This is the editorial for Vol 19 Issue 2 of Philosophy of Management. A reflection is made on COVID-19 measures and a call for papers is made to explore the crisis through philosophical inquiry on 1) disaster management and 2) existentialist views of work. Guidance is given based on papers published previously in the journal, and on Camus’ La Peste / The Plague.

In this paper we present a theoretical hybrid framework for ethical decision making, drawing upon Emmanuel Levinas’ view on ethics as “first philosophy”, as an inherent infinite responsibility for the other. The pivotal concept in this framework is an appeal to a heightened sense of personal responsibility of the moral actor to provide the ethical context within which conventional approaches to applied business ethics could be engaged. Max Weber’s method of reconciling absolutism and relativism in ethical decision making is adopted (...) to provide the synergy between personal responsibility and contextual realities, forging a coherent framework. The paper concludes by discussing ways that business could make way for the flourishing of ethics of responsibility in individuals. (shrink)

This paper brings empirical and theoretical studies of ethical leadership into conversation with one another in an effort to determine the antecedent to perceived ethical leadership. Employing a Levinasian perspective, I argue that ethical leadership entails being faced with the impossible task of realizing the needs of many individual others. For this reason, I argue, perceived ethical leadership is grounded in an employee’s perception that a leader struggles to make decisions based on the conflicting demands placed upon her. More important (...) than the result of a leader’s decision is the degree to which the leader demonstrates concern for the well-being of others in her decision-making process. I ground my discussion through reference to results of empirical studies on behaviors associated with ethical leadership, including Brown, Treviño, and Harrison, Kalshoven, Den Hartog, and De Hoogh, and Treviño, Hartman, and Brown. I identify several mediating factors which may influence employee perception of ethical leadership, proposing avenues for further research which can help to clarify the relationship between concrete leadership behaviors and perceived ethical leadership. (shrink)

In this chapter, we explore Xenophon’s philosophy of management and identify nine dimensions of business management, as well as the competencies that good management requires. The scientific contribution of this chapter does not only consist in the fact that this is the first publications in which Xenophon’s philosophy of management is systematically analyzed. Historical analysis can also help to question the self-evidence of our contemporary conceptualization of management. Xenophon’s philosophy of management enables us to criticize the contemporary focus on profit (...) maximization and to articulate an intrinsic relation between business and society; to criticize the contemporary disconnectedness of business management and to develop a broader set of individual competencies and know-how that is required for business managers; to criticize the contemporary focus on management and control; and to rehabilitate the role of business management as ability and capacity that involves know-how, actual engagement, and virtuous competencies. Finally, this concept of management challenges contemporary conceptualizations of the differences between private and public management in political philosophical debates. (shrink)