Search results

The purpose of this paper is to provide a functional framework encapsulating a wide range of contributions to the ongoing debate on virtue as a critical dimension of contemporary organizations. In so doing, the authors elaborate and develop an encompassing framework that is in a position to capture the diversity of research in this very field.

Extant literature on virtue in organizational settings is properly categorized through a taxonomy articulated around the potential foci, as well as loci of virtuous behavior. Virtuousness denotes an ethical attribute of managers, leaders or employees and as such, it may be situated at the micro-individual, meso-organizational or macro-societal level, respectively.

Based on the potential foci and loci of virtuous behavior, the paper differentiates between virtuous managerial, leaders’ and employees’ attitudes on one hand, and virtuous management and leadership development, as well as virtuous employee training on the other. Furthermore, ethically grounded managerial initiatives and leaders’ responsibilities to further the common good are entwined with endeavors to transform employees into virtuous corporate citizens affirming organizational ethicality.

By identifying both targeted group and level of analysis, organizations can effectively design and implement interventions promoting virtuousness as a valued end in itself.

The paper introduces a framework that can help integrate varying trends on organizational virtuousness that substantially differ in terms of both scope and perspective. In addition, the taxonomy will facilitate both researchers and practitioners to better navigate into the dispersed, and ultimately fragmented streams of literature on the role of virtue in business environments.

This study aims to investigate the relationships between two dimensions of communication satisfaction – personal feedback and supervisory communication – on outcomes such as altruistic organizational citizenship behavior and civic virtue. Another aim is to examine the mediating role of organizational justice (OJ) between these two dimensions of communication satisfaction and altruistic organizational citizenship behavior and civic virtue.

This study is based on a survey conducted in major organizations in Macau SAR, China. Data from 294 respondents who successfully completed the questionnaire is used for the analysis.

The results reveal that supervisory communication is significantly and positively associated with altruistic organizational citizenship behavior. Both personal feedback and supervisory communication are significantly and positively associated with civic virtue. OJ is a mediator between personal feedback and civic virtue. OJ also mediates the relationship between satisfaction with supervisory communication and civic virtue. It is intriguing that OJ is not a mediator in the relationship between satisfaction with communication and altruistic organizational citizenship behavior.

A single city cross-sectional study presents some restrictions on the generalizability of the findings. More studies are needed to understand communication satisfaction – organizational citizenship behavior processes to establish if the findings hold with other samples in other cultures.

The empirical evidence in this study shows that satisfaction with communication is critical for promoting discretionary behaviors. The mediating roles of OJ between personal feedback and civic virtue and between supervisory communication and civic virtue, clearly indicate that even though a manager may try hard to motivate employees’ participation in discretionary behaviors, whether employees participate in extra-role behaviors depends on their perception of justice.

This is the first study to examine how altruistic organizational citizenship behavior and civic virtues are influenced by satisfaction with communication. Moreover, the mediating role of OJ has never been tested previously. The findings contribute to the HR literature and provide deeper insights on how to promote citizenship behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the elaboration of a comprehensive moral framework for designing and implementing diversity practices. In so doing, it employs distinct ethical theories that not only elevate respect for differences to an end, but also provide a set of principles, virtues or values conducive to the formation of an inclusive work environment.

A literature review, in particular contributions critical to current implementations of diversity management, may provide the basis of a non-instrumental approach to diversity issues, allowing for an inclusive and participative workplace. The paper suggests that such an endeavor can be founded on the concepts of organizational virtue, care or human dignity alternatively. In this respect, a theoretical context demonstrating the very way these concepts influence and inform diversity issues, is elaborated, analyzed and properly discussed.

Three distinct theoretical frameworks capturing the importance of major ethical traditions based on dignity, organizational virtue and care, for reconceptualizing diversity issues, are introduced. It is proposed that non-utilitarian philosophical ethics (and more specifically, Kantian deontology, Aristotelian virtue ethics or ethics of care) is in a position to provide a rationale for diversity policies that affirm the diverse other as a valued end.

