Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
ISSN 1985–4064
Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale:
Exploratory Survey of Philippine
Managers
Aliza D. Racelis*
ABSTRACT
This paper is an exploratory attempt at generating a virtue ethics
scale for managers from the Philippines, using the initial listing of
Shanahan and Hyman (2003). The survey questionnaire consisting
of 34 virtues was administered to a sample of 141 business and
inance postgraduate students who are managers in the companies in
Philippines. Based on the factor analysis of the responses to the items
on the virtues questionnaire, the following were the resulting virtue
or trait factors: (1) Care and concern, (2) Competence, (3) Ambition,
and (4) Superiority. The four resulting virtue factors compare
more or less with the virtue listings generated in the literature:
“Care and concern” is analogous to “empathy” and “respect”; and
“competence” seems akin to “integrity”, “trust”, and “reliability” in
the literature. The results corroborate evidence in the Virtue Ethics
literature that proposes the virtue theory as an improved ethical
paradigm for business. It is indeed possible to augment teleological
and deontological ethics scales with a virtue ethics scale that can
cause both the researcher and the respondents to be more aware
of the virtuous qualities of business people and managers. Such
classiications can aid scale validation and development, which in
turn could help push the strategic role of the virtue ethics theory.
Keywords: Ethics Scales, Philippine Managers, Virtue Ethics
JEL Classiication: M19
1.
Introduction
To some people, the world of inance and business is purely mechanical,
devoid of ethical considerations. But it has become quite obvious, given
the long list of prominent business scandals just around the turn of the
twenty-irst century; there is no escaping the fact that ethical reasoning
*
Aliza Racelis is an Associate Professor at the College of Business Administration, University
of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines, email: aliza.racelis@up.edu.ph
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
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Aliza D. Racelis
is vital to the practice of business and inance. It is a well-known fact
that integrity is paramount for a successful managerial career: one must
grasp the norms of ethical behavior if one wants to succeed in the ield of
inance and business. In addition, the central role of corporate leaders in
setting the ethical tone for their organization is widely accepted (Bruner
et al., 2009; Murphy and Enderle, 1995).
In the irst few years of the twenty-irst century, the corporate world
has come under increasing pressure to behave in an ethically responsible
manner. In particular, accountability failures have led to bankruptcies
and restatements of inancial statements that have harmed countless
shareholders, employees, pensioners, and other stakeholders. These
failures have created a crisis of investor conidence and caused stock
markets around the world to decline by billions of dollars. Standards for
what constitutes ethical behavior lie in a hazy area where clear-cut rightversus-wrong answers may not always exist (Racelis, 2010; Walker, 2005).
As practitioners, regulators and researchers study the matter and
consequences of unethical business behavior as such, there is the need
to study its antecedents, dynamics and impacts (Reidenbach and Robin,
1990). In the normative ethical literature, various ethical paradigms
are available: deontological (duty-based) ethics, consequentialism, and
teleological (end-oriented) ethics. To the latter belong Aristotelian virtue
ethics and discussions of the character of persons. While there has been
resurgence in virtue ethics, an empirical challenge for virtue ethicists is
to develop “virtue ethics inventories or scales”.
Endeavours by ethics researchers in this area include the “virtue
ethics scale” developed by Shanahan and Hyman (2003) which identiies
managers’ beliefs about the virtuous qualities of businesspeople; the
multidimensional scale developed by Reidenbach and Robin (1990)
which can be used to improve evaluations of business ethics; and the
‘Virtue Ethical Character Scale (VECS)’ of Chun (2005) which is a scale
of organizational virtues and sought to validate the traditional virtue
dimensions mentioned in the virtue ethics literature. This paper is an
exploratory attempt at generating a virtue ethics scale for managers in
the Philippines, using the initial listing of Shanahan and Hyman (2003).
2.
Literature Review
Deinition of Virtue and Dimensions of Virtue Ethics
Virtue may be deined as follows: “The virtue of a kind of thing is an
enduring trait which places it in good condition and enables it to carry
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Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
out its distinctive work well. The word ‘virtue’ represents what the
classical philosophers meant by the Greek term aretê(άρετή) and the Latin
term virtus. Classically, a virtue is a strength or excellence. A virtue
strengthens, improves, and perfects that which has it. This meaning
is evident in the Latin term, which comes from the word for ‘man’,
vir. In Latin, a virtue is literally the same as ‘manliness’” (Pakaluk and
Cheffers, 2011, p. 82).
As said above, virtue means strength, the capacity to do, and to a
certain extent, ability or proiciency. Thanks to it, man developed a
working faculty: he acts and he acts well. Thus, not only is virtue not
an obstacle to the good act – it is also the act that produces results, that
“delivers” - but it is in fact its necessary condition. To have virtue in
general (of course we will have to clarify later on) —is to have knowhow (Gomez, 1992).
It follows then that any virtue constitutes exaltation, an
empowering of human nature and it is the source of personal activity.
In what refers to acquired virtues - those acquired naturally by the
uniform and uninterrupted repetition of the same acts - their seed is
naturally in man. This seed is developed and defended against the
disordered instincts. Hence, virtue, contrary to what the Stoics thought,
is susceptible to increase, but this is to be understood not as an addition
of degree to degree, but always as a more profound participation of the
subject in virtue. This participation is proportionate to the frequency
and to the intensity of the acts, but it is deepened in the soul only
when the virtuous activity reaches and surpasses the intensity of the
habit. Virtue, even if it reaches the maximum intensity, can never go
to the extreme; it can neither be excessive nor defective: (in medio stat
virtus). This is Aristotle’s famous doctrine of virtue as a “mean.” This
implies that acting virtuously means hitting that right and appropriate
intermediate place between two extremes. To say that one should do
what is intermediate, in this sense, is the same as to say “nothing in
excess”, because a deiciency can always be described as an excess of
restraint or caution: for example, the person who has the depressed zest
for the pleasures of the table may be described as going in excess when
abstaining (Pakaluk and Cheffers, 2011; Lanza and Palazzini, 1961).
Considering the multiplicity of the powers of the soul and the
speciic plurality of objects toward which the activity of the virtues
can be directed, the virtues acquired in man are diverse. Some of these
have deserved to be particularly marked out as cardinal, because of the
particular importance and dificulty of their speciic matter: prudence,
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
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Aliza D. Racelis
understood as the habit of right judgment in the action to be performed;
justice, which is concerned with the observance of perfect equality in
relationships with one’s neighbor; temperance, which is ordained to
moderating the more vehement appetites; fortitude, which is directed to
maintaining the irmness of spirit in the greater dangers that threatens
man. The other natural virtues are connected to one or other of the
cardinal virtues by a certain similarity with them. To prudence are
joined the habits that dispose the intellect to choose the means more
adapted to the end and to interpreting the spirit of the law. To justice
are attached religion, piety, gratitude, truth, affability, liberality,
punitive justice, and equity; to fortitude is attached magnanimity,
patience, perseverance; to temperance are joined meekness, clemency,
and humility (Lanza and Palazzini, 1961).
For Aristotle, moral virtue is intimately related with right reason,
for it is right reason which points out the extremes of defect and excess
that has to be avoided in order to attain the just mean. Right reason
in turn is acquired through prudence, the criterion or norm for which
is the judgment of “a wise and prudent man.” Hence we understand
Aristotle’s deinition of moral virtue as “a disposition to choose, consisting
essentially in a mean relatively to us determined by a rule, i.e., the rule
by which a practically wise man would determine it”. Virtue, then, is a
disposition, to choose according to a rule, namely, the rule by which a
truly virtuous man possessed of moral insight would choose. Aristotle
regarded the possession of practical wisdom, the ability to see what
is the right thing to do in the circumstances, as essential to the truly
virtuous man, and he attaches much more value to the moral judgments
of the enlightened conscience than to any a priori and merely theoretical
conclusions. This may seem somewhat naïve, but it must be remembered
that, for Aristotle, the prudent man will be the man who sees what is truly
good for a man in any set of circumstances: he is not required to enter
upon any academic preserve, but to see what truly beits human nature
in those circumstances (Yarza, 1994; Pakaluk, 2005; Copleston, 1993).
Virtue ethics, of the Aristotelian type, has six major dimensions
that distinguish it from other ethical theories (Murphy, 1999):
(1) The focus in virtue ethics is on the person and his/her character
traits, not on a particular decision or principle;
(2) Virtues are good habits and are learned by practicing;
(3) Appropriate virtues are discovered by witnessing and imitating
behavior; to become virtuous, one must see others practicing good
habits;
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Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
(4) Persons seek the “ethic of the mean”;
(5) Virtues should be examined within a “community” setting; and
(6) Aspirations are key motivators in virtue ethics.
With respect to the third dimension, it is hard to ind and achieve
the mean, because our emotions affect our perceptions. Someone who
tends to fear things too much will actually perceive them as being
more fearful than they are, so his fear will seem to him to be perfectly
appropriate. He will not be aware that his fear is excessive. A variety
of techniques are necessary in dealing with our desires and achieving
the mean. We have to know our bad tendencies and correct them. We
have to rely on the example of good people similar to us. We have to use
objective standards as much as possible (Pakaluk and Cheffers, 2011).
Relationship to other ethical theories
Ethics involves the evaluation of actions. Suppose someone does
something: he acts. We can analyze this action into four aspects or stages:
Past inluences à character à the nature of the act itself à effects
of the act
A full understanding of his act will obviously need to take into
account all four of these aspects or stages. Furthermore, if the agent’s
act is to be reasonable and “right”, all four of these aspects have to be
in some way correct, and the act needs to be related to them correctly
(Pakaluk and Cheffers, 2011).
The typical ethical theories or systems presented in applied ethics
courses, such as one in business ethics, can generally be classiied as
follows:
(1) Consequentialist (utilitarianism is an example) or teleological (from
the Greek telosor “end”) ethics;
(2) Deontological or duty-based ethics (“Kantianism” would be an
example), and
(3) Pure aretaic ethics (primarily Aristotelian virtue ethics).
With regard to the four aspects of ethics above, utilitarianism would
consider only the consequences of an action: the act itself, the agent’s
character, and past occurrences or traditions bearing upon the act that
are irrelevant except insofar as they make a difference for the action’s
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Aliza D. Racelis
effects. Duty-based theories, on the other hand, hold that only the
intrinsic character of the action is relevant to evaluating it: consequences
do not matter, and neither do traditions or the agent’s character. Pure
aretaic ethics make the agent’s character paramount, which is true of
Aristotelian virtue ethics. The fourth alternative, the view that only
traditions and past inluences matter in the evaluation of an action, is
a possible view, but it is rarely defended by ethicists (Murphy, 1999;
Card, 2004; Pakaluk and Cheffers, 2011).
Deontology, or duty-based theory, such as Kantianism, emphasises
moral obligation. To recall: Kant pointed to the existence of an
indubitable fact, to “the moral law in me,”, and these moral principles
are categorical and unconditional imperatives. With a focus on negative
and positive duties, the duty-based paradigm presents itself as quite
limited in scope: its emphasis on fulilling one’s rightful duties against
a dominant backdrop that views such obligations as an unrealistic
constraint can be problematic. On the other hand, consequentialist
views, including utilitarianism and the egoistic paradigm of
‘maximization of shareholder wealth’, stress the achievement of “the
greatest happiness for the largest possible number of people,” at times
ignoring individual human rights. Adam Smith’s “Act in such a way
that the impartial observer can sympathise with your behavior” makes
us doubt that there exists an objective norm of morality in his system
(Gomez, 1992; Crockett, 2005).
With the resurgence in recent times of the interest in aretaic or virtue
ethics, especially that which was found in Aristotle’s ethical doctrine,
ethics literature has come to propose virtue theories as one which
unites the descriptive and the normative, yet insists upon doing so in
the pursuit of a purpose unlike that proposed by the other theoretical
systems. The theory of virtue addresses the question ‘What is the
purpose of business?’: it provides a recipe by which any organization
can deine its own purposeful existence. By so doing, Aristotelian virtue
is just as focused on outcomes as consequentialism, and as concerned
with the act itself as non-consequentialist theory, and this places high
value on pure motives like Kantianism. Speciically, for Aristotle,
character development is an inevitable outcome of the act. In addition
to that, his system places tremendous weight upon the act because life
itself is an energeia or activity of performing various acts. (The defense
of the use of Virtue Ethics in business is more lengthily discussed in a
separate section below.) (Koehn, 1995; Crockett, 2005)
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Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
Table 1:
Virtue Scale Items in the Literature
Author
Level
Solomon
(1992)
Individual
Character traits
Honesty, fairness, trust, toughness,
friendliness, honor, loyalty, shame,
sincerity, courage, reliability,
trustworthiness, benevolence,
sensitivity, helpfulness, cooperativeness,
civility, decency, modesty, openness,
cheerfulness, amiability, tolerance,
reasonableness, tactfulness, witness,
gracefulness, liveliness, magnanimity,
persistence, prudence, resourcefulness,
cool-headedness, warmth, hospitality.
Reidenbach
Individual
Broad-based moral equity dimension
and Robin
(Fair, Just, Acceptable, Morally right);
(1990)
Relativistic dimension (Traditionally
acceptable, Culturally acceptable);
Contractualism dimension (Does not
violate an unspoken promise, Does not
violate an unwritten contract).
Murphy
Individual
Integrity, fairness, trust, respect,
(1999)
empathy.
Shanahan &
Individual
Empathy, Protestant work ethic, Piety,
Hyman (2003)
Respect, Reliability, and Incorruptibility.
Chun (2005)
Organizational Integrity (Honest, Sincere, SociallyResponsible, Trustworthy); Empathy
(Concerned, Reassuring, Supportive,
Sympathetic); Courage (Ambitious,
Achievement-oriented, Leading,
Competent); Warmth (Friendly, Open,
Pleasant, Straightforward); Zeal
(Exciting, Innovative, Imaginative,
Spirited); Conscientiousness (Reliable,
Hardworking, Proud, Secure).
Character and Virtue
Moral philosophers usually distinguish between character and virtue.
While this distinction may not be important for our exposition here,
we devote this short section to clarify the nuances. Character is the
sum of all our moral habits, grouped around the axis of will. Character
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Aliza D. Racelis
is the whole of which the virtues are some of the components; but a
character trait can be a virtue or a vice depending on the circumstances
under which the characteristic behavior appears. Character, being a
combination of several habits, is a principle of human action which, by
its moral nature, leads us toward, or away from, our last end. Thus we
say that one is of good or bad character: to live a good life, one must
have habits of goodness, and habits are good when they lead to our last
end. Character is distinguished from person: person is the thing that
nature has made us to be from the start, whereas character is what we
have made out of ourselves, by dint of hard work and a zealous attention
to the moral virtues. We likewise distinguish between character and
disposition: character is the product of habits that are acquired often in
direct contrast to our natural tendencies (Brennan, 1948; Hartman, 1998).
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes the case that character,
good or bad, is a matter of the sort of thing one enjoys doing; so his
moral ideal is not a person who overcomes temptation and does the
right thing, but one to whom doing the right thing comes naturally. In
Aristotle, it is possible to hold a person responsible for the formation
of his or her character: a wicked person is responsible for his or her
character not because he or she could now alter it but because he or she
could have and should have acted differently early on and established
very different habits and states of character. A beneit perhaps of talk
of character is that it emphasises causal relations among traits, which
lend themselves to explanatory hypotheses in a way virtues do not. So
explanations of behavior that postulate only virtues must be incomplete
relative to explanations that invoke character traits (Solomon, 2003;
Hartman, 1998).
Virtue Ethics Scales
Even as virtue ethics has become popular, especially in combination with
teleological and deontological approaches, its theoretical development
has not progressed much, nor has its practical contribution been well
transmitted, compared to other approaches. Given that one of the
criticisms hurled at virtue ethics is that virtue ethics does little to help us
know who is virtuous and hence, how to determine whose action is virtuous, it
seems opportune for ethics researchers to embark on empirical studies
in virtue ethics. In particular, it is useful to continue the work of such
authors as Reidenbach and Robin (1990), Chun (2005), Murphy (1999)
and Shanahan and Hyman (2003), among others, who worked on the
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Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
development of “virtue scales” with a view to enabling the eventual
assessment of the link between virtues and speciic variables, say,
organizational performance. This way, scale development becomes
one way of advancing the strategic role of the virtue ethics theory.
Also, such scale development is a step in the effort to stress how the
good habits or virtues inherent in a person’s character give them the
propensity to act in ways that promote human lourishing (Dawson &
Bartholomew, 2003; Chun, 2005).
Ethics scales or inventories enable us to classify people according to
their beliefs about the criteria they use to make ethical decisions, or the
ethicality of those decisions. Some of the virtue ethics literature suggests
augmenting teleological and deontological ethics scales with a virtue
ethics scale which can cause us to be aware of the virtuous qualities of
businesspeople and managers. At a more theoretical level, inspecting
virtues allows us to understand them in conjunction with the practices
in which they are developed, the narrative of the tradition to which
these practices belong and the social institutions which they are fostered
within (Shanahan and Hyman, 2003; Dawson & Bartholomew, 2003).
On Table 1 there is a summarised version of the virtue scale items
found in the empirical virtue ethics literature. The Virtue Ethical
Character Scale (VECS) of Chun (2005) resulted in 6 virtue dimensions
and 24 items. However, the VECS is an organizational virtue scale: it
assumed that a personal ethical system can be transferred or attributed
to organizations. Since the current study’s premise is that the virtues
perspective allows us to discuss the strengths or weaknesses of the
character of the individual person, then the scale of Shanahan and
Hyman (2003) was selected for purposes of this paper. Their study
resulted in an initial listing of 34 virtues of individuals in irms (see
Appendix 1) as a result of focus group discussions and questionnaire
pretests. They based themselves on Solomon (1999) who provides a
workable listing of business virtues. After submitting responses to
factor analysis, the six resulting factors were: empathy, Protestant work
ethic, piety, respect, reliability, and incorruptibility. It is this listing by
Shanahan and Hyman (2003) that is utilised for the current study, by
subjecting the survey responses of Philippine managers to factor analysis.
3.
Signiicance and Contributions of the Study
Accountability failures in the irst few years of the third millennium have
caused us to take seriously the question of whether the corporations of
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Aliza D. Racelis
the modern world can demonstrate not only their proitability but their
integrity. While researchers continue to be challenged to show that
virtuous business pays and vicious conduct does not, it seems certain that
non-virtuous business, in the medium or long term, leads to increasing
entropy, disorder, ineficiency. Since it has been shown that ethics and
an ethical culture have an impact on decision-making and relationships
in organizations, we wonder whether and how the virtues and the
integrity of the people who make up our corporations and the increasingly
international business world can be implemented in that world and in
those corporations (Solomon, 2000; Gomez, 1992; Racelis, 2010).
Evidence abounds in the literature that unethical corporate behavior
has harmed - and can continue harming - countless shareholders,
employees, pensioners, and other stakeholders. While it is not possible
to eliminate all the evil in a particular society or business community,
what man can and should do is to increase the existing potential for
good through the practice of the virtues. Since the life of the company
is the sphere of professional work of the majority of people in a speciic
society—it is that to which man devotes more time and efforts—then a
positively ethical assessment of this sphere, via virtue ethics, is called
for (Walker, 2005; Gomez, 1992).
If we understand by director, manager, businessman or comptroller
is one who organises and directs collective work of the organizational
members, then the practice of the virtues must show markedly in
that individual. In the numerous and almost endless bibliography
on corporate management, the qualities of an eficient manager are
enumerated more or less repeatedly. The terms used in those books
may at times appear to be new, but the concepts, as expected, do not go
beyond the sphere of virtues. Although considerable conceptual and
empirical work has gone into the topic of ethical issues facing business
organizations, there is scant attention paid to character or virtue ethics
in the study of companies (Murphy, 1999; Gomez, 1992).
The present study explores the virtues observed by subordinates
in managers in Philippine irms, with a view to proceeding to the
development of a virtue ethics scale that can later be validated in a more
representative sample of corporate managers in the Philippines. This
resolves the criticism of virtue ethics cited above that alleges virtue
ethics does little to help us know who is virtuous and, hence, how
to determine whose action is virtuous. This attempt is likened to the
endeavors by Shanahan and Hyman (2003) who developed a “virtue
ethics scale” which identiies managers’ beliefs about the virtuous
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Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
qualities of businesspeople, and by Reidenbach and Robin (1990) who
came up with a multidimensional scale that can be used to improve
evaluations of business ethics.
Following from the beneits and advantages of a virtue ethics
approach as discussed above, the development of such scales is deemed
a crucial irst step in the broader research interest to validly measure
individual ethical behaviors and judgments. Given that the character
traits view is an improvement over mere focus on consequences
(teleological approach) or on duties (deontological approach), the shift
to a virtue ethics focus holds substantial promise as a guidepost for the
study of business ethics (Murphy, 1999).
4.
Methodology
The survey questionnaire consisting of the 34 virtues of Shanahan
and Hyman (2003) was administered to a convenience sample of 141
postgraduate business and inance students who are managers in
companies in the Philippines. The survey was done classroom-toclassroom such that all 141 forms handed out were returned. After
rejecting those forms with items unilled, the usable questionnaires
were 140, representing a 99% response rate. The questionnaire sought
to elicit from the respondents their opinion on which of the virtues listed
they felt their superiors possessed. The format was a 5-point Likerttype scale where the responses to each item or trait ranged from “1”
representing strongly disagree to “5” representing strongly agree. The
responses were submitted to ‘factor analysis’, which is a multivariate
statistical method that identiies the underlying dimensions to represent
the different variables or items on the questionnaire. Factor analysis
is a statistical technique that helps in the discovery of information in
complex arrays of inter-correlated data. In other words, factor analysis
is a way of condensing the information from the original variables into
a smaller set of variants or factors with a minimum loss of information.
In the current study, factor analysis revealed latent factors deining the
virtues which the respondents from those Philippine irms felt their
superiors possessed (Hair, 1998; Moberg, 1999).
5.
Results
A series of factor analyses and reliability tests were performed until an
acceptable reliability coeficient of at least .60 and measure of sampling
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Aliza D. Racelis
adequacy (appropriateness of applying factor analysis) of at least
.50 (Hair, 1998) were obtained. Based on the factor analysis of the
responses to the 34 items on the survey questionnaire (see Appendix 2
for details of Rotated Factor Matrix), the resulting virtue or trait factors
are as presented on Table 2 viz.: (1) care and concern, (2) competence,
(3) ambition, and (4) superiority. Only 29 out of the total 34 trait items
loaded onto the inal four factors.
Table 2:
Managerial Virtue Factors
Factor (Description)
Care and concern
Competence
Ambition
Superiority
Items/Variables loading onto the Factor
Sympathetic, sincere, respectful, pleasant,
reassuring, reliable, socially-responsible, generous,
supportive, concern, secure, friendly, spirited,
open, honesty, exciting
Innovative, leading, mature, competent, intelligent,
reliable, conident
Ambitious, aggressive, controlling
Superior, proud, straightforward
Reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha) tests resulted in each of the α’s for all
the resulting factors exceeding 0.70. As a rule of thumb, professionals
require a reliability of 0.70 or higher before they will use an instrument
(Hair, 1998). Thus, we can rely on the instrument used in this study.
The Factor Analysis process used the Principal Axis Factoring
method of extraction, with Varimax method of rotation. The rotation
for these particular survey responses converged in eight iterations.
Five of the 34 items did not load onto any factor; details are shown on
Table 3 below.
When one inspects the six factors of Shanahan and Hyman (2003)
- viz.: empathy, Protestant work ethic, piety, respect, reliability, and
incorruptibility―, one makes out two distinctive sets of managerial
virtues in that scale: on the one hand, care and respect which come
together in Empathy; on the other hand, a work-related virtue which
refers to an ethic denoted by hard work and long hours. The irst set
emerges also in the Philippine’s sample via Care and Concern; however,
although Competence turns up, the Hardworking and Achievementoriented components are ostensibly absent (see Table 3). The variables
Achievement-oriented, Attractive, Hardworking, Imaginative, and
Independent were dropped because of low factor loadings.
