Abstract
This chapter sketches the landscape of wisdom in contemporary decision-making for the remainder of the book. I start by noting through a brief review of recent cases how organisations, decision-makers and leaders seem to be ill-equipped to anticipate or handle unexpected events in the broader societal environment, despite the advances in modern information technology and educational outreach. The most perplexing failures of decision-making concern cases that have had a vast impact on the established order of things, and that have been seemingly unpredictable or unthinkable at the time of their emergence. Focusing on these types of strategic decision-making situations under uncertainty, I will then discuss the concept of wisdom and wise management. Philosophical wisdom tradition originates from the early Greek thinking, where it was understood as epistemic humility and the use of transcendental universals in intelligent action. Contemporary business and leadership culture relies on modern notions of scientific knowledge and democratic governance, which could be seen as inhibiting the blossoming of the classical form of wisdom. Lastly, I will briefly review the state of the wisdom research in management studies, and try to locate the broadly Platonic-Socratic approach adopted in this book to the existing contributions, which follow in most cases the Aristotelian notion of phronesis.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Allen, R. E. (1959). Anamnesis in Plato’s “Meno and Phaedo”. The Review of Metaphysics, 13, 165–174.
Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2012). A stupidity-based theory of organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 49(7), 1194–1220.
Arendt, H. (2009). Responsibility and judgment. New York: Schocken.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. London: SAGE Publications.
Bendassolli, P. F. (2013). Theory building in qualitative research: Reconsidering the problem of induction. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 14(1), Art. 25. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-14.1.1851
Blustein, P. (2015). Over their heads: The IMF and the prelude to the euro-zone crisis (CIGI papers, No. 60). Waterloo, ON: The Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40–57.
Cooper, J. M. (2012). Pursuits of wisdom: Six ways of life in ancient philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Rathunde, K. (1990). The psychology of wisdom: An evolutionary interpretation. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Curnow, T. (2011). Sophia and phronesis: Past, present, and future. Research in Human Development, 8(2), 95–108.
Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press.
Descartes, R., & Cottingham, J. (2013). René Descartes: Meditations on first philosophy: With selections from the objections and replies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Foster, J. B., & Magdoff, F. (2009). The great financial crisis: Causes and consequences. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowledge (p. 24, A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). New York: Pantheon.
Foucault, M. (1983). The subject and power. Afterword. In H. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics (pp. 208–228). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
Gause, F. G., III. (2011). Why middle east studies missed the Arab Spring: The myth of authoritarian stability. Foreign Affairs, 90, 81–90.
Gerson, L. P. (2005). Aristotle and other Platonists. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press.
Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a way of life: Spiritual exercises from Socrates to Foucault (M. Chase, Trans., A. I. Davidson, Intro. & Ed.). London: Blackwell.
Häkkinen, K. (2004). Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja [Etyomological dictionary of modern Finnish]. Helsinki: WSOY.
Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Held, D. (1980). Introduction to critical theory: Horkheimer to Habermas (Vol. 261). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Herranen, T. (2004). Yhdessä eteenpäin: SOK 100 vuotta 1904–2004 [100 anniversary history of SOK]. Helsinki: Edita.
Isenberg, D. J. (1984, November–December). How senior managers think. Harvard Business Review, pp. 81–90.
Jackall, R. (1988). Moral mazes: The world of corporate managers. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (1998). Critique of pure reason. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kessler, E. H., & Bailey, J. R. (Eds.). (2007). Handbook of organizational and managerial wisdom. Los Angeles/London: Sage Publications.
Khurana, R. (2007). From higher aims to hired hands: The social transformation of American business schools and the unfulfilled promise of management as a profession. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Klein, S. (1988). Plato’s Statesman and the nature of business leadership: An analysis from an ethical point of view. Journal of Business Ethics, 7(4), 283–294.
Kraut, R. (2016). Aristotle’s ethics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy (Spring 2016 ed.). URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/aristotle-ethics/.
Lamberg, J. A., & Tikkanen, H. (2006). Changing sources of competitive advantage: Cognition and path dependence in the Finnish retail industry 1945–1995. Industrial and Corporate Change, 15(5), 811–846.
Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (p. 81, G. Bennington & B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Mäkelä, T. (2005, February 9). Continental epäilysten keskipisteessä: Huijataanko meitä? [Continental in the centre of suspicions: are we being scammed?] Tekniikan Maailma. https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/vanhat/continental-epailysten-keskipisteessa-huijataanko-meita (read 13.2.2018).
McIntyre, A. (1985). After Virtue (2.painos). London: Duckworth.
