Reasoning at Work: Rethinking Ethics in Organizations

Palgrave Pivot.

Kvalnes, Øyvind & Nordal, Salvor (2018)

Normalization of questionable behavior: An ethical root of the financial crisis in Iceland

Journal of Business Ethics, s. 1- 15. Doi: 10.1007/s10551-018-3803-8

In this paper, we explore the 2008 financial crisis in Iceland through the lens of Donaldson’s concept of normalization of questionable behavior. We study the report published by the Special Investigation Commission, an investigation initiated by the Icelandic Parliament near the end of 2008. The report provides a detailed and systematic account of the processes leading up to the crisis. Our aim is to determine the extent to which the behaviors of professionals in the Icelandic Financial sector can be explained as a gradual fading of moral concerns to the point that they perceived the sale of high-risk Products to unassuming customers for their own short-term benefit to be morally unproblematic. In doing so, we consider both character and circumstance explanations of moral misbehavior. We expand on Donaldson’s initial description of normalization of questionable behavior by applying the concept of moral neutralization, which is defined by criminologists Sykes and Matza as the process of convincing oneself that an option that initially conflicted with one’s own moral beliefs is actually morally acceptable. We find indications that individuals in the Icelandic financial sector did engage in moral neutralization in their attempts to frame their own actions in an acceptable light. In our study, we identify one way of neutralizing away moral dissonance not captured in the original theoretical framework. Icelandic bankers justified their behavior by claiming that they did not break any relevant rules or regulations when they engaged in what were later labeled questionable activities. Our name for this kind of justification is claim of having breached no rule.

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2017)

Aktivitetsfellen

Dagens næringsliv

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2017)

Ethics in projects

Sankaran, Shankar; Müller, Ralf & Drouin, Nathalie (red.). Cambridge Handbook of Organizational Project Management

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2017)

Fallibility at work: Rethinking excellence and error in organizations

Palgrave Macmillan.

This book addresses how organizations can deal with human fallibility in order to create space for excellence at work. Some mistakes in work settings put lives at risk, while others create openings for innovative breakthroughs. In order to deal constructively with fallibility, an organization needs a communication climate where it is normal to voice opinions, admit mistakes, and ask for help in critical situations. The book builds on interviews with practitioners in healthcare, aviation, IT, public governance, and industry. It connects narratives from these fields with theories from organizational psychology and philosophy, as well as from positive organizational scholarship. In the final chapter, an overall ethics of fallibility at work is outlined. Fallibility at Work contributes to research in multiple academic disciplines, but also reaches out to practitioners who are interested in the connections between error and excellence in organizations.

Müller, Ralf; Turner, Rodney J., Andersen, Erling S., Shao, Jingting & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2017)

Governance and Ethics in Temporary Organizations: The Mediating Role of Corporate Governance

Project Management Journal, 47(6), s. 7- 23. Doi: 10.1177/875697281604700602 - Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2016)

Living with the unknown unknown: Uncertainty in projects

Project Management Journal, 47(3), s. 101- 108. Doi: 10.1177/875697281604700309

Müller, Ralf & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2016)

Project governance and project ethics

Müller, Ralf (red.). Governance and Governmentality for Projects: Enablers, Practices and Consequences

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2015)

Profesjon og interesse: Om moralsk nøytralisering blant tannleger

Den norske tannlegeforenings tidende, 125(5), s. 426- 432.

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2015)

Moral Reasoning at Work: Rethinking Ethics in Organizations

Palgrave Pivot.

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2014)

Leadership and moral neutralisation

Leadership, 10(4), s. 456- 470. Doi: 10.1177/1742715013504426

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2014)

Honesty in projects

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, 7(4), s. 590- 600. Doi: 10.1108/IJMPB-07-2013-0027 - Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Müller, Ralf; Turner, Rodney, Andersen, Erling S., Shao, Jingting & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2014)

Ethics, Trust, and Governance in Temporary Organziations

Project Management Journal, 45(4), s. 39- 54. Doi: 10.1002/pmj.21432

Alm, Kristian; Andersen, Erling S. & Kvalnes, Øyvind (2013)

Tillit i prosjekter

Magma - Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, 16(3), s. 26- 33.

Müller, Ralf; Andersen, Erling S., Kvalnes, Øyvind, Shao, Jingting, Sankaran, Shankar, Turner, Rodney, Biesenthal, Christopher, Walker, Derek H.T. & Gudergan, Siegfried (2013)

The Interrelationship of Governance,Trust, and Ethics in Temporary Organizations

Project Management Journal, 44(4), s. 26- 44. Doi: 10.1002/pmj.21350 - Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

Kvalnes, Øyvind & Øverenget, Einar (2012)

Ethical Navigation in Leadership Training

Etikk i praksis, 6(1), s. 58- 71. Doi: 10.5324/eip.v6i1.1778

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2012)

Blurred Promises: Ethical Consequences of Fine Print Policies in Insurance

Journal of Business Ethics, 103(1), s. 77- 86. Doi: 10.1007/s10551-012-1224-7

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2012)

Beyond the Despairing Self: Kierkegaard and Human Fallibility at Work

International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review, 9(4), s. 53- 60. Doi: 10.18848/1447-9508/cgp/v09i04/43202

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2010)

Feilbarlige ledere

Magma - Tidsskrift for økonomi og ledelse, 13(6), s. 35- 41.

Kvalnes, Øyvind & Hemmestad, Liv B (2010)

Loophole ethics in sports

Etikk i praksis, 4(1), s. 57- 67.

Ethical challenges in sports occur when the practitioners are caught between the will to win and the overall task of staying within the realm of acceptable values and virtues. One way to prepare for these challenges is to formulate comprehensive and specific rules of acceptable conduct. In this paper we will draw attention to one serious problem with such a rule-based approach. It may inadvertently encourage what we will call loophole ethics, an attitude where every action that is not explicitly defined as wrong, will be seen as a viable option. Detailed codes of conduct leave little room for personal judgement, and instead promote a loophole mentality. We argue that loophole ethics can be avoided by operating with only a limited set of general principles, thus leaving more space for personal judgement and wisdom.

Kvalnes, Øyvind & Gjerde, Susann (2023)

Ledere og ledelse i utvikling med Susann Gjerde

Ytringsklima med Øyvind Kvalnes [Internett]

Kvalnes, Øyvind (2023)