Anais
Resumo do trabalho
Estratégia em Organizações · Abordagens sociais, cognitivas e comportamentais em Estratégia
Título
COMMON SENSE AS AN ETHICAL GUIDE FOR HUMAN-AI STRATEGIZING: The Role of Phronesis in the Digital Age
Palavras-chave
Phronesis
Human-AI Strategizing
Sociomaterial Ethic
Autores
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Diêgo Alexandre DuarteUNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA (UFSC)
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Rosalia Aldraci Barbosa LavardaUNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA (UFSC)
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Eduardo Guedes VillarINSTITUTO FEDERAL DE EDUCAÇÃO, CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA DE SANTA CATARINA (IFSC)
Resumo
Introdução
Management is essentially a practice beyond science, it involves experience, practical wisdom, and common sense. This tacit knowledge forms the base of managerial action. We argue that Aristotelian phronesis, or ethical practical wisdom, is key in the digital age. Within Strategy-as-Practice (SAP), strategy-making is seen as a social, situated activity shaped by interactions, not just rational choices. AI further transforms this landscape by introducing algorithmic agency into strategic processes.
Problema de Pesquisa e Objetivo
The ethical dimension, manifested through human phronesis, is essential to responsible human-AI collaboration, and ignoring it constitutes a strategic myopia. Given that AI lacks intrinsic morality, the responsibility for ethical direction falls entirely on human actors. However, a critical gap remains in understanding how human common sense particularly its ethical dimension operates or adapts as it mediates the interaction between human decision-makers and AI within the strategic process. How this practical wisdom can act as an ethical guide within a reality mediated by both humans and AI?
Fundamentação Teórica
(i) We articulate the constructs of Phronesis, Strategy as Practice (SAP), and Artificial Intelligence (AI). We then propose how practical wisdom mediates the relationship between humans and algorithms in the doing of strategy (strategizing), acting as a critical filter and a guide for action. (ii) We argue that AI's nature as a tool that reproduces socially constructed moral problems and biases, combined with the limitations of conventional common sense, demands a human capacity for contextualized ethical deliberation, a capacity that phronesis provides.
Discussão
Given the limitations of conventional common sense often tied to past conventions or insufficient intuitions, technically focused nature of AI, we have argued that phronesis emerges as the necessary critical filter, contextualizer, and ethical deliberator. It enables a move beyond algorithmic optimization and the replication of past experiences by incorporating "phronetic doing" concerning values, deliberation on broad and non-quantifiable consequences, and the alignment of strategic action with responsible human purposes in particular and contingent situations.
Conclusão
As Artificial Intelligence becomes ubiquitous, human practical and ethical wisdom (phronesis) does not become obsolete but, rather, more present and necessary. Consciously cultivating and integrating this wisdom into strategizing is the pathway to a future where this new form of strategizing, though technologically advanced, remains human, responsible, and ethical. The ability to guide AI, and not just use it, is what will define a good strategy in the digital age; the true strategic advantage will not come from AI itself, but from the quality of the human wisdom that guides it.
Contribuição / Impacto
Faced with the potential "docilization" of strategizing, driven by the ease and speed offered by AI (a non-human actant), this study has presented a theoretical proposal that values human capabilities (without instrumentalizing them), respects the mediated and processual effects of reality production (without reifying it), and, performatively, advocates for a more ethical, responsible, and conscious form of strategizing (without voluntaristic simplification). We call this "phronetic doing," which is what differentiates us from non-human agents.
Referências Bibliográficas
Jarzabkowski, P., et al. (2025). Two decades of revolutionizing SAP. Academy of Management Collections.
Lindebaum, D., et al. (2023). Reading The Technological Society to Understand the Mechanization of Values and Its Ontological Consequences. Academy of Management Review.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality. Academy of Management Annals.
Shotter, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2014). Performing phronesis. Management Learning.
Lindebaum, D., et al. (2023). Reading The Technological Society to Understand the Mechanization of Values and Its Ontological Consequences. Academy of Management Review.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. NYU Press.
Orlikowski, W. J., & Scott, S. V. (2008). Sociomateriality. Academy of Management Annals.
Shotter, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2014). Performing phronesis. Management Learning.