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Corporate loyalty: Its objects and its grounds

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Abstract

Disloyalty is always a vice, but loyalty is not always a virtue, so ethical management should not seek simply whatever loyalty it can get. Loyalty can make it possible for us to trust each other, and, when it takes appropriate objects and does not take extreme or improper forms, it can lie at the heart of much of what makes life worthwhile. Hence, it is understandable that corporations and management seek loyalty despite the fact that it can so easily go wrong. This paper deals with the issues of the grounds and objects of the employee loyalty that it is appropriate for management to seek.

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Bob Ewin is Associate Professor of Philosophy at The University of Western Australia. He is the author ofCo-operation and Human Values (1981),Liberty, Community, and Justice (1987),Virtues and Rights: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (1991), and ‘The Moral Status of the Corporation’ (this journal, 1991).

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Ewin, R.E. Corporate loyalty: Its objects and its grounds. J Bus Ethics 12, 387–396 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00882029

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00882029

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