EMBODIED PHRONETIC PEDAGOGY - CULTIVATING ETHICAL AND MORAL CAPABILITIES IN POSTGRADUATE BUSINESS STUDENTS

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Grenda

Business ethics education often struggles to translate classroom learning into managerial practice. This paper proposes an “embodied phronesis” pedagogy developed and tested over five years at an Australian business school, using experiential learning to cultivate students’ ethical-moral capabilities. The approach integrates normative reflection on ethical principles, behavioral attention to emotions and preconscious reactions, and social analysis of power relations shaping ethical conduct in organizations. Evidence from reflective diaries shows students move beyond technical, values-free action toward viewing management as ethical and moral practice.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages24

Reading Time1 h 0 min

AccessFree to download

Embodied phronesis pedagogy

Integrating normative, behavioral, and social components

Evidence from reflective diaries

Implications for translating ethics learning into practice

r Academy of Management Learning & Education 2021, Vol. 20, No. 1, 6–29. [https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2019.0034](https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2019.0034) EMBODIED PHRONETIC PEDAGOGY: CULTIVATING ETHICAL AND MORAL CAPABILITIES IN POSTGRADUATE BUSINESS STUDENTS MARCO BERTI WALTER JARVIS NATALIA NIKOLOVA ALEXANDRA PITSIS University of Technology Sydney Scholars have debated the issue of how to improve business ethics education so that it impacts managerial practice. We contribute to this discussion by proposing a pedagogy that we denominate “embodied phronesis.” We developed the pedagogy and applied it for over five years at an Australian business school. Embodied phronesis is based on experiential learning and cultivates students’ ethical-moral capabilities by integrating normative aspects (a reflection on ethical principles informing decisions), behavioral factors (the role of emotions and preconscious reactions in shaping ethical behavior), and social determinants (a consideration of power relations enabling and constraining ethical practice in organizations) . To understand the impact of this pedagogy, we analyze reflective diaries written by postgraduate business students who completed a course designed according to these principles. We find that embodied phronesis enables students to shift from a technical, values-free conception of managerial action to a view of management as ethical and moral practice. Our pedagogy allows students to deal with the complexities inherent in business ethics while simultaneously illustrating that there are not simple answers to the problem of how to be ethical in a business context. Being ethical in business contexts is not just a matter of avoiding dishonest behavior; it involves ethical reasoning, moral sentiments, and practical coping capabilities (Park, 1998), and requires dealing with psychic struggles, moral dilemmas, and collective action issues (Moberg, 2006) . It has been argued that to address this challenge, business ethics education (BEE) must integrate normative approaches that support the purposeful evaluation of alternative courses of action, and behavioral approaches that help to understand the influences shaping ethical choices (de los Reyes, Kim, & Weaver, 2017) . Several authors have supported the We thank current and former colleagues at UTS Business School who have contributed their ideas and experience to the evolving pedagogical model of the course. We also acknowledge the contribution of our students who have provided ongoing feedback, suggestions, and reinforcement for our course and learning design. In addition, we thank the associate editor, Dr. Patricia (Trish) Corner, and the anonymous reviewers for challenging us to better articulate our conceptual framework and pedagogical model. Their constructive feedback and suggestions greatly helped us strengthen the paper. use of experiential learning in BEE (Baden, 2013; Park, 1998; Sims, 2004), and this approach seems particularly suited to integrate normative and behavioral ethics. Experiential learning (Godfrey, Illes,& Berry, 2005; Kolb & Kolb, 2005) involves producing and transferring knowledge through the transformation of experience in relation to a context (Kolb & Kolb, 2017) . Regardless of the pedagogy employed to teach business ethics, the challenge of translating classroom learning into practice should not be underestimated (Fenwick, 2005) . A factor that limits the impact of BEE on the workplace is considering ethical behavior as the exclusive outcome of an individual pursuit, driven by awareness, decision, intent, and courage (Rest, 1986) . This view is based on some problematic assumptions: the idea that managers are able to objectively assess situations, that they have full agency in making decisions, and that ethical problems have optimal solutions. By contrast, ambiguities, unforeseen consequences, paradoxes, and contrasting interests complicate managerial practice. Hence, it is

FAQs

What pedagogy does the paper propose for business ethics education?

The paper proposes “embodied phronesis,” a pedagogy grounded in experiential learning to develop students’ ethical-moral capabilities.

How does embodied phronesis cultivate ethical and moral capabilities?

It integrates normative reflection on ethical principles, behavioral factors involving emotions and preconscious reactions, and social determinants by examining power relations in organizations.

What evidence supports the impact of embodied phronesis?

The authors analyze reflective diaries written by postgraduate business students who completed a course designed according to these principles.

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Grenda