Virtue in Business
Conversations with Aristotle
Business, Value Creation, and Society Series

The virtue approach to business ethics is a topic of increasing importance within the business world. Focusing on Aristotle's theory that the virtues of character, rather than actions, are central to ethics, Edwin M. Hartman introduces readers of this book to the value of applying Aristotle's virtue approach to business. Using numerous real-world examples, he argues that business leaders have good reason to take character seriously when explaining and evaluating individuals in organisations. He demonstrates how the virtue approach can deepen our understanding of business ethics, and how it can contribute to contemporary discussions of character, rationality, corporate culture, ethics education and global ethics. Written by one of the foremost Aristotelian scholars working in the field today, this authoritative introduction to the role of virtue ethics in business is a valuable primer for graduate students and academic researchers in business ethics, applied ethics and philosophy.

Foreword R. Edward Freeman; Introduction to Aristotle, virtue ethics, and this essay; 1. Virtues and principles; 2. Virtues and decisions; 3. Virtues, good reasons, and the good life; 4. Developing character; 5. Virtues in and among organisations; 6. Teaching virtue in business school; 7. Ethical conflict and the global future; Bibliography; Index.

Edwin M. Hartman was Visiting Professor of Business Ethics and co-director of the Paduano Seminar in Business Ethics at the Stern School of Business, New York University, until his retirement in December 2009. Before joining Stern, he taught for more than twenty years in the business school and the philosophy department at Rutgers University, where he was founding director of the Prudential Business Ethics Center. He is the author of Substance, Body, and Soul: Aristotelian Investigations, Conceptual Foundations of Organization Theory and Organizational Ethics and the Good Life (named Book of the Year (2003) by the Social Issues in Management Division of the Academy of Management).