Leadership After Virtue: MacIntyre’s Critique of Management Reconsidered

Matthew Sinnicks ()
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Matthew Sinnicks: Northumbria University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2018, vol. 147, issue 4, No 4, 735-746

Abstract: Abstract MacIntyre argues that management embodies emotivism, and thus is inherently amoral and manipulative. His claim that management is necessarily Weberian is, at best, outdated, and the notion that management aims to be neutral and value free is incorrect. However, new forms of management, and in particular the increased emphasis on leadership which emerged after MacIntyre’s critique was published, tend to support his central charge. Indeed, charismatic and transformational forms of leadership seem to embody emotivism to a greater degree than do more Weberian, bureaucratic forms of management; hence, MacIntyre’s central contention about our emotivistic culture seems to be well founded. Having criticised the details but defended the essence of MacIntyre’s critique of management, this paper sketches a MacIntyrean approach to management and leadership by highlighting the affinities between MacIntyre’s political philosophy and Greenleaf’s concept of servant leadership.

Keywords: Management history; Emotivism; Alasdair MacIntyre; Virtue ethics; Charismatic leadership; Servant leadership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3381-6

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