Int. J. Management Concepts and Philosophy, Vol. 8, No.

4, 2014 197

The philosopher and the manager

Jean-Etienne Joullié
International College of Management, Sydney,
151 Darley Road,
Manly, New South Wales 2095, Australia
Email: jjoullie@icms.edu.au

Abstract: This paper revisits the argument that management academics and
managers benefit from being knowledgeable in Western philosophy. Salient
debates in management research and education that have emerged over the last
decades are first summarised. The theoretical uncertainties that these debates
have highlighted are then located within a brief overview of mainstream
Western philosophical traditions. Philosophical investigations into management
theory help discern the origins of some of the difficulties that plague
management theories, paving the way towards their clarification and resolution.

Keywords: philosophy; management; rationalism; empiricism; romanticism;

existentialism.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Joullié, J-E. (2014)

‘The philosopher and the manager’, Int. J. Management Concepts and
Philosophy, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp.197–208.

Biographical notes: Jean-Etienne Joullié teaches philosophy to management

and business students at the International College of Management, Sydney,
Australia, where he also heads the Centre for Applied Research in Professional
Services Management. Before committing to academia, he worked as an
electrical engineer in Europe and Asia Pacific. He holds an MSc in Electrical
Engineering, an MBA and a PhD in Philosophy.

1 Introduction

This journal has been established on the conviction that those who study or practise
management benefit from philosophical investigations into the makeup of management
concepts. Although anecdotal evidence attests to its positive reception within a few
circles, one has to admit that this contention is still to be shared by a wider academic
audience. As best as I could determine, rare are the management schools (such as my
institution) that propose courses in philosophy as part of their core curricula. More
importantly, while management, as a social group or as an activity, has been analysed
using models borrowed from psychology, sociology and philosophy, little has been
published as far as management theory is concerned. This restraint is surprising, for
notable theoretical debates animating the management literature have been fuelled by
contributions using in some cases explicit philosophical language (for example, one of
Powell’s controversial articles is entitled ‘Strategy Without Ontology’; Powell, 2003).
It appears then opportune to revisit some of these debates and to locate the difficulties

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

198 J-E. Joullié

they highlight in the context of a brief philosophical overview. Not only does this
exercise illustrate how mainstream management theories, their foundations and the
problems that derive therefrom can be engaged from a philosophical perspective, but,
more generally, it also shows how rewarding philosophical considerations can be for
those who study and teach management.

2 Salient debates within management theory and education

Criticisms of management as an academic discipline and body of knowledge have echoed

in the literature for some time. Critics question the relevance of management education
and management research, their outcomes, their internal consistency and the validity of
some of their theoretical underpinnings.
For some commentators, the value of management education is questionable. In 1971,
Livingston argued that academic achievement was irrelevant to practising or aspiring
managers since it did not measure the skills that are important to managerial success such
as leading, developing or working with people. He analysed management education as
insisting on analytic problem solving at the expense of opportunity identification skills.
Further, for Livingston, the very existence of management education leads management
students to assume that there is one best way to manage in all situations and conveys the
idea that, by the time they graduate, management students know all they need to know.
If ‘education’ refers to what management schools deliver and measure, Livingston
insisted, the “well-educated manager is a myth” (Livingston, 1971, p.33). Three decades
after Livingston, Pfeffer and Fong reiterated much of these criticisms (Pfeffer and
Fong, 2002). They contended that if practitioners influence management academics,
the opposite is far from evident: in their view, management research has little, if any,
demonstrable impact on management practise. Even though Pfeffer and Fong concluded
their discussion on an optimistic note, they warned that management education has to
change to remain relevant. Voices from outside academia acquiesced, dismissing
management theory for being inconsequential ‘inane’ (Stewart, 2006) ‘gobbledygook’
(Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996, p.12). In a later article, Pfeffer further held that
management research has to be scientific in its methods and empirical in its
underpinnings (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006, pp.62–75). Rousseau and McCarthy (2007)
agreed, insisting that management education, good management education that is,
is evidence-based and aims at disseminating the successful practises uncovered by
management academics.
Another group of commentators indicted management education for corrupting the
moral worth of management students. They argued that, by insisting that analytical skills
are the only ones that matter, management academia fosters superficial leadership
behaviour on the part of graduates convinced that management situations are like case
studies that can be summarised in a few pages and addressed in a few hours.
In contributions that disprove the often-heard complaint that management literature is dry
and devoid of passion, management schools have been accused of elevating short-term,
materialistic and hubristic ‘winner-takes-all’ values above humanistic ones (Giacalone,
2004; Mintzberg, 2004). After the Enron, Tyco and WorldCom scandals of the early
2000s which sparked the first articles, the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 has revived
what is now a fertile theme. In a noted article, Podolny went as far as holding business
schools solely responsible for the subprime debacle for teaching their students arrogance
 The philosopher and the manager 199

