The classical literature on Confucianism exhorted leaders to practice five core virtues as the basis for becoming a noble person (Junzi) and for sustaining harmonious communities built on trust and good example. We present a theory about how the senior management in modern corporations, by enacting the five Junzi virtues through virtuous environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies and practices, might inspire virtue-based relationships between superiors and subordinates and between employees. We argue that if middle managers and employees observe and experience that their firm’s ESG policies and practices are virtuous, they would feel encouraged to practice those virtues in their own behavior, and thus embody and promote interpersonal harmony. We provide three types of illustration for our theory. First, we map the five Junzi virtues to the content of a specimen ESG report. Second, we map seven subtypes of servant leadership behavior of middle managers to the five Junzi virtues. Third, we map seven types of employee organizational citizenship behavior to the five Junzi virtues.

关于儒家思想的经典文献劝告领导人实践五种核心美德，作为成为君子（君子）和维持建立在信任和良好榜样上的和谐社区的基础。我们提出了一个理论，即现代企业的高级管理人员如何通过良性的环境、社会和治理 (ESG) 政策和实践制定五种君子美德，可能会激发上级和下属以及员工之间基于美德的关系。我们认为，如果中层管理人员和员工观察并体验到他们公司的 ESG 政策和实践是美德的，他们会受到鼓励在自己的行为中实践这些美德，从而体现和促进人际和谐。我们为我们的理论提供了三种类型的说明。第一的，我们将君子的五种美德映射到 ESG 报告样本的内容中。其次，我们将中层管理者的七种仆人式领导行为与五种君子美德对应起来。第三，我们将七种员工组织公民行为映射到五种君子美德。