Organizational Ethical Virtues of Innovativeness

Elina Riivari () and Anna-Maija Lämsä ()
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Elina Riivari: University of Jyvaskyla
Anna-Maija Lämsä: University of Jyvaskyla

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 155, issue 1, No 16, 223-240

Abstract: Abstract This study participates in the discussion of the ethical culture of organizations by deepening the knowledge and understanding of the meaning of organizational ethical virtues in organizational innovativeness. The aim in this study was to explore how an organization’s ethical culture and, more specifically, organization’s ethical virtues support organizational innovativeness. The ethical culture of an organization is defined as the virtuousness of an organization. Organizational innovativeness is conceptualized as an organization’s behavioral propensity to produce innovative products and services. The empirical data consisted of a total of 39 interviews from specialist organizations. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the organizational ethical virtues of feasibility, discussability, supportability, and congruency of management are those that support organizational innovativeness. The findings also show which specific elements of these virtues and related organizational practices are important to innovativeness. In addition, this study showed that the features of organizational innovativeness are not necessarily dichotomous but rather follow the ideas of virtues and are versatile in nature.

Keywords: Ethical culture; Ethical virtues; Innovation; Innovativeness; Organizational culture; Qualitative research; Virtue ethics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3486-6

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