Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

How To Be a ‘Wise’ Researcher: Learning from the Aristotelian Approach to Practical Wisdom

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Journal of Business Ethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

How can you act ethically in a publication system that attempts to regulate research activity in a way that you might find, in many respects, to be unethical? In this article, we address this question by drawing on the Aristotelian perspective of practical wisdom. Drawing on thirty semi-structured interviews with academics working in French business schools, we outline different means through which they act ‘wisely’ by deliberating and focusing on what is within their power and in line with their best judgment. In particular, we show how some of them succeed in performing virtuous actions both within the publication system and beyond.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Alvesson, M., & Spicer, A. (2016). (Un)conditional surrender? Why do professionals willingly comply with managerialism? Journal of Organizational Change Management, 29(1), 29–45.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alvesson, M., Gabriel, Y., & Paulsen, R. (2017). Return to meaning: a social science with something to say. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, G. (2008). Mapping academic resistance in the managerial university. Organization, 15(2), 251–270.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, M. (2003). Structure, agency and the internal conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Archer, L. (2008). The new neoliberal subjects? Young/er academics’ constructions of professional identity. Journal of Education Policy, 23(3), 265–285.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aristotle. (2002). Nicomachean ethics (J. Sachs, Trans.). Indianapolis, IL: Focus Philosophical Library, Pullins Press.

  • Aslan, A. (2017). [Review] Mats Alvesson, Yiannis Gabriel, Roland Paulsen (2017) Return to meaning: A social science with something to say. Management Learning, 49(4), 507–509.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bachmann, C., Habish, A., & Dierksmeir, C. (2018). Practical wisdom: Management’s no longer forgotten virtue. Journal of Business Ethics, 153, 147–165.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bal, P. M., & Doci, E. (2018). Neoliberal ideology in work and organizational psychology. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(5), 536–548.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bardon, T., Brown, A. D., & Pezé, S. (2017). Identity regulation, identity work and phronesis. Human Relations, 70(8), 940–965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beabout, J. (2012). Management as a domain-relative practice that requires and develops practical wisdom. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(2), 405–432.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blondel, M. (1893). Action: Essay on a critique of life and a science of practice. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boje, D. M. (2001). Narrative methods for organizational and communication research. London, UK: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boyce, M. E. (1995). Collective centring and collective sense-making in the stories and storytelling of one organization. Organization Studies, 16, 107–137.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, N., Delaney, H., & Spoelstra, S. (2018). Risky business: Reflections on critical performativity in practice. Organization, 25(3), 428–445.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, N., & Spoelstra, S. (2012). Your excellency. Organization, 19(6), 891–903.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, N., & Spoelstra, S. (2014). The regime of excellence and the erosion of ethos in critical management studies. British Journal of Management, 25(3), 538–550.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callet, D., Gattet, P., & Dessimond, A. (2018). Les business schools en France. Etude Xerfi.

  • Cammack, D. (2013). Aristotle's denial of deliberation about ends. Polis, 30(2), 228–250.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, C. A., & Knights, D. (2015). Careering through academia: Securing identities or engaging ethical subjectivities? Human Relations, 68(12), 1865–1888.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, C. A., Knights, D., & Jarvis, C. (2012). A labour of love? Academics in business schools. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 28(3), 5–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davies, B., & Peterson, E. B. (2005). Intellectual workers (un)doing neoliberal discourse. Critical Psychology, 13, 32–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubois, S., & Walsh, I. (2017). The globalization of research highlighted through the research networks of management education institutions: The case of French business schools. Management, 20(5), 435–462.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dunne, S., Harney, S., & Parker, M. (2008). Speaking out: The responsibilities of management intellectuals: A survey. Organization, 15(2), 271–282.

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, M. A., & Roy, S. (2017). Academic research in the 21st century: Maintaining scientific integrity in a climate of perverse incentives and hypercompetition. Environmental Engineering Science, 34(1), 51–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, P. (2005). Metaphors of resistance. Management Communication Quarterly, 19(1), 45–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frémeaux, S., & Michelson, G. (2017). The common good of the firm and humanistic management: Conscious capitalism and economy of communion. Journal of Business Ethics, 145(4), 701–709.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gadamer, H.-G. (2004/1975). Truth and method, 2nd ed. London: Continuum.

