Ponder this: why should business care about virtues? Some might argue that it shouldn’t. However, I affirm that business must care, if for no other reason than that virtues are… simply put, good for business.
Aristotle reminds us, “Virtue makes its subject good, and makes the subject’s work good” (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II). Virtues belong to the soul, according to St. Thomas Aquinas — but companies do not have souls; man does. And when man has perfected the virtues — prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance — he is as God intended him: a sound and effective manager.
From a Christian perspective, the purpose of business is to provide goods and services to satisfy the needs and wants of one’s fellow man, where the motivation is not merely profit– but service to others. As Christian business leaders, we should be drawn to a virtue-oriented approach to ethics/behavior. This is because the rightness or wrongness of business decisions are determined not only by the consequences of action (consequentialism) or by adherence to a specific set of moral principles (deontology)—but are fundamentally about whether the decision promotes and exhibits the right kind of character.
Here is where virtue plays a key role and a businessperson’s approach to ethics meets the bottom line: with a sound ethic-based approach to business, we find (1) more business, (2) better employees and (3) more productive and secure business relationships.
Consider that in a recent study reported in the Journal of Organizational Moral Psychology, researchers Cokely and Feltz conclude that acting from virtue can “strongly influence people’s moral judgments and feelings about (1) individuals, (2) heads of organizations, (3) collective entities, and (4) employees of organizations.” Their research suggests that virtues matter above and beyond both the consequences and following the correct moral rule. In the everyday business world this means that “virtuous organizations seem more likely to garner patronage and may be likely to be judged to have better employees.”
As yet other illustration, other business scholars have studied how a “virtue-ethics” approach to business interactions has had substantial positive benefits in improving supply chain collaborations. Researchers Drake and Schlachter report in their recent study in the Journal of Business Ethics that even though it is often very challenging to initiate “trust-based collaborative efforts… [those relationships] can be sustainable over long periods of time,” if there is deliberate attention given as to how virtuous behaviors impact decisions. This virtue-laden approach to building business relationships mitigates what might otherwise devolve into volatile and unpredictable business relationships.
To be clear, “[a] virtue is a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.” The virtues “guide our conduct according to reason and faith.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church) The virtues provide a framework to guide our work in the world and direct the fruit of that labor toward its most productive end. And indeed, productivity is very good for business.
Without the virtues, man is rudderless. But with the virtues, he is guided faithfully to right and productive action.
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