Ethics and the Definition of Business Strategy

Abstract

A classical author compared human behaviour with the movement of an arrow towards a pre-established target (Aristotle, 1970). Although I was not quite sure why, I was bothered by this comparison and moved to analyse it more closely. My unease did not stem from the fact that we were comparing human behaviour with the movement of an inert object. What troubled me intellectually was the supposition implicit in the comparison that within human behaviour we indeed find “pre-established” targets or objectives. Consideration of this point leads us, I believe, to a key topic of management theory, be it the management of one’s own life or the management of organisations (Andrews, 1987), that to a large degree is yet unsolved. Is it true that we behave as an arrow moving towards a pre-established target? Is it not rather the case that our effort is oriented not so much towards hitting a target as towards discovering “which” target we have to hit?