and greed at the expense of moral considerations (Podolny, 2009; see also Haynes, 2010).
A sweeping and perhaps excessive analysis; not every management student turns into an
arrogant manager. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of this second group of views,
however, one (and possibly self-serving) of their unstated assumptions is that
management education, contrary to what Livingston, Pfeffer and Fong contended, does
have a determining influence, albeit not a desirable one.
A third line of criticism is detectable in the literature. It has been ignited by
Donaldson, who argued the existence of contradictions between contents of mainstream
management theories and management education itself (Donaldson, 2002). According to
Donaldson, economics and finance theorists assume that, in efficient markets, prices of
goods and equities include all available information; superior rate of returns can only be
obtained on the basis on information that is not available publicly. Yet one of the
purposes of management academia is to research and make public information
about products or equities. Donaldson concluded that “knowledge made publicly
available through management education cannot assist its students to better play [the]
markets” (Donaldson, 2002, pp.98–99). Moreover, if business success results from rare,
non-substitutable and inimitable resources and barriers obtained from exceptional,
complex or even causally ambiguous conditions (as the Resource-Based View of the firm
holds), then managers, no matter how well educated, cannot reproduce business success.
In any case, if organisational success comes from the careful development of skills and
systems that are unique to the organisation, then identifying and teaching these skills and
systems is self-contradicting, for by being more common these features lose their interest.
Donaldson’s view is hence that not only “being educated in the RBV gives [managers]
little guidance about how to attain competitive advantage”, but also that “knowledge-
based sustained competitive advantage is incompatible with management education”
(Donaldson, 2002, p.99, 100, respectively).
Donaldson extended his criticisms to agency theory and institutional theory in more
indirect if no less indicting terms. Agency theory posits that managers are driven by their
own interests, as opposed to those of the organisation’s owners. Now since managers’
agendas are promoted by whatever new knowledge they can gain, the case for
management education appears dubious: being more knowledgeable, managers will be
more destructive. Institutional theory describes organisations as mostly irrational entities
ruled by rituals and an overarching eagerness for conformity. This view also undermines
the general case for management education, for, if valid, educational outcomes are bound
to be either ignored altogether when seen as disruptive, or used to reinforce the status quo
when not. Donaldson’s overall conclusion was that management schools should reduce,
at least qualify, the place of economics, finance, strategy theory, agency theory and
institutional theory in their curricula (Donaldson, 2002, pp.103–105).
Completing the charge sheet, other commentators have highlighted the existence of
weaknesses within management theory. In a series of noted articles, Powell analysed the
notion of competitive advantage as being unfalsifiable and tautologous, lacking
of theoretical interest (Powell, 2001, 2002, 2003). In its simplest expression, Powell’s
indictment runs as follows: since competitive advantages are only identified within
successful organisations, they cannot, in and by themselves, explain these organisations’
success. Saying that an organisation is successful because it has one or several
competitive advantages amounts to saying that the organisation is successful because it is
successful: true no doubt, but not helpful. Competitive advantage theory is then reduced
to a mere ‘way of seeing’ (Powell, 2001, p.885). Although vigorously disputed in the
200 J-E. Joullié