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Table 3:
Did not
load
Analysis of Factor Extraction Results
Items/Variables
1 (Achievementoriented), 4 (Attractive),
13 (Hardworking),
15 (Imaginative), 16
(Independent)
I
Sympathetic, sincere,
respectful, pleasant,
reassuring, reliable,
socially-responsible,
generous, supportive,
concern, secure,
friendly, spirited, open,
honesty, exciting
II
Innovative, leading,
mature, competent,
intelligent, reliable,
conident
III
Ambitious, aggressive,
controlling
IV
Superior, proud,
straightforward
Description/Analysis
The irst 4 of these (Achievementoriented, Attractive, Hardworking
and Imaginative) were identiied by
Chun (2005) while Independent was
identiied by Shanahan and Hyman
(2003); none of these loaded onto any
factor in the Philippine’s sample.
The Empathy of Shanahan and
Hyman (2003) is characterised by
amiability, attentiveness, caring,
compassion, contentment, generosity,
graciousness, humility, and trust.
There are substantial similarities
with the Philippine’s result, with the
exception of Friendly, Exciting and
Spirited. Thus, we label this ‘Care and
concern’.
Competent and Reliable are familiar
(as in Shanahan and Hyman’s
Protestant work ethic). However, in
the Philippine’s sample, traits such as
Entrepreneurial and Competitive were
absent. We label this ‘Competence’,
although it might be ambivalent.
These traits do not turn up in
Shanahan and Hyman (2003).
However, they are found in Chun
(2005) as Corporate virtues, associated
with Courage and Zeal.
These traits do not turn up in
Shanahan and Hyman (2003).
However, they are found in Chun
(2005) as Corporate virtues, associated
with Conscientiousness.
As for the second factor, Competent and Reliable showed up:
these were familiar in Shanahan and Hyman’s Protestant work ethic.
However in the Philippine’s sample, traits such as Entrepreneurial and
Competitive were absent. Regarding the third and fourth factors, which
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Aliza D. Racelis
seem to be related to Pride as a Corporate virtue, the trait components
- aggressive, controlling, proud - were familiar only in Chun (2005) as
Courage, Zeal, and Conscientiousness. This seems to be a result that
is unique and peculiar to the Philippine sample, which merits some
explanation (see Discussion below). If Factor Analysis shows these
variables to be statistically signiicant, and furthermore produces two
separate trait factors, the respondents must have something important
to say about the managers in the Philippines possessing a substantial
degree of courage, superiority, pride, and aggressiveness.
6.
Discussion
The four resulting virtue factors compare more or less with the virtue
listings generated in the literature. One can say that “Care and concern”
is analogous to “empathy” and “respect”; and “competence” seems
akin to “integrity”, “trust”, and “reliability” in the literature (Shanahan
and Hyman, 2003; Murphy, 1999). “Ambition” and “pride” appear
on the workable listing of virtues by Solomon (1999); these, along with
“superiority”, warrant further discussion below.
In Aristotelian virtue ethics, we have seen the category of cardinal
virtues, so called because of the particular importance and dificulty of
their speciic matter. The other natural virtues are connected to one or
the other of these cardinal virtues by a certain similarity to them. To
temperance are joined meekness, clemency, and humility; to courage
are attached magnanimity, patience, and perseverance. Our irst virtue
factor, then, can be likened to the parts of temperance, as care and concern
involves a variety of virtues including sympathy, respect, friendliness
and social responsibility. Some of the items loading onto care and
concern, though, theoretically belong to the cardinal virtue of courage,
which is directed to maintaining the irmness of spirit in the greater
dangers that threaten man. Generosity and reliability, for instance,
loaded onto this factor as well. While it continues to be debatable
whether and to what extent the environment and culture inluences the
development of character traits, we shall here limit ourselves to saying
that, given our speciic sample of managers in the Philippines, - empathy
and conscientiousness seem to turn up as important virtues (Lanza and
Palazzini, 1961; Solomon, 1999; Moberg, 1999).
Regarding “ambition”, “pride” and “superiority” turning up as
virtues in the results, the literature tells us of the recent addition of
these “virtues” among the preferred marketing and business virtues.
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Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
“Ambition” is deined as “getting ahead and being tenacious”, while
“pride” refers to holding one’s head high or being admired by others.
Their classiication as “virtues” seems to be a departure from the classic
list of virtues according to Aristotle (see Table 4), as classic Greek
philosophy would list meekness and modesty as true virtues, while
vanity and shamelessness would be “vices” (Moberg, 1999; Solomon,
1999; Shanahan and Hyman, 2003). While this might be explained
by some evidence of the mutability of virtues due to development
by heredity and environmental inluence, a cultural and historical
explanation of these new business virtues might be in order.
Table 4:
Aristotle’s List of Virtues
Gentleness
Bravery
Modesty
Temperance
Righteous Indignation
Justice
Liberality
Sincerity
Friendliness
Dignity
Endurance
Greatness of Spirit
Magniicence
Wisdom
Source: Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; Moberg (1999).
