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When knowledge is not enough: Teaching wisdom for a complex world

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 When Knowledge is not enough: Teaching Wisdom for a Complex World

Dr. Ali Intezari

PhD, MA, BA
School of Management,
Massey University
Auckland, New Zealand
Email: A.Intezari@massey.ac.nz

Associate Professor David Pauleen

PhD, MA, BA
School of Management,
Massey University
Auckland, New Zealand
Email: D.Pauleen@massey.ac.nz
Citation:
Intezari, A., & Pauleen, D. J. (2011). When knowledge is not enough: Teaching wisdom for a complex world. In
C. Prichard (Ed.), Asia-Pacific Researchers in Organization Studies (APROS 14th) (pp. 3–15).
Auckland, New Zealand: Auckland University of Technology.

Abstract

This article addresses the question, how can education help people cope with complex

situations, particularly as relating to graduate business education. The world we live in is

characterized as being volatile and unpredictable: in a word, complex. The events of the

future will not necessarily reflect those of the past. Knowledge, as a past-oriented entity,

might be insufficient for managing future complexity, where emergent phenomena may

require one to seek new ways of handling unpredictable situations. For this reason, we argue

that education should not be overly focused on the accumulation of knowledge, but rather

develop and teach students how to make right decisions based upon an accurate

understanding of situations, and to take right actions in the framework of ethics to manage

complexity. Notwithstanding the important role of knowledge in developing educational

programs, in this paper we suggest that the time has come to take a step forward from

primarily teaching knowledge to an integrated framework that includes the teaching of

practical wisdom.

1
Keywords

Wisdom, Teaching wisdom, Management studies, Knowledge, Knowledge management.

Introduction

The teaching and practice of knowledge management (KM) has grown sharply in the last ten

to fifteen years (Hislop, 2010; Ma & Yu, 2010; Chua, 2005; Kalling, 2003). KM

implementation in organizations and courses in both graduate and undergraduate

management programs are now commonplace. Results of KM programs in real world

organizations are mixed at best. There may be many reasons for such mediocre results – poor

implementation, lack of leadership and management commitment, insufficient resources,

weak cultural support etc. (Ajmal et al., 2010; Lakshman, 2009; Chua & Lam, 2005). One

cause that is relatively unexamined is the basic understanding of knowledge that supports

such programs and the subsequent treatment of knowledge in the various stages of KM; i.e.

its creation, sharing, implementation, evaluation, and particularly its application in decision-

making in what is a very complex world. In this paper we discuss the limitations of

knowledge as understood in the KM agenda in the face of complexity and suggest that what

is missing is the integration of practical wisdom, a set of abilities that we propose can be

taught in business education and practiced in the real world.

Complex systems include innumerable possible states, agents’ unstructured interactions, and

unpredictable behavior of individual elements as well as the system as a whole (Battram,

1998). This is an apt description of the world we live - considered by Snowden & Boone

(2007) to be an unordered entity, in which there is no simple relationship between cause and

effect. This is the world that business graduates will have to deal with. Numerous features of

personal and social life including cultural, economic, political, environmental, educational

and so forth are closely tied to each other to the degree that their interactions are intricate and

2
importantly, emergent. This complexity and emergent unpredictability on the one hand, and

the nature of knowledge as an entity which is to a great extent built upon and affected by such

past-oriented entities as data, information and experience, on the other hand, highlights the

question - how do we ensure that our knowledge, which is primarily past-oriented1, can lead

to appropriate decisions when confronting unpredictable and emergent situations in a

complex world: a world where even the latest scientific knowledge can only hint at the

massive and complex nature of the universe (Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1990).

The ‘unpredictable’ future can be characterized as the shadow side of the future which will

not correspond to circumstances experienced in the past. We are not talking about that part of

the future that can to some degree be anticipated. For example, while we can be reasonably

certain that spring will follow winter, we are much less certain about whether it will be a dry

or wet spring, even less so what the weather will be next month. Nor is the aim of this article

to say that knowledge will be of less value in complex situations. Rather we argue when

teaching the skills of creating, sharing and applying knowledge in any given situation that the

lesson of unintended consequences is also covered. We further argue, however, that there are

always some situations, 11 September for instance, in which making a decision and taking

action based only on experience and information-derived knowledge will not necessarily be

adequate. Rather in complex situations such as these we must be taught to understand the

inherent limitations of knowledge and be educated and ready to implement another skill set –

that of practical wisdom. As Pasupathi (2001) put it: “Wisdom provides insight and

judgement about difficult and uncertain matters of life” (p. 401) and one is more likely to be

successful in living a good life by having wisdom (Kekes, 1983).

