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Management Wisdom in Perspective: Are You Virtuous Enough to Succeed in Volatile Times?

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Abstract

This paper addresses the question, how does wisdom contribute to management in circumstances of extreme unpredictability? We first discuss three key factors that fundamentally affect the conduct of business—human, knowledge, and the environment—as well as their characteristics and interactions. We then argue that managing the interaction between these factors to effectively deal with the complexity and unpredictability of a rapidly changing business world requires the appropriate application of wisdom, in particular ethics in the form of practical, moral, and epistemic virtues. We propose that these three virtues are the link between the three factors and more effective decision-making and action taking in an unpredictable business world. A model is developed that conceptualizes the interconnection among the three factors and three virtues. This model has important academic and practical implications. For practice, the model points the way for both individuals and organizations to improve decision-making skills through the systematic expansion of perspectives gained through consideration of the three virtues. For academics, the model is an incremental, but important step in understanding the role of wisdom in management.

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Notes

  1. In psychology, perception and interpretation are two different processes. The former refers to receiving signals from the world through our sensory receptors, while the latter is the process through which the received signals are given meaning and translated into meaningful qualities. In this paper, however, since the main purpose was to just underline the possible incompatibility of reality with what is interpreted in our mind of the same object, the two notions are treated equally in terms of meaning.

  2. A strategic issue is defined as “a forthcoming development, either inside or outside the organization, which is likely to have an important impact on the ability of the enterprise to meet its objectives” (Ansoff 1980, p. 133).

  3. Rooney et al. (2006, p. 390) go further arguing that practical virtue uses imagination, inspiration, emotion, and intuition as a complement to logic and reason and call for the development of esthetics and sensuous knowing. “A wise knowledge society therefore needs to have a sensuous and esthetic side to help it to know better and to enable its members to transcend the limits imposed on the mind by the unavoidable absence of perfect knowledge and perfect rationality”.

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  1. Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Ali Intezari & David J. Pauleen

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  1. Ali Intezari
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Intezari, A., Pauleen, D.J. Management Wisdom in Perspective: Are You Virtuous Enough to Succeed in Volatile Times?. J Bus Ethics 120, 393–404 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1666-6

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