Xenophon’s Philosophy of Management

Abstract

In this chapter, we explore Xenophon's philosophy of management and identify nine dimensions of business management, as well as the competencies (the knowledge, skills, and virtues) that good management requires. The scientific contribution of this chapter does not only consist in the fact that this is the first publications in which Xenophon's philosophy of management is systematically analyzed. Historical analysis can also help to question the self-evidence of our contemporary conceptualization of management. Xenophon's philosophy of management enables us to criticize the contemporary focus on profit maximization and to articulate an intrinsic relation between business and society; to criticize the contemporary disconnectedness of business management and to develop a broader set of individual competencies and know-how that is required for business managers; to criticize the contemporary focus on management and control; and to rehabilitate the role of business management as ability and capacity that involves knowhow, actual engagement, and virtuous competencies. Finally, this concept of management challenges contemporary conceptualizations of the differences between private and public management in political philosophical debates.

The Philosophy of Management Today

“…Management studies is requently identied as a scientic eld o inquiry (Neesham et al 2022;Reihlen and Schoeneborn 2022). One author claims to make two contributions to science, even though his essay is strictly ocused on interpreting and applying an ancient text (Blok, 2022). And the section on the philosophy o science is introduced by a call or management researchers to become more wholeheartedly scientic.…”