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The Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (CBVM), a Catholic order founded in the early 1800s, was faced with a series of strategic concerns, including an aging clerical population, a changing laity, reduced finances, very limited vocations, and an evolving mission. Some of these concerns faced the Catholic Church in America as a whole (including sexual abuse, not discussed in this case) and several of these issues were also facing the Catholic Church worldwide. The serious matters facing them were threatening the continued viability of the order in America, and the guidance they were receiving from Rome - instruction to decide which of three suggested models for restructuring they would adopt - seemed to back them into a corner, requiring selection from among several strategies not devised by their membership and commitment to the selected strategy going forward. Change was necessary, but one of the major concerns of the order was that it remain consistent with its stated mission while adapting to a new environment and “operating system.” Their decisions were driven by Rome, but the decisions were not made by Rome; the CBVM was as autonomous in its decision-making as any decentralized international organization.

Patrick Primeaux's life was one of exemplary service in a wide range of fields. The Marists can point to years of productive service in their order. Generations of students know the impact he had on their lives. The St. John's University community can testify regarding his contributions to their institution, and organizational ethics researchers can point to his influence on research and pedagogy.

Many academics have careers with achievements in research, teaching, and service. What made Father Primeaux truly remarkable, however, was that he also expanded the business ethics field itself. Business ethics has traditionally been a difficult area in which to establish a research niche. Pat's contributions to research and pedagogy, and particularly his efforts regarding the Vincentian Ethics Conferences opened doors for young business ethicists, which was enormously beneficial to those academics and increased the quality and quantity of business ethics research.

This chapter examines Patrick Premeaux's groundbreaking contributions to business ethics teaching and research, and to demonstrate the impact those contributions have had on his fellow academicians. The first section outlines the significance of Primeaux's efforts. The second section examines Pat's contributions to business ethics research and education. The third section discusses the role the Vincentian Ethics Conferences (VEC) have played in improving the quantity and quality of business ethics research, while the fourth section illustrates the impact Pat's efforts had on my own career. The fifth section summarizes and concludes the paper.

Father Patrick Primeaux has written an intriguing and ambitious book. Furthermore, unlike many other new books of this genre, which often do little more than re-visit the past expositions of other theorists, his book strives to make both a new and unique contribution to the study of business ethics. In reviewing such a book, it is therefore worth noting Jung's observation that ‘no book that makes an essentially new contribution to knowledge enjoys the privilege of being thoroughly understood’ (Jung, 1989, p. xiv). Having thus at the outset, rendered some excuse for whatever shortcomings of mine might follow, I will proceed.

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Patrick Primeaux. Of your editors, Michael knew him well, Howard knew his work. We both recognise his enormous contribution. Patrick was a very special individual who was unfortunately with us for far too short a time, but who in that time made a very unique contribution. The first three essays in this issue comprise a mini-festschrift issue to honour Patrick. They are by his American colleagues and good friends who knew Patrick well. A mini-festschrift seems particularly germane to Patrick. The festschrift or commemorative volume is deeply rooted in the culture of the Germanic universities, and Patrick, although having many attributes, could certainly not be construed as Germanic. We have no doubt that he would be as honoured by a mini-festschrift issue as he would be embarrassed by a full festschrift issue. The other essays are the result of the Australian Association for Professional & Applied Ethics 18th annual conference which was held in June 2011 at the University of Tasmania. The authors of these essays are academics in Australian universities who might not have known Patrick, but, as is discussed below, their essays reflect Patrick's contribution to applied ethics. There seems something very fitting about that conference being held at the University of Tasmania because their campus is in Hobart which is as far south as Australia goes. Patrick often spoke of visiting Australia but always ultimately dismissed it as too long a flight. It would, admittedly, have been a particularly long flight for Patrick who was a very heavy smoker. Nonetheless, we have no doubt that if Patrick had been able to embark upon the flight to Hobart and attended the conference, he would have enjoyed it. As it was his spirit was very much with us and pervaded many of our discussions about applied ethics.

When Fr. Patrick Primeaux, S.M. and I set out to edit Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations, our guiding light was that research in business ethics should serve to promote the search for meaning in organizations. Further, we understood and wanted to promote the notion that organizational ethics (and the ideology of organizations) directly impacts individual ethics and that the reverse is equally true. Oversimplifying, we believed that there exists a dialectical relationship between organizational culture and personal character. This is a theme explored in many of the articles we published over the years in our annual series, and it is a theme Pat wrote about, especially in his book Reinterpreting the American Dream: Persons and Ethics.

Patrick Primeaux realized that the ethical story is far more complicated than the tale of individual responsibility we typically spin for our students. Pat brought pop culture (e.g. Bruce Springsteen) (Primeaux, 1996) into business ethics precisely because he knew that culture shapes each of us in myriad ways, creating habits, expectations and outlooks we then bring to the workplace. In his book Reinterpreting the American Dream: Persons and Ethics, Pat showed how American culture encourages us to concentrate all of our energy into work and the pursuit of wealth and distinction (Primeaux, 2000). Pat also realized that institutions knowingly or unwittingly shape the kind of experiences individuals have and that these experiences directly inform our consciousness and, hence, our behaviour within organizations (Primeaux, 1992).

A recent novel – A. D. Miller's Snowdrops – does a wonderful job of exploring psychic and cultural dynamics and in the process raises some troubling questions of where responsibility for wrongdoing lies. This essay uses Miller's book to explore from a psychological viewpoint how and why employees who are sent abroad by multinational corporations (MNCs) may get involved in local corruption; to show why personal integrity requires external support if agents are to be able to do the right thing; and to raise the issue of what sort of responsibilities MNCs have to the employees whom they send abroad.