A Case Study of a Justice-Based Virtuous Organization

Abstract

Good cases featuring virtuous leaders and the practices and processes of their organizations can be hard to find. To find them we can look to virtue-driven social entrepreneurs who often launch businesses with a responsible purpose of serving a broader social good. In this chapter, we describe a case of one such leader, CEO Dean Cycon, and his exemplary organization, Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company. Cycon had been a lawyer, social activist, and Fulbright scholar when he created the company as a way to continue his social activism through business. With a passion for social justice and established connections with indigenous coffee growers on four continents, he created the very first company to incorporate direct development based on these small farmers’ priorities into a business model. Virtues, such as compassion, integrity, and justice, extending well beyond the traditional bottom line, are displayed in the practices and processes of this organization involving thousands of stakeholders. This case reveals profound lessons about the positive relevance of virtuous organizational practice to moral imperatives. , Abstract Good cases featuring virtuous leaders and the practices and processes of their organizations can be hard to find. To find them we can look to virtue-driven social entrepreneurs who often launch businesses with a responsible purpose of serving a broader social good. In this chapter, we describe a case of one such leader, CEO Dean Cycon, and his exemplary organization, Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company. Cycon had been a lawyer, social activist, and Fulbright scholar when he created the company as a way to continue his social activism through business. With a passion for social justice and established connections with indigenous coffee growers on four continents, he created the very first company to incorporate direct development based on these small farmers’ priorities into a business model. Virtues, such as compassion, integrity, and justice, extending well beyond the traditional bottom line, are displayed in the practices and processes of this organization involving thousands of stakeholders. This case reveals profound lessons about the positive relevance of virtuous organizational practice to moral imperatives.