Business Education: Filling the Gaps in the Leader’s Awareness Concerning Organizational Phronesis

Raysa Rocha and Paulo Pinheiro
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Raysa Rocha: Research Center in Business Sciences (NECE), University of Beira Interior (UBI), 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal
Paulo Pinheiro: Research Center in Business Sciences (NECE), University of Beira Interior (UBI), 6201-001 Covilhã, Portugal

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Education is a method of sharing social consciousness and social reconstruction. There is an existential crisis in business education driven by the conflict between social and financial objectives. A paradigm shift in business education requires that leaders be taught how to incorporate new competencies. Phronesis (practical wisdom), individual and collective, is an essential competence to be addressed in business education. It leads companies to continuous innovation and highly sustainable performance. We conducted 23 interviews with leaders from organizations in 14 countries to discuss some transformations that business education needs through leaders’ awareness concerning organizational phronesis. We conducted a thematic analysis of the interviews with support from NVivo software. The results demonstrate gaps in leaders’ awareness concerning phronesis and its relationships with knowledge management and organizational spirituality. Business education still needs to be reviewed to enable leaders to learn and incorporate phronesis theory and practice. Building on the gaps found in the leaders’ awareness of phronesis , we propose interdisciplinary pedagogical methods to teach business students competencies that enable the embodiment of phronesis . These changes in business education are indispensable to reach sustainability.

Keywords: business education; leadership; organizational phronesis; organizational practical wisdom; knowledge management; organizational spirituality; learning organization; sustainability; humanized strategy; NVivo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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