In an empirical organizational virtue study, the proud virtue
seems to be particularly important for employee’s (self) satisfaction
and customers who have high involvement with the organization,
like customers of non-profit organizations or university students
(Chun, 2005). A possible explanation of the emergence of the proud
virtue in business is the egoism paradigm due to consequentialist
ethics, which has emphasised maximization of shareholder wealth as
an organizational purpose and pursuit of self-interested desires and
interests as an individual purpose in businesses. Given the stress on
competitive individuals, rational outcomes, and eficiency in such egoism
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
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Aliza D. Racelis
paradigm (Crockett, 2005), the classic deinition of the virtue courage
may have taken on the nuance of “conident achievement” of business
outcomes. In fact, research shows that deinitions of certain virtues
have changed to suit or explicate better the business circumstances, as
for example, the virtue courage having modiied its deinition to ‘success
in achieving the desired outcome and effort by the agent’ (Chun, 2005).
An alternate explanation of the ambition and superiority traits turning
up in the Philippine’s results could be the speciic culture of the irms
in the Philippines or the Filipino managers. Local studies of corporate
culture show that paternalism is a dominant characteristic of companies
in the Philippines. Whatever the case, a further validation of the scale
might be necessary.
7.
Conclusions
The empirical results of this study give us a preliminary; though
noteworthy and thought-provoking, look at some of the virtues
observed by subordinates in managers in the irms in the Philippines.
Apart from the indings enabling academics and researchers to actually
develop a virtue ethics scale that can later be validated among a more
representative sample of corporate managers from the Philippines, they
further represent a crucial irst step in the broader research interest to
validly measure individual ethical behaviors and judgments.
This study attempts to continue the work of such authors as
Reidenbach and Robin (1990), Chun (2005), Murphy (1999) and
Shanahan and Hyman (2003), among others, who worked on the
development of “virtue scales”, and has enhanced the ability of scale
development to advance the strategic role of the virtue ethics theory.
The indings of this study among the managers in the Philippines,
similar to the indings from the ethics scales above, indeed enables us
to take a peek at those business people’s beliefs about the criteria they
use to make ethical decisions, or can give us an insight to be aware of
the virtuous qualities of business people and managers.
Concretely, we have managed to ind, through a preliminary
survey of supervisors at the irms in the Philippines, that there are
both similarities and differences between the revealed virtues or traits
in Western countries and those revealed by the respondents in the
Philippines. More particularly, it turns out that the ‘business virtues’
in the Philippines setting revolve chiely around, on the one hand, Care
and Respect which is characterised by sympathy, respect, generosity,
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Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
support, and friendliness; and, on the other hand, a rather peculiar
Courage-related characteristic involving a certain degree of ambition,
pride, superiority, and aggressiveness. There seems to be the likelihood
that, for Asian countries or perhaps uniquely for the Philippines, the
proud virtue is important for employee (self) satisfaction, is associated
with high involvement with the organization, and is related to greater
self-conidence or self-assertion. Nevertheless, this warrants further
investigation, as for example there may be a correlation between these
virtue traits and national culture.
In addition, the following conclusions may be drawn from the
results:
(1) The current study corroborates the reality that there is a need to
continuously debate ethics and values, especially since these impact
the direction that the business community will take in the years
to come. In turn, the results may provide the evidence that there
is a need for further training in ‘ethical sensitivity’ on the part of
managers and employees (Racelis, 2008);
(2) More concretely, the results corroborate indings in the Virtue
Ethics literature that propose virtue theory as an improved ethical
paradigm for business. It is indeed possible to augment teleological
and deontological ethics scales with a virtue ethics scale that has
caused both the researcher and the respondents to be more aware
of the virtuous qualities of businesspeople and managers.
(3) Given the resulting virtue factors, viz.: (a) Care and concern, (b)
Competence, (c) Ambition, and (d) Superiority, that turned out to
be managerial traits in the irms in the Philippines, one can say
that it is possible to identify virtue traits whereby managers direct
irms. Eventually, such classiications can aid scale validation and
further scale development which could help push the strategic role
of the virtue ethics theory
8.
Implications and Areas for Future Research
Potential uses of the scale - Typical uses for ethics scales are as follows:
(1) Incongruent dimensions between the ethical cultures of exchange
partners, (2) Ethically congruent hires; (3) Reasons for employee
turnover; (4) Organizational commitment or commitment to ongoing
project ventures (Murphy, 1999; Shanahan and Hyman, 2003). The
resulting virtues scale in this study can be potentially used for the
above-stated situations.
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
31
Aliza D. Racelis
Managerial implications - The study’s results can give
practitioners an idea of the virtues or character traits observed in the
managers in the Philippines. This can have implications for human
resource management, particularly for superior-subordinate matching,
for person-organization it, and for the process of socialization, whereby
organizational members most “suited” to the corporate style are hired
and subsequently led along the path of “immersion” in the speciic
organizational culture and aims.
