Strengthening “Giving Voice to Values” in Business Schools by Reconsidering the “Invisible Hand” Metaphor

Mollie Painter‐Morland · Rosa Slegers

17 citations0/0 files storedJournal of Business Ethics

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Ethics in Business and Education Values and Moral Education Management and Marketing Education

Abstract

The main contention of this paper is that our ability to embed a consideration of values into business school curricula is hampered by certain normative parameters that our students have when entering the classroom. If we don’t understand the processes of valuation that underpin our students’ reasoning, our ethics teaching will inevitably miss its mark. In this paper, we analyze one of the most prevalent metaphors that underpin moral arguments about business, and reveal the beliefs and assumptions that underpin it. By revisiting the content of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor, we show that the moral content of the metaphor has been significantly misconstrued through its subsequent reception in economic theory. The “Giving Voice to Values” (GVV) pedagogy aims to enable students to act on their tacit values and address the rationalizations that they may encounter for not acting on these values (Gentile in Giving voice to values. How to speak your mind when you know what’s right, Yale University Press, Yale, 2010a; Discussions about ethics in the accounting classroom: student assumptions and faculty paradigms, Darden Business Publishing, 2010b. http://store.darden.virginia.edu/Syllabus%20Copy/Discussions-about-Ethics-in-Accounting_S.pdf ; Educating for values-driven leadership across the curriculum: giving voice to values, Business Expert Press, New York, 2013). We believe our analysis can strengthen the employment of GVV in three ways: (1) understanding tacit blockages to moral action, i.e., how students’ belief in the moral efficacy of the invisible hand could undermine their own sense of moral duty; (2) addressing common rationalizations that may emerge from different assumptions about morally appropriate courses of action in the workplace; and (3) resolving values conflicts on how to act.

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References

1776An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 2007The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits 1977An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 2010The Theory of Moral Sentiments 1980Paradigms, Metaphors, and Puzzle Solving in Organization Theory 1979Lectures on Jurisprudence 1999Adam Smith and the virtues of Enlightenment 2000Moral Imagination and Management Decision Making

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