Twenty Years of Philosophy of Management. How has it Shaped the Field?

Abstract

This article analyses the first 20 years of the journal Philosophyof Management to provide insight into how the journal has developed and delineated the field of philosophy of management. Our content analysis uses an inductively developed combination of thematic and frequency analysis. We present our findings in a descriptive tone, inviting scholars to reflect upon how the journal has shaped the field over the past two decades, and to trigger a discussion on a more deliberately inclusive future shaping of the field.

Management, Political Philosophy, and Social Justice

“…The recent systematic literature review offering a meta-synthesis of the articles published in Philosophy of Management (the leading journal of this field) shows that "social and political philosophy" stands out (along with "ethics") as the major philosophical subfield in terms of numbers of publications: 83 out of 358 ( 23,18%) (Erkal and Vandekerckhove 2021, see Table 6). Moreover, the article by Erkal and Vandekerckhove (2021) also identifies a growing tendency of this subfield over the 20 years since this journal came into existence. In the past ten years, there were 46 published articles on social and political philosophy issues compared with the previous decade when there were 37 articles.…”

“…The philosophy of management has emerged in the recent decades as an identifiable and self-standing area of scholarly interest (Erkal and Vandekerckhove 2021;Mir and Greenwood 2021). Since its theoretical and conceptual tools are often borrowed from self-standing and well-established disciplines in the academic landscape (philosophy and management) and also given the human significance of their conversations, the inquiries addressed by philosophy of management are both deep, extending into antiquity (Blok 2019;Wilson 2017) and wide, reaching into moral philosophy, social philosophy, economic philosophy, and even aesthetics, ontology, metaphysics, and epistemology, broadly construed (Wilson 2018;Mir and Greenwood 2021;Neesham 2022).…”

Bring Back Philosophy: The Roots of Both Business and Ethics

“…Despite some scepticism, there appears to be a ‘philosophy boom in management’ (Claes & Preston, 2009, p. 69) and an emerging field of ‘philosophy of management’ (e.g., Small, 2004). There is an entire journal devoted to the matter and, within that Philosophy of Management journal, ethics is the most popular subset of philosophy (Erkal & Vandekerckhove, 2021). Scholars continue to defend philosophical approaches towards business ethics (e.g., Berkey, 2022), and Seele (2016) goes as far as recommending to start of a new field called ‘philosophical business ethics’.…”

The Philosophy of Management Today

“…This may make the volume a bit more difcult or the "get-up-to-speed" reader to navigate; but it is clearly in the spirit o the explicit aim o "opening up new directions o inquiry." It is an understandable editorial choice or a subdiscipline that is still young (see Erkal and Vandekerckhove 2021).…”