Work

Beyond Rational Persuasion: How Leaders Change Moral Norms

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Scholars are increasingly examining how formal leaders of organizations change moral norms. The prominent accounts over-emphasize the role of rational persuasion. We focus, instead, on how formal leaders successfully break and thereby create moral norms. We draw on Dreyfus’s ontology of cultural paradigms and Williams’s moral luck to develop our framework for viewing leader-driven radical norm the change. We argue that formal leaders, embedded in their practices’ grounding, clarifying, and organizing norms, get captivated by anomalies and respond to them by taking moral risks, which, if practically successful, create a new normative order. We illustrate the framework with Churchill’s actions in 1940 and Anita Roddick’s Body Shop. Last, we discuss normative orders, when ordinary leaders change norms, evil, and further research.

Source: Journal of Business Ethics

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05149-3

Authors: Charles Spinosa, Matthew Hancocks, Haridimos Tsoukas, Billy Glennon

Institutions: The Leprosy Mission Nepal, University of Cyprus, University of Warwick

Language: English

Topic: Ethics in Business and Education

Subfield: Information Systems and Management

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,390

OpenAlex ID: W4282976187