Conclusion: Morality and Management

Thomas Klikauer
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Thomas Klikauer: University of Western Sydney

Chapter 11 in Seven Management Moralities, 2012, pp 206-224 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract As a first general conclusion this study shows that management and morality are inextricably linked to one another. As soon as management engages in decisions and actions that affect others, morality is concerned. There is no escape from this. Ever since humanity evolved, human-to-human conduct has involved morality. As soon as human beings started to live in enlarged family units, groups, and tribes, we began to create rules and moral codes that organised communal living. This marked one of the milestones of human evolution because early humans knew that a group is stronger and more successful than individuals. In hunting, for example, human beings faced the same dilemma that many of the most successful animals found themselves in. What evolutionary psychologists formulated as the lion-dilemma also became essential for us. It denotes: ‘hunt together or not hunt at all’. Hence, the origin of humanity lies in hunting together — just like lions — and in sharing. This demanded cooperation, coordination, mutual aid, and sharing instead of competition, egoism, and individualism. Hence, the origins of humanity lie in non-competitive groups, not in the overtly romantic, conservative, fictional, and plainly nonsensical illusion of a Robinson Crusoe-like individualistic and selfish hunter. Once seen from an evolutionary viewpoint instead of a fictional fantasy, it becomes evident that Crusoe would have been incapable of surviving. Despite the ideologies of selfishness, individualism, egoism, and competition, even today’s individualistic CEO would be as dead as the selfish hunter without others. The hunter depends on a group just as a CEO depends on top-, middle-, and lower management, and, more importantly, on those ‘who make things’ (Aristotle), i.e. workers.

Keywords: Virtue Ethic; Moral Philosophy; Environmental Ethic; Organisational Goal; Management Morality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-03221-8_11

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DOI: 10.1057/9781137032218_11

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