Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to give an introductory account of the main tenets of a philosophical approach called “pragmatism”. The authors provide a brief historical view of the development of pragmatism as well as a description of some central pragmatist ideas. The chapter also establishes why these ideas are important for business ethicists even if they may not all agree on the same concepts.
Originally published in: Cambridge Handbook of Research Approaches to Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility, 258–269 © Cambridge University Press, 2017
Reprint by Springer, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316584385.019
This chapter draws significantly from our chapter, “Pragmatism and Organization Studies” published in Mir, R., Willmott, H., & Greenwood, M. (Eds.). (2015). The Routledge companion to philosophy in organization studies. Routledge.
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Notes
- 1.
Though resembling Pierce, it is homophonous with “purse.”
- 2.
Freeman (2004) has written a book review essay entitled, “The Relevance of Richard Rorty to Management Research” in Academy of Management Review.
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Parmar, B.L., Phillips, R.A., Freeman, R.E. (2023). A Pragmatist Approach to Business Ethics Research. In: Dmytriyev, S.D., Freeman, R.E. (eds) R. Edward Freeman’s Selected Works on Stakeholder Theory and Business Ethics. Issues in Business Ethics(), vol 53. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04564-6_42
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