An enterprise is an institutional order established for permanence that organizes economic activities and in doing so can either enable or prevent the actualization of the dimensions of its members’ personhood. It is at the same time a community of persons — not merely an economic unit. The enterprise employs persons, bears a duty of care for its supply chain, and is oriented toward the Personalist Norm through an ethical governance. Where an enterprise treats persons primarily as functionaries, an instrumentalizing culture arises.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Institution
- Has subclass: Department
- Relations: employs, has duty of care for, is part of supply chain
Department
A department is an organizational sub-unit of an enterprise with its own sphere of responsibility. It belongs to an enterprise and is subdivided into teams. As part of the institutional order, the department bears responsibility for ensuring that the persons working within it can actualize their dimensions of personhood. The Personalist Norm holds at every level of the organization — within the department as well.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Enterprise
- Relations: belongs to enterprise, has teams
Compliance
Compliance is the totality of measures for adhering to norms. It differs from purely legal compliance in that the Personalist Norm is recognized as the highest norm. An enterprise is compliant in the full sense only when it satisfies not only legal but also moral norms, measured against the dignity of the person. The highest level of compliance consists in the enterprise being compliant with the Personalist Norm. Ethical governance and ethical review are the institutional means by which compliance is realized.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Entity
- Relation: is compliant with (enterprise to Personalist Norm)
Ethical Governance
Ethical governance is the institutional structure that ensures that business decisions are oriented toward the Personalist Norm. It comprises ethics committees, whistleblower protection, and grievance mechanisms. As an institution, it is guided by the Personalist Norm and promotes the actualization of the dimensions of personhood within the enterprise. Ethical governance is the institutional realization of the insight that an enterprise is not merely an economic unit but a community of persons.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Institution
- Relation: is guided by (Personalist Norm), promotes actualization
Ethical Review
An ethical review is an evaluative event in which a business decision or practice is measured against the Personalist Norm. It is the concrete instrument through which ethical governance and compliance become effective in the enterprise. The ethical review can uncover instrumentalizations and ensure that the dignity of the person is preserved in all enterprise processes. It also extends to automated decision processes and the entire supply chain.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Event
- Relation: reviews against (Personalist Norm), uncovered (instrumentalization)
External Stakeholder
An external stakeholder is an entity outside the enterprise that is affected by its actions: customers, suppliers, residents, future persons, ecosystems. Unlike the internal stakeholder, external stakeholders do not stand in a direct employment relationship with the enterprise. The Personalist Norm nonetheless holds for all stakeholders, with persons counting as primary stakeholders and non-persons (ecosystems, animals) possessing a graduated moral relevance. The enterprise’s duty of care extends across the entire supply chain to all external stakeholders.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Stakeholder
Professional Competency
Professional competency comprises knowledge-based abilities that are grounded in the rationality of the person. As a subclass of competency, it is an active potency that can be actualized toward professional activity. Employee development aims, among other things, at the unfolding of professional competency, whereby this development must always stand in the service of the actualization of the dimensions of personhood — not merely in the service of productivity. Professional competency stands alongside social competency and leadership competency as an equally ranked dimension of vocational capability.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Competency (via Active Potency)
Leadership Competency
Leadership competency is the ability to assume responsibility for other persons and to promote their actualization. It presupposes the Third Dimension of personhood (moral consciousness), for only one who is morally mature can promote others in their unfolding. As a subclass of competency, it is an active potency that is actualized in the context of employee development and the leading of teams. Leadership in the personal-ontological sense does not mean mere authority to issue instructions, but service to the actualization of the dimensions of the persons entrusted to one.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Competency (via Active Potency)
- Is presupposed by: Leadership Role
Leadership Principle
A principle for the leadership of persons derived from the Personalist Norm. Every leadership decision must be measured against the actualization of the dimensions of personhood of those affected.
