Quaker business ethics as MacIntyrean tradition

Burton, Nicholas and Sinnicks, Matthew (2022) Quaker business ethics as MacIntyrean tradition. Journal of Business Ethics, 176 (3), 507-518. (doi:10.1007/s10551-020-04706-y).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper argues that Quaker business ethics can be understood as a MacIntyrean tradition. To do so, it draws on three key MacIntyrean concepts: community, compartmentalisation, and the critique of management. The emphasis in Quaker business ethics on finding unity, as well as the emphasis that Quaker businesses have placed on serving their local areas, accords with MacIntyre’s claim that small-scale community is essential to human flourishing. The emphasis on integrity in Quaker business ethics means practitioners are well-placed to resist the compartmentalising pressures of contemporary work. Quaker business ethics is also highly critical of the manipulative forms of management that MacIntyre regards as dominant. As such, Quaker business ethics provides evidence that more morally ameliorative forms of running business organisations is possible, even if they remain difficult to achieve.

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Burton and Sinnicks - 2022 - QuakerBusinessEthicsAsMacIntyreanTradition (JBE) - Version of Record

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Burton_and_Sinnicks_2022_QuakerBusinessEthicsAsMacIntyreanTradition_JBE_ - Version of Record

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 12 December 2020

e-pub ahead of print date: 16 January 2021

Published date: March 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: We would like to thank handling editor Alejo José G. Sison, and two anonymous reviewers for JBE for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

Keywords: Community, Compartmentalisation, MacIntyre, Management, Quakers