Concepts and Transformation - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2000

Ever since the 17th century, European thinkers have valued ‘rationality’ at the expense of ‘reasonableness’: the current crisis about postmodernity is one by-product of that obsession. Yet, from garden design and literature to electrical theory and development economics, it can be helpful to restore the balance between these two aspects of Human Reason. In this way, we can recapture the practical wisdom of Aristotle, and recognize the importance of clinical understanding as contrasted with theoretical explanation.

The paper is the inaugural public lecture given at INSEAD (6.11.1999) to the memory of Dean F. Berry, former Dean of INSEAD. The author aims at inviting a debate on the role and responsibility of business schools in today’s globalization process. He summarizes some of the arguments which question the globalization and the neo-liberal ideology and wonders whether there is still some place for developing the sense of the “community”. Today’s cult of individualism and the “I and We” debate are discussed, exploring whether the enterprise can become or remain a “community” (when the competitive pressure induces M&A and the cult of EVA). The answer does not encourage optimism. In that context the lecture explores whether business schools can bring a contribution to the development of a sense of community. The answer is a positive one if business schools are willing and able to redefine their role and models to develop “accountable citizens” sharing a community.

I present here my views on psychology as a science. The article is the result of an ongoing discussion between ‘academic’ and ‘professional’ psychology in The Netherlands. Many proponents of ‘academic’ psychology are in favor of a psychology as if it is one of the disciplines of the natural sciences. Other psychologists, mostly those found in the professional field, hold the view that psychology is one of the social sciences and should not renounce such human capabilities as empathy, introspection, and dialogue. Without these we would not be able to understand others and eventually help them. This article is a plea for a ‘social’ psychology rather than a ‘natural scientific’ psychology. A social psychology that can play a role in action research.

Departing from the discussion whether there is a tendency — or a coercive force — towards convergence within the working life of the capitalist countries, forcing the enterprises to adopt similar structures and procedures across national boundaries, this article presents a brief discussion of the nature of some of the aspects of this assumed coercive force, namely the conditions of competition with which each enterprise has to cope. It is shown that analysts of capitalism with such different views as Karl Marx and Michael Porter agree that any enterprise has to be able to meet the actual productivity requirement within its own branch of industry at any point in time, if it is to survive in the market. However, it does not follow from this that there is only one way, or just a few, to cope with these requirements. Thus, starting with a simple model showing the broad scope of both the internal and the external general conditions of competition of any enterprise, we argue in favor of the importance of making all employees participate in well-organized work with a broad scope of improvement or development tasks, by means of a development organization. The thesis is that locally created development organizations within enterprises will not necessarily increase the uniformity of future developments: local variety may well be increased.