literature, Powell’s arguments have been recently found to withstand critical scrutiny and
to remain in need of a convincing answer (Kraaijenbrink et al., 2010, pp.356–358).
Should the totem of competitive advantage fall or be substantially weakened, one
wonders what would be left standing of strategy theory and beyond it of management
academia: the assumption that identifiable and reproducible management practises
have positive, if only temporary, effects is consubstantial to management research and
education. Even Donaldson accepted this view (see Donaldson (2002, pp.103–104) for
instance).
Before Donaldson voiced his arguments, the need for a cross-discipline synthesis
within management education had been patent for a long time. It is for instance difficult
to conceive of consumers behaving rationally, as economics or game theory assume,
while at the same time being driven by an overall pleasure principle, as important parts of
marketing and buyer behaviour theories allege they are: a pleasure principle doubtlessly
knows little of demand vs. supply equilibria. Besides, if organisations are by nature
irrational entities (as institutional theory proposes), teaching managers cold and
dispassionate analytical and project management skills (as all management schools pride
themselves on doing) is unlikely to do them (or their employers) any good. Even within
the general management literature, some long-standing tensions have been difficult to
overlook. While some authors hold that only employee contribution matters and that
using psychology in the workplace is a repugnant and self-defeating form of tyranny
(Drucker, 1974, pp.243–244), many industrial psychologists insist after Maslow that
managers must understand the psychological needs of their subordinates. Most
commentators promote analysis of facts before decision making but others like
Tom Peters are adamant that greatness comes from a relentless, passionate and thus
irrational pursuit of excellence. There are rare advocates of unscrupulous usage of power
in management in the name of effectiveness while the majority insists on the importance
of ethics and compassion in the workplace. One could also mention more arcane
arguments about the best ways to motivate employees or the disputes surrounding the use
of psychological tests for the selection and promotion of employees. All these
discussions, although started decades ago, are still alive today and their resolutions,
despite the efforts of management academics the world over, are nowhere in sight.
The on-going debates thus encompass existential interrogations (“Do management
research and education matter? Do management theory and education not contradict
themselves?”), ethical considerations (“What is the moral worth of management
education?”) as well as lethal epistemological questions (“Is competitive advantage
theory a theory at all?”). For management academia, the stakes could hardly be higher.
In his last article that sounded like a mea culpa, the late Sumantra Ghoshal encapsulated
all these interrogations perhaps more poignantly than anyone before or since (Ghoshal,
2005). He argued that management academics erred gravely ever since they decided to
place themselves under the protection of science, which, for being prestigious, led them
to seek explanations in terms of laws. This, Ghoshal held, reduced management theory
“to a kind of physics” that analyses the phenomena it studies in terms of causes and
effects (Ghoshal, 2005, p.77). The scientific bias, argued Ghoshal, left no room for
conceptions like intentionality, choice or resilience and for aesthetical and moral values.
Employees had to be levelled down to the status of inanimate economic resources for the
sake of calculability and mathematical modelling (Ghoshal, 2005, pp.80, 86). Ghoshal
insisted: after a half-century of research based on ideological preconceptions advanced as
natural truths, management academia had only achieved “the pretense of knowledge”
 The philosopher and the manager 201

(Ghoshal, 2005, p.77). If management truly was a physical science, all this would be
harmless, even amusing – that for centuries the Sun was deemed to rotate around the
Earth never changed anything to what the Sun actually does. However, Ghoshal warned,
the reverse was in fact the case: “social scientists carry [a] greater social and moral
responsibility than those who work in the physical sciences because, if they hide ideology
in the pretense of science, they can cause much more harm” owing to the self-fulfilling
power of social theories that have gained wide currency (Ghoshal, 2005, p.87).
On independent but similar grounds, Bennis and O’Toole concurred: for them,
management schools have long suffered from ‘physics envy’, which have led them to
embrace scientific rigour at the expense of every other form of knowledge (Bennis and
O’Toole, 2005, p.98). A field that was once castigated for its constitutional incapability
of criticising itself (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1996, p.12) has certainly come a long
way.

