Towards a Grainier Understanding of How to Encourage Morally Responsible Leadership Through the Development of Phronesis: A Typology of Managerial Phronesis

Collective Phronesis in Business Ethics Education and Managerial Practice: A Neo-Aristotelian Analysis

“…None of this will come as a surprise to virtue-ethically minded business ethics educators (see e.g. Steyn & Sewchurran, 2021). What I have argued in this article, however, is that to do full justice to Aristotle's account of phronesis, it is not enough to study the Nicomachean Ethics on moral and intellectual virtues.…”

“…After slipping from the academic map for centuries-possibly because of the attractions of instrumentalist (Humean/ Weberian) and formalist (Kantian/Kohlbergian) thinkingphronesis has experienced a resurgence of late within philosophy (Annas, 2011;Russell, 2009), education (Kristjánsson, 2021), psychology (Darnell et al, 2019;Fowers et al, 2021;Grossmann et al, 2020;Schwartz & Sharpe, 2010) and general social-science theory/methodology (Flyvbjerg, 2001)but perhaps most importantly, for present purposes, within sub-areas of professional ethics such as medicine (Kaldjian, 2014) and business (Alzola et al, 2020). Within business ethics and leadership/administration studies, we already have at least two handbooks available (edited by Küpers & Pauleen, 2013;Schwartz et al, 2021), a recent comprehensive literature review (Ames et al, 2020) and a new typology of managerial phronesis (Steyn & Sewchurran, 2021).…”

“…In the words of Thomas Carlyle (cited inSurowiecki, 2004, p. xvi), 'I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance'.10 AsGarsten (2013, p. 336) correctly reminds us, the modern assumption that the value of deliberation is somehow grounded in, and confined to, democratic practices would have been alien to Aristotle.9 For a typology of general managerial phronesis and an overview of the relevant literature, seeSteyn and Sewchurran (2021).…”

Virtue Ethics for Responsible Innovation

“…It provides an aspirational framework of cultivating specific virtues that contribute to one's professional role-in our case: to work in RI. There is a growing interest in virtue ethics in journals like the Journal of Business Ethics (Whetstone 2001, Bastons 2008, Bertland 2009, McPherson 2013, Wang et al 2016, Grant et al 2018, Sand 2018b, Steyn and Sewchurran 2019 and Science and Engineering Ethics (Pritchard 2001, Crawford-Brown 1997, Harris 2008, Frey 2010, Stovall 2011, Steen 2013, Schmidt 2014, Chen 2015, Han 2015, Pennock and O'Rourke 2017. Thus, there is a strong case to advocate virtue ethics as an accomplice for RI.…”

“…4 The first cluster of virtues is associated with the Responsible-side of RI, whereas the second is associated with the Innovation-side of RI. This overview is based on a review of relevant literature, e.g., of articles that appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics (Whetstone 2001, Bastons 2008, Bertland 2009, McPherson 2013, Wang et al 2016, Grant et al 2018, Sand 2018b, Steyn and Sewchurran 2019, the Journal of Responsible Innovation (Nordmann 2014, Di Giulio et al 2016, Pellé 2016, Bergen 2017, Reber 2018) and in Science and Engineering Ethics (Pritchard 2001, Crawford-Brown 1997, Harris 2008, Frey 2010, Stovall 2011, Steen 2013, Schmidt 2014, Chen 2015, Han 2015, Pennock and O'Rourke 2017. Our overview resembles Vallor's (2016) list of "technomoral" virtues-virtues that people (in general) need to cultivate in order to flourish in the twenty-first century: honesty, self-control, humility, justice, courage, empathy, care, civility, flexibility, perspective, magnanimity and wisdom.…”