1st Edition

Integrating Embodied Practice and Transformational Wisdom for Sustainable Organization and Leadership Action, Praxis, and the Art of Sustainable Living

By Wendelin M. Küpers Copyright 2025
    272 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    A multi-facetted ecological and socio-cultural crisis confronts us, and the irresponsible and unsustainable operations and actions encouraging this predicament are bound up with contemporary societal, economic, organizational and managerial practices. The recent and on-going global economic crisis with its failures of responsibility and pervasive (or existential) threat posed to natural ecologies are among many more manifestations of a profound dis-integration, unwise forms of practices and non-integral way of living. The current crisis, scandals and tensions between corporations and civil society, and numerous examples of unethical practices that are partly validated by common practice, have helped to intensify demands to scrutinize corporate behaviour and practices. The increasingly instrumentalized contexts and impositions of neo-liberal regimes with their systemic constraint call for a rethinking of phrónêtic capacities and dispositions for wise practices in praxis and corresponding sustainable actions. This volume explores how practical wisdom can be conceptualised and applied to practices that respond to the life-worldly realities of organisations. At the same time, it relates to praxis understood as situated conduct in an ethico-political configuration. It is this nexus that is mediating between individual and social actions (micro) organisations (meso) and economy/society (macro). This book invites dialogue for thought-provoking reflection on how wisdom can help organisations and leaders deal with our age’s most pressing challenges. It opens a path to considering how such an understanding can help us to more effectively and more critically understand and appropriately respond to complex, multi-faceted, emerging phenomena. It will be of value to researchers, academics, and students interested in leadership, organizational studies, wisdom, and business ethics.

    1. Introduction           

     

    Part I. Understanding Practice, Action, and Praxis as Configuration

     

    2. Understanding Practice and Action

    3. Understanding Praxis        

                                                   

    Part II. Embodied, practical ‘transFormative’ Wisdom - Perspectives on Nietzsche’s philosophy and the art of living wisely

     

    4. Re- and deconstructing virtue and practical wisdom

    5. Perspectives on Nietzsche’s post-&-heroic Wisdom of Overman as Leader

    6. Non-repressive Sublimation and Affirmations and Eternal Recurrence as wise Practice

    7. Earthly wild Wisdom out of Spirit of Tragedy & ‘Gelassenheit’

    8. Elitism and Shortcomings in Nietzsche and perspectives on the art of wisdom

    9. Conclusion: Wisdom as Artistry & Integration

    Biography

    Wendelin M. Küpers is Professor of Leadership and Organization Studies and academic vice-president at Karlshochschule International University in Karlsruhe, Germany. Combining a phenomenological and cross-disciplinary orientation, his research focuses on embodied, emplaced, emotional, creative, and aesthetic dimensions of organising and managing. In his current research and teaching he is focusing on more responsive, responsible, and wiser forms of organisations and management/leadership that are contributing towards more integral and sustainable practices. He is Associate Editor of the journal ‘Business Ethics, the Environment and Responsibility’ and serves as editorial board member and reviewer for various journals. He is the editor of the book series “The Practical Wisdom in Leadership and Organization Series” with Routledge.