Abstract
In recent times, teamwork has emerged as a popular way of organizing work. Not only is teamwork presented as being more effective than the alternatives, but it is also commonly argued that it can improve the quality of our working lives because it acknowledges the human tendency toward cooperative behavior in groups. This chapter subjects teamwork, as particular configuration of the employment relationship, to ethical scrutiny. An ethical consideration of the employment relationship, taking its lead economics, usually focuses on the identification and enforcement of contractually binding obligations. Reflecting the methodological individualism of much of today’s economics, analytically, this commonly involves understanding the moral dimension of the dyadic relationship between employer and employee or “principal” and “agent.” With the rise of teamwork, however, this dyadic relationship becomes analytically less tractable. This is because, under conditions of teamwork, the contract is usually struck with the team as a whole, and as such, it is difficult to disaggregate the collective obligations of the team into a set of individual obligations. In light of this difficulty, this chapter considers some alternative ways of understanding the moral dimension of teamwork. These include, inter alia, Kantian and Aristotelian ethics, but the chapter concludes with a critical consideration of developments in genetic biology and the cognitive sciences that appear to support our understanding of teamwork as an extension of our human nature.
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Sewell, G. (2012). Teamwork, Ethics, and the Quality of Working Life. In: Reilly, N., Sirgy, M., Gorman, C. (eds) Work and Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4059-4_18
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