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Measuring Practical Wisdom

Exploring the Value of Aristotle’s Phronesis for Business and Leadership

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Handbook of Practical Wisdom in Business and Management

Abstract

Interest in the virtues is now growing in business and management, both among scholars and practitioners. Interestingly, one virtue that should stand out but has been somewhat neglected is phronesis, or practical wisdom. Described by Aristotle as the “mother” of all other virtues, phronesis is key for management scholars for, at least, two reasons: (1) its importance as to individual and leadership development and effectiveness and (2) its complexity that makes it hardly conducive to be measured. Thus, this chapter’s aim is twofold. First, it depicts phronesis as an up and coming core element in management and leadership. Second, it suggests measuring practical wisdom in leaders at the level of its behavioral manifestations (i.e., leader-expressed practical wisdom – representing practical wisdom as perceived by followers) through considering three dimensions: (1) to “see” (i.e., to study and reflect on the complex reality involved in each specific decision-making process), (2) to “judge” (i.e., to understand, judge, and deliberate the right way to handle that reality), and (3) to “act” (i.e., to proceed rightly upon one’s deliberate decision). Avenues for future research are also suggested.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Nuno Martins, from Católica Porto Business School, for his very helpful comments, suggestions and recomendations. He also helped us to realize how challenging (and risky) can be measuring (leader-expressed) practical wisdom.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Business, Universidad de Navarra, Navarra, Spain

    Marcel Meyer

  2. Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal

    Arménio Rego

  3. Business Research Unit (BRUIUL), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Lisbon, Portugal

    Arménio Rego

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  1. Marcel Meyer
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Correspondence to Arménio Rego .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley, Oakland, CA, USA

    Barry Schwartz

  2. IESE Business School, Barcelona, Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain

    Caleb Bernacchio

  3. CUNEF (Centro Universitario de Estudios Financieros), Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid, Spain

    César González-Cantón

  4. Faculty of Business and Law, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

    Angus Robson

Section Editor information

  1. Nova School of Business & Economics, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

    Miguel Pina Cunha

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Meyer, M., Rego, A. (2020). Measuring Practical Wisdom. In: Schwartz, B., Bernacchio, C., González-Cantón, C., Robson, A. (eds) Handbook of Practical Wisdom in Business and Management. International Handbooks in Business Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00140-7_21-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00140-7_21-1

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