This book provides an overview of important Western philosophies and their significance for managers, management academics and management consultants. The theories taught in management schools are based on different but unacknowledged philosophical
perspectives that are important not so much for what they explain, but for what they assume. Although rarely made explicit, these conflicting assumptions cannot be reconciled with the result that the study of management has been dominated by
contradictions and internecine intellectual warfare. The ability to critically evaluate these diverse perspectives is essential to managers if they are to make sense of what the experts profess. Moreover, since management is primarily an exercise in communication,
managing is impossible in the darkness of an imprecise language, in the absence of moral references, or in the senseless outline of a world without intellectual foundations.
Managing is an applied philosophical activity and any attempt at improving the teaching of management and the practices to which it has led would do well to accept this conclusion as its premise.

Jean-Etienne Joullié is assistant professor at the Gulf University for Sciences and Technology.
Robert Spillane is professor at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Philosophical-Foundations-Management-Thought/dp/0739186027