The leadership principle gives concrete form to the Personalist Norm for the domain of dignified work: the leader may never treat the employee merely as a means to the organization’s ends, but must respect and promote his personhood in all its dimensions. This includes the leadership competency of taking into account the bodily, cognitive, moral, and communal conditions of personhood in the workplace. A violation of the leadership principle is a form of practical oblivion of the person.
Ontological relations:
- Is subclass of: Personalist Norm
Instrumentalizing Culture
An instrumentalizing culture is a corporate culture that treats persons primarily as functionaries or resources. It is an institutional form of practical oblivion of the person and stands in mutual exclusion to person-centered culture.
Where such a culture shapes an enterprise, employees are reduced to their economic utility. The actualization of their dimensions of personhood is systematically neglected. The instrumentalizing culture violates the Personalist Norm, because it treats persons as means rather than as ends.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Corporate Culture
- Mutually exclusive with: Person-centered Culture
Internal Stakeholder
An internal stakeholder is a person within the enterprise: employees, leaders, owners. Unlike the external stakeholder, internal stakeholders stand in a direct employment relationship with the enterprise. The Personalist Norm requires that every internal stakeholder be treated as a person and not merely as a functionary. Employee development, personnel assessment, and the design of the digital workplace directly concern the internal stakeholders.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Stakeholder
Competency
An active potency of the person that can be actualized toward professional activity. Competency comprises professional, social, and methodical abilities. As an active potency, competency is an intrinsic faculty of the person — it can be developed and unfolded, but is not something merely added from without.
Competency is grounded in the essential characteristics of the person: professional competency is grounded in rationality, social competency in the capacity for love and relationality. The unfolding of competencies is an aspect of the actualization of the Second and Third Dimension of personhood.
Ontological classification:
- Genus: Active Potency
- Subordinate terms: Professional Competency, Social Competency, Leadership Competency
Chapter assignment: Chapter 4: Personhood
See also:
See also: Active Potency, Potency, Person, Capacity for Love, Second Dimension, Third Dimension
Supply Chain
The supply chain is the network of institutions involved in the production and delivery of a product. From a personal-ontological standpoint, the Personalist Norm holds for every person throughout the entire supply chain — not only for the employees of one’s own enterprise. The enterprise therefore bears a duty of care to preserve the dignity of the person throughout its entire supply chain. Where persons in upstream stages of the supply chain work under conditions of alienated work, the purchasing enterprise too bears moral responsibility.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Entity
- Relation: has duty of care for (enterprise to supply chain)
Employee Surveillance
Employee surveillance is the technological surveillance of employees. It endangers the right to privacy and can prevent the actualization of the Second Dimension of personhood (free will, self-determination). As a subclass of surveillance technology, it is a form of technology that encroaches upon the interiority of the person. Where employees are permanently surveilled, their freedom is restricted and the danger of an instrumentalizing culture is intensified. The Personalist Norm requires that every form of surveillance be measured against the dignity of the person.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Surveillance Technology
Employee Development
Employee development is a developmental process in which active potencies of a person are actualized in a professional context. It presupposes the Second Dimension of personhood and serves the actualization of the Third Dimension (moral perfection, assumption of responsibility). The process develops particular competencies — professional competency, social competency, and leadership competency — as active potencies of the person. Employee development, in the personal-ontological sense, is no mere qualification measure but service to the unfolding of personhood.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Developmental Process
- Relation: develops (competency)
Personnel Assessment
A personnel assessment is a temporally limited attribution of competencies or performance. As a temporal attribution, it is modeled explicitly that this evaluation holds for a determinate period — the person is not her evaluation. This distinction is personal-ontologically essential: the dignity of the person is grounded in her being, not in a performance metric. Personnel assessment stands in close relation to employee development and must be measured against the Personalist Norm. Where the evaluation becomes an end in itself or the person is reduced to her function, instrumentalization threatens.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Temporal Attribution
Person-centered Culture
A person-centered culture is a corporate culture that recognizes the Personalist Norm as its guiding principle: every person is treated as an end and never merely as a means. It promotes the actualization of all three dimensions of personhood — the First, Second, and Third Dimension.
