1. Researching practical business wisdom Dr Paul S. Gibson Graduate School of Business RMIT University

2. What I intend to cover today:  why I became interested in practical business wisdom  my definition of practical business wisdom  my model of the interacting factors that enable the development of practical business wisdom (based upon a review of the literature)  some of the implications of my model for business education and for business research

3.  Why I became interested in the idea of practical business wisdom

4. concerns that have recently been raised about business education  “The complications and confusions of management require an education that emphasizes synthesis, not separation” Gosling, J. and Mintzberg, H. 2003, “The Five Minds of a Manager”, Harvard Business Review, November 2003, pp 54 - 63.  “When applied to business – essentially a human activity in which judgments are made with messy, incomplete, and incoherent data – statistical and methodological wizardry can blind rather than illuminate” Bennis, W. G. and O’Toole, J. 2005, “How Business Schools Lost Their Way”, Harvard Business Review, May 2005, pp 96 – 104.  True executive abilities are matters of “feeling, judgment, sense, proportion, balance, appropriateness” Barnard, C. 1938, The Functions of the Executive, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Mass.

5. What is practical wisdom?  Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics 1. episteme – science 2. techne - craft 3. phronesis - practical wisdom

6. Practical wisdom defined  Effective, character-based action that results from applying general knowledge and experience to particular situations, taking into account what is for the best in the long term, rather than merely expedient.

7. What is wisdom, in a general sense?  “wisdom is not simply knowing how to steer one’s way through life’s difficulties... it is also knowing the deepest story, being able to see and appreciate the deepest significance of whatever occurs … knowing and understanding not merely the proximate goods but the ultimate ones, and seeing the world in this light” Nozick, R. 1989, The Examined Life, Touchstone, New York (p.276)

8. practical business wisdom defined  A combination of perception, deliberation, and judgment - that is based upon character and experience - that informs and enables a responsive understanding of contextual particulars, leading to the effective application of general business and organizational principles, within the context of a clear idea of what is good for the business.

9. Can a model of the factors that enable practical business wisdom be built from the literature?  Duggan, W. 2003, The Art of What Works, McGraw-Hill, New York.  Baron, R. 2006, “Opportunity Recognition as Pattern Recognition”, Academy of Management Perspectives, February, pp. 104 – 119.

10.  Halverson, R. 2004, “Accessing, Documenting, and Communicating Practical Wisdom: the Phronesis of School Leadership Practice” American Journal of Education, pp 90 – 120.  Hannabuss, S. 2000, “Telling tales at work: narrative insight into managers’ actions”, Library Review, Vol. 49, Number 5, pp. 218 – 229.  Rae, D. and Carswell, M. 2000, “Using a life-story approach in researching entrepreneurial learning: the development of a conceptual model and its implications in the design of learning experiences” Education + Training, Vol. 42, Number 4/5, pp 220 – 227.

11.  Schumpeter, J. 1947, “The creative response in economic history”, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 7, No.2

12.  Schwarze, S. 1999, “Performing Phronesis: the case of Isocrates’ Helen” Philosophy and Rhetoric, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. Vol. 32, No. 1, 1999, pp. 79 – 96.

13. Michael O’Leary  “We bow down to nobody. We’ll stuff every one of them in Europe, we won’t be second or third and saying: ‘didn’t we do well’?”  “I don’t give a shite if nobody likes me. I’m not a cloud bunny. I am not an aerosexual. I don’t like aeroplanes. I never wanted to be a pilot like those other platoons of goons who populate the air industry.”  “Sell your car and walk.”

14. Modeling the interplay between experience, character, and perception, as conjoint enablers of practical wisdom. Action and reflection that can lead to Cognitive schemas that, together with Cultivation of an appropriate character, enables Insightful perception as a basis for Deliberation and judgment within the context of Vision

15. Linking character, emotion, and judgment  Frederickson, B. 2003, “The value of positive emotions” American Scientist, Volume 91, pp330- 335.  Mower  Atomic  Foreign  ?

16. Linking character, emotion, and judgment  Antonio Dimasio, the Van Allen Distinguished Professor and head of the department of neurology at the University of Iowa Medical Center and an adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

17. The research challenge  How can we arrive at phronetic knowledge about business?  How can we learn more about phronesis as a capacity?  How can we become more successful in developing phronesis amongst business students?

18. a research issue  A positivist, academic approach to business research would have epistemic knowledge as its goal and consequently should employ methods aimed at producing objectivity and prediction.  A pragmatic, practitioner/academic’s approach to business research would have phronetic knowledge as its goal and consequently should employ methods aimed at producing insight and relevance.

19. epistemic knowledge and phronetic knowledge compared 1. Truth 2. Objectivity 3. Repeatability 4. Generalisation 5. Prediction 1. Insight 2. Meaning 3. Relevance 4. Particulars 5. Application

20. Narrative can revealingly display phronesis  Narrative is the best means of revealing wise judgment and action in a form that we can learn from, because narrative is able to display the character-based application of general principles based upon responsive insights into contextual particulars, over time.

21. Narrative knowing  The revealing capacity of narrative arises from its inherently temporal, causal, and meaningful nature (Richardson, 2000; Ricoeur, 1984; Polkinghorne, 1988).  Practitioners tell the stories of failures and successes in a search for meaningful lessons.

22. How should we evaluate phronetic narratives as research outcomes? Action and reflection that can lead to Cognitive schemas that, together with Cultivation of an appropriate character, enables Insightful perception as a basis for Deliberation and judgment within the context of Vision

23. How should we evaluate phronetic narratives as research outcomes? 1. Phronetic narratives should possess sufficient fidelity and verisimilitude to be plausible and illuminative for other practitioners and for business researchers. Accepting that evaluative criteria requires a shift in our usual epistemological aim – a shift from aiming at objective, semi-scientific Truth, to aiming at hermeneutic, dialogic truth.

24. How should we evaluate phronetic narratives as research outcomes? 2. They should reveal the kind of reflection- in-action and the kind of reflection upon experience that distinguishes the person who develops phronesis from those who have had the same extent of experience but who have learnt far less. 3. They should reveal the kind of realizations about self and others, business and organizations, that have led to the development of effective personal theories of business.

25. How should we evaluate phronetic narratives as research outcomes? 4. They should display the ways in which particular practitioners have cultivated the development of business virtues as central to their character. 5. They should display enabling connections between the character of the leader- manager and that person’s keen perception as the creator/author of a business or of an organizational process.

26. How should we evaluate phronetic narratives as research outcomes? 6. They should display the kind of deliberation and judgment that informs and enables the wise application of general business principles based upon responsive understandings of contextual particulars that occurs over time 7. They should display enabling connections between the business leader’s larger vision and his or her particular decisions and actions.