Wisdom and now managerial
wisdom: do they have a place in
management development
programs?
Michael W. Small
Curtin Business School, Bentley, Australia
Keywords Training, Knowledge management, Management development
Abstract The study of “wisdom” is a subject normally outside the traditional bounds of
management studies. Recent financial scandals and management blunders suggest that the time is
ripe to introduce, via management development programs, an introductory study into the nature
of “wisdom”, and followed by further study into the nature of “managerial wisdom”. Decisions are
being made by people practising management which demonstrate that they do not know how to
exercise good judgement, nor do they demonstrate that they have an understanding of what it
means to be “wise”. This paper looks at the way philosophers have addressed the topic of wisdom
from Greco-Roman times. It includes references to wisdom in history and literature. The paper
summarises some of the ideas and developments of more recent research published in psychology
journals. It is an extension of ideas expressed in an earlier paper published in this journal viz.
“Philosophy in management: a new trend in management development”. Both these papers
suggest that management development studies should include areas of study more akin to the great
classical tradition, where education is aimed at developing the “whole person”. An introductory
study of “philosophy in management”, and “wisdom” in particular, are seen as two ways of
expanding the present offerings in management studies
Introductory comment
What actually is wisdom? What is managerial wisdom? What have these esoteric areas
got to do with the practice of modern management? Subjects which are more action
oriented and pragmatic such as marketing, human resource management and
international management studies seem to be all-important. The idea that people
practising management should think and reflect in the abstract about management
issues seems to be foreign. Philosophers who once were formerly active in the area of
wisdom-related studies are now largely ignored and have withdrawn from it. Little
information on wisdom was found in the management literature. Currently, much of
the research in this area is being undertaken by psychologists such as Baltes and
Kubzmann (2003), Kekes (1983, 1995), Staudinger and Baltes (1996), Staudinger and
Pashupathi (2003) and Sternberg (1990, 2002).
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to try and clarify the meanings of “wisdom
and managerial wisdom” within a contemporary management context. We know that
managing knowledge is concerned with the way knowledge is created or acquired,
encoded, catalogued, indexed, organised, stored or destroyed, and how it is retrieved
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The writer acknowledges the helpful comments made by the reviewers in earlier versions of this
paper.
Wisdom and
now managerial
wisdom
751
Received September 2003
Revised January 2004
Accepted February 2004
Journal of Management Development
Vol. 23 No. 8, 2004
pp. 751-764
q Emerald Group Publishing
Limited
0262-1711
DOI 10.1108/02621710410549602