A Critical Realist Exploration of the Moral Character of Insider Social Change Agents: Navigating Between the Invisible and Visible
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2025-01-14
Author(s)
Abstract
Driven by the ambition to transform their organization as a force for social good, a rising number of employees are starting grassroots movements to lead positive change from within their workplace (Briscoe & Gupta, 2016; Scully & Segal, 2002; One Young World, 2022). Principally investigated in the literature on insider social change agents, scholars usually draw on psychology to study the identity conflicts and motivations animating these individuals (Creed et al., 2010; Heucher et al., 2024; Meyerson & Scully, 1995). Whilst essential to shed light on who these agents are, we remark that they have given surprisingly less attention to the philosophical concept of moral character. In parallel, there has been a growing trend in leadership research which, acknowledging the importance of character in effectively leading people, has largely relied on Aristotle’s moral philosophy of virtue ethics to unpack the ontological and epistemological foundations of leader character (e.g. Hackett & Wang, 2012; Hannah & Avolio, 2011; Hannah & Jennings, 2013; Newstead et al., 2021). Importing some of these leadership insights into the literature on insider social change agents, our objective is to dress a comprehensive overview of the moral profile of these change agents. For that, we suggest adopting a critical realist lens which has the peculiarity of viewing reality as composed of three interrelated dimensions – the real, actual, and empirical (Bhaskar, 1978 & 2016). Following these dimensions, we argue that moral character might best be described as a multi-layered concept that includes 1) an authentic moral core (inartistic character or ethike), 2) a rhetorical expression of a subset of this core (artistic character or ethos), and 3) an empirical observation and impression of this rhetorically expressed subset (perceived ethos). Specifically, whereas this authentic moral core is not directly accessible to the human mind as it belongs to the dimension of the real, we contend that it might be inferred upon actualization as change agents rhetorically portray themselves in front of others. It is this rhetorical portrait that eventually reaches the empirical domain and is observed by other organizational members. Informing their general impressions about the moral goodness of these agents, we assert that it is on this basis that members decide whether to attribute them influence power or not. Given the significant potential of insider social change agents in establishing corporate purposes that deviate from the prevalent business paradigm of profit-making, we consider that tailoring our knowledge of their moral character is particularly relevant as this might enhance our understanding of why and how they successfully influence others (Girschick et al., 2022; Solinger et al., 2020; Wickert & De Bakker, 2018). Practically, we recommend placing these change agents in visible positions where frequent interactions with them would inspire members to cultivate moral excellence in their daily work activities. Moreover, we propose that their moral character informs the design of tools and programs that promote character development across corporate ladders.
Language
English
Keywords
insider social change agents
character-based leadership
moral character
Aristotelian virtue ethics
rhetoric
critical realism
Event Title
EURAM 2025 Annual Conference - Managing with Purpose
Event Location
University of Florence, Italy
Event Date
22nd-25th June 2025
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Name
20251004_Fontanet_Moral Character Change Agents.pdf
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361 KB
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