Business Ethics, the Virtues and Character

What enables people to be morally responsible at work? The research area brings involves academics and research students with a particular interest in the way in which qualities of character (the virtues) operate at work.

A slew of corporate scandals provides daily reminders of the potential of corruption in organizations but at the same timeexamples abound of people resisting corruption by exercising virtues of courage, wisdom, temperance and justice.

Recent research projects include:

Dr Angus Robson: Leader Narratives in Scottish Banking: An Aristotelian Approach

This project involved extensive interviews with senior bankers to investigate their accounts of the ethical failures that contributed to the Scottish Banking Crisis in 2007-8

Publication: Robson, A. (2015).Constancy and Integrity: (un) measurable virtues? Business Ethics: A European Review (forthcoming)

Professor Ron Beadle: The Virtues and Leadership in British Circus

This project involved extensive interviews with long-standing directors of British Circuses to investigate their understanding of the qualities needed to manage a working and travelling community

Publication: Beadle, R. (2013). ‘Managerial Work in a practice-embodying institution – The role of calling, the virtue of constancy.’ Journal of Business Ethics 113: 4, 679-690

Recent Publications include:

Beadle, R. (2019). “Work, Meaning and Virtue” In Yeoman, R., Bailey, K., Madden, A and Thompson, M. (Eds.) Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 73-87.

Beadle, R and Moore, G. (2018). “MacIntyre on Virtue and Organization”, In Angier, T. (Ed.) Virtue Ethics. London: Routledge, 323-340.

Nicholson, H, Beadle, R and Slack, R. (2019) “Corporate Philanthropy as a Context for Moral Agency: A MacIntyrean Enquiry”. Journal of Business Ethics (forthcoming) DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04188-7

Robson, A and Beadle, R. (2019). "Institutions and moral agency: the case of Scottish banking". Journal of Institutional Economics 15(5), 845-859

Rocchi, M., Ferrero, I., & Beadle, R. (2020). “Can Finance Be a Virtuous Practice? A MacIntyrean Account,” Business Ethics Quarterly, 1-31. doi:10.1017/beq.2020.5

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