SubscribeWhy is there so much humbug in management literature?
The Horizon of Reason
Exploring the boundaries of logic and perception
Tag: science
Is Management a science?
On the train from Hanoi to Sapa I shared a cabin with two English women. One was completing her PhD studies in corporate social responsibility and lamented the amount of work it takes to promote.
One professor of the Graduate School of Management of La Trobe university once tried to convice some students to continue with [...]
The Wonder of Religion
Dutch Magician Tommy Wonder provides an interesting insight in Volume I of The Books of Wonder (1996). He gives advice to magicians on what to do when a spectator discovers – or beliefs to discover – the secret to a magic routine:
I’ve frequently wondered why people sometimes come up with painfully silly solutions and don’t [...]
The limits of Dawkinism
I have been reading Richard Dawkins‘ book, The God Delusion. Although I largely agree with his atheist point of view, I think he stretches his argument a bit too far as he does not seem to acknowledge that there is a limit to what we can achieve with reason, a horizon across which rational [...]
Postmodernism
When I studied philosophy in the Netherlands, postmodernist thought was an important part of the curriculum. Now that I am studying in Australia, I am more exposed to the analytical philosophy tradition. (See also my previous article Schools of Thought). I have been reading some analytical criticisms of postmodern though and think some are missing [...]
Management as a Science
In my work as Business Improvement Manager I get exposed to a lot of theories of management. Many theories proclaim to provide final solutions to the complexity of managing contemporary corporations. Some theories are deceivingly simple, others are very complex, requiring specialist training.
One thing the theories have in common is that they come and go [...]
Exsanguinated philosophy
In one of the university texts I have been reading recently, the author often writes that a certain philosopher is being ‘over-sanguine’ in his approach. I thought this was a strange word to use as I found out it means ‘passionate’.
Can a philosopher be over passionate? I don’t think this can be the case. Philosophy [...]
Pyramidologists or pyramidiots?
One of my favourite past times is reading different theories about the Egyptian pyramids. I am collecting books on this topic from every available perspective – from the factual archaeological approach, to the, sometimes outlandish, alternative approaches.
An interesting spin-off of this phenomenon is the debate between the rational scientists and the proponents of alternative theories, [...]
The Universe According to Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa once said: “The universe works perfectly, whether you understand it or not”.
Schools of Thought
I have now completed 75% of my undergraduate and can almost see light at the end of the tunnel. I started studying in 1996 at the Open Universiteit of the Netherlands, where I completed my first year.
I recently re-read some of the course material, as I was working on some Wikipedia articles. Reading the Dutch [...]
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