*Apologies for any cross-postings*
Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Philosophy of Management
Do Managerial Practices Need Philosophy?
Deadline: 30 September 2021
Guest Editors:
Marian Eabrasu, EM Normandie Business School
meabrasu@em-normandie.fr
Erwan Lamy, ESCP Business School
elamy@escp.eu
Among the various disciplines adjacent to management theory and having a word to say on
managerial practice, philosophy is at the forefront since it can offer a wide theoretical angle and a
set of encompassing concepts that can account for various business practices. Philosophy
continuously and increasingly fuels management discussions with concepts and theories
(Donaldson and Walsh, 2015), which blend in various degrees with management's own corpus of
research (Cornelissen and Durand, 2012; Oswick et al., 2011).
Instead of focusing on management theories blending and influences, this special issue intends to draw attention to managerial practices. While numerous studies deal with the philosophical, primarily ethical, approach of
managerial practice (Klikauer, 2013), very few inquire into its very usefulness. Do managerial practices need philosophy? Whether the answer is "yes" or "no" it becomes important to provide a theoretical explanation or concrete examples. Some scholars following up the discussion of Aristotle in Protrepticus might say that philosophy is not meant to be useful, that it is a "disinterested contemplation of truth" (Walker, 2010). Yet, these are exciting questions to ask, especially considering the reflexivity of the philosophical inquiry (Laurie and Cherry, 2001).
While this special issue aims to understand "if," "how," and "why" philosophy can shed
light on managerial practices, contributions from all philosophical schools, traditions,
methodologies, subdisciplines will be considered as there is a high interest in including in this
special issue a large variety of perspectives. It would be a plus to publish opposite philosophical
perspectives underlying fundamental philosophical disagreements on interpreting business
practices (Eabrasu, 2018). Also, the proposals can be submitted in a large variety of forms: case
studies, illustrations, comparisons, explanations, analysis, or critiques (Vandekerckhove, 2019).
For demonstrating what philosophy has to tell to management practitioners, the authors
might want to propose a conceptual discussion on the role that philosophy is expected to play in
management practice (Shaw, 2020); they can also identify specific managerial practices (or
concepts used managerial practice) (Werhane, 2018) and further show if and how they can be
better analyzed through philosophical theory and methodology (Donaldson, 2018); or empirically
test and/or illustrate the correlation between philosophical input and some indicators for
managerial performance.
We invite submissions of proposals including, but not limited, to:
- Ontology and metaphysics of concepts defining managerial practices and tools: What is a strategy? What are competencies or skills? What is a resource?
- The normative assessment of business practice: Is managerial practice a thick concept,
including both evaluative and descriptive features? Are there specific ethical principles or
norms that are more appropriate for assessing managerial practices?
- The epistemological approach of organization: How can we manage the epistemic
production of organizational practices? Can we build a social epistemology for
organizational practices? Is reliabilism a relevant approach for understanding the
managerial epistemic practices? Which epistemic virtues within organizational practice?
- Relativism, post-modernism, and other forms of skepticism in management: Is the manager
the measure of all things in the organizations? Can we escape moral or epistemic relativism
in management? What are the effects of post-modernism on managerial practices? Can we
think about the power relationships in organizations without Foucault?
- Metaphilosophy and management: Are there specific philosophical methods that could be
used to understand managerial practices? Can we mobilize conceptual analysis for
clarifying managerial concepts? Is the a priori approach relevant for organizational
phenomena?
- Can/should philosophical counseling enhance specific indicators of managerial
performance, broadly understood, or of some parts of it (social, environmental, or
financial)?
Details
· Philosophy of Management: https://www.springer.com/journal/40926
· Articles can be submitted at https://www.editorialmanager.com/phom/ by 30 September 2021, with a
clear reference to the special issue 'Do managerial practices need philosophy?'
· Accepted papers will immediately be assigned a DOI and be published OnlineFirst. The publication
date of complete paperback volume is fall 2022.
· Maximum word length: 10 000 words, excluding references.
· The papers should follow the PHOM submission guidelines:
https://www.springer.com/journal/40926/submission-guidelines
· The editors welcome informal inquiries related to proposed topics.
References
Cornelissen, J. P. and Durand, R. (2012). 'More than just novelty: Conceptual blending and causality'.
Academy of management review, 37, 152-54.
Donaldson, T. (2018). 'How Methods of Moral Philosophy Inform Business'. In C. Neesham & S. Segal
(Eds.), Handbook of Philosophy of Management. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 1-15.
Donaldson, T. and Walsh, J. P. (2015). 'Toward a theory of business'. Research in Organizational
Behavior, 35, 181-207.
Eabrasu, M. (2018). Moral disagreements in business. An exploratory introduction. Cham: Springer.
Klikauer, T. (2013). 'Ethics for Managers - Avoiding Philosophy & Managerial Reality'. Philosophy of
Management, 12, 97-103.
Laurie, N. and Cherry, C. (2001). 'Wanted: Philosophy of Management'. Philosophy of Management, 1, 3-12.
Oswick, C., Fleming, P. and Hanlon, G. (2011). 'From borrowing to blending: Rethinking the processes of organizational theory building'. Academy of management review, 36, 318-37.
Shaw, D. (2020). 'Would Plato Have Banned the Management Consultants?'. Philosophy of
Management.
Vandekerckhove, W. (2019). 'Editorial'. Philosophy of Management, 18, 1-4.
Walker, M. (2010). 'The utility of contemplation in Aristotle's Protrepticus'. Ancient Philosophy, 30, 135-53.
Werhane, P. (2018). 'The Linguistic Turn, Social Construction and the Impartial Spectator: why Do these Ideas Matter to Managerial Thinking?'. Philosophy of Management, 17, 265-78.