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Virtue at Work is about good organizations, good managers, and good people, and how these can contribute to good communities. It provides an integrated and philosophically-grounded framework that enables a coherent approach to organizations and organizational ethics from the perspective of practitioners in the workplace, from the perspective of managers in organizations, as well as from the perspective of organizations themselves.
The philosophical grounding comes from the work of the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. In line with MacIntyre's own commitments, Virtue at Work makes philosophy down-to-earth and practical. It provides a new way of understanding ethics and organizations that is both realistic and attractive, but also challenging. And it also provides tough but realistic suggestions in order to put this approach into practice.
Virtue at Work not only applies theory in a readable and compelling manner, but also shows how this has been applied to a wide variety of organizations and occupations. Examples are drawn from Architecture, Accounting, Human Resource Management, Banking, Investment Advising, Open Source Software, Pharmaceuticals, Fair Trade, the UK's National Health Service, Churches, and Journalism, among many others.
List of contents
- 1: Introduction
- Part 1: Organizations and Virtue Ethics
- 2: Organizations and Ethics
- 3: Virtue Ethics and Organizational Ethics
- 4: A MacIntyrean Approach to Organizations and Organizational Ethics
- Part 2: Implications for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations
- 5: Implications for Individuals
- 6: Implications for Managers
- 7: Implications for Organizations
- Part 3: Organizational Virtue Ethics in Practice
- 8: Virtue Ethics in Business Organizations
- 9: Virtue Ethics in Non-business Organizations
- 10: Conclusions
About the author
Geoff Moore is Professor of Business Ethics at Durham University Business School in the UK. His main academic interests are focused on Fair Trade and the application of virtue ethics to organizations and managers. His work has been published in leading journals in the field. Outside of academia, Geoff has had a long-standing engagement with Fair Trade, and has been a non-executive director of both Shared Interest Society Ltd. and Traidcraft.
Summary
This book provides an integrated and philosophically-grounded framework which enables a coherent approach to organizations and organizational ethics from the perspective of practitioners in the workplace, from the perspective of managers in organizations, as well as from the perspective of organizations themselves.
Additional text
This review cannot do justice to the variety of Moore's illustrative examples, from architecture and accountancy to the performing arts and journalism. There are a few lines about churches as organisations, used to illustrate the importance of the ordering of various virtuous practices (worship, witness, liturgy, music) in harmony with each other. Drawing on considerable academic research his own and others' this is a very well-written book, clear and accessible, and making a significant contribution to understanding what organisations are, what they are for, and what is involved for their people, managers, and structures to be virtuous and work together towards the common good.
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At exactly 200 pages, the book goes into some useful theory as well as a number of practical examples taken from many different fields and industries. It is fascinating, accessible and thought-provoking Bernard Letendre, LinkedIn
