IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/humman/v5y2020i2d10.1007_s41463-020-00097-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Value of Doubt: Humanities-Based Literacy in Management Education

Author

Listed:
  • Ulrike Landfester

    (University of St.Gallen)

  • Jörg Metelmann

    (University of St.Gallen)

Abstract

Our paper addresses the question of what exactly the contribution of the humanities to management education could or should be, suggesting the concept of Literacy as both this contribution’s goal and method. Though there seems to emerge a consensus in the debate about the future of management education that the humanities should be involved with shaping it, some misconceptions about the humanities obscure the understanding of the why and how of it, most notably as to the manner in which they are to provide for ethical values. Our paper in a first step endeavours to clear those misconceptions up drawing on some historical aspects of their development. It then proceeds to introducing the concept of Literacy and, based on it, the teaching framework of Critical Management Literacy (CML) we designed to operationalize the concept towards management students` needs. Our leading hypothesis is that the contribution of the humanities should focus on the cultivation of the capacity for epistemological doubt in order to prepare students for the complexity and indeterminacy of reality, thus at the same time laying the groundwork for ethical reflectivity.

Suggested Citation

  • Ulrike Landfester & Jörg Metelmann, 2020. "The Value of Doubt: Humanities-Based Literacy in Management Education," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 159-175, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:humman:v:5:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s41463-020-00097-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s41463-020-00097-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41463-020-00097-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s41463-020-00097-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guillet de Monthoux, Pierre, 2015. "Art, Philosophy, and Business: turns to speculative realism in European management scholarship," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 161-167.
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11385 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Martha S. Feldman & Wanda J. Orlikowski, 2011. "Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(5), pages 1240-1253, October.
    4. Rakesh Khurana, 2007. "Introduction to From Higher Aims to Hired Hands The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession," Introductory Chapters, in: From Higher Aims to Hired Hands The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession, Princeton University Press.
    5. Michael Pirson, 2020. "A Humanistic Narrative for Responsible Management Learning: An Ontological Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 775-793, April.
    6. Joan L. Atlas, 2013. "The Need to Read," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Gordon M. Hardy & Daniel L. Everett (ed.), Shaping the Future of Business Education, chapter 10, pages 135-141, Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. John Hendry, 2006. "Management Education and the Humanities: The Challenge of Post-Bureaucracy," Chapters, in: Pasquale Gagliardi & Barbara Czarniawska (ed.), Management Education and Humanities, chapter 4, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. McCloskey, Donald N, 1983. "The Rhetoric of Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 21(2), pages 481-517, June.
    9. Eric Litton & Jim Wacker, 2020. "Paired Courses: Using Liberal Arts to Improve Business Education," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 231-249, December.
    10. L. Lovins, 2016. "Needed: A Better Story," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 75-90, September.
    11. Romain Laufer & Armand Hatchuel & Albert David, 2013. "New foundations of management research : elements of epistemology for the management sciences," Post-Print hal-01635086, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anne M. Greenhalgh & Douglas E. Allen & Jeffrey Nesteruk, 2020. "Preface to the Special Issue: Bringing the Humanities and Liberal Learning to the Study of Business," Humanistic Management Journal, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 153-158, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Pirson, 2020. "A Humanistic Narrative for Responsible Management Learning: An Ontological Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 162(4), pages 775-793, April.
    2. Wilfred Dolfsma, 2001. "Economists as subjects: Toward a psychology of economists," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 77-88, March.
    3. J. Kornai., 2002. "The System Paradigm," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, vol. 4.
    4. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    5. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2003. "Pluralism in Economics: A Public Good or a Public Bad?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 03-034/1, Tinbergen Institute, revised 18 May 2004.
    6. Luzar, E. Jane, 1990. "Environmental Hazards Of Farming: Thinking About The Management Challenge: Discussion," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-3, July.
    7. Palo, Teea & Åkesson, Maria & Löfberg, Nina, 2019. "Servitization as business model contestation: A practice approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 486-496.
    8. Giorgia Miotto & Marc Polo López & Josep Rom Rodríguez, 2019. "Gender Equality and UN Sustainable Development Goals: Priorities and Correlations in the Top Business Schools’ Communication and Legitimation Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-18, January.
    9. De Geest, Gerrit, 1996. "The debate on the scientific status of law & economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 999-1006, April.
    10. John H. Cochrane, 2017. "Macro-Finance," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 945-985.
    11. Phillips, Paul & Moutinho, Luiz, 2014. "Critical review of strategic planning research in hospitality and tourism," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 96-120.
    12. Sujai Shivakumar, 2003. "The Place of Indigenous Institutions in Constitutional Order," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 3-21, March.
    13. Claus Dierksmeier, 2020. "From Jensen to Jensen: Mechanistic Management Education or Humanistic Management Learning?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 73-87, September.
    14. Barton, Jared & Pan, Xiaofei, 2022. "Movin’ on up? A survey experiment on mobility enhancing policies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    15. Gazi Islam, 2012. "Recognition, Reification, and Practices of Forgetting: Ethical Implications of Human Resource Management," Post-Print hal-01232667, HAL.
    16. Weichselbaumer, Doris & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2003. "Rhetoric in Economic Research: The Case of Gender Wage Differentials," Economics Series 144, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    17. repec:hal:journl:halshs-00699985 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. David Gindis, 0. "On the origins, meaning and influence of Jensen and Meckling’s definition of the firm," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 966-984.
    19. Jose Luis Retolaza & Leire San-Jose, 2021. "Understanding Social Accounting Based on Evidence," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, April.
    20. Rebecca Adler-Nissen, 2016. "Towards a Practice Turn in EU Studies: The Everyday of European Integration," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 87-103, January.
    21. Angela Sutan & Radu Vranceanu, 2019. "Managerial Behavior in the Lab: Information Disclosure, Decision Process and Leadership Style," Working Papers hal-02291210, HAL.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:humman:v:5:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s41463-020-00097-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.