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Courage as a Management Virtue

  • Howard HarrisEmail author
Chapter
First Online:
Part of the Issues in Business Ethics book series (IBET, volume 38)

Abstract

Courage has been considered a cardinal virtue at least since the times of Plato and Confucius over 2,000 years ago. Arguably it was seen in those ancient times as a virtue relevant to functions of government or politics which we would today call management. This chapter provides an account of courage, firmly grounded in the classical account, together with an exploration of contemporary analyses from both practitioners and theorists. By concentrating on a single virtue this allows a different and perhaps deeper understanding of how the role of the virtues in management is not just collective but involves individual virtues. I hope to show that while courage remains an elusive concept, ‘an impossible subject’, practical value comes from understanding it as a virtue.

Keywords

Positive Psychology Practical Wisdom Audit Firm Classical Account Moral Courage 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Springer Netherlands 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.School of ManagementUniversity of South AustraliaAdelaideAustralia

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