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The growing interest in developing and applying “integral” approaches to organisations has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in different ways of interpreting this term. This article aims to present a set of criteria to help in defining the varieties of integral approaches to the study of organisations.

These criteria are derived from Ken Wilber's integral framework. The constitutive elements of Wilber's multi‐paradigm framework are used to develop a typology that honours the many forms that integral approaches can take.

It is proposed that the key criteria for assessing integral approaches to organisational life are: the structural focus, the engagement with process, and the emphasis on spirituality or essential purpose. Four type categories result from applying the structural criteria. These range from a general type that utilises broadly holistic concepts through to type which employs the detailed application of developmental quadrant and level concepts that formally define the integral approach as conceived by Ken Wilber. The engagement and spirituality criteria are additional enriching criteria that establish the integrity of the methods and purposes used in truly integral approaches.

The proposed typology will help in understanding how different authors, researchers and practitioners represent and apply the term “integral” within organisational contexts.

This paper aims to explore the following questions in the light of Swami Vivekananda’s philosophy: What will ultimately come out of human development? Is development a goal in itself or only a doorway to a higher goal called transcendence?

A comprehensive view of human development can come only through a comprehensive understanding of human nature.

What the dimensions of the human personality are and how they function in the world provide a good starting point to assess the way in which human development can be achieved.

Vivekananda’s quest for human development was not for human development per se, but to point to its potential as a spiritual practice that makes human beings realize that they are, in fact, not human being but divine beings.

Time is the most precious resource in business and society. Unlike other resources, like people and capital, time is often considered fixed. However, the way people subjectively experience and utilize time varies substantially between people. Human development provides the basis for breakthrough improvements in time management. In particular, in higher states of consciousness it may be possible to transcend the limitations of time so that time ceases to be a factor limiting our accomplishments in life. In order to realize in practice a transformation to improved time management, we introduce an effective technique for personal evolution ‐ the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation program.

This article seeks to introduce the concept of spiritual learning by exploring the value of human characteristics spiritual in nature with respect to their relationship to learning.

In developing this theme, the authors engage a systematic approach: defining terms; identifying representative human characteristics that are spiritual in nature; surfacing assumptions; and identifying emerging themes among the representative spiritual characteristics with respect to learning.

There appears to be a positive correlation between the representative spiritual characteristics and human learning. For better or worse, the material universe and non‐material universe are married in the conscious and unconscious learning of the human mind.

This work provides a new frame of reference for understanding the relationship between spirituality and learning.

While working with clients in the last years of his life, Gordon Pask produced an axiomatic scheme for his Interactions of Actors Theory which is a development of his well known Conversation Theory. These axioms are interpretable as a general theory of self‐organisation and are discussed as characteristic of field concurrence and as part of the second‐order cybernetics canon. An application to population density is reported supported by both kinematic and kinetic simulation. Implications for cardiovascular anti‐coagulation therapy and planetary evolution are discussed.

This paper aims to propose to rehabilitate prâxis and revive possibilities of practical wisdom (phrónêsis) and a reinterpret excellence as an ethically committed way for responsible and sustainable form of living, while operating in the midst of a systematically constrained world of neoliberal regimes.

Based on a literature review, this essay first presents some basic understandings of prâxis, practices and its architecture as well as phrónêsis and its interconnection. Further, possibilities for integrating excellence in prâxis and success in poiêtic practice are suggested in form of a critical poiêtic phrónêsis, and some implications are outlined in conclusions.

Considering the systemic constrains of contemporary neoliberal regimes, this paper has shown the significance of a reviving the inter-relational nexus between prâxis, embodied practices, phrónêsis and sustainable action. An integral holonic approach of constrained prâxis was discussed, by which the macro-level is holonically connected to meso-level of likewise constrained practices to micro-level of action and vice versa. In particular, constrained excellence-oriented practical wisdom was connected with constraining result- and success- poiesis in a critical poietic phrónêsis and creative actions in inter-practices as part of inter-prâxis discussed.

