Virtue at Work

Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

Geoff Moore

Challenges readers to consider their own working lives, managerial practice and organizations
Introduces and applies the work of Alasdair MacIntyre in a novel and compelling manner, appropriate for an audience of managers and others who work in organizations.
Applies the concepts at the individual, managerial, organizational, and societal levels
Written in an engaging style
Examples drawn from a wide range of occupations and organizations ground the book in 'real life'

Virtue at Work

Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

Geoff Moore

Description

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.

Virtue at Work

Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

Geoff Moore

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

Virtue at Work

Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

Geoff Moore

Author Information

Geoff Moore, Professor of Business Ethics, Durham University Business School, Durham University

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.

Virtue at Work

Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations

Geoff Moore

Reviews and Awards

"...an important and interesting book on the application of MacIntyrean ethics to the individual, managerial and organisational exercise of virtue in the workplace its message is both timely and essential, and Moore has done a very good job in distilling complex theories into intelligible, practicable ideas." - Revd. Dr. Kenneth J. Barnes, Faith in Business Quarterly

"...an impassioned plea for greater virtue in the work world, explaining how to build, not only virtuous characters for ourselves, but virtuous organizations that contribute to the common good. This text should become a core text for business ethics and MBA programs, and every corporation should seek scholars familiar with the Virtue Theory Moore lays out to help rebuild their organization for more consistent contributions to the common good." - Jeffery L. Nicholas, Philosophy of Management

"One of the strengths of Moore's book is that it shows an understanding of what goes on in organizations and, perhaps for that reason, is more convincing, more practical, and less dogmatic than MacIntyre's somewhat Olympian account. Moore bases his account on thorough research and first hand experience in business. He usefully distinguishes varieties of organizations and the differing kinds of challenge they face in creating and sustaining virtuous practices and the institutional factors that protect them." - Edwin Hartman, Business Ethics Quarterly

"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." - Dr David Atkinson, Church Times