Ethical Choice in Managerial Work: The Scope for Moral Choices in an Ethically Irrational World

Abstract

Ethical and moral aspects of the work of managers are given less direct attention in the literature than we might expect given the growing attention being paid to business ethics more generally. Theoretical analysis together with an account of one self-avowedly ethically sensitive senior manager is used to argue that corporate managers may be less ‘morally mute’ than they are often alleged to be. Managers - ‘strategic’ ones at least - necessarily deal with ethically sensitive pressures coming from the various constituencies with which an organization strategically exchanges. In this, there is scope for individual managers (who are, themselves, resource-dependent constituencies) to bring to bear their personal ethical preferences on decisions and to mediate corporate priorities. The extent to which managers generally recognize this scope and exploit opportunities to adopt ‘ethically assertive’ as opposed to ‘ethically reactive’ orientations is an important question for detailed research.