1
We acknowledge that knowledge can be understood as a multi-faceted entity which can be argued to be
paradoxically both past-oriented and future-oriented at the same time. Knowledge is past-oriented as its
formative components, data, information, and experience are derived from past. Knowledge is present-
oriented, as it involves one’s perception of the world at a given time and place. And it is future-oriented as it is
used for resolving problems and developing future knowledge.

3
Wisdom includes the desire and ability to see what is of value in life (Maxwell, 1984).

Practical wisdom as an intellectual virtue is not something apart from moral virtue when

applying right reason to action (O'Toole, 1938). This means, practical wisdom and the norms

of ethical behaviour both need to be part of business education. As some scholars such as

Steutel and Spiecker (1997) and Abraham (2006) argue, wisdom and morality are therefore

closely linked, and the promotion of intellectual virtues needs to be an important goal of

education (Steutel & Spiecker, 1997), in addition to simple moral virtue (Abraham, 2006).

In this paper, we propose a model and discuss five wisdom-related abilities required to

prepare business students to be practically ready to handle, and perhaps imagine,

circumstances that are often difficult, if not impossible, to foresee.

Complexity and unpredictability

The most significant characteristic of today’s world is unpredictability. Innumerable

nonlinearly related subsystems, the behaviours of which are not easy to predict, make the

behaviour of the world as a whole unpredictable (Lazanski & Kljajić, 2006; Bennet &

Bennet, 2004). Small actions may be transformed into unpredictably disastrous results, and

decisions are often likely to result in unexpected consequences if they are made only on the

basis of knowledge-based rules. The characteristic of unpredictability in this complex world

can be seen in the theory of quantum. According to this theory, which derived from physics

studies of subatomic particles (Shelton & R., 2001), uncertainty is not a momentary

limitation, but a rule (Lunca, 2006). Perhaps, accordingly, the only thing we can be sure of is

that the future is unpredictable and unknowable (Uhl-Bien & Marion, 2008). So, “simple

common mechanistic or linear ways” may not be able to help us understand the complex

“intricately related” world (Battram, 1998, p. v). As argued in the following section, the

unpredictability of the complex world on the one hand, and the nature of knowledge as a

4
past-oriented quality on the other, leads us to believe that teaching knowledge alone is not

sufficient for preparing business students to cope with the complexity of the real world.

The Limits of Knowledge

Knowledge has been described as the combined form of information, experience and one’s

interpretation in a significant context (Nonaka, 1994; Harris, 2005). Knowledge is processed

and validated information (Firestone, 2003), it develops over time through experience

(Davenport & Prusak, 1998), and involves one’s interpretation of the world, as it is a

“meaning” made by one’s mind (Marakas, 1999, p. 264). In the industrial era knowledge was

based upon technical rationality and order, but today it is believed that interpretations and

discourse between different members is the base of knowledge (Bhatt, 2000).

As mentioned, these components – data, information, and experience – derive from the past

and mean that knowledge, by definition, is limited in time. That is to say, “knowledge is

fallible for reasons associated both with interactions in space taking place at the same time

(complexity), and with the passage of time” (Andrade, 2004, p. 123). So business courses and

programs that overly concentrate on the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge, may

not necessarily be enough in the situations where there is no sign of similarity to that

experienced in the past.

We argue instead that this inherent limitation may be overcome by a set of abilities we call

wisdom abilities that are related to wisdom and complement and enhance knowledge

activities. Maxwell (1984) declares that “the philosophy of wisdom is designed to overcome

the fundamental and profoundly damaging defects of rationality inherent in the philosophy of

knowledge” (p. 65). It is arguably crucial that practical wisdom be taught to students so that

they can apply it to evaluate complex situations (Small, 2004) to deal with the uncertainty

and unpredictability of the business world.

