Since 2009 The Academy of Business in Society and Yale University\, supported by the European \;Foundation for Management Development (EFMD)\, are organizing a series of conferences on Practical \;Wisdom for Management from the World&rsquo\;s Spiritual and Philosophical Traditions\, addressing the \;central question: How can we bring back the value of wisdom in management and management \;education? \;These conferences are designed to bring together philosophers\, theologians\, economists\, \;management scholars\, business leaders and policy makers to engage in reflection and dialogue to \;find new grounding for management education and management practice. \;The Practical Wisdom initiative looks at the spiritually and philosophically inspired practical virtues \;inherent in managerial decision-making\, which lead to wise decisions in strategic management\, \;leadership\, human resource management\, etc. \;This approach takes into account the consequences of globalization and the belief that a global \;market economy needs an ethical framing and a moral compass to be viable\, sustainable and \;equitable.
\nIt is precisely practical wisdom as derived from the world&rsquo\;s spiritual and philosophical traditions\, \;which serves as a platform for discovering the common ground between diverse traditions\, making \;traditions speak to each other in a global society and a global economy. \;This initiative seeks to create a bridge between the world of management and the spiritual and \;philosophical traditions on a basis of mutual appreciation instead of mutual suspicion.
Practical Wisdom rooted in religious and spiritual traditions plays an important role in the context of \;modern society. In many ways\, traditions of practical wisdom still serve as a palimpsest of \;contemporary cultures. Veiled but nevertheless influential\, they inspire education and civic culture\, \;framing decisions in social and economic organizations that are reluctant or even hostile against \;explicit religion. \;In the context of the globalized markets of the 21st century\, the social importance of practical \;wisdom may even increase. As legal institutions based on national legislatures no longer expand their \;regulatory power\, the orientating force of overarching notions of practical wisdom may enable \;cooperation even in contexts where no common legal rules are available. This holds especially true for \;business life\, in which common sense and professional ethics have always played an important role. \;Religious notions of practical wisdom\, however\, are still an academically underexplored area. Modern \;philosophers and ethicists have tried to elaborate normative constructs\, which should serve as a \;rational substitute in a post-religious era. However\, as the artificial language &lsquo\;Esperanto&rsquo\; could never \;displace the real historic languages of people\, even modern normative concepts like the ones \;proposed in recent years will never displace the orientating forces that religion and spiritual concepts \;embody. Bringing these concepts to light again and illustrating them in their regulating influence on \;business practices in certain cultural and historic contexts is an important challenge for contemporary \;academic research.
Japanese spiritual and philosophical traditions for management is widely admitted ranging from &ldquo\;Shu-ha-ri&rdquo\; (three stages of learning mastery): the fundamentals\, breaking with tradition\, parting with \;traditional wisdom to three way satisfactory business to seller\, buyer and society. \;The high economic \;development after the Second World War elucidated the strength of Japanese management way in the \;form of life-time employment commitment and workplace productivity improvement and knowledge \;creation. The applied practices include joint consultation system in the constructive industrial \;relations and &ldquo\;Kaizen&rdquo\; activities like 5S and small group activity in quality control circle. However\, a lot \;of implicit knowledge is not converted into explicit in high context working environment of Japanese \;businesses. There are a lot of needs in Japanese spiritual and philosophical traditions for \;management to be shared with international experts. \;
In this conference we will welcome contributions exploring the practical wisdom of management \;developed in all different Japanese spiritual and philosophical traditions\, including: Confucianism\, \;Shintoism\, Zen Buddhism\, Nichiren Buddhism\, Soka Gakkai\, etc.
\nProposal submissions and deadline
We invite interested scholars and practitioners to submit a one page proposal outlining their proposed \;topic\, the nature and purpose of their contribution\, the methodological design or approach adopted\, \;some relevant findings showing the originality of the contribution. \;The deadline is March\, 1st. 2013. \;Please submit your proposals by email to Cristian Loza Adaui (email: \;cristian.loza@eabis.org).
Proposals will be reviewed and the authors informed of acceptance by the end of March 2013.
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