Integrating Embodied Practice and Transformational Wisdom for Sustainable Organization and Leadership: Action, Prâxis, and the Art of Sustainable Living

A multifaceted ecological and socio-cultural crisis confronts us, and the irresponsible and unsustainable operations and actions encouraging this predicament are bound up with contemporary societal, economic, organisational, and managerial practices. The recent and on-going global economic crisis with its failures of responsibility and pervasive (or existential) threat posed to natural ecologies are among many more manifestations of a profound disintegration, unwise forms of practices, and non-integral ways of living. The current crisis, scandals, and tensions between corporations and civil society, and numerous examples of unethical practices that are partly validated by common practice have helped to intensify demands to scrutinise corporate behaviour and practices. The increasingly instrumentalised contexts and impositions of neoliberal regimes with their systemic constraint call for a rethinking of phrónêtic capacities and dispositions for wise practices in prâxis and corresponding sustainable actions. This book explores how practical wisdom can be conceptualised and applied to practices that respond to the life-worldly realities of organisations. At the same time, it relates to prâxis, understood as situated conduct in an ethico-political configuration. It is this nexus that is mediating between individual and social actions (micro), organisations (meso), and economy/society (macro). This book invites dialogue for thought-provoking reflection on how wisdom can help organisations and leaders deal with our age’s most pressing challenges. It opens a path to considering how such an understanding can help us to more effectively and more critically understand and appropriately respond to complex, multifaceted, emerging phenomena. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students interested in leadership, organisational studies, wisdom, and business ethics.

Wendelin M. Küpers is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies and academic vice-president at Karlshochschule International University in Karlsruhe, Germany. Combining a phenomenological and cross-disciplinary orientation, his research focuses on the embodied, emplaced, emotional, creative, and aesthetic dimensions of organising and managing. In his current research and teaching, he is focusing on more responsive, responsible, and wiser forms of organisations and management/leadership that are contributing towards more integral and sustainable practices. He is Associate Editor of the journal Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility and serves as an editorial board member and reviewer for various journals. He is the editor of the book series 'The Practical Wisdom in Leadership and Organization Series' with Routledge.