Problematizing practice: MacIntyre and management

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Date
2013-01-01
Authors
Kavanagh, Donncha
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Sage Publications
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Abstract
Alasdair MacIntyre’s distinction between institutions and practices helps illuminate how powerful institutional forces frame and constrain the practice of organizational research as well as the output and positioning of scholarly journals like Organization. Yet his conceptual frame is limited, not least because it is unclear whether the activity of managing is, or is not, a practice. This article builds on MacIntyre’s ideas by incorporating Aristotle’s concepts of poíēsis, praxis, téchnē and phrónēsis. Rather than ask, following MacIntyre, whether management is a practice, this wider network of concepts provides a richer frame for understanding the nature of managing and the appropriate role for academia. The article outlines a phronetic paradigm for organizational inquiry, and concludes by briefly examining the implications of such a paradigm for research and learning.
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Ethics , Management , Phronesis , Practice , Virtue ethics , Modern virtue ethics , Business school , Organization , Ideas
Citation
Kavanagh, D. (2013) 'Problematizing practice: MacIntyre and management', Organization, 20(1), pp.103-115. http://org.sagepub.com/content/20/1/103.abstract
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© The Author 2012