The ultimate test of virtue ethics is whether these character traits
are practiced in day to day business activities (Murphy, 1999). Since
the virtue ethics scale would have caused both the researcher and the
respondents to be more aware of the virtuous qualities of Philippine’s
business people and managers, the inventory of virtues might serve as
a “yardstick” in their self-assessment of their personal ethical attitudes,
practices, and behavior. This in turn has important implications for
leadership; after all, hiring and promoting managers with strong
character is essential, for management ultimately sets the “tone at the
top” and the example they set can have a major impact on business
practices within and outside the irm. In an economy that is constantly
seeking change-makers and role models, these empirical contributions
are not insigniicant.
Academic implications - As regards the work of ethics researchers,
they are given the evidence and opportunity, through the preliminary
virtue ethics scale, to identify virtue traits whereby managers in
the Philippines direct companies. Further to that, they are given
the opportunity to elicit further demands to extend the study to a
normative one, that is, to investigate the virtue traits that the Philippines
respondents deem desirable in their superiors. As for theoretical
contributions, there is certainly a new contribution towards theoretical
knowledge with the development of the variables in virtue ethics, albeit
in the Philippines context.
Areas for further research - (1) A fuller inventory of virtues
containing the broader spectrum of character traits found in as much
of the ethics scale literature as possible; (2) Further validation of the
initial virtue ethics scale suggested in this study; (3) Scale re-validation
efforts in multi-country (multinational) settings; (4) Development of
virtue ethics scales that elicit desirable character traits in managers
in the Philippines; (5) Empirical studies that would show that the
possession of the elicited desirable character traits or virtues leads to
―or at least is correlated with - successful organizational performance
(inancial or otherwise). Examples of non-inancial outcomes that can
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Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
be correlated are: employee and customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention
and differentiation, etc. (6) Further work in this area can contribute
a great deal to research on Corporate Social Performance (CSP), and
thus be a step towards showing that irms which pursue ethicallydriven strategies can realise a greater proit potential than those irms
which currently use proit-driven strategies; (7) A deeper and more
purposeful study on the core virtue of “integrity” (Murphy, 1999);
and (8) Involvement of educators in curricular activities reinforcing
important ethical ideals, such as those provided by Aristotelian virtue
ethics (Murphy, 1999).
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APPENDIX 1
Virtue Ethics Inventory (Shanahan and Hyman)
36
1
Achievement-oriented
18
Leading
2
Aggressive
19
Mature
3
Ambitious
20
Open
4
Attractive
21
Proud
5
Competent
22
Pleasant
6
Concerned
23
Reassuring
7
Conident
24
Reliable
8
Controlling
25
Respectful
9
Intelligent
26
Socially-responsible
10
Exciting
27
Secure
11
Friendly
28
Sincere
12
Generous
29
Spirited
13
Hardworking
30
Straightforward
14
Honest
31
Superior
15
Imaginative
32
Supportive
16
Independent
33
Sympathetic
17
Innovative
34
Trustworthy
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
Developing A Virtue Ethics Scale: Exploratory Survey of Philippine Managers
APPENDIX 2
Rotated Factor Matrix (a)
Factor
1
2
3
4
5
VAR00033
VAR00028
VAR00025
.796
.774
.740
.239
.274
.235
-.058
-.022
-.029
.066
-.010
.036
.023
.311
.186
VAR00022
VAR00023
VAR00034
VAR00026
VAR00012
VAR00032
VAR00006
VAR00027
VAR00011
VAR00029
VAR00020
VAR00014
VAR00010
VAR00004
VAR00017
VAR00018
VAR00019
VAR00005
VAR00009
VAR00024
VAR00007
VAR00001
VAR00016
VAR00013
VAR00015
VAR00003
VAR00002
VAR00008
VAR00031
VAR00021
VAR00030
.740
.730
.717
.672
.660
.655
.627
.615
.614
.593
.533
.531
.525
.419
.268
.290
.308
.283
.339
.477
.226
.083
.243
.343
.257
.073
-.092
-.195
-.021
.103
.236
.257
.351
.338
.004
.037
.396
.380
.318
.003
.339
.447
.368
.169
.316
.650
.618
.616
.609
.608
.595
.508
.479
.474
.453
.429
.220
.217
.013
.256
.141
.292
.090
.035
-.034
.174
-.035
-.016
.104
.196
-.069
.275
.032
-.067
.259
.306
.386
.296
.172
.374
.138
.033
.443
.427
.127
.129
.411
.753
.692
.675
.413
.420
.140
.051
.067
.123
.074
.175
.179
-.118
.289
.146
.032
.217
.131
.099
.143
.173
.136
.321
-.023
.253
.116
.229
.216
.416
.319
.199
.027
.189
.290
.595
.581
.572
-.049
-.070
.349
.396
-.079
-.024
.024
.173
-.261
.119
.054
.373
-.027
-.016
.058
.017
.138
.028
.047
.077
-.133
-.083
.037
.206
.268
.053
-.143
.210
.122
-.070
.006
Extraction Method: Principal Axis Factoring.
Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.
a Rotation converged in 8 iterations.
Asian Journal of Business and Accounting 6(1), 2013
37