ABSTRACT
The recent financial crisis has prompted questioning of our basic ideas about capitalism and the role of business in society. As scholars are calling for “responsible leadership” to become the norm, organizations are being pushed to enact new values such as “responsibility” and “sustainability,” and pay more attention to the effects of their actions on stakeholders. The purpose of this chapter is to open up a line of research in business ethics on the concept of “authenticity” in modern organizational life and more specifically to think through some of the foundational questions about the logic of values. The chapter argues that the idea of simply “acting on one’s values,” or “being true to oneself,” is at best a starting point for thinking about authenticity. It develops the idea of the poetic self as a project of seeking to live authentically. It sees being authentic as an ongoing process that starts with perceived values, but also involves one’s history, relationships, and aspirations. Authenticity entails acting on these values for individuals and organizations and thus also becomes a necessary starting point for ethics. The idea of responsible leadership can be enriched with this more nuanced idea of the self and authenticity.
