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Making Sense of Management: Theory and Practice

Posted on January 23, 2025 by David

Plato points upward toward universal truths and his Theory of Forms, while his student Aristotle indicates that true reality lies lower in the particulars of practice and experience

Plato and Aristotle in detail from Raphael’s School of Athens (1511). Plato points upward toward universal truths and his Theory of Forms, while his student Aristotle indicates that true reality lies lower in the particulars of practice and experience

What’s the relationship between management theory and management practice? Today I published a 3,000-word essay on the topic on Medium. Here’s a brief introduction:

The relationship between theory and practice has vexed management academics and practitioners alike for decades. Traditionally the Anglo-American approach has been to address it as a knowledge transfer problem. This approach was helped by making no distinction between the natural and human sciences. The assumption was that reality was ‘out there’ to be studied objectively and that the goal of knowledge, via the scientific method, was to learn more and more about its true nature. This perspective assigns a superior position to formal-technical ‘scientific’ knowledge and sees practical knowledge as an inferior derivative of it. This was a triumph for Plato’s views over those of Aristotle. Plato had contended that the knowledge of forms or universals was sufficient to understand reality. Aristotle, on the other hand, had argued that, while knowledge of forms was necessary, it was not sufficient: one also needed experience with particulars. He said that this explained why experienced practitioners with little theoretical knowledge often performed better than those who knew a lot of theory but had little experience.

Ever since the Enlightenment Plato’s ideas have dominated Anglo-American management thought but in recent years Aristotle’s views have been making a comeback. Management theory and management practice are increasingly seen as different types of knowledge, with different philosophical assumptions about reality and how we apprehend it. Theory and practice may appear to be in opposition and even as substitutes for each other, but their relationship is best seen as complementary. This complementary relationship becomes clear if one takes a sensemaking perspective which is where my Medium article begins….