Existential Values and Insights in Western and Eastern Management: Approaches to Managerial Self-Development

Abstract

Continual pressure on managers, their efficiency, and the need to search for novel solutions to problems can lead to psychologically demanding situations. In efforts to understand the main obstacles to work and to effectively manage work-related processes, and in the need to achieve personal development, new approaches that are based on existential philosophies emerge. The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which existential approaches have been used or discussed in management and to show that existential themes and their applications in management can also be found in the Eastern tradition of thought. The paper presents six case vignettes from management practice that use Western and Eastern existential insights and offer recommendations for self-development of managers. The paper concludes that although it is difficult or impossible to create a unified framework of existential philosophy of management because of the diversity of existential approaches and because of the problematic nature of comparing Eastern and Western philosophies, it is possible to work towards gathering applicable insights and values.

The Potential of Combining Existential Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Zen Practice: Using Western and Eastern Existential Insights to Interpret Managerial Lived Experience

“…Research on critical moments of managerial practice helps to understand the situation of managers who are confronted with constant pressure to perform and have to solve new problems in an original way. These descriptions of managerial experience are very close to the ideas of existential authors, and even in the field of management we find numerous uses of existentially oriented philosophy and phenomenology for the self-development of managers and to draw attention to their essentially existential position (Odiorne 1966;Segal 2010;Müller and Kubátová 2022;Müller and Vaseková 2022). Qualitative research helps to understand how managers cope with crises and what lies behind the causes of these crises.…”

“…Qualitative approaches based on existential phenomenology, such as existential hermeneutic phenomenology (Rolfe et al 2016(Rolfe et al , 2017Müller 2023, Müller andKubátová 2022;Müller et al 2022a, b;Willig and Billin 2012) or interpretive phenomenological analysis (Smith et al 2009), are based exclusively on approaches from Western philosophy.…”

How Do Managers Make Sense of Their Crisis? Disrupted Relationships and Rediscovering Co-existence

“…The methodological approach used provides qualitative data to understand the managerial lived experience but is also a method that can help managers self-develop through dialogic learning (Müller & Kubátová, 2021 ). As will be shown in this paper, the combination of existential hermeneutic phenomenology and interpretive phenomenological analysis helps participants to articulate their life story, whereby their narrative becomes the basis for a new self-concept.…”

“…This can be used in organizational theory to analyse behaviour and ethical assumptions within an organization (see MacMillan et al, 2012 ). Existential philosophy of management provides insights into the creative process of becoming a manager, and existential values offer a framework for “self-development through understanding and reflection of the major work-related obstacles that are directly connected with the identity of a manager and his or her being” (Müller & Kubátová, 2021 ). Currently, the existential perspective is mainly used by management experts who apply the ideas of Heidegger’s existential Dasein analysis (Bolle, 2006 ; Segal, 2010 ; Van de Hoorn & Whitty, 2015 ) or combine existential sets of values and insights with the systems approach (Kelly & Kelly, 1998 ).…”

Sensemaking of COVIDian Crisis for Work and Organization

“…Apart from the American, Indian firms are also witnessing 'The great resignation,' wherein employees have left their jobs because they seem to recalculate personal and professional priorities and values (Shefali Anand, SHRM forum 2022). Indian managers must adopt philosophical approaches to grapple with these changes, especially eastern existential insights, which look at variability as a constant (Müller and Kubátová 2022). Managers and scholars from the east must use their indigenous philosophical inclinations and help employees rediscover the experience of being.…”