Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the application of virtue ethics in business as opposed to consequentialist or deontogical ethics. However the focus has often been on virtues at the individual as opposed to the organizational level of analysis.It is proposed that the organisational virtues intermediate individual (leadership) and group level constructs (organisational citizenship behaviours, corporate citizenship) to foster intrinsic motivation through a focus on eudemonia (measured as affective commitment). The overall aim of this study is to test this hypothesis using the Chun (2005) scale of organisational virtues ('Virtue Ethical Character Scale'). In the conceptualisation of the organisational virtues I draw from the Aristotelian virtue ethics tradition as reinterpreted by Alasdair MacIntyre.The study is in the main quantitative using SPSS and AMOS, vs. 16 and it is based on a sample of 643 questionnaires drawn from eight different organisations, including two law firms, the headquarters of an international timeshare company, four hotels and a dairy company. All the organisations are based in the UK, except the timeshare company which is based in Cork, Ireland.The survey questionnaire used for the collection of quantitative data is composed of measurement scales representing each construct which were available in the literature and whose validity and reliability were also tested.The outcome of the study is a structured equation model linking the various constructs in the hypothesised manner, which is then applied in a series of case studies involving the organisations surveyed. The model shows particularly strong path coefficients between transformational leadership behaviours and the organisational virtues, and the organisational virtues and affective commitment. Findings from semi-structured and informal qualitative interviews conducted at the organisations are used to help interpret the results.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:526589 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Martin-Moreno, Jose Felix |
| Contributors | Chun, Rosa ; Davies, Gary |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://www.manchester.ac.uk/escholar/uk-ac-man-scw:93136 |
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