Is Management a MacIntyrean Practice?

Alasdair MacIntyre’s virtue ethics, with its definition of practice, have taken a leading role in organizational ethics literature. Two arguments attempt to defend the claim that management is a MacIntyrean practice. One rests on a particular reading of a passage in MacIntyre’s After Virtue about making and sustaining institutions. A second, given on the one hand by McCann and Brownsberger and, on the other, by Moore, Beadle, and Beabout, contends that the activities of management meet the criteria for a MacIntyrean practice. I argue that the first mis-reads the passage in question and that the second confuses management with leadership, adopts an emotivism into the discussion, and, finally, misunderstands politics. This dispute has practical implications, which I address in the conclusion.