5
Practical Knowledge

Kekes (1995, p. 182) argues that there are four components of wisdom: a conception of a

good life, knowledge of good and evil, evaluation of actual circumstance to bring knowledge

to bear, and judgement for making a reasonable decision. Bierly III et al. (2000) assert that

the crucial application of wisdom is in judgement, particularly decision-making which

“requires an understanding of the complexity of a situation, but also requires the ability to

make sense and simplify so that action can be taken” (p. 595).

We have distilled from the literature what we believe are five teachable wisdom-related

abilities key in coping with a complex world. These are: reflection, understanding and

assessing complex situations, making sound judgments, making right decisions, and taking

right actions. These abilities, conceptualized below, should not be considered independent of

each other; as wisdom, according to Blatner (2005), “often requires the integration or

judicious balancing of … skills and principles” (p. 30).

Reflection: As a connection between the world of experience and the world of ideas, John

Dewey (1933), defines reflection as “active, persistent, and careful consideration of any

belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and further

conclusions to which it tends” (p. 118). In order to develop wisdom-related abilities in

students, they should learn the art of questioning, so they can reflect on what they see, hear,

and experience. Questioning helps one to understand whether or not that upon which his

knowledge and wisdom is built is trustworthy1 (Smith & Lehrer, 1996). Reflection represents

a mirror to practice and enables “the practitioner to access, understand and learn through his

or her lived experiences and as a consequence, to take congruent action towards developing

1
“One must be able to discern what is worth believing from what is not. [So] [t]he understanding of what has
worth, of what is good, is at the same time the basis of wisdom, The person who knows understands what has
worth, and the person who understands what has worth is wise” (Smith & Lehrer, 1996, p. 5)

6
increasing effectiveness within the context of what is understood as desirable practice”

(Johns, 1995, p. 226).

In complex situations, this ability is needed for understanding and assessing complex

circumstances in order to get closer to the truth by taking account of emotion and cognition,

as well as being aware of the fact that knowledge is intrinsically fallible and there are always

some unknowns inevitably surrounding us in a complex world. As Felten et al. (2006)

describe, effective reflection in service-learning is a process which involves “the interplay of

emotion and cognition in which people (students, teachers, and community partners)

intentionally connect service experiences with academic learning objectives” (p. 42). So in

the pedagogy of reflection, it is important to ensure that reflections concentrate on both

thinking and emotion that leads to learning (Correia & Bleicher, 2008).

As with nursing programs, in which two broad strategies are used to facilitate the practice of

reflection that include writing tools and reflective group sessions (O’Connor & Hyde, 2005),

business programs can facilitate the practice of reflection in business students by either using

writing tools such as keeping diaries, logs and so forth or running reflective group sessions.

The sessions, which are facilitated by a teacher, as O’Conner and Hyde (2005) stress, are

potentially able to “generate powerful insights and understandings into complex professional

issues by means of sharing, support, challenge and feedback” (p. 293). Learning is enhanced

by this group work (Snowball et al., 1994), and leads the life-oriented quality of wisdom to

enable wise persons to learn from past mistakes through the skills of reflection

(Csikszentmihalyi & Rathunde, 1990). Reflection thus as a means for learning and for

promoting professional educational practice (Snowball et al., 1994) develops the

experienced-based pragmatic knowledge (Bierly III, Kessler, & Christensen, 2000; Holliday

& Chandler, 1986) of business students. This ability, as Smith and Lehrer (1996, p. 16) put it,

is “an understanding of what is worthy of trust” which is required for good judgement.

7
Understanding and assessing complex situations: In order to have right understanding of

complex situations, having the appropriate cognitive abilities is crucial. Wisdom, as

Csikszentmihalyi and Rathunde (1990) explain, is reliant on holistic cognitive processes for

gaining a universal awareness of interrelated systems and moving beyond all known

conventional relationships. Understanding thus is the capacity to sum up circumstances, and

according to Aristotle is a requisite for practical wisdom (Urmson, 1998). This ability

supports the other abilities, such as judgment and decision-making skills, as it would be very

difficult to make a sound judgment without being able to first assess and understand a

situation. Understanding complex events and phenomena in order to discern the truth entails

having insight into the events and being aware that knowledge may fall short, particularly in

complex circumstances. In complex situations, where emergence is a significant feature

(Tredinnick, 2009), knowledge needs to be continuously checked against current reality, as in

changing situations “there will always be new relations which ultimately threaten our current

cognitive constructions” (Andrade, 2004, p. 125).

Another component required for understanding complex and unpredictable circumstance,

therefore, is awareness of the limits of knowledge. Students must be aware that what they

learn now is likely to be time-proscribed, given a constantly changing future. Even if we can

ascribe some degree of stability to changing situations, “we cannot plausibly claim to have a

definite picture of a reality which undergoes change (Andrade, 2004, p. 125). Complexity

theory holds that the reality of the world is what we perceive of the world (Keene, 2000), and

accordingly it may not match what we are taught. It appears to be critically important for

learners to have the abilities which help them find out the truth in complex situations. For

example, a business graduate of the 1980s will not succeed in the current virtual trading

environment if reliant only on what was learned at school.

8
Judgment: Doing right things requires right judgment (Shenbai, 2009). To enable one to

realise what is right and correct as opposed to wrong and incorrect and to discriminate

between right and wrong, judgment is a crucial ability, one clearly required for right decision-

making. Bennis and O’Toole (cited in Gibson, 2008) point out that most difficulties managers

face challenge their ability to judge rather than merely accumulate facts. Wise people thus are

more likely to succeed in such situations as a wise person, as argued by Smith and Lehrer

(1996), possesses the skill or ability required for making “all of the variety of judgments only

an expert can make”; bearing in mind that “not all sorts of knowledge give this sort of ability

or skill” (p. 4). The significant kind of judgments that wise experts are able to form are the

judgments that involve evaluation (Smith & Lehre, 1996), and this is involves reflection and

ethics.

While nobody can make someone else a good judge (Smith & Lehrer, 1996), and each

individual must make his own judgment (Hare, 1971), one can learn how to increase the

fundamentals of good judgment (see Sharp, 2007; and Hare 1971). While admitting that

teaching judgment varies from case to case, Hare (1971) asserts that teaching wisdom might

include two aspects: “a) encouraging a person to seek out all the features in a given situation

in order to avoid the danger of ignoring a relevant feature” for which the ability of

understanding and assessing complex situations is crucially important; and “b) confronting

the person with a wide variety of other cases which resemble in one way or another the case

they are looking at” (p. 248). The main points of Hare’s perspectives in teaching judgment

are therefore setting up situations (while taking account of the learner’s intellectual abilities)

in which the person can exercise judgment; and making the learners aware of the traps that

possibly interfere with one’s judgment.

Decision-making: After understanding and reflecting on a situation, one can apply judgement

in order to make an appropriate decision. Decision-making is a multi-stage process through

9
which a decision-maker engages in a series of activities that help one collect information for

revealing possibilities (Nutt, 2002). These possibilities are evaluated and applied

appropriately in order to resolve a problem. Since making right decision requires judging

options and situations accurately, the judgment that reflects emotions, and knowledge is a

crucial step to be taken for decision-making (Saaty, 1994).

Taking proper actions: wisdom encompasses both one’s thought and action (Nozick, 1989)

and a wise person is “the sort of person who acts” (Telfer, 1990). To be a practically wise

person requires that knowledge, judgment and decisions result not only in actions, but in

proper actions (Beck, 1999; Garrett & College, 1996). Aristotle holds that each moral virtue

is a disposition toward proper action (Aristotle, 1947), and since the mean1 of moral virtue

will differ according to the person (O'Toole, 1938); the appropriateness of actions is

evaluated according to the extent to which one’s perception of the situation represents the

reality.

This concern takes on more importance in complex situations, where the intricate interaction

of phenomena is difficult to understand. As discussed in the next section, ethics is another

indicator of the properness of actions. A ‘proper action’ is, therefore, assessed according to

an integration of three factors:

- Effectiveness: the extent to which a decision achieves desired goal(s);

- Interpretation: The decision-maker’s understanding of the situation in which an

action is taken;

- Ethics; the degree to which both individual and social values have been considered in

decision-making.

