Management Learning

Practical wisdom and judgment, rather than seen as ‘things’ hidden inside the mind, are best talked of, we suggest, as emerging developmentally within an unceasing flow of activities, in which practitioners are inextricably immersed. Following a performative line of thinking, we argue that when practitioners (namely, individuals immersed in a practice, experiencing their tasks through the emotions, standards of excellence and moral values the practice engenders or enacts) face a bewildering situation in which they do not know, initially at least, how to proceed, the judgment they exercise emerges out of seeking to establish a new orientation to their puzzling surroundings. They do so through actively trying to be in touch with their felt emotions and moral sensibilities, while attempting to articulate linguistically the feelings experienced in order to get a clearer view of relevant aspects of the situation at hand. Coming to a judgment involves moving around within a landscape of possibilities, and in so doing, being spontaneously responsive to the consequences of each move, and assessing which one (or combination of moves) seems best in resolving the initial tension aroused in one’s initial confusion.

This essay considers the question of whether, and if so, how wisdom may be developed in a business school. It begins with a critical exegesis of a passage from the recent Carnegie report Rethinking Undergraduate Business Education: Liberal Learning for the Profession, unpacking the term ‘practical reasoning,’ situating it within a broader set of philosophical and organizational considerations, and framing it in terms of John Dewey’s conceptualization of wisdom as a habit. An exemplary case drawn from the author’s experience illustrates the challenges associated with the development of wisdom in an undergraduate program at a large business school in the United States. The essay concludes by gesturing toward as possible avenues for future research and pedagogical experimentation.

This article investigates the nature of practical wisdom in organizational life through the notion of mētis, which we interpret as situated resourcefulness. Drawing on Greek mythology, we explore the nature of mētis and discuss its mythological characteristics in relation to a contemporary organizational episode. We suggest that the consideration of mētis not only highlights the shortcomings of measurement and conceptual order in management, but also allows us to project a more processual managerial response which accepts the fallacy of unilateral control and strives towards a harmonic balance of continually unfolding, dynamic and recursive patterns.

An important aim of critical management education is to stand in critique of mainstream educative practice, while engaging in ideas of new possibility and proposals for alternative action. Opportunities for critique can be opened by identifying paradox or the appearance of contradiction in the imperatives underpinning conventional approaches to management and management education. One such contradiction is the “sustainability paradox”: our dominant approaches to wealth creation degrades both the ecological systems and the social relationships upon which their very survival depends. In this article, we offer, from within a critical management education frame, an alternative vision of management education as a progressive educative practice: one that embraces our embeddedness in the natural world and our social relation to one another. We conclude with ideas for redirecting the contextual, organizational, curricular, and pedagogical dimensions of management education toward such a vision.

Using a sample of 70 global pharmaceutical firms, this study examined how cross-national knowledge affected the creation of exploitative (incremental) and explorative (breakthrough) types of technological innovations both of which are necessary for organizational ambidexterity. We found that there were significant differences for effectively using cross-national knowledge, which reinforces the need for organizational ambidexterity. The data used to study cross-national knowledge consisted of patent analyses of commercialized products, which is a step further than most studies that stop at just the patents themselves. Through the use of double-log regression analysis, the results suggested a notable conclusion: while the sourcing of intrafirm, cross-national knowledge enhanced explorative or breakthrough innovation, it did not enhance the development of exploitative or incremental innovation. The article concludes with managerial implications for managing ambidexterity.

Previous studies on absorptive capacity focus either upon dyadic interorganizational constellations or upon an organization’s environment in general, thus neglecting other managerially relevant interorganizational constellations. Furthermore, despite significant advancements in our understanding, we still know little about the way absorptive capacity actually unfolds on an organizational level, as many studies predominantly take absorptive capacity as a quantitatively measurable phenomenon. We address these two shortcomings by following recent calls for a practice perspective on absorptive capacity. In particular, we reveal the choreography of knowledge absorption practices in an interorganizational network. Based on an empirical study in the semiconductor industry, we put forward the thesis that this can be achieved by congregating, that is, repeatedly exchanging face-to-face ideas at network-wide venues such as conferences or workshops. We illustrate how a lead firm in this industry carefully choreographs congregating, which helps the organization acquire knowledge from network partners and utilize the knowledge internally. Herein, we contribute a practice perspective on how to influence organizational absorptive capacity when engaging with an interorganizational network as a distinctive organizational form. A practice lens also entails being sensitive to the political dimension of absorptive capacity. Moreover, choreographies of bundles of absorptive capacity-relevant practices represent a concept to inform future research.