  • Hartman, E. M. (2013). Virtue in business. Conversations with Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holt, R. (2006). Principals and practice: Rhetoric and the moral character of managers. Human Relations, 59(12), 1659–1680.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeanes, E. (2017). Are we ethical? Approaches to ethics in management and organization research. Organization, 24(2), 174–197.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kolnai, A. (2001). Deliberation is of ends. In Millgram, E. (Ed.), Varieties of practical reasoning. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Küpers, W. M., & Pauleen, D. J. (2013). A handbook of practical wisdom. Leadership organization and integral business practice. Surrey: Gower Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Locke, R. R., & Spender, J. C. (2011). Confronting managerialism: How the business elite and their schools threw our lives out of balance. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mitroff, I. I. (2004). An open letter to the deans and faculties of American business schools. Journal of Business Ethics, 54(2), 185–189.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murillo, D., & Vallentin, S. (2016). The business school’s right to operate: Responsibilization and resistance. Journal of Business Ethics, 136(4), 743–757.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nonaka, I., Chia, R., Holt, R., & Peltokorpi, V. (2014). Wisdom, management and organization. Management Learning, 45(4), 365–376.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pearce, J. L., & Huang, L. (2012). The decreasing value of our research to management education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 11(2), 247–262.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhodes, C., & Brown, A. D. (2005). Narrative, organizations and research. International Journal of Management Reviews, 7(3), 167–188.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ricoeur, P. (1992). Oneself as another. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, J. (2005). The power of the imaginary in disciplinary processes. Organization, 12(5), 619–642.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, S., Ratle, O., & Bristow, A. (2017). Labour pains: Starting a career within the neoliberal university. Ephemera Theory & Politics in Organization, 17(3), 481–508.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shotter, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2014). In search of phronesis: Leadership and the art of judgment. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 13(2), 224–243.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sigurjonsson, T., Arnardottir, A., Vaiman, V., & Rikhardsson, P. (2015). Managers’ views on ethics education in business schools: An empirical study. Journal of Business Ethics, 130(1), 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sigurjonsson, T., Vaiman, V., & Arnardottir, A. (2014). The role of business schools in ethics education in Iceland: The managers’ perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 122(1), 25–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sison, A. J., & Ferrero, I. (2015). How different is neo-Aristotelian virtue from positive organizational virtuousness? Business Ethics: A European Review, 24(S2), S78–S98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sison, A. J., & Fontrodona, J. (2012). The common good of the firm in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(2), 211–246.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sison, A. J., & Fontrodona, J. (2013). Participating in the common good of the firm. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(4), 611–625.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sison, A. J., Hartman, E. M., & Fontrodona, J. (2012). Reviving tradition: Virtue and the common good in business and management. Business Ethics Quarterly, 22(2), 207–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tourish, D. (2018). Book Review: Mats Alvesson, Yiannis Gabriel and Roland Paulsen return to meaning: A social science with something to say. Organization Studies, 39(4), 585–588.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tourish, D., & Willmott, H. (2015). In defiance of folly: Journal rankings, mindless measures and the ABS Guide. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 26(1), 37–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vidaillet, B., Chemin-Bouzir, C., & Vignon, C. (2018). Les nouveaux risques du métier: protéger les jeunes enseignants-chercheurs en gestion. Le Libellio, 14(4), 67–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willmott, H. (1995). Managing the academics: Commodification and control of university education in the UK. Human Relations, 48(9), 993–1028.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willmott, H. (2011). Journal list fetishism and the perversion of scholarship: Reactivity and the ABS list. Organization, 18(4), 429–442.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We wish to convey our thanks and appreciation to Dr Alejo Jose G. Sison, -Editor of the section ‘Philosophy and Business Ethics’ -for his editorial direction, and to the three anonymous reviewers for their generous and thoughtful comments.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management, Audencia Business School, 8 Route de la Jonelière, Nantes, France

    Sandrine Frémeaux

  2. Department of Management, Audencia Business School, Nantes, France

    Thibaut Bardon & Clara Letierce

Authors
  1. Sandrine Frémeaux
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Thibaut Bardon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Clara Letierce
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sandrine Frémeaux.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest and no financial support for the authorship of this article.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Frémeaux, S., Bardon, T. & Letierce, C. How To Be a ‘Wise’ Researcher: Learning from the Aristotelian Approach to Practical Wisdom. J Bus Ethics 171, 667–681 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04434-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-020-04434-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation