Ethical Business Leadership : Balancing Theory and Practice

The concept of ethical business leadership is clarified in part by the notion of a Platonic philosophical statesman. It is clarified further in a discussion of a quixotified Sancho Panza (Sancho educated by Don Quixote) as a managerial statesman and in an analysis of Aristotelian ethical business leadership and corporate culture. In his discussion of ethical business leadership, Sherwin Klein strikes a balance between an overly idealistic and theoretical view of this concept and a narrowly practical and realistic one. Moreover, he argues that Aristotelian virtue ethics provides business leaders with a better account of ethical decision-making and a more balanced business ethic than does modern ethical theory.

Sherwin Klein received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and is Professor of Philosophy at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. He has published widely in philosophical and business ethics journals and has written a book on business ethics and one on ethical theory. Dr. Klein has been nominated three times for U.S. Professor of the Year and received the first Outstanding Teacher Award at his college