Ethics in Motion: Embedding Alternative Forms of Work Organization Into the Business Ethics Logic

In this editorial, we examine how alternative forms of work organization (AFWOs) are both driving and being shaped by the ethical foundations underpinning them. Recently, scholars of organization and management studies have highlighted AFWOs as a response to broader societal challenges, digitalization, sustainability, and workplace democratization, and as an arena of intense experimentation in spatiotemporal flexibility and participatory management. Despite their growing adoption, AFWOs remain underexamined from a business ethics perspective, leaving open crucial questions about fairness, autonomy, empowerment, and the subjective experiences of workers, particularly in hybrid settings. Against this backdrop, in this special issue, we aim to clarify how and why business ethics matters in the context of AFWOs. The contributing authors pursue this aim by mobilizing diverse ethical frameworks to investigate the following key questions: How can AFWOs be grounded in a robust business ethics logic? What philosophical foundations can guide new organizational experiments? How might ethical inquiry illuminate the aspirations, tensions, and practical consequences of work environments characterized by flexibility, shared responsibility, and digital mediation? Collectively, the contributing authors advance a richer understanding of AFWOs by integrating theoretical reflection with empirical insights and foregrounding the ethical stakes of reimagining how work is organized today.