Management

Education policies introduced in the last two decades necessitated the adoption of a managerialist discourse in the restructuring, running and inspection of schools. In this paper we critically review the nature of such discourse and outline the historical conditions that contributed to the establishment of OFSTED. Having set the scene, we report on the experiential impact of managerialist discourse on the lives of primary school teachers in the period running up to, including, and in the year following OFSTED inspections. Exploring the accounts of teachers we draw attention to the affects of intensified control on the overall well being of teachers and, by implication, the quality of classroom experience for children. Foucault's notions of the `disciplinary regime' and `normalizing judgement' prove useful in framing teachers' descriptions of themselves feeling professionally compromised, intimidated and stressed by the inspection process. Despite the evident intensity of the OFSTED experience, teachers in our study uniformly indicate that, one year after inspection, it has had no lasting impact on what they do in the classroom. If OFSTED has questionable direct influence on teaching practice outside nominal compliance with its formal procedures in the run-up to and during the inspection visit, we are left

Although wisdom might be considered by some sceptics to be a quaint concept in a post-industrialised, instrumental, and secular world, it deserves serious consideration. The article proposes that the concept of wisdom be reintroduced into educational and developmental programmes, especially for managers and leaders. Mindful of the potential naiveté of transplanting systems of thinking from one epoch to another, the article examines the relevance of premodern thought to the post-modern condition. Based on Pierre Hadot’s radical reinterpretation of classical Greek texts, the meaning of ‘philosophy’ and wisdom in the ancient world are explored. The concepts of wisdom, virtue, and enacted ethics derived from this reinterpretation are then applied to an ethnographic case study involving a senior executive. This study indicates how Stoical ‘wisdom of the moment’ has potential relevance for understanding contemporary leadership practice.

2 Where is the Wisdom we Have Lost in Knowledge? A Stoical Perspective on Personal Knowledge Management Peter Case and Jonathan Gosling Introduction Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? Eliot (1985 [1934], 7) This extract from the chorus of TS Eliot's The Rock captures rather elegantly the problematic that we wish to address in this chapter.

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between friendship and betrayal. Both are perceived to involve dynamics that can have a major impact in organizations, but both have tended to be under researched. Design/methodology/approach–The paper brings together ideas from psychoanalysis (object relations theory), archetypal psychology, and the history of ideas (the friendship tradition). It also uses a case study to explore how the emerging framework applies in reality.

[Extract] It is impossible to see the bottom of an abyss; its darkness defies even the imagination: a concept projected into its absorbing opacity is lost, just as a stone cast into its depths sends back no sound. Death is, arguably, such an abyss, at least for the living; most modern approaches to death, based on a one-life view, seek to avert our gaze from its abyss, and to focus instead on a reflexive attentiveness to our own bereavement.