The authors argue that a corporation is in a position to develop ethically-informed diversity initiatives that may effectively combine performance with an affirmation of the value of the diverse other.

The authors argue that a corporation is in a position to develop ethically-informed diversity initiatives that may effectively combine performance with an affirmation of the value of the diverse other.

The paper offers certain insights into the particular conditions that may help organizations design and implement a diversity strategy facilitating thriving and fulfillment of diverse others, grounded on the priority of dignity, virtue or care respectively. Such a perspective, permeating vision, culture and leadership, is invested with a potential that overcomes the managerial instrumentality, so strongly denounced by the majority of critical diversity scholars.

This research aims to apply virtue theory to the under‐employment problem of persons with disabilities (PWD). Historically, PWD have been under‐employed within society and discriminated against in the workplace. The authors review virtue theory research and illustrate how it can be used to better support the meaningful employment of PWD.

This research reviews the current literature in the areas of virtue theory and the employment challenges of PWD to create a new framework that can assist in the integration of PWD into the workplace.

Literature on the employment of PWD indicates that significant differences exist in the employment experiences between PWD and persons without disabilities (PWOD). Problems such as stigmatization impede the integration of PWD into the work environment. The review of the virtue theory literature supports the development of a new framework that provides additional ways to address this ongoing problem.

This paper suggests human resource management practices that virtuous organizations could use to address the problem of the under‐employment and stigmatization of PWD.

No research currently applies virtue theory to the under‐employment problem of persons with disabilities.

The following chapter is aimed to explain what virtue ethics (VE) in business is, its philosophical background, its original themes, and new research opportunities. To this end, we will establish the distinctive elements of VE and its main sources and epistemological approaches. In particular, we will first describe VE in business based on Alasdair MacIntyre’s ethics and Modern VE in Business. Then, we will briefly show the Thomistic approach to VE in business and its main application to business theory. We will also consider a new epistemological proposal for VE in business in Positive Organizational Scholarship. Next, this chapter will explain briefly the original contributions VE in business makes to a theory of work and a common good theory of the firm. Finally, we will suggest new areas in which VE in business theory has not shown a significant outcome yet. Here, we will discuss new opportunities that VE authors might consider for research projects in new epistemological approaches, VE philosophers not yet studied in business ethics theory, spirituality-based theory (Jewish and Protestant mainly) and its connection with VE, and contemporary problems that firms are facing that can be enlighten from neo-Aristotelian philosophy.

Past research has convincingly shown that higher employee subjective well-being, or happiness, is a source of higher job performance and retention. This paper therefore examines the relationships between organizational virtuousness, subjective well-being, and individual job performance among French and Japanese employees.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among Japanese and French managers and staff at Japanese and French domestic companies and structural equation modeling was employed to compare those associations.

We found that the Japanese and the French have different conceptualizations of organizational virtuousness, suggesting that firms must tailor their virtue-building activities based on the local culture. Subjective well-being is comparatively more important in Japan since it acts in complement to organizational virtuousness to positively affect job performance, while in France, only organizational virtuousness counts as a source of job performance.

National culture is revealed to be a new factor explaining differences in how employees consider organizational virtuousness and we provide evidence of positive associations of organizational virtuousness with positive subjective well-being and with job performance for both the Japanese and the French.

Organizational virtuousness cannot be construed from a universalistic perspective where virtues are conceptualized on the same basis regardless of location or region, and firms should also consider their employees' individualist or collectivist inclination when trying to influence work outcomes.

These findings point to the role of national culture on the perception of organizational virtuousness and its effect on subjective well-being and job performance.