3 The case for Western philosophy

Management academia thus appears marked by an overall lack of clarity about what it is
or should be about and the body of knowledge it pretends to advance seems plagued by
serious internal controversies; one wonders what a newcomer to the arena can make of
such confusion. If it is really the case, as Livingston, Donaldson, Powell, Ghoshal,
Bennis, O’Toole and others argued, that management theory and education are mired
in intractable contradictions flowing from incorrect conceptions, then some serious
re-thinking is called for and urgently so. The predicament goes well beyond what the
traditional management disciplines can, on their own, address. For all involved, the need
to step back and take stock seems today more pressing than ever. As a first step, one can
attempt to clarify the issues broached above and expose their origins. It is only when their
foundations would have been exposed and a shared understanding about their origins
arrived at that a reconstruction effort will be conceivable in earnest. Philosophy is the
discipline of choice for this enterprise.
That there is value for management academics to engage in philosophy is not a new
finding: it is the reason the current journal exists after all. The last 15 years have seen the
emergence of a small but slowly growing body of literature arguing a similar line.
Through a series of collected essays, Lynch and Dicker have attempted to “unit[e]
philosophy and public administration” by showing that the foundations of organisation
theory had discernible philosophical origins (Lynch and Dicker, 1998 p.iii). In the
inaugural article of the Philosophy and Management Journal, editors Laurie and Cherry
envisioned the scope of their publication to include philosophical explorations
of the tenets of management theory and practise, of managerial ideologies, methods
and language (Laurie and Cherry, 2001). They also pleaded management pundits and
practitioners to learn from philosophy to address more effectively their daily duties
and challenges. In a similar vein, commentators have argued for the development of
philosophically-grounded managerial and entrepreneurial wisdom (Rowley, 2006;
see also Rowley and Slack, 2009 as well as Certo and Certo, 2010). The benefits that are
said to accrue from such endeavours include a deeper and better grasp of the complexity
of management reality and more generally improved creative and critical thinking skills,
flowing from a richer and more accurate usage of language (Small, 2006). Commentators
have also made the case for philosophy courses to be included in management curricula
202 J-E. Joullié

to ground students’ sense of moral duty (Small, 2004a, 2004b); events of the kind
philosophers experienced during their lifetime are perhaps irrelevant today, Small
contended, but their ideas are not. Some have taken these recommendations to the letter
and have sought help from professional philosophers to address actual sensitive
management situations (see de Borchgrave, 2006, pp.197–214 for a practical example).
To the extent that management theory, like much of science in general and social
science in particular, is of Western descent, it must be analysed in light of the various
layers that are woven in the fabric of Western thinking. Put differently, to understand
management thought, to be able to uncover its underpinnings and the contradictions these
lead to, one must first understand Western thought. This is not to say that Eastern
philosophy has nothing to contribute to management; this is merely saying that Eastern
thinking has had little, if any influence on modern management thought and education.
For this reason, the study of Oriental philosophy, an enterprise obviously valuable in and
of itself, is unlikely to point to solutions to the problems outlined above (for a study of
the relevance of Oriental philosophy to economics and organisation theory in general and
an attempt at conceiving of Buddhist economics in particular, see Schumacher, 1973,
Part I, Ch. 4).
The contention that management thought benefits from being analysed through the
lens of Western philosophical traditions can be illustrated in general terms, be it at the
price of generalisation and simplification.
Management authors who insist that employees are to be managed solely on the basis
of their performance measured against the objectives they had been assigned to, are
indebted to an ancient worldview, the oldest one in the history of Western thinking. This
worldview is visible in the heroic poems of Homer, in which human existence is
contingent to strict adherence to roles to which are attached rules and rewards. In the
heroic perspective, individuals are reduced to and evaluated based on their actions,
irrespective of their intentions. Only results matter and might is right. Promotion to
rulership is open only to those warriors who excel in meeting their peers’ expectations
while those who fail in their responsibilities are eliminated in the hands of their peers.
Perform or be slain – in today’s management parlance: perform or be fired.
Commentators who consider that power within organisations is a means as well as an
end in itself and that organisational strength is the primary objective of CEOs write in the
shadow of a towering political theorist. Niccolò Machiavelli considered the power of the
State to be the only guarantee of its citizens’ freedom and prosperity in a world where
man was man’s greatest enemy. For the Florentine secretary, State power started with
that of its head; legitimacy of the ruler was none of his concerns: whoever made it to the
top was legitimate. His lessons for managers are transparent enough: build a team,
eliminate poor performers early on, protect those who can help, crush those who stand
in the way, destroy victorious generals before they become too ambitious, go into
battle carefully but always fight to win. While failure will never be forgiven, success
justifies the means (a rich theme; see for example Julius et al., 1999). If Machiavelli is
right, Donaldson’s concerns about institutional theory can be relativised. It would appear
indeed that a CEO’s agenda, even if seemingly selfish, always aligns with that of his
(or her: Machiavelli praised many a female leader for their cunning and determination)
organisation since the power of the former feeds that of the latter. Machiavelli further
held that if Christian values were a hindrance to the leader’s objectives, they were to be
dispensed with altogether. Friedrich Nietzsche pushed this objection to Christian ethics
further: for him, nothing of enduring value will ever come out of the Christian morals,
 The philosopher and the manager 203