The paper is a meta-reflective paper and view point, but links to “prâxis-related research” are offered.

Some practical and political implications are provided.

Some links to social and societal implications are discussed.

The proposed integration of prâxis, embodied practices, sustainable actions and practical wisdom for organisation and in relation to society is genuine and critical. It is orginal in that it provides possibilities to re-assess, re-vive and further investigate the relevance of embodied forms of an integral prâxis, practicing, phronesis and action in and through organizations as well as stakeholder towards a flourishing unfoldment.

The Gandhian-Vedic approach to development is synonymous with the advancement of spiritual agency. It emancipates society by trying to raise people's interconnectedness with nature, mitigating capitalism's hegemony of consumerism on people's psyche and hence reducing the chances of individuals perpetuating the cycle of exploitation by adhering to capitalist norms. That is, the Gandhian-Vedic approach to discursive accountability minimises the risk of circularity in the dialectics of contradictions, which occurs when consenting behaviour replaces existing contradictions with another set of contradictions. It enables the actor to step off capitalism's treadmill of materialism and exploitation by centralising spiritual development. Its spiritual revolution involves caring for the whole whilst engaging with social structures. Here the Gandhian-Vedic logic is extended to emancipatory accounting by developing accounting as a discursive risk assessment tool that minimises the fragmentation of time and space aspects of performance. Its holistic representation of performance could change perceptions about interconnectedness between an individual's behaviour, nature and society. It is the antithesis of conventional accounting's prioritisation of private interest over responsibility for the whole.

This chapter traces the author's journey of change research from positivism to pragmatism and how different types of “engaged scholarship” shape how we know and do change. It takes readers through the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of different types of research and how these were expressed in studies of planned change interventions, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), cynicism and its consequences, “soul work” and community building in business, organizational transformation, and the development of more socially and environmentally conscious people, purposes, and practices. The paper reflects on the author's research as it relates to regulatory versus radical change and whose interests are and might be served by change research.

This opening chapter of this special volume of Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations (REIO) opens the anthology by setting the foundation for an authentic African philosophy. This establishment of an ‘African Philosophical Bedrock’ serves as a fundamental point of departure and primer for Bantu Wisdom as Transcendent Development drawing on the works of transcendent Bantu philosophers concerned with realising the golden mean capable of reconciling the extreme contradictions inherent in the social ills afflicting Africa. These intellectual trailblazers include Stephen Bantu Biko, Frantz Fanon, and Anton Muziwakhe Lembede. The philosophical bedrock herein established consists of four philosophical delineations systematically arranged in the following orderly fashion: (1) Logic, (2) Metaphysics, (3) Axiology, and (4) Epistemology. After presenting and justifying the development of the bedrock, Bantu Wisdom and its associated key terms are conceptualised and defined in order to create a conceptual framework through which the problem of ‘Compound-Indignity’ may be understood and addressed. This chapter then comes to a close by introducing the idea of Transcendent Development and its harmonising essence – the golden mean – that reconciles antagonistic dualisms underpinning the ‘compound-indignity’ problem. As such, this chapter serves as a Transcendent Development paradigmatic primer and philosophical point of departure for the further development of authentic African ethics.

Progressive stages in the evolution of organizations correspond to progressively deeper aspects of the mind. The stage of task‐based management emphasized the more superficial sensorimotor and concrete thinking capacities; this approach of rigid rules and structures is now unsuited for an increasingly knowledge‐based economy. The next stage, process‐based management, makes greater use of the intellect of organizational members to design, implement, and evaluate systemic productivity improvements. A few organizations today demonstrate the lasting success of values‐based organizing, managing on the level of feelings and ego. The new millennium will see organizations that utilize the deepest level of human consciousness, connecting the human mind to the intelligence of natural law which spontaneously organizes for optimal simplicity, synergy, and holistic progress.