Knowledge Workers and Virtues in Peter Drucker’s Management Theory

Abstract

The fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis and frequent disregard for labor, environmental, and social standards have instilled new vigor into the study of ethics and virtues. In the contemporary knowledge society, the issue of which virtues the modern day workforce needs to possess is of crucial significance. This study specifies the virtues laid out in the management theory of Peter Drucker (1909-2005), focusing upon the conceptual category of the knowledge worker as the primary unit of the contemporary information and innovation-based knowledge society. The idea and role of intellectual virtues are not yet fully developed in the literature, especially as those identified in this article are the source of critical and creative thinking. This intervention, therefore, identifies prudence, effectiveness, excellence, integrity, and truthfulness as the knowledge worker’s intellectual virtues, whereas practical wisdom, responsibility, cooperation, and courage are seen to constitute the knowledge worker’s moral character.