which he analysed as being of slavish origins, only suitable for the weak-willed, the meek
and submissive ‘herd’. According to him, ‘higher men’, that is to say strong-willed and
powerful individuals, must be allowed to flourish, for the future of Western culture rests
on their shoulders. This extreme view reverberates in the works of authors who insist that
leaders are born, not made (see for instance, Kirkpatrick and Locke, 1991).
Opposing this line of thinking, writers who promote formal education as basis for
selection and promotion of employees have had the core of their arguments outlined
some 24 centuries ago. Plato argued indeed that rulership is to be granted to those with
superior rational faculties. He differentiated these rulers from their brave, loyal but
intellectually limited auxiliaries destined to execute orders. For Plato, reason cannot lead
to errors and its exercise is the only way to truth. Rulers’ rational skills are to be honed
through education in literature, history, logic, mathematics and rhetoric. To that purpose,
Plato founded in 387 BC what can be considered as the first ever management school,
The Academy, as a place to lecture and study moral and political questions.
Pursuing the rationalist tradition, René Descartes considered that his ability to think
was evidence for his own existence and represented the primary example of those ‘clear
and distinct ideas’ upon which knowledge is to be built. If Descartes is correct,
management is not entirely amenable to empirical study since managers must base their
decisions on what they take to be self-evident truths. In this context, the debates
regarding the origin and possible replication of competitive advantages lose much of their
relevance, for success in management (and in life more generally) would ultimately
spring from the inner world of executives (Kets de Vries, 2009). In an attempt to curtail
the extremes that can flow from the mysticism of revealed insights, other authors have
turned to 20th century philosophy of science. They insist, like Karl Popper did, that
scientificity is refutability (Miller and Tsang, 2010). Propositions, be they management
theories or business strategies, must be, at least in principle, amenable to empirical
falsification or else be dismissed for being mere tautologies. Put differently, theories that
cannot be falsified explain everything but predict nothing; they are of no use to managers
(Moss, 2003). Powell’s indictment that competitive advantage theory commits the sin of
unfalsifiability resonates in this debate.
Authors who consider, conversely, that ideas come exclusively from experience
inscribe themselves in the tradition initiated by the works of John Locke and David
Hume. Refuting the notion of self-evident truths as a dangerous illusion, these
philosophers considered the human mind to be a blank slate at birth. Knowledge is
thus, strictly, empirical knowledge. In this outline, science is to proceed as per an
inductive-deductive model according to which conjectured regularities are tested against
observations to arrive at the formulation of laws. When this approach, prevalent in the
natural sciences, is considered as the alpha and the omega of all intellectual endeavours
and is expanded to social sciences, its consequences are striking. Management is to be
evidence-based, that is, it should start exclusively from facts and incorporate the best
available scientific findings. Management research itself becomes an exercise in
empirical data gathering to arrive at ‘laws of management’. These then allow predictions
of organisational outcomes, paving the way towards greater profits. Yet, if management
is a science, then organisations, their managers, employees, suppliers and customers
behave and must behave according to fixed and immutable patterns, the laws that
management researchers are to discover. No room in this vision for the notions of
freedom, choice, morality and responsibility; employees are reduced to mechanical
actions. Their behaviour is comparable to that of billiard-balls set in motion by the right
204 J-E. Joullié

