Moral Mazes

The World of Corporate Managers

Updated Edition

Robert Jackall

Moral Mazes is now a classic and widely taught work in the study of work and occupations, organizational studies, business ethics, and management.
Includes a new afterword linking the themes contained in the book to the current financial and economic crisis.

Moral Mazes

The World of Corporate Managers

Updated Edition

Robert Jackall

Description

This classic study of ethics in business presents an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Robert Jackall takes the reader inside a topsy-turvy world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but sharp talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. What sort of everyday rules-in-use do people play by when there are no fixed standards to explain why some succeed and others fail? In the words of one corporate manager, those rules boil down to this maxim: "What is right in the corporation is what the guy above you wants from you. That's what morality is in the corporation." This brilliant, disturbing, funny look at the ethos of the corporate world presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America. This anniversary edition includes an afterword by the author linking the themes of Moral Mazes to the financial tsunami that engulfed the world economy in 2008.

Moral Mazes

The World of Corporate Managers

Updated Edition

Robert Jackall

Introduction: Business as a Social and Moral Terrain
1. Moral Probations, Old and New
2. The Social Structure of Managerial Work
3. The Main Chance
4. Looking Up and Looking Around
5. Drawing Lines
6. Dexterity with Symbols
7. The Magic Lantern
8. Invitations to Jeopardy
Author's Note
Afterword to the Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading

Moral Mazes

The World of Corporate Managers

Updated Edition

Robert Jackall

Author Information

Robert Jackall is the Willmott Family Third Century Professor of Sociology & Public Affairs, Williams College; author of Image Makers: Advertising, Public Relations, and the Ethos of Advocacy (Chicago, 2000), Wild Cowboys: Urban Marauders & the Forces of Order (Harvard, 1997), and Street Stories: The World of Police Detectives (Harvard, 2005).

Moral Mazes

The World of Corporate Managers

Updated Edition

Robert Jackall

Reviews and Awards

"An interesting, unorthodox, and provocative book.... Better than any other I have seen, [Jackall's] study reveals the normative reality of the manager's world."-Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Yale Journal on Regulation

"Reformers who want to change the corporation, first must understand it. Robert Jackall's carefully researched analysis of the 'bureaucratic ethos' is one place to begin."--Ethikos

"A finely honed tour of an odyssey of moral transformation, in which the actors themselves remain largely unaware of the nature of their journey. It is a brilliant work."--Troy Duster, New York University