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Re-Imagining the Morality of Management: A Modern Virtue Ethics Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Geoff Moore
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Abstract

In this paper the problematic nature of the morality of management, in particular related to business organisations operating under Anglo-American capitalism, is explored. MacIntyre’s critique of managers in After Virtue (1985) serves as the starting point but this critique is itself subjected to analysis leading to a more balanced and contemporary view of the morality of management than MacIntyre provides. Paradoxically perhaps, MacIntyre’s own virtues-goods-practice-institution schema is shown to provide a way of re-imagining business organisations and management and thereby holds out the possibility of resolving the issue of the morality of management within such organisations. Implications for management practice are drawn out.

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Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 483 - 511
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

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