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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2021

02-10-2020 | Original Paper

Constrained Morality in the Professional Work of Corporate Lawyers

Authors: Dawn Yi Lin Chow, Thomas Calvard

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2021

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Abstract

In this article, we contribute to sociological literatures on morality, professional and institutional contexts, and morally stigmatized ‘dirty work’ by emphasizing and exploring how they mutually inform one another in lawyers’ work activities. Drawing on interview data with 58 practitioners in the commercial legal industry in Singapore, we analyze how they experience professional and institutional constraints on the expressions of morality in their work. Our findings illustrate how a dominant managerial and economic focus maintains and reproduces a constrained form of morality, limited to instrumental, utilitarian and commercial ends, and subordinated to lucrative client and firm interests. We discuss our findings in terms of the need to research and reform professions in ways that support more rounded and unconstrained moral reflexivity and autonomy in how work is undertaken and valued. This in turn has implications for how organizations and professions might achieve alternative moral institutional orders, and for legal work to avoid the moral and social taints of dirty work.
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Metadata
Title
Constrained Morality in the Professional Work of Corporate Lawyers
Authors
Dawn Yi Lin Chow
Thomas Calvard
Publication date
02-10-2020
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2021
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04634-x

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