Unknowability and enabled wayfinding

Scholars are in the business of “knowing”; they conduct research to expand knowledge and meet society’s, practitioners’, or policymakers’ expectations through teaching and learning tools. Such actors expect scholars to contribute to the knowledge repository in management in the same way they would expect, for example, a chemist or civil engineer. However, can we meaningfully do so? Does the management field have the same knowability potential as that afforded by chemistry or engineering? I contend that it does not or at least not in the way that Aristotelian empiricism or Newtonian rationality imply. Instead, I argue for a lens of unknowability and call for a concomitant recalibration of management pedagogies through enabled wayfinding. With a more honest reflection on our knowability potential, enabled wayfinding introduces a bolder approach to teaching and learning that should trigger renewed optimism for the future state of our scholarly craft.

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Publication Details

Journal
Management Learning
Published
2025-12-09
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/13505076251398524
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Spatial Cognition and Navigation
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.68
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article

Unknowability and enabled wayfinding

Konstantinos Poulis
1 citations
Management Learning
Spatial Cognition and Navigation
0.68
article

Unknowability and enabled wayfinding

Konstantinos Poulis
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Scholars are in the business of “knowing”; they conduct research to expand knowledge and meet society’s, practitioners’, or policymakers’ expectations through teaching and learning tools. Such actors expect scholars to contribute to the knowledge repository in management in the same way they would expect, for example, a chemist or civil engineer. However, can we meaningfully do so? Does the management field have the same knowability potential as that afforded by chemistry or engineering? I contend that it does not or at least not in the way that Aristotelian empiricism or Newtonian rationality imply. Instead, I argue for a lens of unknowability and call for a concomitant recalibration of management pedagogies through enabled wayfinding. With a more honest reflection on our knowability potential, enabled wayfinding introduces a bolder approach to teaching and learning that should trigger renewed optimism for the future state of our scholarly craft.

Management Learning
Middlesex University London (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 23%
Spatial Cognition and Navigation
0.68
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