Moral Blindness in Business: A Social Theory of Evil in Organizations and Institutions

"Also managers are human beings: this compelling book offers an ethical conception of management, which is highly relevant to our times, where the balance of power between corporations and the state is in flux. Against the sociological view that managers simply do whatever they have to do dictated by the pragmatic requirements of the market, Jacob Dahl Rendtorff develops a powerful, original and ethically challenging conception of managers as subjects of judgment and imagination. He discusses the works of Hannah Arendt and in particular her work on Eichmann as the basis for this ethics of judgment. The book is lucid as well as thought provoking."
- Dr. Reidar Due, Fellow, Oxford University

In this book, Jacob Dahl Rendtorff investigates moral blindness in business and public administration based on Hannah Arendt’s concept of banality of evil in her famous report on the Nazi-criminal Adolf Eichmann trail in Jerusalem in 1961. Moral blindness and evil in management is instrumental wrongdoing inflicted upon human beings as a violation of their dignity and humanity. Organizational evil in business, bureaucracies and public administration is analysed with focus on obedience to authority and systemic role conformity of managers and administrators. This includes the critical question about how concepts of banality of evil and moral blindness can explain ethical insensibility and lack of moral understanding in business and administration. Rendtorff proposes a humanistic vision of management and ethical leadership. Moral thinking, responsibility and moral judgment is essential in management and governance in business and administration.

This book is a must-read for academics and practitioners studying and working in philosophy of management, business ethics, political philosophy, administration ethics and corporate social responsibility.