Moral Pragmatism as a Bridge Between Duty, Utility, and Virtue in Managers’ Ethical Decision-Making

Matej Drašček (), Adriana Rejc Buhovac () and Dana Mesner Andolšek ()
Additional contact information
Matej Drašček: University of Ljubljana
Adriana Rejc Buhovac: University of Ljubljana
Dana Mesner Andolšek: University of Ljubljana

Journal of Business Ethics, 2021, vol. 172, issue 4, No 11, 803-819

Abstract: Abstract The decline of empirical research on ethical decision-making based on ethical theories might imply a tacit consensus has been reached. However, the exclusion of virtue ethics, one of the three main normative ethical theories, from this stream of literature calls this potential consensus into question. This article investigates the role of all three normative ethical theories—deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics—in ethical decision-making of corporate executives. It uses virtue ethics as a dependent variable thus studying the interconnectivity of all three normative ethical theories in specific circumstances. We find that managers use different ethical theories in different circumstances (business vs. private life, formal vs informal ethical leadership, etc.). A predictive model of ethical decision-making, however, cannot be established. We also find that only a limited number of variables influence the choice of ethical theory, which leans business ethics towards postmodern management paradigm. We suggest that moral pragmatism could provide the answer to ethical decision-making.

Keywords: Ethical decision-making; Managers; Moral pragmatism; Virtue ethics; Postmodernism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-020-04489-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:172:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-020-04489-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-020-04489-2

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().