What is it about?
What counts as good behaviour in any country is influenced by its culture. In China, Confucian ideas underpin many ethical assumptions and preferences. This paper explains how these affect managerial choices, ways of acting and reflections on action.
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Why is it important?
It offers insight into Chinese business ethics, and also challenges westerners to think about the cultural underpinnings of their own ethical preferences.
Perspectives
Working on these ideas with my Chinese colleagues obliged me to do more than look for parallels with western moral philosophers (Aristotle, for example): I had to learn to think in different ways, to start from a different place, to be more oriented towards the manner of doing rather than the thing that is being done. By the end of the process I was convinced that Confucian ethics are something quite different to Aristotelian ethics, perceiving different 'objects' and exercising a different aesthetic; but of course addressing similar issues about human conduct.
Prof Jonathan R Gosling
Exeter University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Confucian Virtue Ethics and Ethical Leadership in Modern China, Journal of Business Ethics, January 2022, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-05026-5.
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