Philosophy of Management - Virtual Special Issue - What is Philosophy of Management?
Introduction to the Virtual Special Issue
Hakan Erkal & Wim Vandekerckhove
Philosophy of management is the field of study addressing all aspects of the philosophical foundations of management in theory and practice. Although there has been nearly hundred years when the first book named philosophy of management published (Sheldon, 1923), there is still debate on whether it is separate field or not, and how to delineate that field.
This year marks the 20th volume of the journal Philosophy of Management. We recently published an article in which we do a mapping exercise of how the journal has shaped the field in the first two decades of its existence (Erkal & Vandekerckhove, 2021). In that paper we use content analysis techniques to gain insight in who the main philosophers are for the journal and which areas of management are of most interest. One thing we noticed is that a substantial scholarship published in the journal relates to delineating the field of philosophy of management. We believe it may be beneficial for that debate to devote a virtual special issue with papers from the Philosophy of Management journal that, in our opinion, characterise the debate.
In all, we found some 60 articles (and interviews) in the first 19 volumes of the journal that have at their core, claims and inquiry about the field of philosophy of management. We cannot present all of these here, but to give the reader a narrative taste of what these discussions entail, we selected five articles. The authors of these five papers are (or were), at the time of publication, central scholars within this scholarly community, either as editors of the journal or part of the organising committee of the annual conferences. Moreover, the five articles are spread across the 20 years of the journal’s existence. Two are from the first two volumes (Laurie & Cherry, 2001; Dearey, 2002). Another two are from the middle years (Platts & Harris, 2011; Dibben & Sheard, 2012) and one is from the last volume we consider here (Blok, 2020).
What can we observe when considering these five articles in sequence? In the very first issue, Laurie and Cherry (2001) state that there is no field ‘philosophy of management’, and ask why that is so. Their article does not answer the question but offers suggestions as to what that field could be. Indeed, the journal – according to the website of its current publisher Springer – describes the journal as the forum that seeks to define and develop the field of philosophy of management. Laurie and Cherry (2001) have a specific philosophical school in mind for that field: philosophy of management should be analytic and prescriptive. The way to fill that void, according to the authors, is to get philosophers interested in management. The article draws a general framework for this “newly born” field by introducing the potential scope for inquiry, mentioning presuppositions, concepts, methodologies, and representations of the field and discussing the relevance and applicability of philosophical techniques to management practices. The article further ‘skim-surfs’ some potential topics, i.e. selves, language, rationality. Hence, Laurie and Cherry (2001) call for a new field and make a suggestion on how it could be carved out.
The article by Dearey (2002) argues that ‘systems thinking’ is an example of a fully-fledged philosophy of management. Philosophy is needed to understand, grasp and act upon complexity. Systems thinking is a governance level approach to operational activity, i.e. it is systematic intervention in complex organisations. Hence, Dearey (2002) makes a substantial suggestion as to what philosophy of management could be. This article is significant because it resonates with an early tendency in the literature starting with the book of Oliver Sheldon (1923), namely that philosophy of management is not so much a separate field of study, instead it designates to the philosophical discussions on management and managerial practices; that is philosophies for management.
Platts and Harris (2011) intend to give a ‘report on progress’ on Laurie and Cherry’s call for a new field (Laurie & Cherry, 2001). But it doesn’t really report progress. Rather, the article mainly argues process philosophy to be the best school for the field of philosophy of management. The article first brings a historical overview of the field, to mainly say it is not there. The promise of philosophy lies in identifying and improving ‘deficient conceptualisations’. Philosophy of management cannot be just a ‘motto’, instead it must be an explicit system. The second part of the article is then a demonstration how philosophy of management could exist by introducing the relevance with philosophy in general and philosophical disciplines like ethics, metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and axiology. That should happen through conversation and reflection by and between managers and philosophers.
Dibben and Sheard (2012) are eager to distinguish philosophy of management from Organisation Studies and from Critical Management Studies. They assert that so far, outside of the journal, management scholarship has only done philosophy in passing. The identity and programme the authors posit for the field is to have ‘deep debates’ of what is distinctive about a philosophical approach to management. This allows scholarship to stand above trends, by using particular ideas of individual philosophers. Hence, for Dibben and Sheard (2012) it is pretty clear what the philosophy part of ‘philosophy of management’ entails. But what they open up is the management part of that field delineation. Dibben and Sheard (2012) assert that ‘management of course is inherent in Nature’, implying that humans are not a necessary element of management.
Blok (2020) is the first article we saw about the field of philosophy of management that does not question whether there is such a field, or wanders to explore what that could be. Instead, the author asserts there is a field ‘philosophy of management’. Blok’s (2020) observation is, however, that the field has not asked its fundamental question: what is management? Hence, the first four articles posit that there is a need for a ‘philosophy of management’ field, whilst the last one (Blok, 2020) starts with an observation about the ‘philosophy of management’ field. This is interesting, as it suggests that on the one hand it has taken quite a number of years suggesting how a field can or should be carved out, but on the other hand this varying and persistent suggesting has carved out that field.
We hope the reader of these articles not only enjoys the read, but gets inspired in furthering the debates shaping our field and this journal.
References
Blok V. (2020). What Is (Business) Management? Laying the Ground for a Philosophy of Management. Philosophy of Management 19, 173–189. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-019-00126-9 (this opens in a new tab)
Dearey P. (2002). Systems Thinking: A Philosophy of Management. Philosophy of Management 2, 73–82. https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20022316 (this opens in a new tab)
Dibben M., Sheard S. (2012). Reason in Practice: A Unique Role for a ‘Philosophy of Management’. Philosophy of Management 11, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.5840/pom201211316 (this opens in a new tab)
Erkal H., Vandekerckhove W. (2021). Twenty Years of Philosophy of Management. How has it Shaped the Field?. Philosophy of Management. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-021-00185-x (this opens in a new tab)
Laurie N., Cherry C. (2001). Wanted: Philosophy of Management. Philosophy of Management 1, 3–12. https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20011122 (this opens in a new tab)
Platts J., Harris H. (2011). The Place of Philosophy in Management. Philosophy of Management 10, 19–39. https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20111023 (this opens in a new tab)
Sheldon O. (1923). The Philosophy of Management. London, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons.