Quaker Business Ethics as MacIntyrean Tradition

Burton, Nicholas; Sinnicks, Matthew

doi:10.1007/s10551-020-04706-y

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…Our study has a number of theoretical and practical implications for business ethics scholarship. While our study deepens an understanding of subjectivity and normativity in meaningful work in the Buddhist and Quaker contexts, various scholars have suggested that various spiritual or religious domains can be conceptualized as 'traditions' in the MacIntryian sense (Burton & Sinnicks, 2021). There are also a number of traditions in the much broader sense: Buddhism, Marxism, and even Liberalism, for example.…”

Section: Conclusion and Avenues For Future Studiesmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…Quaker participants tried to resist the kind of severe moral compartmentalization described by MacIntyre (1999MacIntyre ( , 2008. As Burton and Sinnicks (2021) noted, compartmentalization of the self is especially likely to arise in the context of work and leaves an individual unable to adjudicate between competing organizational and spiritual or normative demands. In the Quaker tradition, the theological idea of unity with God and an emphasis on continuity between the spiritual and social life was central to their conception of morality and enabled Quakers to move moral purpose beyond the contextspecificity of a situation and avoid "cross-context application of the virtues" (p. 7) in order that 'right' action is more easily discerned.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that a Light Within is implanted in each and every person, Quakers have no priesthood and widely reject the sacred/secular binary, reflecting the presence of the divine in both 'worldly' and 'religious' activity (Muers & Burton, 2019). Burton and Sinnicks (2021) remarked that this continuity of inner and outer life is deeply important in Quaker theology.…”

Section: Overview Of the Studied Spiritual Traditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Spiritual Traditions on the Interplay of Subjective and Normative Interpretations of Meaningful Work

Burton

2021

J Bus Ethics

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This paper argues that the principles of spiritual traditions provide normative ‘standards of goodness’ within which practitioners evaluate meaningful work. Our comparative study of practitioners in the Buddhist and Quaker traditions provide a fine-grained analysis to illuminate, that meaningfulness is deeply connected to particular tradition-specific philosophical and theological ideas. In the Buddhist tradition, meaningfulness is temporal and rooted in Buddhist principles of non-attachment, impermanence and depending-arising, whereas in the Quaker tradition, the Quaker testimonies and theological ideas frame meaningfulness as eternal. Surprisingly, we find that when faced with unethical choices and clashes between organizational normativity and spiritual normativity, Buddhist practitioners acknowledge the temporal character of meaningfulness and compromise their moral values, whereas in contrast, Quaker practitioners morally disengage from meaningless work. Our study highlights how normative commitments in different spiritual traditions can influence different levels of adaptability in finding work meaningful and stresses the central importance of normative commitments in meaningful work. Our study concludes with practical implications and future pathways for inter-disciplinary research.

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Section: Conclusion and Avenues For Future Studiesmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Overview Of the Studied Spiritual Traditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Influence of Spiritual Traditions on the Interplay of Subjective and Normative Interpretations of Meaningful Work

Burton

2021

J Bus Ethics

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“…As recent research has demonstrated however, employees who understand themselves as participants in a tradition account for their 'calling' in terms provided by the rationality internal to that tradition e.g. Buddhist managers (Burton & Vu, 2020) and Quaker businesses (Burton & Sinnicks, 2021), whereas for the expressivist, deeply felt meaning is the only ground for such a claim. These conceptualizations cannot but be in radical tension with one another.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Whose Call?’ The Conflict Between Tradition-Based and Expressivist Accounts of Calling

2022

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Research evidencing the consequences of the experience of ‘calling’ have multiplied in recent years. At the same time, concerns have been expressed about the conceptual coherence of the notion as studies have posited a wide variety of senses in which both workers and scholars understand what it means for workers to be called, what they are called to do and who is doing the ‘calling’. This paper makes both conceptual and empirical contributions to the field. We argue that Bellah et al.’s (Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life, University of California Press, 1996) contrast between tradition-based and expressivist understandings of ‘calling’ highlights a fundamental but neglected fissure in the literature. Expressivist accounts amongst both scholars and research participants require only that ‘calling’ be deeply felt by those who experience it. However, tradition-based accounts require an external caller. Exemplifying this, workers who attest to a divine call and scholars who write about ‘calling’ in the context of particular Christian traditions understand ‘calling’ in terms of a relationship with God. These accounts cannot but be in radical tension. We suggest that this conceptual confusion can be understood in terms of MacIntyre’s notion of ‘tradition-constituted rationality.’ The implications of this argument for practice are evidenced in our report of a study of adherents to one such tradition, workers at a Christian organization that supports people in poverty. Through in-depth interviews with long-term volunteers, we seek to assess if tradition-based ‘calling’ can be evidenced in unpaid work for the lack of pay and career progression opportunities strongly suggest the presence of ‘calling.’ This study demonstrates that even in the context of work that exhibits duty and altruism associated with expressivist accounts of ‘calling,’ these workers’ understanding of the relationships between themselves, their clients and Jesus Christ dominate their work choices. It is the meaning derived from a divine caller, understood in terms of Christian tradition, that accounts for their decision to begin and to continue this work.

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“…A sense of spirituality encompasses an inwardness in evaluating one's own moral and ethical behavior based upon the philosophy, teachings, principles, and commitments of a particular spiritual tradition. Spiritual practice, therefore, embeds normative and traditioned content, and yet allows space for individual interpretation and personal experience, and accords with the idea of life as a spiritual journey, a path, and spiritual progress (Burton & Sinnicks, 2021;, which contrasts with the commitments of religion that foreground objective super-naturalist accounts that rely upon the existence of an ultimate God (Michaelson, 2019). Spiritual practice is a way in which practitioners develop moral and normative judgements when they encounter various contradictory situations in CSR, and provides a context within which to examine our research question-how do spiritual practitioners use their spiritual tradition to morally manage and justify tensions associated with CSR within organizations?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Micro-processes of Moral Normative Engagement with CSR Tensions: The Role of Spirituality in Justification Work

Shin

Burton

2021

J Bus Ethics

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Although CSR scholarship has highlighted how tensions in CSR implementation are negotiated, little is known about its normative and moral dimension at a micro-level. Drawing upon the economies of worth framework, we explore how spirituality influences the negotiation of CSR tensions at an individual level, and what types of justification work they engage in when experiencing tensions. Our analysis of semi-structured interview data from individuals who described themselves as Buddhist and were in charge of CSR implementations for their organizations shows that spirituality influences how they compromise among competing moral values by identifying two forms of justification work: compartmentalizing work and contextualizing work, which help spiritual practitioners minimize moral dissonance.

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Quaker Business Ethics as MacIntyrean Tradition

Cited by 11 publications

References 77 publications

The Influence of Spiritual Traditions on the Interplay of Subjective and Normative Interpretations of Meaningful Work

The Influence of Spiritual Traditions on the Interplay of Subjective and Normative Interpretations of Meaningful Work

‘Whose Call?’ The Conflict Between Tradition-Based and Expressivist Accounts of Calling

Micro-processes of Moral Normative Engagement with CSR Tensions: The Role of Spirituality in Justification Work

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