Abstract
This chapter offers an introductory overview of recent efforts to extend MacIntyre’s virtue ethics to business and management. Geoff Moore has called attention to a distinction drawn by MacIntyre between practices and institutions. This distinction, along with other central concepts and distinctions from MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, are explained. With these in hand, it becomes clear that, MacIntyre’s work includes not only a negative assessment of the corrosive features of advanced capitalism, but also the outlines of a positive way forward for rethinking the pursuit of excellence in contemporary business and management. Management of a certain sort can be understood as a domain-relative practice. The pursuit of excellence in such a practice involves cultivating a range of virtues, especially practical wisdom. Practical wisdom involves the ability to reason well about action, bringing together sound principles with an ability to attend to the relevant particularities of a concrete situation. In the context of a contemporary organization, those charged with institutional leadership act with practical wisdom when they protect and extend the excellences internal to the practices of the organization, deliberate well with others, make good judgements, and carry out plans that bring the group as near as possible to worthwhile goals.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aquinas T (1948) Summa theologica. Benziger Bros, New York
Aristotle (2002) Nicomachean ethics (Bekker number: 1140a24-1145a13) (trans: Rowe C). Oxford University Press, Oxford
Balstad Brewer K (1997) Management as a practice: a response to Alasdair MacIntyre. J Bus Ethics 16:825–833
Beabout G (2012) Management as a domain-relative practice that requires and develops practical wisdom. Bus Ethics Q 22:405–432
Beabout G (2013) The character of the manager: from office executive to wise steward. Palgrave MacMillan, New York
Beadle R (2013) Managerial work in a practice-embodying institution: the role of calling, the virtue of constancy. J Bus Ethics 113:679–690
Beadle R, Knight K (2012) Virtue and meaningful work. Bus Ethics Q 22:433–450
Beadle R, Moore G (eds) (2008) MacIntyre, empirics and organization. Philos Manag 7(1):1–2. Special issue. https://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=pom&id=pom_2008_0007_0001_0001_0002
Dobson J (1997) MacIntyre’s position on business: a response to Wicks. Business Ethics Quarterly 7(4):125–132
Du Gay P (1998) Alasdair MacIntyre and the Christian genealogy of management critique. Cult Values 2:421–444
Dunne J (1993) Back to the rough ground: practical judgment and the lure of technique. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
Dunne J (2002) Alasdair MacIntyre on education: in dialogue with Joseph Dunne. J Educ 36:1–19
Dunne J (2003) Arguing for teaching as a practice: a reply to Alasdair MacIntyre. J Philos Educ 37:353–369
Harris H (ed) (2013) The heart of the good institution: virtue ethics as a framework for responsible management. Springer, New York
Horvath C (1995) Excellence v. effectiveness: MacIntyre’s critique of business. Bus Ethics Q 5:499–532
Kavanagh D (2013) Problematizing practice: MacIntyre and management. Organization 20:103–115
Knight K (1998) The MacIntyre reader. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
MacIntyre A (1981) After virtue. Duckworth, London. Third edition: (2007) University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
MacIntyre A (1999) Dependent rational animals: why human beings need the virtues. Open Court, Chicago
Mangham I (1995) MacIntyre and the manager. Organization 2:181–204
McCann D, Brownsberger M (1990) Management as a social practice: rethinking business ethics after MacIntyre. In: Stackhouse M (ed) (1995) On moral business. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, pp 508–514
Melé D (2009) Integrating personalism into virtue-based business ethics: the personalist and the common good principles. J Bus Ethics 88:227–244
Melé D (2010) Practical wisdom in managerial decision making. J Manag Develop 29:637–645
Moberg D (2007) Practical wisdom and business ethics. Bus Ethics Q 17:535–561
Moore G (2002) On the implications of the practice-institution distinction: MacIntyre and the application of modern virtue ethics to business. Bus Ethics Q 12:19–32
Moore G (2005) Corporate character: modern virtue ethics and the virtuous corporation. Bus Ethics Q 15:659–685
Moore G (2012a) Virtue in business: alliance boots and an empirical exploration of MacIntyre’s conceptual framework. Organ Stud 33:363–387
Moore G (2012b) The virtue of governance, the governance of virtue. Bus Ethics Q 22:293–318
Moore G, Beadle R (2006) In search of organizational virtue in business: agents, goods, practices, institutions and environments. Organ Stud 27:369–389
Nash L (1995) Whose character? A response to Mangham’s ‘MacIntyre and the manager’. Organization 2:226–232
Pieper J (1966) The four cardinal virtues. University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame
Provis C (2010) Virtuous decision making for business ethics. J Bus Ethics 91:3–16
Queiroz R (2012) The importance of phronesis as communal business ethics reasoning principle. Philos Manag 11:49–61
Queiroz R (2015) Putting ethics and economic rationality together: an Aristotelian and philosophical approach. Business Ethics: A European Review 24(3):332–346
Roca E (2008) Introducing practical wisdom in business schools. J Bus Ethics 82:607–620
Santilli P (1984) Moral fictions and scientific management. J Bus Ethics 3:279–286
Schwartz B, Sharpe K (2010) Practical wisdom: the right way to do the right thing. Riverhead Books, New York
Shotter J, Tsoukas H (2014) Performing phronesis: on the way to engaged judgment. Manag Learn 45:377–396
Sison A et al. (eds) (2012) Reviving tradition: virtue and the common good in business and management. Bus Ethics Q 22:207–210
Whetstone T (2003) The language of managerial excellence: virtues as understood and applied. J Bus Ethics 44:343–357
Wicks A (1996) Reflections on the practical relevance of feminist thought to business. Bus Ethics Q 6:523–531
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Beabout, G.R. (2017). Practical Wisdom, Practices, and Institutions. In: Sison, A., Beabout, G., Ferrero, I. (eds) Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management. International Handbooks in Business Ethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6510-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6510-8_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-6509-2
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-6510-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities