This is a Department of Management Research Seminar Series event hosted by Scott Taylor.
This talk will centre on an ongoing project concerned with developing a fiduciary character. Whilst work on character and virtue development in business and finance contexts is not a new endeavour, a focus on identifying and developing the characteristics and virtues required by individuals specifically positioned as fiduciaries or trustees has been widely overlooked. This is a significant omission in the field of business ethics, given the pivotal and deeply embedded role that the legal concept of the fiduciary plays in all business and finance contexts. It is an additional oversight considering the extent to which the dominant use of neoclassical economic theory and methodology in such organizations has strongly influenced interpretations of the fiduciary and its practice.
The talk will build on recent work on fiduciary ethics and ontology to show how the processual nature of the fiduciary maps well to the moral ontology of virtue ethics, paving the way for a fruitful program of fiduciary character and virtue development. The issues that such a program would present for fiduciaries focussed purely on financial outcomes, and for organizations where calculable consequentialist ethical approaches are favoured, will be discussed, alongside the opportunities that such a program would present at a time when the very definition and scope of fiduciary duties are being challenged and contested.
Helen is Associate Professor in Organizational Studies and Director of Online Learning for Cardiff Business School, and Section Editor of the Economics, Political Economy, and Business Ethics section of the Journal of Business Ethics.
No upcoming events.
Professor of Leadership & Organization Studies
Department of Management
Scott Taylor is a Reader/Associate Professor in Leadership & Organization Studies and Director of External Engagement and Responsible Business at Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham.
