•  32
    So far aesthetics has played a limited role in our understanding of business activity, focused mainly on evaluating product quality and the character qualities (virtues) of the firm that produced them We draw on Heidegger’s fuller account of aesthetic value to show how a firm—like a work of art – can disclose the way human projects and technologies are already at work in a given context. In this way, we show that firms play an essential role in human self-understanding—a role that Heidegger assi…Read more
  •  30
    Virtue Ethics, Aesthetics, and Reflective Practices in Business
    Philosophy of Management 21 (4): 493-505. 2022.
    This paper begins from the context of virtue ethics theory as applied to business ethics. We note that the concept of a practice therein lacks the full richness of the Aristotelian concept of virtue. In essence, when applied to business in the virtue ethics literature, the practice loses its reflective quality. It becomes beholden to, and irredeemably interdependent with, the economic institution (i.e., the for-profit firm) that houses the practice. Furthermore, the conventional practice of virt…Read more
  •  24
    Who Are the Real Victims of Insider Trading?: Why Current Insider-Trading Law Is Unethical
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 31 (3-4): 441-452. 2012.
    In this paper I argue that the real and only victims of insider trading are those being wrongfully prosecuted under the current broad interpretation of Rule 10(b)-5 of the Securities Exchange Act. The term ‘insider trading’ has no clear legal definition and thus lends itself to prosecutorial overreach. I argue that such overreach characterizes the numerous insider trading investigations and prosecutions currently being pursued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Rather than any vali…Read more
  •  46
    Heroic Business ‘Ethics’
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 33 (2-3): 131-146. 2014.
    This paper applies Alain Badiou’s ethic-of-truths to the context of business ethics. Business ethics is redefined as self-regarding, aspirational, and internal to a given firm. Firms are defined as sites. The event is a radical innovation experienced by a given firm. Ethics emerges as the challenge of fidelity to the truths engendered by the event.
  •  23
    Envisioning the Aesthetic Firm
    Philosophy of Management 20 (3): 355-368. 2021.
    This paper draws on the work of Alain Badiou and Martin Heidegger to construct a postructural theory of the firm. The ideal firm is conceived as a technology that facilitates a technology-free void/site of potential. For actors within this firm to be ethical requires their achievement of human subjecthood through aesthetic fidelity to the site-induced events. Heidegger’s concerns regarding the enframing effects of technology and his recognition of the truth-revealing qualities of art, are incorp…Read more
  •  21
    Alasdair Macintyre’s Aristotelian Business Ethics: A Critique
    Journal of Business Ethics 86 (1): 43-50. 2009.
    This paper begins by summarizing and distilling Macintyre's sweeping critique of modern business. It identifies the crux of Macintyre's critique as centering on the fundamental Aristotelian concepts of internal goods and practices. Maclntyre essentially follows Aristotle in arguing that by privileging external goods over internal goods, business activity -and certainly modern capitalistic business activity -corrupts practices. Thus, from the perspective of virtue ethics, business is morally inde…Read more
  •  24
    Aesthetic Style as a Postructural Business Ethic
    Journal of Business Ethics 93 (3): 393-400. 2010.
    The article begins with a brief history of aesthetic theory. Particular attention is given to the postructuralist ‘aesthetic return’: the resurgence of interest in aesthetics as an ontological foundation for human being-in-the-world. The disordered individual-as-emergent-artist-and-artifact, who is at the centre of this ‘aesthetic return’, is then translated into the ‘dis’-organization that is the firm. The firm is thus defined in terms of its primal sensory impact on the world. It invokes a myr…Read more
  •  38
    Aesthetics as a Foundation for Business Activity
    Journal of Business Ethics 72 (1): 41-46. 2007.
    This paper identifies the ultimate justification for business activity as an aesthetic justification. Aesthetics, loosely defined as the appreciation of beauty, subsumes both ethics and economics within an holistic justificatory mechanism for business decisions. Five essential qualities of aesthetic judgment are identified: disinterest, subjectivity, inclusivity, contemplativity, and internality. The quality of aesthetic judgment, exercised by the individual through the organization, will determ…Read more
  •  109
    A Moral and Economic Defense of Executive Compensation
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 30 (1-2): 59-70. 2011.
    A great deal has been written in recent years about the justification, if any, for the current levels of executive compensation. The folk consensus is that the current levels of executive compensation are unjustifiably high from both a moral and an economic perspective. In the case of the former, the compensation level is unfair and unjust. And in the case of the latter, the compensation level is not in the broader interests of other stakeholders or of firm-value maximization.In this paper I cou…Read more
  •  21
    Utopia Reconsidered: The Modern Firm as Institutional Ideal
    Philosophy of Management 7 (1): 67-75. 2008.
    This paper challenges Alasdair MacIntyre’s assertion that the modern firm — such as Google, Unilever, or Microsoft — is inimical to human flourishing within an Aristotelian framework. The paper begins by questioning MacIntyre’s rendering of utopian communities. It then addresses four specific criticisms of the modern firm to be found throughout MacIntyre’s oeuvre, namely compartmentalisation, myopia, inequality, and loss of community. Arguments are made to the effect that these criticisms do not…Read more
  •  40
    In recent years, the US and the EU have pursued markedly different agendas in the pursuit of board gender diversity. The EU has taken a more pro-active governmental approach of mandated quotas, whereas the US is relying largely on the endogenous mechanism of shareholder diversity proposals. Despite their obvious allure as a means of bringing about rapid change, evidence is mounting that board gender diversity quotas may yield various deleterious side effects; and quotas may not be as successful …Read more
  •  35
    Women on Boards
    with Mahdi Rastad
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 37 (1): 1-12. 2018.
    In recent years, the US, UK, and Continental Europe have pursued board gender diversity through markedly different means. Several European countries have imposed mandatory quotas, whereas the UK and US are relying on the endogenous mechanisms of social pressure and shareholder proposals respectively. Despite their obvious allure as a means of bringing about rapid change, evidence is mounting that European board gender diversity quotas may yield various deleterious side effects; and quotas may no…Read more
  •  14
    Size Matters
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 23 (3): 45-59. 2004.
  •  2
    Applying virtue ethics to business: The agent-based approach
    Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies 9 (1). 2004.
  • Method to Their Madness: Dispelling the Myth of Economic Rationality as a Behavioral Ideal
    Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies 7 (1). 2002.
  •  36
    Size Matters
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 23 (3): 45-59. 2004.