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(2018) The moral imagination of Patricia Werhane, Dordrecht, Springer.
Building on Werhane's foundation
toward a theory of the morally imaginative organization
Timothy J. Hargrave
pp. 73-94
Patricia Werhane's landmark book Moral Imagination in Management Decision-making and subsequent related work are practically synonymous with business ethics scholarship on moral imagination. In this chapter, I present an overview of Werhane's work on moral imagination, discuss its impacts in the business and business ethics literatures and beyond, and then offer a theoretical extension. Integrating Werhane's scholarship that treats moral imagination as an organization-level concept with Nonaka's (1991) theory of the knowledge-creating company, I present the concept of the morally imaginative organization. Recognizing that leaders of organizations in complex, dynamic environments will be unable to anticipate, identify, and/or respond to the many moral dilemmas that their organizations enact (or fail to enact), I present a normative model in which moral imagination involves all organizational actors and is embedded into the organization's strategically important knowledge-creating processes. I call for further research at the intersection of business ethics and social science which honors Werhane's legacy by exploring how organizations can become more morally imaginative.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-74292-2_6
Full citation:
Hargrave, T. J. (2018)., Building on Werhane's foundation: toward a theory of the morally imaginative organization, in R. E. Freeman, S. Dmytriyev & A. C. Wicks (eds.), The moral imagination of Patricia Werhane, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 73-94.
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