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Organisational Virtue, Moral Attentiveness, and the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business: The Case of UK HR Practitioners

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Abstract

Examination of the application of virtue ethics to business has only recently started to grapple with the measurement of virtue frameworks in a practical context. This paper furthers this agenda by measuring the impact of virtue at the level of the organisation and examining the extent to which organisational virtue (OV) impacts on moral attentiveness (MA) and the perceived role of ethics and social responsibility in creating organisational effectiveness (PRESOR). It is argued that people who operate in more virtuous organisational contexts will be expected to be more attentive to ethical issues and in turn perceive a greater role for ethics and social responsibility in business. Analysis of results based on a sample of 137 HR professionals shows that where people report that their organisation provides meaningful work, they are more likely to display reflective MA and the belief that ethics and social responsibility are compatible with business objectives, suggesting that organisations who are interested in promoting an ethical culture should focus on their work structures and practices. More generally, OV is shown to have a more complex relationship with PRESOR than hypothesised pointing towards a more nuanced view of OV. The paper examines the implications of the results for organisations and research.

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Notes

  1. Schudt (2000) argues that because organisations do not have appetites that need to be kept in check, that organisational virtues should not be constrained to a mean point between two vices. Gowri (2007) counters this argument in some detail showing that Schudt’s (2000) argument does not hold because the examples he uses to support his case are in fact means between two vices in themselves.

  2. Although the studies reported by Axinn et al. (2004), Elias 2004, Etheredge (1999), Godos-Diez et al. (2011), Groves and LaRocca (2011a, b), Kurpis et al. (2008), Park (2005), Promislo et al. (2012), Shafer et al. (2007),Singhapakdi et al. (1995), Singhapakdi et al. (1996), Singhapakdi et al. (2008), Vitell and Paolillo (2004) and Vitell an Hidalgo (2006) and Wurthmann (2013) all use versions of the full scale, Burnaz et al. (2010), Kolodinsky et al. (2010), Pettijohn et al. (2008), Singhapakdi and Vitell (2007), Valentine and Fleischman (2008) and Vitell et al.(2003) only use a shortened 7-item scale based on one factor.

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    David Dawson

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Dawson, D. Organisational Virtue, Moral Attentiveness, and the Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility in Business: The Case of UK HR Practitioners. J Bus Ethics 148, 765–781 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2987-4

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