Teaching Ethics

Volume 19, Issue 2, Fall 2019

The Moral Supply Chain, Phronêsis, and Management Education

In recent years there has been an increased interest in the research dedicated to the ethics and morality of supply chains. The concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) dominates literature on supply chain ethics in management education. The objective of this paper is to develop some propositions to complement and look more broadly and differently at these management concepts. Supplementing these concepts with the fundamental questions on the meaning of ‘what a moral supply chain is’ and ‘what moral supply chain ought to be,’ we develop some descriptive and normative propositions for management education on the ethics of supply chains. Against a descriptive viewpoint, we propose that judgments on the morality of supply chains should be viewed from multiple perspectives, often conflicting. Against a normative viewpoint, we propose some reflections on how to apply Aristotelian practical wisdom in management education on supply chain ethics.