Practical Wisdom In Management Research Articles

Recovering Aristotle’s Practice-Based Ontology: Practical Wisdom as Embodied Ethical Intuition

The renewed engagement with Aristotle’s concept of practical wisdom in management and organization studies is reflective of the wider turn towards practice sweeping across many disciplines. In this sense, it constitutes a welcome move away from the traditional rationalist, abstract, and mechanistic modes of approaching ethical decision-making. Within the current engagement, practical wisdom is generally conceptualized, interpreted or read as a form of deliberation or deliberative judgement that is also cognizant of context, situatedness, particularity, lived experience, and so on. We argue that while this way of conceptualizing practical wisdom moves closer to practice in accounting for the concrete and particular reality within which individuals enact ethics, it does not adequately account for practice in the ontological and relational sense posited in practice theories. Practical wisdom conceptualized on the deliberative dimension still retains a higher emphasis on distinct entities (individuals/institutions), reflexive agency, conscious mental states, goal-directed action, and intentionality. In other words, it puts a higher stress on individual wisdom, as opposed to practice or the relational interaction of the individual and social inhering in practice. We offer an alternative conceptualization of practical wisdom based on the dispositional mode of being in the world which is rarely deliberate, intentional, or reflective. Our conceptualization integrates Aristotle’s original ethical framework, which is already embedded in a practice-based ontology, with insights from practice theories to show how practical wisdom is intuitively channelled in the dispositional mode in a given social configuration of virtues/ends.

Practical Wisdom: Management’s No Longer Forgotten Virtue

The ancient virtue of practical wisdom has lately been enjoying a remarkable renaissance in management literature. The purpose of this article is to add clarity and bring synergy to the interdisciplinary debate. In a review of the wide-ranging field of the existing literature from a philosophical, theological, psychological, and managerial perspective, we show that, although different in terms of approach, methodologies, and justification, the distinct traditions of research on practical wisdom can indeed complement one another. We suggest a conciliatory conception of the various features of practical wisdom in management. This we take as a point of departure for a discussion of the significant implications of the subject for the theory and practice of management and for the direction of further research in the field.

Practical wisdom for management from the Buddhist and Indian traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Buddhist and Indian traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Buddhist traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Buddhist traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Indian traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Indian traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Islamic tradition

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the special issue on practical wisdom for management from the Islamic traditions.Design/methodology/approachThe guest editorial introduces the papers in this special issue, focusing on practical wisdom for management from the Islamic tradition.FindingsUsing multiple levels of analysis as well as both academic and practitioner‐oriented perspectives, this special issue demonstrates that the Islamic tradition offers valuable practical wisdom insights in multiple areas including leadership, human resource management, action learning, knowledge transfer and business ethics.Originality/valueThis issue represents the first exploratory contribution to the research on practical wisdom from the Islamic tradition, opening a new focus of research and contributing to management development.

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Jewish tradition

Purpose – The purpose of this issue is to provide an overview of the special issue on practical wisdom for management from the Jewish traditions.Design/methodology/approach – The guest editorial introduces the papers in this special issue, focusing in practical wisdom for management from the Jewish traditions.Findings – The question on the relationship between the Jewish tradition and practical wisdom for management is answered in two different ways: first, providing a particular Jewish answer to managerial problems and second, presenting how Judaism can be a field of reflection learning for managerial praxis at both organizational and individual level.Originality/value – The paper shows that the special issue offers insights into the value of practical wisdom of the Jewish traditions, from two particular points of view, as a guide for action and as an ethical approach to management.

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom for management from the Chinese classical traditions

PurposeThis paper aims to provide an overview of this special issue.Design/methodology/approachThe guest editorial introduces the papers in this special issue, focusing on practical wisdom for management from the Chinese classical traditions.FindingsChinese culture increasingly will permeate international culture and move from peripheral to mainstream status. To ignore this in management education would be a grave oversight.Originality/valueThe issue offers insights into the value of practical wisdom from Confucianism, the origins of Chinese classical trditions and Daoism, and the various streams of thought within the classical Chinese traditions and their contemporary relevance.

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Compassion: Chinese and western perspectives on practical wisdom in management

PurposeThe notion of compassion is a cornerstone in Chinese as well as western orientations for business practice. Spiritual and religious traditions, philosophical approaches and historical and present business practices outline this notion in a comparative perspective. This paper seeks to address this issue.Design/methodology/approachInterdisciplinary paper, summarizing social science, philosophical and business literature.FindingsWith its focus on compassion, business ethics in the Chinese tradition highlights a notion, which variously resonates within western traditions. Based on this, multiple lines or thought consequences for management development are derived.Practical implicationsIn terms of management development the call for compassionate management can be held as a common denominator of different traditions. Therefore, it will be important to include this aspect in our management development, cultural management as well as international strategy courses.Originality/valueIn a broad interreligious and intercultural overview some basic characteristics of compassionate management can be identified.

Seasoning business knowledge: challenging recent Catholic social thought

Purpose – This paper aims to indicate how practical wisdom in the western Christian tradition may be introduced into management development. Following recent documents of Catholic social thought, three roads to go are indicated especially concerning: management practice, management education, and the managerial reason.Design/methodology/approach – This is an interdisciplinary paper summarizing economic, philosophical, and business literature.Findings – In his recent social encyclical Caritas in veritate Pope Benedict XVI criticizes a dominating approach of economic thinking that neglects practical wisdom in management. The authors indicate three roads of seasoning management practice with practical wisdom: integrating charity in management theory and practice (by spelling out the economic relevance of reciprocity and gratuitousness for economic theory and for managerial decision making), enriching business school experience (by deepening elements of voluntary engagement and interdisciplinary education) an...

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the religious and philosophical traditions

Practical wisdom in management from the Christian tradition

Practical wisdom in management from the Christian tradition