A series of Socratic dialogues about management and leadership with some of the most thought-provoking global scholars

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MAPPING OUR INQUIRY PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS
POLITICAL ECONOMICS MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATION
LEADERSHIP, TRANSFORMATION AND EDUCATION
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MAPPING OUR INQUIRY

A Pilgrimage of Learning

Our Leaders for Humanity interview series is an intrinsic part of our wider "Good Organisations Inquiry" initiative. It aims at understanding how to create organisations appropriate to enabling our highest human potential for the good of all. Our premise is that in order to achieve such a lofty goal, we must carefully ground the practical work of organising in a thorough understanding of ethics and politics.

In other words, we must be clear about the ethical foundation that allows us to qualify whether a human life, and the productive activities within it, can be called "good"; then seek to establish principles and practices that allow us to apply and scale such a necessary groundwork to collective social institutions, and finally explore how this would practically impact the way we set up, manage and govern organisations.

Of course, this is a highly complex challenge. It involved both normative aspects - about how things should be - and descriptive investigations - about how things empirically are. Already Aristotle was very clear in his politics that we can theorise about the most perfect political systems, but like castles in the air they will never materialise if we ignore the actual practice and preferences of the populace. It also concerns different levels of analysis: we start from individual ethics, move to politics, then explore organisations within a political and economical system, and finally go back to individuals and communities or teams inside organisations. This implies a trans-disciplinary integration of theories, across social and individual psychology, sociology, management science, to name just a few. 

Any such synthesis will also require a profound understanding of philosophy of science and the underlying social ontology. As Margaret Archer points out, a social ontology has a strong regulatory function in the critical selection of explicatory methodologies and concepts. Without such a grounding, the risk is an unholy patchwork of incommensurable approaches, which haunts much of popular works in the field of "new work" and "new management".


Inquiry Roadmap

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Philosophical and political perspective

Introduction

Part 1: Ethics

Introduction

w

ssed on so far, and why?


Click on the symbols next to each core concept to travel to the relevant interviews.


pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful (relatedly: if a philosophical theory does not contribute directly to social progress then it is not worth much), that experience consists in transacting with rather than representing nature, that articulate language rests on a deep bed of shared human practices that can never be fully ‘made explicit’.

stakeholder theory

The stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that accounts for multiple constituencies impacted by business entities like employees, suppliers, local communities, creditors, and others. It addresses morals and values in managing an organization, such as those related to corporate social responsibility, market economy, and social contract theory. The stakeholder view of strategy integrates a resource-based view and a market-based view, and adds a socio-political level. One common version of stakeholder theory seeks to define the specific stakeholders of a company (the normative theory of stakeholder identification) and then examine the conditions under which managers treat these parties as stakeholders.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being.
Meaning of Life / Meaningful Work
Despite growing interest in meaning in life, many have voiced their concern over the conceptual refinement of the construct itself. Researchers seem to have two main ways to understand what meaning in life means: coherence and purpose, with a third way, significance, gaining increasing attention. Coherence means a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense. Purpose means a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life. Significance is about a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living.

Part 2: Politics

Our Key Questions

When it comes to the domain of philosophy and politics, our key questions fall into a number of areas:

a) Comparative Onto-Epistemology

b) Ethics

c) Politics


Onto-EpistemologyEthicsPolitics
What is a meaningful life? What is meaningful work?What is Stakeholder Theory? How does it help business to contribute to a better society, and what role do managers play in achieving this goal?Why do some businesses struggle to act responsibly, and what steps can be taken to remove internal practices that hinder responsible behavior?
How does Pragmatism undergird business ethics, and where are its limitations?
What is the history of pragmatism? What are its ontological and ethical limitations?

Core Concepts with Link to Relevant Interviews

Click on the symbols next to each core concept to travel to the relevant interviews.


pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful (relatedly: if a philosophical theory does not contribute directly to social progress then it is not worth much), that experience consists in transacting with rather than representing nature, that articulate language rests on a deep bed of shared human practices that can never be fully ‘made explicit’.

stakeholder theory

The stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that accounts for multiple constituencies impacted by business entities like employees, suppliers, local communities, creditors, and others. It addresses morals and values in managing an organization, such as those related to corporate social responsibility, market economy, and social contract theory. The stakeholder view of strategy integrates a resource-based view and a market-based view, and adds a socio-political level. One common version of stakeholder theory seeks to define the specific stakeholders of a company (the normative theory of stakeholder identification) and then examine the conditions under which managers treat these parties as stakeholders.

Self-Determination Theory (SDT)
Self-determination theory (SDT) maintains that an understanding of human motivation requires a consideration of innate psychological needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. We discuss the SDT concept of needs as it relates to previous need theories, emphasizing that needs specify the necessary conditions for psychological growth, integrity, and well-being.
Meaning of Life / Meaningful Work
Despite growing interest in meaning in life, many have voiced their concern over the conceptual refinement of the construct itself. Researchers seem to have two main ways to understand what meaning in life means: coherence and purpose, with a third way, significance, gaining increasing attention. Coherence means a sense of comprehensibility and one’s life making sense. Purpose means a sense of core goals, aims, and direction in life. Significance is about a sense of life’s inherent value and having a life worth living.

Deep Dives and Links to relevant Interviews

Virtue Ethics and its comparison to other moral systems

(Interview with Alejo Sison)
Go to interview

Pragmatism and Business Ethics

(Interview with Ed Freeman)
Go to interview

The linkage between reality (ontology), morality (ethics) and the meaning of life

(Interview with Frank Martela)

Go to interview

Results

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Personal Development and Education PERSPECTIVE

Our Key Questions

When it comes to the domain of philosophy and politics, our key questions fall into a number of areas:

a) Comparative Onto-Epistemology

b) Ethics

c) Politics


Onto-EpistemologyEthicsPolitics
How can we develop responsible leadership?



Core Concepts with Link to Relevant Interviews

Click on the symbols next to each core concept to travel to the relevant interviews.


pragmatism

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful (relatedly: if a philosophical theory does not contribute directly to social progress then it is not worth much), that experience consists in transacting with rather than representing nature, that articulate language rests on a deep bed of shared human practices that can never be fully ‘made explicit’.

stakeholder theory

The stakeholder theory is a theory of organizational management and business ethics that accounts for multiple constituencies impacted by business entities like employees, suppliers, local communities, creditors, and others. It addresses morals and values in managing an organization, such as those related to corporate social responsibility, market economy, and social contract theory. The stakeholder view of strategy integrates a resource-based view and a market-based view, and adds a socio-political level. One common version of stakeholder theory seeks to define the specific stakeholders of a company (the normative theory of stakeholder identification) and then examine the conditions under which managers treat these parties as stakeholders.

Deep Dives and Link to Relevant Interviews

Responsible Leadership

Find answers to your questions in the deep dive of our interview with Ed Freeman.
Go to interview
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