The Critique of Management: Toward a Philosophy and Ethics of Business Management

This book reflects on the nature of business management to contribute to the development of a philosophy and ethics of management. It engages in conceptual engineering of management to delineate the phenomenon of management and, as a result, to open a new perspective on management beyond its self-evident conceptualization.

After questioning the self-evident concept of management, the author develops a philosophy of management with six dimensions of the nature of management: management as participation; management as resistance and responsive action; management as constitution of meaning; management as politico-economic governance; management as non-reductive stakeholder engagement; and management as epistemic insufficient entrepreneurship. These six dimensions of management are taken as points of departure to develop an integrated concept of business ethics, an individual competence for ethical business management, and a concept of ethical codes for corporate social responsible behavior. This new conception of philosophy of management and business ethics can guide future philosophical and empirical work on the nature of management.

The Critique of Management is an excellent resource for researchers, students, and professionals interested in philosophy of management, business ethics, and corporate social responsibility.

Vincent Blok is associate professor in Philosophy of Technology, Business Ethics and Responsible Innovation, Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He holds a PhD in philosophy of technology from Leiden University. His books include Ernst Jünger’s Philosophy of Technology: Heidegger and the Poetics of the Anthropocene (Routledge 2017) and Heidegger’s Concept of Philosophical Method: Innovating Philosophy in the Age of Global Warming (Routledge 2019).