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Business education should be seen as a form of professional education which assists the student to acquire the virtue of practical wisdom. This article seeks to discuss the issues.

A middle level thinking (MLT) approach is taken to engage business education and practice that seeks to fashion explicit and vibrant ties between broad ethical principles and the concrete decisions, policies, and processes which shape how an organization operates.

The financial crisis of 2008 and past business scandals are symptoms of a broader cultural crisis. Universities and their business schools have contributed to this cultural crisis by providing students with an overly compartmentalized and specialized form of education. Business education must be re‐envisioned as professional education which prepares students to engage in a form of middle level thinking (MLT). For this kind of thinking to become sustainable within a university context, it must draw upon the university's own cultural mission; otherwise, it will be susceptible to the economic and specialized pressures which bear upon these institutions.

The article describes a practical process called the self assessment and improvement process which helps to catalyze MLT. It also examines this method's application within the authors' own business school, which is situated within a Catholic university.

By fostering MLT, business schools will promote the development of professionals who have the capacity to connect broad moral principles to concrete moral judgments and actions, thereby leading to specific practices which enable organizations to better contribute to the common good.

The article shows that acquisition of practical wisdom can be promoted within business schools through practical approaches which help to foster MLT.

The past few years have seen a swelling of interest in explicitly Christian approaches to business ethics. The time is ripe, it would seem, to map the diversity of approaches within what I term “Christian business ethics.”¹ Here I will frame the diversity of approaches as answers to the distinctive kind of question which religiously minded ethicists have brought to the terrain of business. I will not use theological or religious terms or categories, since such language is not likely to be of interest to philosophers and social scientists. Drawing up this map has been rendered easier by the fact that Christian business ethicists themselves have used a language which is readily accessible to listeners outside their traditions.

The purpose of the current original research is to determine the effect that the current period of economic recession has had on maintenance practices in Ireland.

A survey, which was aimed exclusively at senior maintenance management level, was designed to assess the impact that this period of recession and subsequent austerity has had across three chosen indicators-technical, personal and economical-from a maintenance perspective.

It was determined that maintenance practices in Ireland, irrespective of the origin of the organisation, were not immune from budget reductions and reductions in the levels of maintenance personnel. The survey suggests that retrenchment was the option of choice for organisations with 19 per cent increasing maintenance intervals and 11 per cent reporting a decrease in machine availability as a result. An analysis was also undertaken to accept or reject the hypothesis that the maintenance practices of indigenous Irish organisations have been more adversely affected than those of their non-indigenous Irish-based counterparts. The hypothesis was accepted.

Although the analysis is based upon simple descriptive statistics-it provides invaluable information to maintenance policy decision makers.

The work is entirely original. Any work from other authors is duly referenced.

This paper aims to present Aquinas' psychological theory of action as a useful guide for understanding decision making in management.

A conceptual reconstruction of Aquinas' views on the structure of the moral act is shown to apply to the process of decision making in management.

Grounded in a rich rational psychology, Aquinas' theory of action allows for prescription that harmonizes instrumental rationality, the will, and personal morality. It captures contemporary approaches well and provides better explanations of management success and failure than do models of rational choice. Since the exercise of practical reason can be learned, the model is optimistic about the possibility of management development.

The paper stops at the conceptual level. The interplay between reason and will, or between deliberative and prescriptive stages in decision making, opens up a field of empirical research in management.

Aquinas' virtue ethics has been applied to management, but this is the first suggestion to draw on his theory of action. If fully developed, it promises a radical alternative to models based on functional reasoning and utilitarian values.

Starting from the premise that responsible managers utilize their competences and creativity to carry out projects which improve stakeholder satisfaction and economic performance simultaneously, the paper aims to present a classification of these solutions, called socio‐economic syntheses, and the way to reach them.

The paper refers to literature on corporate social responsibility and sustainability, with special attention to contributions on the relationship between social performance and economic performance. In particular, the model presented highlights several successful case studies that have been studied or directly observed in large and medium‐sized firms.

The paper provides a classification of seven categories of socio‐economic syntheses, from solutions concerning operational management, often applicable in different industries, to projects with greater strategic value, which are typically firm‐specific. Moreover, two ways to achieve a win‐win solution are proposed: the first starting from an idea of activity aimed at improving economic performance; the second from the desire to better satisfy expectation of one or more stakeholder categories.

