When: Friday, July 8, 2022, 16:00–17:30 CEST
Where: LC.0.100 Festsaal 1 ---> WU interactive campus map
The Platonic ideals of Goodness, Truth and Beauty have guided philosophical thought for centuries. In organization theory,
a crude adaptation might equate the quest for truth with rigor and the quest for goodness with relevance, but what space does
that leave for beauty?
We envisage this sub-plenary session to tackle various aspects of beauty and perfection as they relate to our theories and
forms of theorizing.
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If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what constitutes “beautiful” theory? Is beauty even a relevant category for theorizing?
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Are there trade-offs between truth, goodness, and beauty in terms of creating “perfect” theories?
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And, if so, what does perfection entail; an ever-increasing abstraction or a rich and detailed narration of organizational life as it is lived and experienced?
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How can we make room for more diverse theories and forms of theorizing?
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Do dominant understandings of truth, goodness, and beauty prevent certain forms of knowledge from being considered, and certain forms of theorizing from being published?
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And, finally, how do our understandings of article formats and conceptions of good writing affect what we consider as beautiful forms of theorizing; can a theoretical product be judged as separate from such practices, or do such form-related aspects determine the perceived quality of the theorizing as a whole?
ORGANIZER:
Ruth V. Aguilera
Professor
Northeastern University, USA
ORGANIZER:
Joep P. Cornelissen
Professor
Erasmus University, The Netherlands
Panelist:
Santi Furnari
Professor
Bayes Business School,
United Kingdom
Panelist:
Maja Korica
Associate Professor
Warwick Business School,
United Kingdom
Panelist:
Sherry Thatcher
Professor & Editor-in-Chief of AMR
University of South Carolina,
USA