incentives like sunflowers are irresistibly attracted by the sun. Common sense, at least its
Human Resource Management version, says indeed that employees are to be motivated
and that motivation is “the set of forces that causes people to engage in one behavior
rather than some alternative behaviour” (Griffin and Moorhead, 2012, p.90, emphasis
added). After Ghoshal, one feels justified in wondering whether a management science,
assuming it to be possible, is really desirable.
On a not incompatible note, a substantial component of managerial psychology
assumes that employees behave according to their personalities. This concept is presented
as a natural essence, quality or substratum that determines or at least influences human
behaviour, consciously or unconsciously. Whatever personality is, it must be inferred
from observed or self-reported behaviour (nobody can claim to be able to observe it
directly); yet it is said to be measurable with some degree of validity. This assessment is
of great interest to recruiters and managers generally, since it is meant to lead to
predictions about performance at work. To the extent that measurements of personality
are accessible to the specialist, managers should receive psychological training or
assistance (or better still, be psychologists themselves) before making decisions,
especially with regard to hiring or promoting staff (for an expansion of such views to
psychoanalysis, see for instance, Menzies-Lyth (1990) or Gutmann and Iarussi, 2003).
Similarly, psychiatry’s foundational assumption is that the mind can be affected by
pathologies manifested in abnormal behaviour. Accordingly, staffing decisions and
performance appraisals benefit from psychiatric diagnoses (Godkin and Allcorn, 2009).
Psychology and psychiatry-informed authors are, however, opposed by writers who
consider personal freedom to choose as an axiom of human existence. Recognising
themselves heirs of existentialist thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre or Thomas Szasz,
these authors consider that psychological determinism is a demeaning position absolving
man of his obligations. They reject the concept of personal structuring, be it of a
psychological, psychiatric or other nature (Spillane, 2009, p.244ff). In their view,
employees always retain a degree of self-control and have to accept the responsibility of
their actions, insofar as they could predict their consequences. Managers’ attempts at
maximising their freedom while minimising their responsibility are accordingly analysed
as childish and self-defeating. As adults, managers should welcome the anxiety that
inalienable responsible freedom generates as proving ground of their maturity.
Motivation can only mean manipulation. Management theorists should not be paralysed
at the thought that their theories will never be formally proven. To act, one must be able
to make predictions; in other words, to act, one must have a theory. That this theory
cannot be logically established is no reason for not taking action: not doing anything
would be unreasonable. Although demanding and tough-minded, this body of ideas
remains optimistic and poetic, since it insists that individuals and their ideas are seen as
the seeds of unlimited possibilities (Spillane and Martin, 2005, pp.18–19, 93–95).
Early formulations of this line of thinking can be identified in 19th century
romanticism. Refusing the supremacy and universalism of reason and objectivity
promoted by Enlightenment philosophers, romantic thinkers like Fichte or Schopenhauer
rejected the view that rationality (which they saw as cold) or empirical investigations
(described as petty) should guide human existence. Instead, they extolled the unlimited
power of the human will, which they saw as an indomitable source of energy, shaping the
world and creating values whenever it acts and encounters resistance. For them, reason
has nothing to say on human goals and is only concerned with the calculation of means.
Science has failed since it cannot explain freedom yet freedom is a fact. The romantic
 The philosopher and the manager 205