1
“Doing what is right is always a sort of mean between two extremes, each of which is wrong” (Shenbai, 2009,
618). This, indeed, refers to what Aristotle believed as the “intermediate between excess and deficiency” (the
Nicomachean Ethics, 1106a 30).

10
The role of ethics and moral virtue in practical wisdom

What unifies all these abilities is Ethics. Ethics is broadly defined as “having to do with what

is right, good, and/or virtuous” (Tjeltveit, 2000, p. 243). As related to practical wisdom

(Polansky, 2000), ethics is, according to Melé (2010), “an intrinsic dimension of any

decision, and practical wisdom is essential in perceiving such a dimension and in making

sound moral judgments in the making of decisions” (p. 638). Practical wisdom thus is not

only related to ethics, but it is even considered a subgroup of moral virtues (Steutel &

Spiecker, 1997), which helps people find out what is of value and how it can be realized

(Maxwell, 1984). Schollmeier (1989) defines practical wisdom as “the intellectual virtue with

which we develop moral virtue by grasping practical truth and coercing desire” (p. 123). In

this regard, the important point is that, teaching moral virtues is not limited to teaching only

theoretical virtues, but it is grounded in everyday practice (Begley, 2006), which requires a

dynamic approach to help students acquire virtues through habituation (Beauchamp, 1991).

As argued in the next section, in bringing all wisdom-related abilities together, ethics plays a

crucial role in this model.

A model for teaching wisdom

Practical wisdom is the “intelligence inspired by a moral intuition of what is or is not virtue”

(Roca, 2007, p. 198) and as the basis of action (Robinson, 1990, p. 17), it enhances learners’

cognitive abilities to go beyond the formulation of logic and reason, and rather promotes their

judgement skill and deliberative ability to “act appropriately in specific instances, including

situations where there is no established formula” (Roca, 2007, p. 197). So acquisition of

practical wisdom and moral virtues is vitally important and as Begley (2006) asserts, it must

be facilitated in order to enable people to make sound ethical judgements in practice.

11
According to Aristotle, practical wisdom can be taught (Telfer, 1990). As there are

substantive differences between wisdom and data, information, and knowledge, so the

methods for teaching the learning, acquiring and sharing of wisdom will differ from those of

data, information and knowledge (Bierly III, Kessler, & Christensen, 2000). That is to say,

the business courses or pedagogical programs that are focused only on teaching and

transferring knowledge do not necessarily cover those features of learning needed for wisdom

(e.g. making right judgment and right decisions). According to the model introduced in this

article, success in coping with complexity and in living well requires teaching that

concentrates on knowledge, ethics and wisdom-related abilities, rather than just knowledge;

bearing in mind that teaching is a polymorphous concept where there is not only one right

way to teach (Hare, 1971).

Since wisdom encompasses both action, which is related to a theory of value, and doing what

is good, and knowledge, which is associated with epistemology and understanding the truth

(Beck, 1999; Smith & Lehrer, 1996), teaching current notions of knowledge – its creation,

acquisition, sharing and implementation – is complementary to teaching wisdom. So, the

hierarchical approach, as a ‘taken-for-granted’ model in the literature of information and

knowledge (Rowley, 2007), regarding the relationship between data, information, and

knowledge, as illustrated, is still useful. In this approach knowledge is believed to derive

from information and data (Alavi & Leidner, 1999; Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Information

is the analysed form of data, and it becomes knowledge once it has been combined with an

individual’s experience (Alwis & Hartmann, 2008; Nonaka, 1994).

What essentially causes knowledge activities to sometimes be considered unwise even when

applied successfully and efficiently, is ethics. Ethics and morality, therefore, are the key

components of this model. Ethics is what critically distinguishes the teaching of knowledge

from the teaching of wisdom. Gathering, transferring, and applying information and

12
knowledge can be done to achieve either good or bad ends. But in wise actions, morality and

practice are not separated. According to Baggini and Fosl (2007, p. 153) prudence (practical

wisdom) is the effective deliberation and sound reasoning that leads to “morally right

practice”. In the realm of wisdom, as Aristotle believed, being good and achieving good ends

are two qualities not only inseparable but also one thing in essence (Aristotle, 1947).

