Educating the Philosopher-Manager

Abstract

This paper calls for a shift in management education priorities towards cultivating a `negative capability'; that is, a capability which entails an insistent refusal to be seduced by the dominant signifying systems characterizing contemporary modes of thought. The pervasiveness of such regimes of signification are what accounts for the apparent plurality of political ideologies, cultural attitudes and moral/ethical pressures transforming the very character of markets, products, business priorities and processes and the entire outlook of the business environment. They serve to deceive our senses, disorientate priorities, disable critical thought, and restrict vision in all spheres of contemporary life including the crucial practice of managing. It is argued here that without a critical examination of this `signing' of management, without penetrating the veneer of managerial concepts, categories and ideologies, the process of management education will remain impotent, unable to liberate thought, extend vision and legitimize novel expressions of the human imagination. Educating the philosopher-manager entails systematically destructuring the ossified layers of sign-systems which help make our understanding of the contemporary managerial world appear so immediately familiar and necessary. In so doing it creates the necessary conceptual space for new and novel insights to be gleaned from each situation-specific set of managerial circumstances.