hero is the creator, the artist, not the scientist. This body of ideas is perceptible in the
works of management academics for which management cannot be a science, not even a
profession (Mintzberg, 1990; Barker, 2010). Management ‘gurus’ like Tom Peters
of Jim Collins agree: they see in management a creative endeavour, a passionate quest
for excellence and greatness and not a rational undertaking, suitable only for
bureaucracies. Managers are to impose their personal vision and values on chaotic
organisations like painters on a blank canvass. Growth and innovation become exercises
in determination; markets opportunities arise not out of detached five-force analyses but
out of resolute overpowering of the resistance of competitors.
There would be considerably more to say on all these matters, calling in the
discussion many other names and ideas. For all that, one must concede that relatively
little has been published explicitly on the general theme pursued here beyond the few
books and articles referenced earlier (other notable exceptions are Chia and Morgan
(1996), Chia (2002), Türengül (2007) or Girin (2011)). A systematic review of the long-
running philosophical issues that surface in management theory is still lacking today.
From one end, it is as if management academics have been reluctant to engage in a
discipline in which presumably they have not been formerly trained. From the other end,
badge-carrying philosophers have developed very little interest in management concerns.
Despites the efforts of a few, the barriers between management and philosophy seem as
high as ever. One obvious exception to these observations is the field of ‘business ethics’,
about which contributions and courses abound, especially so when the expression
includes (as it usually does) ‘corporate social responsibility’, ‘equal opportunity’,
‘employee rights’, ‘consumer protection’ and related matters. Whatever its exact content,
the phrase ‘business ethics’ has the merit of drawing an explicit connection between
management (both as theory and practise) and philosophical concerns, ethics being one of
the traditional areas of philosophical investigations. Providing theoretical grounds to
managerial values is an endeavour that has received substantial attention in the
management literature, with prominent figures like Aristotle, Kant, Bentham or J.S. Mill
routinely called in support. Being older than the ‘philosophy and management’ trend
mentioned at the beginning of this discussion, however, the existence and vitality of this
body of literature owes little, if anything, to that theme, even if some business ethicists
have since sought to locate their contributions under the auspice of philosophy.

4 Studying management, philosophically

To the philosophically-trained eye, management theory looks like a tapestry,

with evidence of intellectual traditions woven together and forming a complex motif.
Great oppositions that mark the history of Western philosophy echo directly or indirectly
in disagreements between management authors. One cannot consistently consider
employees as human resources consciously or unconsciously motivated (in the HRM,
i.e., causal, sense mentioned above) by management techniques or by their psychological
structure yet capable of innovation and moral decisions. This is the freedom vs.
determinism argument, still to be settled. While not providing direct solutions or
recommendations to the closing of the debates broached above, philosophical
investigations into management thought clarify the assumptions underlying these debates.
Genuine innovations in management theory are extremely rare, just as they have been in
Western thought. What many management authors do, knowingly or not, is to isolate one
206 J-E. Joullié

thread and present it as forming either the dominating or most interesting pattern of the
entire fabric.
Philosophy does not so much teach knowledge (which of course it does, since it
teaches philosophical concepts and terms) than understanding. Without understanding
there cannot be knowledge: “what a man does not understand, he does not possess” wrote
Goethe. One really knows a concept or a theory when one understands where it starts and
where it stops, in other words when one is able to argue against it. Be it in management
research, education or practise, genuine understanding consists in recognising one’s own
biases and agendas hidden behind one’s apparent detached objectivity. Without
this critical ability, students, academics and managers alike remain the slaves
of their prejudices and unrecognised contradictions, of the orders they receive from
above or of the bottom line. They are bound to become the robotic executants of a
management framework reduced to a technical perspective. Managerialism looms
large. By uncovering the cornerstones upon which Western thought has been built,
philosophical analyses of management theory are remedies to the ‘miseducation’ that
Livingston diagnosed 40 years ago and that Ghoshal articulated so vividly.
To philosophise is to think critically over thinking. To manage is to direct people,
including oneself, towards the achievement of objectives. These objectives, as well as the
way they are to be met, have to be justified. These justifications are significant not only
for what they lead to, but also for what they assume. While there does not seem to be any
authoritative criterion upon which one could decide which philosophical worldview,
among those that developed over the history of Western thought, is superior, this
dilemma is not a paralysing one. If one is to live, one is to act and if one is to act, one is
to choose. Yet one’s choices are meaningless if one does not understand the assumptions
underpinning them. Management is impossible in the absence of philosophical
references, in the darkness of an imprecise language or in the senseless outline of a world
without intellectual perspective. Managing is an applied philosophical activity.
Philosophers and managers reputedly live on different planets. The former are said to
speculate and to contemplate, the latter to act and decide. The first ones do not know
anything of organisations, even less of business, the second ones have no time for
abstract ideas but are solely interested in obtaining results; most philosophers wrote in
times long past but managers are exclusively interested in the here and now. Even their
languages are supposedly different: while philosophers speak classic Greek or German,
managers communicate in ‘managementese’, this impoverished version of English that
has become the Esperanto of a globalised economy. As this cliché goes, their encounter is
both unlikely and pointless. The foregoing has hopefully dispelled it.

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