In this paper practitioners can find suggestions and opportunities for better introduction of win‐win solutions inside their firms, which could be the fruit of imitation or creativity.

The classification of the socio‐economic syntheses represents a new conceptualization that opens up paths for an increasing number of solutions that can improve economic and socio‐environmental performance simultaneously.

This paper aims to focus on business education, which should not exclude strains of religious ethical traditions, e.g. Catholic social thought, and the practical wisdom embodied in them.

Recent traditions of social Catholicism starting from the Papal Social Message Rerum Novarum (1891) are summarized. Consequences for management development are drawn.

The recent tradition of social Catholicism developed as a result of a broad cultural process of adaptation of Christians to the emerging social context of a modern society. New types of ethical orientation have been developed, sometimes in strong opposition to contemporary ideological concepts such as socialism, materialism, or elitist capitalism. Even in the globalized environment of the twenty‐first century these orientations are of continuing relevance, e.g. in organizational behavior, in business and society relations, and in basic concepts of corporate responsibility.

Religious ethical traditions embody elements of “practical wisdom” that are threatened by extinction in the global practice of management development. The current financial and economic crisis – also addressed in a recent document of Pope Benedict XVI – should also be perceived in that perspective.

A business ethics evaluation of Social Catholicism and its practical wisdom is executed.

This paper seeks to provide an approach to analyze the causes of the current financial crisis. Following classic guidelines of Catholic social thought, it aims to show how personal virtues may have prevented it.

This is a practitioner paper summarizing personal insider experience and reflection.

The current financial crisis illustrates how personal behaviors of all, as well as ambient culture, are to be blamed more than the available instruments or the system. It questions not only the financiers but also each actor of the economy in simple everyday acts.

The paper provides an insider perspective on the financial crisis which looks for practical solutions available without implementing external regulation.

This paper aims to examine the meaning, use and practical application to management education and leadership development of the terms wisdom, practical wisdom, prudence, discretion and discernment as used in the Rule of Benedict.

After a detailed examination of the historical texts, the author draws on his personal experience of facilitating workshops with a number of senior executives. He applies this learning to current trends and issues in contemporary organisations in particular as they apply to the spiritual qualities of leadership.

The paper comes to a number of conclusions: spiritual discernment is an integral and indispensable part of practical wisdom; the acquisition, development of practical wisdom cannot be divorced from the individual's core spiritual and religious beliefs and practice; practical wisdom is not an end in itself but a means to discerning how to live a morally good life in relationship to other individuals and stakeholders.

Any workplace, irrespective of size and activity, must be a community of practice where practical wisdom can develop and flourish. In the frenetic workplace the exercise of practical wisdom needs protected time and contemplative leisure.

The ancient texts of the Rule of Benedict are translated into modern times; consequences for management practice and education are drawn.

The aim of this paper is to present the necessity for practical wisdom in the managerial decision making process and its role in such a process. The paper seeks to contrast the position with two conventional approaches based on maximizing and satisficing behaviors respectively.

Following Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas it is argued that a correct decision should consider an “integral rationality” which includes not only “instrumental rationality” but also “practical rationality”. The latter permits the evaluation of both means and ends from the perspective of human good. Practical wisdom helps the decision maker to determine how a decision will contribute to the human good in each particular situation.

Maximizing and satisficing behaviors are based on the facts‐values dichotomy, which separates business and ethics and presents a rationalistic and incomplete view of the reality. The alternative presented here sees the decision as a whole, and this is a more comprehensive understanding of the reality. Ethics is better integrated into the decision making process, since it is an intrinsic part of such a process, not an extrinsic addition.

Every decision has an ethical dimension, which should be considered by managers for making good decisions. Practical wisdom is essential in perceiving such a dimension and in making sound moral judgments in the making of decisions. Managers do not need only skills for making correct decisions, but practical wisdom and moral virtues, too.

The approach presented in the paper defeats the conventional but narrow views of managerial decision making based on maximizing behavior or on satisficing behavior and introduces the categories of good and evil as the main driver for managerial decision making.