In this unashamedly polemical piece it is argued that we should not jump into bed with virtue too quickly. It is suggested that the concept of virtue is dangerously ill defined, so it becomes what those in power hegemonically define it to be; that virtue’s rise may serve factional political purposes within social science; that system implications are frequently missed, side-lined or minimised so that virtue niavely becomes a purely individual construct; that aspirational codes, which expect a-contextual demonstration of ‘virtue’ from practitioners, need to be tempered with a dose of reality; and that the achievable ‘good enough’ is better than the unrealisable and idealised virtuously ‘perfect’. It is suggested that the implied centrality of ‘virtue’ in research is problematic, that being ‘critically virtuous’ has limits, and that better education will not necessarily lead to morality and integrity in research – any more than it does in the general population. Finally it is argued that ethics committees should focus on (probable) behaviours, rather than rather than imagined motives or vague character traits. Locating virtue in an individual is dangerous because it allows the system to blame and punish an individual, rather than acknowledge the collective responsibility of the whole system. It is suggested that we need to move from a purist pursuit of virtue to a more realistic and nuanced appreciation of the real world consequences of its adoption. Whilst the present emphasis on sound research ethics and responsibility is a positive development, we need to slow down.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the ethical culture of organisations and organisational innovativeness.

A quantitative empirical analysis was conducted on the basis of a survey of 147 respondents within the public sector in Finland. A multivariate linear regression analysis was done to examine how the ethical culture of organisations is related to organisational innovativeness.

A positive link was found in the ethical culture of an organisation and organisational innovativeness: ethical culture was important to behavioural, strategic and process innovativeness. Within the ethical culture of an organisation, the dimension of the congruency of management in particular had an important role in organisational innovativeness.

The data were collected from the public sector, and therefore, future studies from the private sector organisations are needed. The results lend support to previous research arguments for the positive effect of an ethical organisational culture on organisational outcomes, particularly the organisational innovativeness described in this paper.

It is suggested that congruency of management, discussability and supportability are the organisational virtues which can most effectively enhance organisational innovativeness, specifically behavioural, strategic and process innovativeness in practice.

The research paper provides empirical evidence on the interrelation between the ethical culture of organisations and organisational innovativeness; evidence which is scarce in existing literature on organisational innovativeness. Thus, the paper helps fill this gap in the literature in the field.

This paper aims to outline how certain lessons from ethical systems can be relevant and applicable to tackling unethical behavior, including financial crime, within the finance profession.

This paper adopts a pragmatic perspective while acknowledging that there is a myriad of reasons managers act unethically, including the reality that many do so knowingly and deliberately. The matter is further complicated by human nature, given an individual’s behavior (ethical or unethical) is not easily discernable from their psychological, sociological, theological or cultural attributes.

Although such systems may not solve the problem of corrupt behavior, research suggests that industry professionals can learn to act in a more responsible and ethical manner. Given the wounded reputation of the financial sector, owing to their role in committing financial crimes such as money laundering, advances in ethical conduct would elevate both the effectiveness of the sector, as well as its reputation.

It is impractical to think we can completely resolve the problem of unethical behavior. Improvement, however, seems possible through promoting virtuous character traits and ethical behavior in individuals and organizations. Virtue ethics can play a significant role in combating financial crime and supporting anti-money laundering initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce virtue epistemology as a complementary approach to how we learn and make wise decisions within organizations.

Drawing on a philosophic history of intellectual virtue and recent research into virtue epistemology, this article presents an applied theoretical approach for practitioners to use in developing a more robust learning environment.

With robust market and operational databases of information, organizations continue to face the difficult decision of what this data means and what they can do with it. This article suggests intellectual virtue as a tool to develop appropriate knowledge, informed practical actions and sustainable outcomes.

Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity have led to increasing rates of change in organizations. Organizations rely increasingly on their ability to observe, analyze, interpret and ultimately make decisions and act in ways that ensure sustainable results. This article provides an alternative perspective to complement traditional problem solving and decision-making processes.

There is currently limited research into the applicability of intellectual virtue or virtue epistemology to the field of organizational development and learning.