Aims and Approach

This informal event provides an opportunity for teachers, researchers, consultants and managers to: 

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Share experiences of the issues, challenges and approaches taken in enhancing the contribution of philosophy, philosophising  and philosophers to management education

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Discover how others have worked through issues of common importance

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Review outcome studies completed or in progress

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Contributions

We invite contributions in the form of brief paper presentations, poster presentations, demonstrations and workshops. 

Presentations should be supported with slides and/or handouts and last up to 20 minutes, with an additional 10 minutes allowed for discussion. Posters should be displayed on approximately 4-6 sheets of A3 paper. Workshops and demonstrations should last up to 75 minutes including discussion. 

Publication

If there is sufficient interest, Philosophy of Management will arrange publication of the conference materials in some form. 

Topics to be addressed could include the following: 

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 Who should teach or facilitate the philosophical contributions?

Timetable

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Proposals with abstracts (250 words) - Due by Monday 20 October to

Nigel Laurie

Philosophy of Management             

74a Station Road East

Oxted, Surrey, RH8 0PG, UK

or by email nigel.laurie@managementphilosophers.com

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or by email spearce@glos.ac.uk

¨              Workshop - Thursday 20 November

Seminar Programme 

Workshop Convenors

Edward Kingsley Trezise
University of Gloucestershire, The Business School, Broadlands Villa, The Park
Cheltenham, Glos. GL50 2QF  UK

Email: etrezise@glos.ac.uk
Tel:  + 44 (0) 1242 543258   Fax: + 44 (0) 1242 543327

Nigel Laurie
Editor and Publisher of Philosophy of Management, Management Consultant and Chair of the Society for Philosophy in Practice

74a Station Road East, Oxted, Surrey RH8 0PG    UK

Email: nigel.laurie@managementphilosophers.com
Tel/Fax: +44 (0) 1883 715419

To discuss proposals or any aspect of the workshop please contact one of the above. 

Registration

The seminar/workshop fee is £50, or £25 for full-time students.  This price includes morning tea/coffee, lunch, afternoon tea/coffee and all papers.  

To book your place at the seminar, please complete the booking form below or visit  http://online.glos.ac.uk/pom where the booking form is available to be downloaded. 

Travel/Accommodation

For information on travel to The University of Gloucestershire and overnight accommodation, please visit

http://online.glos.ac.uk/pom

or contact Sue Pearce, Business Development Coordinator at the University of Gloucestershire by telephone on + 44 (0) 1242 544077 or via email spearce@glos.ac.uk

Rationale

Ever since Plato’s Socrates raised the question of how we should manage the state philosophers have touched on issues of management, business and organisation.  Awareness, however, is now growing that philosophy can offer much to the theory and practice of management education.  While the early business schools focused first on finance and later the social sciences, in recent years there have been growing calls for management to be treated as a humanity.

With management theorists and researchers struggling to find a ‘core discipline’ for their field, philosophy offers more promise than many candidates.  Philosophical techniques and approaches can help clarify and evaluate the aims and values of management education.  Concepts commonly treated by philosophers figure increasingly in management debates; power, authority, rights, justice, virtues, citizenship, community, property, value, knowledge, rationality, dialogue, responsibility, passion, and emotion are just some of the most salient.  In addition, managers find some of their own core concepts problematical - such as manager, leader, motivation, communication, system, organisation, measurement, control - and the scope for philosophy to assist here is obvious.   The different philosophical traditions such as analytical philosophy, critical theory, phenomenology and post-modern theory offer a choice of routes to tackling problems managers face.

In addition, philosophical methods offer managers new ways of enhancing personal and team capacities such as reflection, surfacing assumptions, holistic thinking, analysis, critical and creative thinking, decision-making, self-understanding and growth.

Finally philosophers throughout history have produced work that managers can find relevant, accessible and stimulating if contextualised and presented appropriately.

Current Practice

While Peter Senge has remarked, “the quality of our thinking affects everything we do”, philosophy has too often stayed on the margins of management education and practice.  All too often ‘business ethics’ has appeared in a modular ghetto while the management curriculum remains unaffected by the contribution of philosophy - to its design or implementation.  Among many managers in some cultures, reflection and theory are often treated as if they were hostile to effective practice.

It was not always so.  In 1632, the precursor to the University of Amsterdam - the Athenaeum Illustre - was founded to educate students in Trade and Philosophy.  Today, fresh approaches are evident.  One leading business school is under student pressure to raise the profile of corporate responsibility in the curriculum.  At the University of British Columbia the award winning MBA Core programme is staffed by five faculty - including a philosopher, Wayne Norman, alongside experts in accounting, marketing, organisational behaviour, information technology and operations - working together “in the same room, five days a week, for four months”. (http://www.ethics.ubc.ca/people/norman/index.htm). 

Copenhagen Business School has offered a BSc in Business Administration and Philosophy since 1996.  “The philosophical dimension trains students in argumentation, in recognising general contexts, incorporating values, and in understanding our time in a historical perspective - all qualities greatly demanded in the knowledge-based society of the future.”   (http://www.cbs.dk/stud_pro/hafiluk.shtml)

More recently an MSc in Business Administration and Philosophy has been launched at the Copenhagen Business School.  It builds on the skills, concepts and themes taught on the above programme, “specifically:

• the phenomenon of knowledge (truth, validity and applicability)
• the basis for actions in attitudes and values
• the rhetoric dimension of language (management language and aesthetic communication)

In addition, it emphasises the importance of the above dimensions within and in relation to business economics. The dynamics between the economic and philosophical dimension are maintained, and the two perspectives simultaneously integrated.”  (http://www.cbs.dk/stud_pro/cmfiluk.shtml)

At the Free University of Amsterdam an MA in Philosophy of Organisation is in plan, the latest in a series of initiatives bringing philosophical thinking to management through the Prato Centre. (http://www.ph.vu.nl/prato/eng/)

Alongside the journal Philosophy of Management (formerly Reason in Practice) a philosophy of management textbook is now in preparation.  Senior executives at BP have been exposed to philosophical ideas as part of their development.  And outside the academy, philosophical practitioners have for many years employed philosophical methods with their clients, especially in Australia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the United States.

From Philosophy to Management and Back Again

Thursday 20 November 2003

Hosted by The University of Gloucestershire Business School

Booking Form

Please book me the following for the Philosophy of Management seminar:

____ (quantity) Standard Place(s) at £50.00 each

____ (quantity) Full-time Student Place(s) at £25.00 each

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Please now send the booking form, along with your cheque or credit card payment form if applicable, to:

Sue Pearce

Business Development Coordinator

The University of Gloucestershire Business School

Pallas Villa

Park Campus

Cheltenham

Glos. GL50 2QF

Tel: 01242 544077

Fax: 01242 543208

In the event of any query, please contact Sue on the above telephone number or via email at spearce@glos.ac.uk. 

Please note – for security reasons credit card payment forms should be posted or faxed and not sent via email. 

·                     Confirmation of your booking will be sent to you by email.

·                     Once payment has successfully been processed, a receipt will be sent to you in the post.

From Philosophy To Management and Back Again

Thursday 20 November 2003

Hosted by The University of Gloucestershire Business School

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Please return this form by post only (for security reasons) along with your booking form to the following address:

Sue Pearce

University of Gloucestershire Business School

Pallas Villa

The Park

Cheltenham

Glos. GL50 2QF     ENGLAND

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