Abstract
Extending Geoff Moore’s account of MacIntyre’s practice-institution schema, focus turns to the question of whether management is a practice. To do so, the conversation between MacIntyre and Joseph Dunne on the question of whether teaching is a practice is examined. To resolve the dispute, the notion of a domain-relative practice is introduced and explained. A domain-relative practice possesses internal standards of excellence identifiable to practitioners while being related to another particular domain. In addition to teaching, other examples are investigated, including coaching, writing, and public speaking. Management is a domain-relative practice with internal standards of excellence. One of the features of the manager’s task is that it is always relative to the practice or practices housed in the institution that one is charged with managing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. Dunne (2002) “Alasdair MacIntyre on Education: In Dialogue with Joseph Dunne,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 36, 1–19.
P. Hogan (2003) “Teaching and Learning as a Way of Life,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37, 2, 207–223.
K. Katayama (2003) “Is the Virtue Approach to Moral Education Viable in a Plural Society,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37, 2, 325–338.
T. McLauglin (2003) “Teaching as a Practice and a Community of Practice: The Limits of Commonality and the Demands of Diversity,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 37, 2, 339–352; and N. Noddings (2003). The chief strategy, of course, of those who argue that teaching is a practice is to consider the well-known definition of a practice that MacIntyre presents on p. 187 of After Virtue, and then to show that the activity of teaching fits this definition.
C. Higgins (2010) “The Good Life of Teaching,” Journal of Philosophy of Education, 44, 2–3, 189–208. In his book-length manuscript (2011), The Good Life of Teaching: An Ethics of Professional Practice (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell), Higgins develops the notion of “para-practices” (260–262). Higgins writes, “Many practices, and especially those that have communication built into them, attract cultures of criticism, interpretation, and commentary. These are situated neither wholly within nor wholly without the artistic and athletic practices (to choose the most obvious examples) they serve to explicate. Such para-practices tend to be interstitial: an architecture critic may be part newspaperman, part architect, and part art historian; a baseball broadcaster will have one foot in the world of baseball and one foot in the world of broadcast journalism. Indeed, a broadcast team is usually composed of two commentators, a play-by-play announcer (in the UK, the commentator) who comes from the culture of broadcasting and a color commentator or analyst (in the UK, the cocommentator) who is almost always a former player or coach. Between the two of them, they try to find words to evoke the achievements and real drama of the practical episode before them” (260). Higgins goes on to develop several examples from the world of sports broadcasting to develop his point about para-practices. He recounts the answer given by a sportscaster who was asked to describe the difference between working as a broadcaster at a baseball game compared to an ice hockey game. “He stumbled at first, and then, surprising himself it seemed, answered that the two experiences had very little in common. The dramatically different pacing of the games meant that in one case he is painting a picture of rapidly unfolding action and the other he is telling a slowly developing story” (261). So when Higgins calls broadcasting a para-practice, I think he is getting at something similar to what I mean by a domain-relative practice. Another way to clarify what I mean by a domain-relative practice would be to employ the medieval doctrine of analogy. For example, a basketball coach and a baseball coach are both engaged in the same practice, analogically understood. That both are “coaches” might seem puzzling when we limit the use of language to only univocal or equivocal uses.
J. Dewey (1933) How We Think (Chicago: Henry Regnery), 35–36.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2013 Gregory R. Beabout
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Beabout, G.R. (2013). Management Is a Domain-Relative Practice. In: The Character of the Manager. Humanism in Business Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304063_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137304063_16
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-45436-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30406-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Business & Management CollectionBusiness and Management (R0)