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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 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.

The chapter reflects on the strengths and limitations of David Carpenter’s proposal to support the work of research ethics committees through consideration of the virtues required by their members. Carpenter’s approach has many strengths, responsibilising researchers and ethics committees, and increasing the scope for robust and active theoretical engagement with ethical issues. I bring two alternative perspectives on research ethics to bear on this discussion. First, I discuss work in care ethics and relational ethics, approaches to ethics that have some similarities with virtue ethics but also distinct differences. Bruce Macfarlane’s text, on which Carpenter draws, notes care ethics briefly. I offer a more detailed consideration of what this perspective can offer, both for research ethics and for the virtuous research ethics committee. This helps to identify the relationships that are missing from a virtue ethics focus. Further, a context sensitive relational approach suggests ways in which we can strengthen Carpenter’s proposals to help research ethics committees select between competing principles or virtues. Second, my research ethics expertise is in undergraduate teaching for a multidisciplinary course, and an enquiry-based learning programme, which allows students in mixed discipline groups to plan, conduct, report and present their own original social research. The research skills training provided includes an interactive introduction to research ethics, what they are for and why they matter. Since we aim to offer practical guidance to research ethics committees when they consider what they should do and how this should be done, such a first principles approach may be useful.

In the wake of the extraordinary financial scandals that both preceded and followed the September–October Financial Crises of 2008, discussions about the executive virtues of honesty and integrity are no longer academic or esoteric, but critically urgent and challenging. As representatives of the corporation, its products and services, corporate executives in general, and production, accounting, finance, and marketing executives in particular, must be the frontline public relations and goodwill ambassadors for their firms, products, and services. As academicians of business education, we must also analyze these corporate wrongdoings as objectively and ethically as possible. What is wrong must be declared and condemned as wrong, what is right must be affirmed and acknowledged as right. We owe it to our students, our profession, our stakeholders, and to the business world. Contemporary American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (1981) proposes the issue of morality in a threefold question: Who am I? Who ought I to become? How ought I to get there? The answer to every question refers to the virtues, especially to corporate executive virtues. This chapter explores corporate executive virtues, especially the classical cardinal virtues of prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice as defining and enhancing corporate executive life.

This chapter presents a comparative analysis of the English, Northern Irish, Arab Israeli, Trinidad and Tobago and the US cases. The focus is what we have learned from the research about: the relationships within Education Governance Systems to navigate turbulence; building capacity for empowering senior-level leaders to deliver on their manifestos and outstanding track records for school improvement; reducing the achievement gap between dominant groups and marginalised groups in International Governance Systems. The chapter identifies that all cases require participatory multi-stakeholder action to develop and support collaborative networked learning communities in practice. Such communities of and for practice need to Empower Young Societal Innovators for Equity and Renewal (EYSIER). Policy and Education Governance Systems have the potential to synthesise the best of what has been said and done in the past, with innovative ways of working by empowering networks of knowledge building and advocacy. These networks co-create opportunities for action learners to work together to describe intersectionalities of discrimination and begin to remove fear of discrimination and marginalisation from Education Governance Systems. From this position, senior-level leaders can work with their leaders, teachers, parents and students to optimise how learning about the self, and learning how to learn improves community education for all students and EYSIER.

This chapter is an exploratory study of business ethics as it relates to family firms; it primarily aims to explore virtue ethics as an alternative proposal for the ethical concerns that family firms face in their management, thus overcoming the limitations of relevant business ethics approaches and integrating them into an overarching paradigm. Ethics can be classified into three main streams: (1) deontology, (2) utilitarianism, and (3) virtue ethics. The former two approaches have been widely used in the realm of business and family firms for many years and they tend to instrumentalize ethics for business purposes. Yet, they are mostly powerless to explain and promote the ethical concerns surrounding the family firm’s culture. Virtue ethics regained philosophical interest in the second half of the twentieth century, shifting the focus of morality from “the right thing to do” to the “best way to live.” By bringing together two consolidated research fields, family firms and virtue ethics, this chapter contributes a rich perspective to current research in both fields and opens up new ways of answering many of the cultural questions that family firms bring to the table.

In this increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) global business environment, we believe that taking a virtue-based approach to leadership is key to organizational excellence. Based on a review of the recent literature on global leadership as it relates to organizational virtuousness, we propose a framework to develop leadership virtues in global organizations. We assert that developing virtuous global leaders who can practice and support others to demonstrate the seven virtues of wisdom, temperance, courage, hope, trust, justice, and compassion will help create a more aligned and clear workforce, guide ethical behaviors, and manage cultural differences when growing through mergers and acquisitions across the borders.

This study aims to explore how CEO narcissism drives investment in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its mediating mechanism.

This study includes panel regression based on archival data.

CEO narcissism leads to signaling of organizational virtuous orientation that results in increase in CSR investment.

Relevance of CEO traits on CSR remains unexplored in emerging markets context, especially the underlying mechanism. This study uncovers these mechanisms.

Guided by the importance ascribed to the self-cultivation of virtue, the authors examined virtues-centered moral identity (VCMI) as a mediator of the positive relationship between virtuous leadership and several valued personal and organizational outcomes.

Hypotheses were tested using data from 131 leader–subordinate dyads based in the USA and Canada, using the SPSS Statistics Software 27.0 PROCESS Macro v 3.5.

Leaders’ VCMI mediates the positive effects of virtuous leadership (subordinate-rated) on leaders’ moral behavior (subordinate-rated) and their self-rated happiness. Followers’ VCMI mediates the positive effects of virtuous leadership on organizational citizenship (as judged by leaders) and self-rated happiness of followers. Followers’ VCMI did not mediate between virtuous leadership and followers’ moral behavior.

Although participants of this study were from a variety of industries, the sample was based in the USA and Canada; hence, any culture-specific leader behaviors and processes were likely missed. Moreover, some of the relationships examined involved data from the same source such that these associations may have been artificially inflated by common method variance. Even so, in each case, the sources we used (leader and follower) were appropriate to the research question. Nonetheless, for example, to collect Virtuous Leadership Questionnaire (VLQ)-based assessments from other stakeholders (e.g. peers and customers) remains of interest.

A practiced strong sense of VCMI has the potential to short-circuit unethical behavior and contribute to happiness among both subordinates and leaders. VCMI is implicated in the fostering of subordinates’ organizational citizenship as well.

The authors' findings imply that leaders and followers can acquire knowledge structures associated with moral virtues and virtuous acts through formal and informal learning, suggesting an affirmative answer to the question, “Are virtuous acts teachable? This is an important starting point in developing theoretically sound programs for promoting virtuous acts as called for by many scholars and practitioners. The authors' study highlights the importance of virtues-related education because VCMI is likely developed through formal learning.

The authors' VCMI mediation-based findings offer a completely new explanation for the positive functioning of virtuous leadership, which formerly had been grounded in attribution and social learning processes only.