McKenna, B., Rooney, D., & Boal, K. B. (2009). Wisdom principles as a meta-theoretical basis for evaluating leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(2), 177–190.
Morgan, G. (2006). Images of organization. London: Sage.
Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2007). Strategic management as distributed practical wisdom (phronesis). Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(3), 371–394.
Nutt, P. C., & Wilson, D. C. (Eds.). (2010). Handbook of decision making (Vol. 6). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
Ollila, J., & Saukkomaa, H. (2013). Mahdoton menestys: kasvun paikkana Nokia [Against all odds: Nokia as a site for growth]. Helsinki: Otava.
O’Meara, D. J. (2005). Platonopolis: Platonic political philosophy in late antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Paden, R. (2002). Marx’s critique of the utopian socialists. Utopian Studies, 13(2), 67–91.
Peltonen, T. (2017). Spirituality and religion in organizing: Beyond secular leadership. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pietiläinen, T., & Teittinen, P. (2016, February 27). Nokian Renkaiden toimitusjohtaja myöntää manipuloinnin: “Pienikin muutos on saattanut nostaa asemaa testissä yksi tai kaksi pykälää”. (Nokian Renkaat CEO admits manipulation). Helsingin Sanomat. http://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000002888420.html
Plato. (1954). The last days of Socrates (H. Tredennick, Trans.). Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books.
Plato. (1993). Republic. Translated and an Introduction and notes by Robin Waterfield. Oxford.
Rechel, B., Grundy, E., Robine, J. M., Cylus, J., Mackenbach, J. P., Knai, C., & McKee, M. (2013). Ageing in the European union. The Lancet, 381(9874), 1312–1322.
Reich, R. (1991). The work of nations: Preparing ourselves for twenty-first century capitalism. New York: Alfred Knopf.
Remes, P. (2014). Neoplatonism. London: Routledge.
Robinson, D. N. (1990). Wisdom through ages. In R. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins and development (pp. 13–24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rooney, D., & McKenna, B. (2007). Wisdom in organizations: Whence and whither. Social Epistemology, 21(2), 113–138.
Rumens, N., & Kelemen, M. (2013). American pragmatism and organization studies: Concepts, themes and possibilities. Farnham: Ashgate.
Ryan, S. (2014). Wisdom. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopaedia of philosophy (Winter 2014 ed.). URL: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/wisdom/
Saxonhouse, A. W. (1998). Democracy, equality, and eide: A radical view from Book 8 of Plato’s Republic. American Political Science Review, 92(02), 273–283.
Scherer, A. (2011, January 6). Critical theory and its contribution to critical management studies. In The Oxford handbook of critical management studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved June 4, 2018, from http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199595686.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199595686-e-002
Shotter, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2014). In search of phronesis: Leadership and the art of judgment. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 13(2), 224–243.
Simon, H. A. (1977). The new science of management decision (Rev. ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall (Original work published 1960).
Sliwa, M., & Cairns, G. (2009). Towards a critical pedagogy of international business: The application of phronesis. Management Learning, 40(3), 227–240.
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). WICS: A model of leadership in organizations. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2(4), 386–401.
Sternberg, R. J. (2004). What is wisdom and how can we develop it? The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 164–174.
Sternberg, R. J. (2007). Individual logic—Wisdom in organizations: A balance theory analysis. In E. H. Kessler & J. R. Bailey (Eds.), Handbook of organizational and managerial wisdom. Los Angeles/London: Sage Publications.
Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable. New York: Random House.
Trowbridge, R. H. (2011). Waiting for Sophia: 30 years of conceptualizing wisdom in empirical psychology. Research in Human Development, 8(2), 149–164.
Tuominen, P., Jussila, I., & Rantanen, N. (2010). Managerial Competence in Consumer Co-operatives: Inducing theory from empirical observations. International Journal of Co-operative Management, 5(1), 9–22.
Vihriälä, V. (1993). Suomen pankkikriisi- Mitä opimme? (Finnish banking crisis- what did we learn?). Kansantaloudellinen aikakauskirja (The Finnish Economic Journal), 4, 581–589.
Weick, K. E., & Putnam, T. (2006). Organizing for mindfulness: Eastern wisdom and Western knowledge. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15(3), 275–287.
Wells, S. (2010). Christian ethics: An introductory reader. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Peltonen, T. (2019). Introduction. In: Towards Wise Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91719-1_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91719-1_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-91718-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-91719-1
eBook Packages: Business and ManagementBusiness and Management (R0)