Abstract Book of the 9th World Conference on Future of Education
Year: 2025
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Business as a Noble Calling: Teaching Ethics through the Virtues of Jesus in a Pluralistic World
David (Davit) Iremadze
ABSTRACT:
This paper addresses the critical need for reframing the purpose of business as a noble calling by integrating virtues drawn from the exemplary life of Jesus, as articulated by Haskell et al. (2009), with practical insights from Solomon’s (2003) exploration of virtue and integrity in corporate contexts, and Dyck’s radical-moral (multistream) approach to business and entrepreneurship. Grounded extensively in the author’s doctoral research findings (Iremadze, 2020), which emphasize the unity of entrepreneurial, spiritual, and committed selves in genuinely ethical and sustainable business practices, the paper proposes an innovative pedagogical tool. This tool operationalizes the five virtues—passion, humility, faith, wisdom, and integrity—in management education, enabling students to systematically identify and critically evaluate moral-ethical dimensions in any business or management scenario. By providing students with explicit criteria for assessing virtues through balanced, deficient, or excessive manifestations (as per Solomon), and emphasizing community-orientation, ecological sustainability, and stakeholder inclusivity (as per Dyck), the tool facilitates a deeper moral sensitivity in future business leaders. The approach uniquely contributes to management pedagogy by transcending conventional ethical analyses, fostering an integrated moral awareness relevant in pluralistic classrooms. Ultimately, this paper advocates for a transformative shift in business education, reinforcing the view that virtue ethics considerations are inherent and indispensable to all managerial activities and decisions.
Keywords: management education, ethical leadership, business ethics, academic faith integration, faith in organizations, virtue ethics