According to MacIntyre, individuals may find threatened their development of autonomy when inside corporations. However, recent considerations concerning knowledge-intensive organizations offer a more complex picture.
In Dependent Rational Animals, Alasdair MacIntyre presents an account moral development such that agents move from being potentially independent practical reasoners to becoming actually
independent practical reasoners by participating in social practices. In such contexts, agents gain the capacity to distinguish between what they desire at any given time and what is good. Likewise, they become capable of distinguishing between reasons for action and good reasons for action, develop a capacity to imagine realistic alternatives, and ultimately gain a desire to pursue ends insofar as they are good.
MacIntyre, along with many others, have thought that this picture of moral development, i.e., the development of autonomy, is threatened by contemporary organizations, especially for-profit corporations. Within formal organizations, participants’ autonomy may be threatened by hierarchical relationships that focus on increasing efficiency or productivity by marginalizing other normative considerations, specifically the demands of the virtues. Participants may be encouraged (or required) to ignore concerns about the common good, or the flourishing of organization members, insofar as these concerns do not contribute to organizational performance.
Without denying the prevalence of this sort of phenomenon within contemporary organizations, more recent considerations concerning knowledge-intensive organizations offer a more complex picture of the nature of contemporary firms. Contemporary knowledge intensive organizations involve heterogeneous forms of knowledge, both tacit and firm-specific forms of knowledge, and various forms of scientific knowledge, that are combined and developed by organization members to create novel goods and services. In this context, managers are typically unable to aggregate all necessary knowledge and must instead rely upon the judgment of organization members. Managers must aim to facilitate collaboration and implement best practices in a way that empowers and supports organization members. Likewise, knowledge-intensive organizations must give members a greater role in defining organizational goals, and those organizations that place a greater focus on the way that they contribute positively to the common good typically have a greater ability to motivate members, and to marshal the organization’s distributed knowledge in a way that is mutually beneficial for both internal and external stakeholders.
The knowledge-intensive, or collaborative, organization offers new possibilities for explaining the importance of the virtues within organizations, since the virtues are needed to promote cooperation and organizational learning, and to preserve a focus on the benefits conferred upon stakeholders. By appreciating these characteristics of contemporary organizations and taking steps to increase their prevalence, such organizations can become key locations for moral development, enabling participants to become independent practical reasoners.
Caleb Bernacchio
IESE Business School PhD student