Being practically wise is essentially impossible without being good (Roca, 2007) and nobody

will be called a prudently wise person without taking ethics into account in the creation,

sharing and application of knowledge. In this model, accordingly, knowledge management

activities (e.g. knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, and knowledge implementation1) are

considered a part of wisdom when done in a good manner and for good ends. That is,

knowledge-related activities done through an ethical framework in order to achieve good

ends are an important aspect of practical wisdom.

In addition to distinguishing knowledge management activities from wisdom-related abilities,

morality connects the two different levels of individuality and society. In complex situations,

prudently wise people consider and act on matters in a way that goes beyond the realm of

individuality to that of society by taking into account what is of value for both oneself and

others (Maxwell, 1984). In this sense, students should learn that as human beings (Baggini &

Fosl, 2007) they should consider what is good not only for themselves, but also for others.

This leads learners to take the morality of social interactions into account, as well as the

larger area of global sustainability

An important point regarding ethics is that the goodness and rightness of an action do not

depend on what we want or on the actual results of an action, but rather on the circumstances

1
Knowledge management activities may include such more activities as knowledge acquiring, knowledge
evaluation, knowledge internalization and so forth, that discussion on this issue is outside the scope of this
article.

13
and factors that will be affected beyond the primary action (Field, 1966, p. 17). Moral virtues

thus may not be the same for all people and may differ according to the individual or society.

That is to say, the mean of moral virtue “is not universal and unchangeable” (O'Toole, 1938,

p. 84). This means that the rightness of an action is not necessarily a universal concept in

terms of meaning. This links the concept of ethics to reflection, as reflexivity, according to

Rooney and McKenna (2005) “acknowledges that there are multiple perspectives to any

phenomenon, each with their own vocabularies, theories, interpretations and frames” (p. 314).

The ability to acknowledge and consider differences (e.g. individual, cultural, etc.) is an

important part of the wise person’s repertoire.

The great involvement of ethics and morality in taking a course of action in complex

circumstances leads wise decisions and following actions to be highly context-oriented.

While data can be processed to be applied to various situations, and can be evaluated as a

context-free quality, a wise decision is extensively grounded in the context in which the

action is taken. So developing knowledge-based business learning programs up to wisdom-

based programs, would be in deed the matter of shifting from theory to practice; and of a

reconfiguration from theory-based business programs to practice-based educational systems.

Since virtues are acquired through practice (Aristotle, 1947) and intellectual virtues and

wisdom, in particular, are attained through habituation, training and systematic teaching

(Urmson, 1998; Begley, 2006), wisdom-related abilities are basically taught using an indirect

system mainly based on observation and habituation (ethismos). Habituation is seen as

essentially involving;

- “(i) acting as virtue requires

- (ii) both frequently and consistently, and

14
 - (iii) under the supervision of a virtuous tutor (Steutel & Spiecker, 2004, p. 531).

Whereas teaching knowledge is done using direct techniques such as attending classes,

listening to the teacher, making notes, memorizing lessons and retrieving them when needed

for decision-making, examples of teaching wisdom include simulating conditions found in

the business world in which a practitioner is repeatedly encouraged to make wise decisions.

Simulation exercises motivate students and provide them with a real learning experience (Liu

et al., 2009) enabling students to link theory with practice (Trim & Lee, 2009), and

habituation, as Jacobson (2005) explains, leads one to learn moral virtues: “by learning to

take pleasure in acting bravely [as an example of moral virtues], one eventually develops the

ability to act rightly with proper feeling: one learns to be brave” (p. 392). Consequently, as

we move from teaching knowledge towards teaching wisdom (right action,) ethics and moral

issues become increasingly entwined in the business decision, and the need for indirect

educational and learning techniques such as habituation and simulation game teaching

increases.

