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Introduced into the literature a decade ago, grit originally defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals has stimulated considerable research on positive effects primarily in the academic and military contexts, as well as attracted widespread media attention. Despite recent criticism regarding grit’s construct and criterion-related validity, research on grit has begun to spill over into the work context as well. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of the initial theoretical foundations of grit as a motivational driver, and present newer conceptualizations on the mechanisms of grit’s positive effects rooted in goal-setting theory. Furthermore, the authors also draw attention to existing shortcomings of the current definition and measurement of grit, and their implications for its scientific and practical application. After establishing a theoretical understanding, the authors discuss the potential utility of grit for human resource management, related to staffing and recruitment, development and training, and performance management systems as well as performance evaluations. The authors conclude this chapter with a discussion of necessary and potential future research, and consider the practical implications of grit in its current state.

Despite formal ethics education and ethics-related continuing professional education (CPE) requirements, professional accountants continue to play a central role in enabling corporations to make unethical business decisions and take unethical business actions. Several jurisdictions in the United States require ethics education for licensure, but often the focus is on memorizing rules and regulations, rather than on providing tools to improve the moral practice of professionals and to help them resolve ethical dilemmas. The authors analyzed recent state Certified Public Accountant (CPA) society course offerings and found much more emphasis on memorization than on ethical reasoning to satisfy State CPA CPE requirements. To improve accountants’ ethical awareness and behavior, CPE providers should stress ethical reasoning rather than merely memorizing rules. Such changes will make future and present accountants and auditors more ethically aware, and thus more likely to improve their ethical decision-making. Nonetheless, the authors suggest that effective ethics education and training should start in the classroom with help from departmental advisory councils. Ethics courses offered in accounting programs as well as those offered by CPE providers can leverage the experience of members of advisory councils to create programs that resonate with professionals and foster lifelong ethical awareness and ethical reasoning skills.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the concept and the content of courses on ‘social ethics’. It will present a dilemma that arises in the design of such courses. On the one hand, they may present versions of ‘applied ethics’; that is, courses in which moral theories are applied to moral and social problems. On the other hand, they may present generalised forms of ‘occupational ethics’, usually professional ethics, with some business ethics added to expand the range of the course. Is there, then, not some middle ground that is distinctively designated by the term ‘social ethics’? The article will argue that there is such a ground. It will describe that ground as the ethics of ‘social practices’. It will then illustrate how this approach to the teaching of ethics may be carried out in five domains of social practice: professional ethics, commercial ethics, corporate ethics, governmental ethics, and ethics in the voluntary sector. The aim is to show that ‘social ethics’ courses can have a clear rationale and systematic content.