In contrast to the instrumentalizing culture, which treats persons primarily as functionaries or resources, the person-centered culture recognizes the dignity of every someone who works in the enterprise or is affected by its actions. It is thus the institutional counterpart to the affirmation of the person at the level of the organization.
Ontological classification
Genus: Corporate Culture
Ontological relations:
- Promotes: actualization of the First, Second, and Third Dimension
- Mutually exclusive with: Instrumentalizing Culture
Social Competency
Social competency comprises the abilities of interpersonal encounter that are grounded in the capacity for love and in the relationality of the person. As a subclass of competency, it belongs to the actual faculties that build upon personhood but do not constitute it.
Social competency is not merely a learned technique of dealing with others, but is rooted in the personal ability to recognize the other as a someone and to encounter him in affirmation. It stands in close connection with the Second and Third Dimension of personhood: the awakening of self-consciousness in the encounter with the Thou and the free turning toward the other in love and responsibility.
Ontological classification
Genus: Competency
Ontological relations:
- Is grounded in: capacity for love, relationality
Stakeholder
A stakeholder is any entity that is affected by the actions of an enterprise. Stakeholders can be persons (primary) or non-persons (ecosystems, animals), whereby persons possess a precedence in moral relevance, since ontological dignity belongs to them.
The ontology distinguishes internal stakeholders — persons within the enterprise such as employees, leaders, and owners — from external stakeholders, who stand outside the enterprise: customers, suppliers, residents, future persons, and ecosystems. Every business decision must be measured against the Personalist Norm, and that with regard to all stakeholders who are affected by it.
Ontological classification
Genus: Entity
Subclasses: Internal Stakeholder, External Stakeholder
Ontological relations:
- Affected by: Business Decision
Team
A team is a manageable working community within an enterprise. As a community, the team is the primary locus of interpersonal encounter in the work context. It belongs organizationally to a department and is led by a person. Leadership here means responsibility for the actualization of the dimensions of the team members, not mere authority to issue instructions. The team is thus the locus at which the Personalist Norm becomes concrete in everyday working life.
Ontological classification:
- Subclass of: Community
- Relation: belongs to department, leads (person to team)
Corporate Culture
Corporate culture designates the totality of the shared values, norms, and practices of an enterprise. It can either promote or prevent the actualization of the dimensions of personhood. In the personalist perspective, corporate culture is not merely a business-management factor but an ethically relevant framework in which the coexistence of persons in the work context takes place.
A person-centered culture recognizes the Personalist Norm as its guiding principle and promotes the unfolding of all three dimensions. Over against it stands the instrumentalizing culture, which treats persons primarily as functionaries or resources and thereby constitutes an institutional form of practical oblivion of the person. The corporate culture shapes the entire enterprise and influences whether the dignity of the stakeholders is preserved or disregarded.
Ontological classification
Genus: Entity
Subclasses: Person-centered Culture, Instrumentalizing Culture
Ontological relations:
- Shapes: enterprise
- Promotes/hinders: dimension actualization
Business Decision
A business decision is an event that is made by one or more persons in the enterprise context and has effects on stakeholders. Every decision must be measured against the Personalist Norm: it may not degrade any person — whether internal or external — to a mere means.
The personalist perspective requires that business decisions be judged not only by efficiency and profit but by whether they preserve the dignity of the persons affected. This comprises all stakeholders — from the employees through the customers to the future persons who will be affected by the consequences of the decision. An ethical governance provides the institutional structures that ensure that decisions remain oriented toward the Personalist Norm.
Ontological classification
Genus: Event
Ontological relations:
- Concerns: Stakeholder
- Is measured against: Personalist Norm
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Wojtyła, Karol (1969): Osoba i czyn. Kraków (German: Person und Tat, Freiburg: Herder, 1981). (Personalist Norm as the foundation of a person-centered corporate culture).
- Kant, Immanuel (1785): Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten [Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals]. Academy Edition vol. IV, p. 429 (formula of the end in itself: the person never merely as a means, not even as a functionary).