Professional and Business Ethics Through Film: The Allure of Cinematic Presentation and Critical Thinking

360 Pages·2019·6.86 MB·English

by  Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

JADRANKA SKORIN-KAPOV
P R O F E S S I O N A L A N D
B U S I N E S S E T H I C S
T H R O U G H F I L M
The Allure of Cinematic
Presentation and
Critical Thinking
Professional and Business Ethics Through Film
Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
Professional and
Business Ethics
Through Film
The Allure of Cinematic Presentation
and Critical Thinking
Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-89332-7 ISBN 978-3-319-89333-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89333-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018949045
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Cover Credit: Sanela Plisko/Alamy Stock Photo Photograph of the Pula Film Festival, Croatia
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For Lana
Preface
As we live in the world saturated with images and moving images, our
worldview is often conditioned by what we see on the screen. Narrative
film, as an art form, and as a business enterprise, provides various avenues
for analysis. A feature length narrative film combines multiple artistic tal-
ents (e.g. directing, acting, scenography, music), multiple business directions
(producing, financing, marketing), and may address questions facing our
humanity, or propagate ideological views, or project contemporary critique,
or it can be done for pure entertainment. It is often difficult to provide an
unflinching sociological critique of consumerist society and yet secure the
box office profit, and many filmmakers try to balance those contradictory
forces. We will discuss this in more details as we analyze various films.
This book is intended for students and scholars concerned with issues
related to professional and business ethics. By discussing various films, we
examine the process of critical thinking and decision making, moral values,
and ethical considerations applied in a professional and business setting.
This is achieved by analyzing ethical positions of characters in fictional sce-
narios of relevant films, blurring the line between art and life, and by dis-
cussing a number of real-world cases. However, we also look at cinematic
elements used to deliver a message of the film, to evaluate film’s potential as
a marketing tool, influencing the spectatorship.
The motivation for writing this book follows from my diverse back-
ground combining research related to quantitative analysis of business prob-
lems, philosophical views on ethics and aesthetics, and a study of film art.
With initial background in mathematics and operations research involving
algorithmic development and optimization of business processes, I taught
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viii Preface
courses designed to develop quantitative decision-making skills. In order
to make informed business decisions it is important to be able to identify
a business problem, to identify relevant data and relations, and to apply a
quantitative method for proposing a solution. However, quantitative opti-
mization models are usually simplifications of reality and can leave out of
consideration some critical factors. For example, profit optimization in a
company might suggest firing a number of workers, but this could create
societal problems that are not part of the problem formulated for an opti-
mization algorithm. In addition to quantitative thinking, there is a need for
qualitative thinking as well.
Subsequent study led me to philosophy, specifically the phenomenology
of surprise, and to the intertwining of aesthetics and ethics. In the book
entitled The Aesthetics of Desire and Surprise: Phenomenology and Speculation
(Lexington Books, 2015) I analyze the break between desire and sudden sur-
prise, proposing the term desire||surprise. This neologism indicates discon-
nection between my current experience and its future projections through
desire, and the novel nature of something that surprises me, surpassing my
expectations. Such experiential breaks due to surprises are important for
enriching my experiential space since something new comes into my expe-
rience. I call this type of experience the properly aesthetic experience, starting
with desire for the unexpected, followed by the break of my representational
capabilities, finally resulting with surprise characterized by awakening of my
capability to process the encounter and by further reflection leading towards
admiration and/or responsibility. Admiration relates to enjoyment as with
evaluation of artworks, while responsibility leads to ethical considerations.
Further elaboration of the startup of surprise as related to sublimity led
to a book entitled The Intertwining of Aesthetics and Ethics: Exceeding of
Expectations, Ecstasy, Sublimity (Lexington Books, 2016). There I argue for
the common experiential ground for aesthetics and ethics, in the interplay
between admiration and responsibility, which can occur in our experiences
with nature and with art.
The third part of my inquiry led me to art history and criticism, specifi-
cally the study of film art. In the book entitled Darren Aronofsky’s Films and
the Fragility of Hope (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) I discuss Aronofsky’s
filmography in light of existential questions that his characters go through.
This allowed me to exemplify philosophical theories applied to fictional
characters, providing insights into human strengths and fragility. The themes
of Aronofsky’s films consider life and death struggles, addiction and obses-
sion, sacrifice, perfection, and arrogance. The characters are motivated by
the ever-present hope providing strength and dedication, but when the char-
Preface ix
acter’s behavior becomes extreme in some sense, hope engenders fragility,
and this is reflected in the title of my book.
My inclination forwards film art was amplified by growing up in Pula,
a city in northern Croatia and the home of the long-running Pula Film
Festival, taking place in the magical environment of the Roman amphi-
theater called Arena.1
This book grew from the course I developed at the College of Business
at Stony Brook University, entitled Business Ethics: Critical Thinking through
Film, a recipient of the 2017 Ideas Worth Teaching Award from The Aspen
Institute Business and Society Program.2 The results on students’ responses
regarding the material presented in the course were presented at the
European Group for Organizational Studies (EGOS) in Copenhagen 2017,
and the paper entitled Teaching Business Ethics Through Narrative Film was
subsequently published in the Journal of Business Ethics Education.
In the book, I combine insights from my diverse backgrounds in business
decision making, in philosophy, and in art history, in order to analyze pro-
fessional and business ethics through the experience of watching and evalu-
ating films. This analysis combines elements of creative and critical thinking
as applied in business decision making, philosophical views on ethics, and
artistic views on narrative film. I hope that such integrative approach will
prove beneficial and enjoyable for future professionals and business people
facing ethical challenges of our times.
Stony Brook, NY, USA Jadranka Skorin-Kapov
1The cover page is adopted from a photograph taken at the Pula Film Festival. About the Pula Film
Festival, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula_Film_Festival.
2For the description of the 2017 Ideas Worth Teaching Award winners see https://www.ideasworth-
teachingawards.com/.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to the colleagues and the students
at the College of Business at Stony Brook University for promoting inter-
disciplinary research and educational environment. Such an environment
provided a strong motivation towards my efforts in integrating humanistic
concerns into business education. This resulted with the formation of the
Center for Integration of Business Education & Humanities (CIBEH) at Stony
Brook University, and with the course on teaching business ethics through
film. I wish to thank the awards committee from The Aspen Institute Business
and Society Program for awarding the course with the 2017 Ideas Worth
Teaching Award. I am thankful to my students actively participating in the
course, and to my teaching assistant Mr. Martin Benson whose comments
and involvement contributed in making the course a valuable experience for
the students.
I am also indebted to the Department of Philosophy and the Department
of Art at Stony Brook University for allowing me to study philosophy and
art, and for providing stimulating discussions with faculty and students.
I am thankful to the Pula Film Festival, for help in getting the cover page
photo displaying the audience in the magical setting of my hometown’s Pula
Arena in Croatia.
The support and effort from the Palgrave’s editorial team of Marcus
Ballenger and Gabriel Everington is greatly appreciated. Their help was
instrumental in publishing this book.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the constant support of my husband
Darko and our younger generations for all my endeavors. Their encourage-
ment made this challenging effort enjoyable.
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xii Acknowledgements
This book is dedicated to my granddaughter Lana, with a wish for grow-
ing up in a world characterized by an ethical professional and business
atmosphere.