Wanted : Philosophy of

Management
By Nigel Laurie and Christopher Cherry
Presented by : AJMAL V R
Philosophy in Management - Relevance
• Philosophy graduates in preference to MBA graduates to work in
artificial intelligence.
• Glasgow executives have sought to acquire the skills of Philosophical
Inquiry.
• Business Ethics and journals such as Business Ethics Quarterly and the
Journal of Business Ethics.
• The Prato Centre at the Free University of Amsterdam offers degrees
in Business Philosophy through the Faculty of Philosophy.
• There is a Dutch journal Filosofie in Bedrijf (Philosophy in Business)
founded in 1990 whose concerns overlap with ‘Reason in Practice’
• And other examples of philosophy and management coming in same
page, in academia and praxis.
Why do philosophers are structurally blind
about Management, as it doesn’t exist.
• Is the reason distaste engendered by the frequent conflation of
‘business’ with ‘management’ which reduces management to the role
of midwife for profit?
• Is it sheer ignorance born of the fear of boredom even though more
and more philosophers find themselves being managed?
• Could it be that they judge that the issues they want to, even should,
pursue can be better treated in other terms or areas of inquiry
without recourse to managerial discourse?
• Or is it a criticism voiced in a refusal to engage?
• Philosophers has always engaged with issues which in our time have
emerged as problematic in the field of managed organizations.
• Management merits philosophical study because the ways in which
managers and their theoreticians conceptualize their own roles and
activities are philosophically loaded.
• many of the issues arising from management practice cannot be
adequately resolved within the discipline. (Ethics, Legitimacy)
• more critical since management values and practices spread out from
the capitalist industrial sector to organisations in fields such as
healthcare, schooling, public broadcasting, the advancement of
knowledge, artistic performance, government and religion.
Scope of POM
• Presuppositions of management theory and practice.
• Concepts at the core of management (manager, leader, orgqnisations
etc)
• Representations of management and the managerial myths.
• Management methodologies. (decision-making, control and
organisation-design).
• The relevance and applicability of philosophical techniques and skills
to management practice.
• The application of philosophical disciplines to issues facing managers.
Scope of POM (In short)
• Examines underlying assumptions in management theory and practice
(knowledge, power, human nature)
• Analyzes core concepts like leader, organization, and motivation
• Myths and tensions within management practices.
• Evaluates methodologies like decision-making and control systems
• Applies philosophical tools for ethical reasoning and problem-solving.
Scope of POM (Cont.)
• At the immediate practical level are issues such as:
• what are managers responsible for?;
• what is a business for?;
• what makes for a good hospital, school, library, company?;
• what exactly is an equal opportunity employer?
• At the meta level are questions like the following:
• what does it mean to treat people as ends?;
• what status and priority should managers assign to ethics?
Way forward
• philosophy of management - like political philosophy - needs to be
analytic and at the same time prepared to be prescriptive.
• It should help ultimately to improve the practice of management by
resisting the temptation to be immediately practically helpful.
• If managers know where they stand philosophically and where they
have come from the quality of their thinking and thereby practice
should be enhanced.
Presuppositions (management’s unspoken
philosophy)
• The paper discusses 3 of many philosophical presuppositions made by
managers.
• Selves :
• different concepts of self lie behind differences in managerial communication practices
and remuneration philosophies.
• Western managers conceive of the self as separate from the roles it plays and
relationships in which it engages.
• But what if the self exists only through its roles? Or what if it is nothing but its roles?
• Language :
• Language is conceived of instrumentally as a tool for exerting control by stating,
speculating, directing, arguing, persuading
• ‘When our language changes, behaviour will not be far behind’ (The Age of Unreason)
• Rationality :
• Rational decisions are calculative, rule-based and future-orientated.
• Rationality – Vision – ‘Out of the box’ thinking’ (Paradox)
• Management leaders are said to enlist people to share a common vision having
inspirational force. And yet people are assumed to be rational in the sense of calculative
and seeking to satisfy their needs. (Paradox)
Thank You