15
 Right Action
Action-oriented/Educational
direct systems/Contextual and
time bounded meaning

Ethics

Decision-making

Individual and
Communal interests

Wisdom-focused Teaching
Judgment

Insight
Understanding of
Complex Situations
Awareness of
K. fallibility
Reflection

Knowledge-focused
Knowledge

Teaching
Information

Action-oriented/Educational
indirect systems/Universal Data
meaning

Figure 1: A model for integrating wisdom into business education programs

According to this model (Figure 1), managing complex situations entails not only being

knowledgeable and capable of creating and sharing knowledge in a given context, but to be

practically wise. A wise person, as Bierly et al. (2000) argue, not only possesses knowledge,

“but uses his or her intellectual grasp and insight to practically apply it” (p. 602). Wise

practice in a complex world requires an accurate assessment of a complex situation, which

means an understanding of the nature of nonlinear interactions of events and phenomena.

Insight, as one of the main components of wisdom (Rooney et al., 2010), enables one

comprehending the obscure aspects of situations and events, recognizes the tiny indicates and

16
gain an understanding of the bigger picture. Although this understanding is basically created

from knowledge, a true and comprehensive understanding is obtained once an individual

refines one’s knowledge regularly through reflection. This is based upon the proposition that

wise people are aware of the limitation and the fallibility nature of knowledge (Baltes &

Kunzmann, 2004; Holliday & Chandler, 1986; Sternberg, 1990). In order to know the

limitation of their knowledge, wise people need to be capable of self-examination, or

reflexivity. They know that their perception of the world may be different from others. A

wise person therefore shows a balance of knowledge and doubt which enables him or her to

benefit from past mistakes through evaluative and reflective skills (Sternberg, 1985).

Following understanding a complex situation, one should be able to articulate and define

problems, assess alternatives and choose the best possible resolution according to the criteria

that the decision will lead not only to effective action and consequences but also to right

actions and results. ‘Right’ not only for the decision-maker but for all those likely to be

affected by the decision. To achieve such right results and actions, judgment appears to be a

crucial ability. As mentioned, judgment is critical when making right decisions (Saaty, 1994)

and vital as one of the wisdom-related abilities for dealing with complex situations.

This model does not suggest that wisdom-related abilities are restricted to these five abilities.

Clearly others, for example the ability of assessing the consequences of an action, can also be

added to this model. However, given the space limitations, only the abilities that should be

considered in the process between having knowledge and taking actions were examined. Nor

do we suggest that one of the two teaching approaches (teaching knowledge and teaching

wisdom) is better than the other. We do, however, try to make the case that there are other

abilities beyond those usually taught in management training programs that can be integrated

into an educational approach that would better enable students to manage complex situations

17
more successfully while considering what is ethically of value at both the individual and

social level.

Conclusion

The rapid growth of knowledge management thought and practice over last two decades has

turned the attention of a number of academics and practitioners toward the notion of

knowledge. Much has been written regarding knowledge, and the knowledge activities

business students, practitioners and even organizations need to learn and apply in the real

world of business. The complexity of the business world however requires business

pedagogical programs to develop students’ knowledge management abilities by provide them

with a combination of complementary skills towards making right decisions and taking right

actions.

In this article we argue that although the dynamics of knowledge and its vital role in business

courses is undeniable, the fragility of human perception and past orientation of the formative

components of knowledge entails a re-orientation to a new understanding of what constitutes

a relevant learning focus in business programs. The abilities of reflection, understanding and

assessing complex situations, making sound judgment, making right decisions, and of taking

proper actions where unpredictability is significant; are the abilities we suggest business

students require. Relevant educational techniques are suggested and a model of an integrated

educational framework for business pedagogies is proposed.

The aim of this article is to offer a fresh perspective in business pedagogical programs. This

approach explores new features we think are necessary for success in a complex business

world. This paper attempts to shed light on the educational dimensions of business courses

that appear to be crucial in harmonizing conventional knowledge-concentrated abilities and

practical wisdom qualities.

18
Future research should more clearly focus on exploring and developing other possible aspects

of teaching wisdom in business programs. The effects of various qualities of moral and

intellectual virtues on knowledge management initiatives need to be examined and clarified

with respect to the different aspects of work and life at individual, group and organizational

levels. In addition, educational theory and pedagogy that can align practical wisdom,

knowledge management and decision-making in a complex world may need to be further

developed.

19
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