Introduction

This chapter sketches the landscape of wisdom in contemporary decision-making for the remainder of the book. I start by noting through a brief review of recent cases how organisations, decision-makers and leaders seem to be ill-equipped to anticipate or handle unexpected events in the broader societal environment, despite the advances in modern information technology and educational outreach. The most perplexing failures of decision-making concern cases that have had a vast impact on the established order of things, and that have been seemingly unpredictable or unthinkable at the time of their emergence. Focusing on these types of strategic decision-making situations under uncertainty, I will then discuss the concept of wisdom and wise management. Philosophical wisdom tradition originates from the early Greek thinking, where it was understood as epistemic humility and the use of transcendental universals in intelligent action. Contemporary business and leadership culture relies on modern notions of scientific knowledge and democratic governance, which could be seen as inhibiting the blossoming of the classical form of wisdom. Lastly, I will briefly review the state of the wisdom research in management studies, and try to locate the broadly Platonic-Socratic approach adopted in this book to the existing contributions, which follow in most cases the Aristotelian notion of phronesis.