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The Limits of Rationality: Restoring Reason to Management

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Abstract

Organisations are socially constructed in that their members are socialised in a world of language that enables them to understand, communicate and share. They use language to create patterns that help them make choices and relate their actions to the patterns they create and the choices they make. The world of organisations and their management is, therefore, a matter of language. In this world, rationality plays a fundamental role in legitimising choices together with the actions that express them. This study suggests that the limited expressive resources of a dominant version of rationality limit the world of management in a way that undermines its legitimacy and that it is possible for management to break free from this limited world by learning to think in other languages that express contrasting versions of rationality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of East London, UK

    Kazem Chaharbaghi (Business School’s Director of Research and Development, Head of University’s Interdisciplinary Research and Professor of Management)

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  1. Kazem Chaharbaghi
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Chaharbaghi, K. The Limits of Rationality: Restoring Reason to Management. Philos. of Manag. 6, 65–73 (2008). https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20086321

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/pom20086321

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