Philosophy of Management and Organisations

Module overview

This module introduces students to philosophical approaches in understanding organisations and their management. The module will consist of three interrelated themes. The first will comprise the attempt to familiarise students with the essential problems at the heart of philosophical debate and expose them to different ways of dealing with them. The second theme will be organised around contemporary schools of thought and thinkers (e.g. logical positivism and Foucault), and founding intellectual fathers of economic thought (e.g. Marx). During these sessions we will be preoccupied with utilising various philosophical lenses in order to make sense of organisational phenomena, gain a better grasp of the intellectual origins of our extant understandings, and critically reflect upon taken-for-granted views about managing. The final theme will concentrate more sharply on organisational settings by studying how advances in organisational theory have afforded important philosophical insights into organisations and (the possibility of) their management.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

the indecisive nature of managerial knowledge;
the existence of multiple dimensions affecting organisational entities (especially ones that typically tend to go undetected in conventional managerial thinking);
the value of transparent thinking in gaining charge of our beliefs and decision making processes;
the immense complexity of organisational worlds;
the salience of using alternative philosophical lenses in evaluating managerial problems and developing balanced and undogmatic understandings.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

use a wide range of intellectual ideas in order to enrich your arguments;
write well-crafted essays and present them in a well-structured manner;
conduct independent bibliographical research.
use a wide range of tools in order to refine your thinking processes and write more compelling arguments;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

explain basic philosophical concepts;
recognise the intellectual foundations of core management theories and practices;
evaluate the appropriateness of different thinking tools for tackling diverse problems.
identify different schools of thought;

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods and learning activities: Lectures will set out the background in familiarising students with topics in intellectual history. The second hour of each session will typically involve the drawing of links between various (typically abstract) approaches with more down-to-earth problems at the heart of contemporary management. Towards the end of each lecture students will be given an assignment for the class of the upcoming week. All assignments will converge in encouraging students to utilise philosophical perspectives and modes of thought in order to address quite concrete problems. Students will often have to take sides on a debate of a well-rehearsed dilemma. All lectures will have suggested reading material, which will typically be a combination of journal papers and book chapters. In addition, there will be visiting lectures (from Dr Gatenby and Dr Wainwright), whereas students will be strongly encouraged to attend related departmental seminars to be delivered by invited academics. Learning activities include: Individual/group assignments In class debate and discussion Private study Use of online material

Study time
Type	Hours
Lecture	24
Follow-up work	12
Wider reading or practice	40
Tutorial	1
Revision	12
Seminar	11
Preparation for scheduled sessions	10
Completion of assessment task	40
Total study time	150

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

Academy of Management Review. Journal

Organization. Journal

Philosophy of Management. Journal

Organization Studies. Journal

Textbooks

Lipton, P. (2004). Inference to the best explanation. Psychology Press.

Pugh, D. S., & Hickson, D. J. (2007). Writers on organisations. Penguin.

Blackburn, S (2001). Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hatch, M. J. (2012). Organization theory: Modern, symbolic and postmodern perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Perrow, C. (1986). Complex organisations: A critical essay. McGraw-Hill.

Heilbroner, R. L. (2011). The worldly philosophers: The lives, times and ideas of the great economic thinkers. Simon and Schuster.

Tsoukas, H. (2005). Complex knowledge. Oxford University Press.

Fleetwood, S., & Ackroyd, S. (Eds.) (2004). Critical realist applications in organisation and management studies. Psychology Press.

Fuller, S. (2012). Knowledge management foundations. Routledge.

Tsoukas, H., & Knudsen, C. (Eds.) (2005). The Oxford handbook of organization theory. Oxford University Press.

Aldrich, H. (1999). Organisations evolving. Sage.

Griseri, P. (2001). Management Knowledge: A critical view. Palgrave.

Okasha, S. (2002). Philosophy of science: A very short introduction. Oxford University Press.

Morgan, G (1997). Images of Organization. Sage.

Alvesson, M., Bridgman, T., & Willmott, H. (Eds.) (2009). The Oxford handbook of critical management studies. Oxford University Press.

Griseri, P. (2013). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Management. Sage.

Assessment

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Set exercises - non-exam

Assessment Type: Formative
Feedback: Feedback through class discussions and weekly exercises. Also all students will be given the opportunity to meet the module leader to discuss choice of essay topic and progress.
Final Assessment: No
Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	100%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External