About
22
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31
Citations
Introduction
David currently works (part-time) at the York Business School, York St John University, UK. He is presently involved in (conceptual) research into the philosophy and story of Entrepreneurship and its position in the wider context of the socio-economic activity of enterprise. His latest book: 'Reimagining Capitalism: Applying Negative Dialectics for a Better Future', is a futures-based, immanent critique of entrepreneurial capitalism. Further details of the book are available on the Research tab.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2018 - January 2022
Position
- Lecturer
Description
- Module lead undergraduate: Industrial Economics; Labour Economics; and Business, Creativity and Opportunism. Module Director for Online and Partnership MBA programmes, including: Entrepreneurship & Society; Strategy Consulting; High Impact Consulting; Critical Reflective Practitioner. Member of Futures Research Group.
March 1999 - January 2022
Various
Position
- CEO/MD
Description
- Entrepreneurship (multiple sectors including Recruitment, Financial Services, Hospitality, FMCG and IT)
July 1984 - March 1997
Royal Air Force
Position
- Engineer
Description
- Specialist in Software Engineering Management, Economics & Logistics; Supporting Satellite Communications Systems (Ground/Space segments); System procurement programme, project and risk management
Education
September 2003 - October 2006
October 1981 - July 1984
Publications
Publications (22)
In Chapter 5, Work: experts and story tellers, I look at the functional interchangeability of technology and institutions in the development of a post Covid-19 future of work. Building on the negative dialectic inquiry into entrepreneurship in previous chapters, I undertake this separate yet related ‘means’ inquiry into the ‘other’ (negative) side...
The Covid-19 pandemic reinforced the perception that capitalism is in crisis, that the future is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous, and that, increasingly, our thinking about it and ability to manage and organize ourselves within it, are challenges we are ill-equipped for. Despite the efforts of many writers, and a surfeit of manuscripts c...
A quick poster with details and link to my new book:
Reimagining Capitalism: Applying Negative Dialectics for a Better Future
This is the Introductory Chapter 1 from my forthcoming book:
Reimagining Capitalism: Applying Negative Dialectics for a Better Future.
Further details from:
https://vernonpress.com/book/1673 (Link in the comments section.)
Key words: Dialectics, Adorno, aesthetics, enterprise, future of work
This research paper reflects on a critical theory approach to practice relevant to small business and entrepreneurial work—a heterodox application of enterprise and entrepreneurship education in a UK business school 2nd-year undergraduate module in 2022. The module title—“Business , Creativity and Opportunism for the Workplace of Today”—learning ob...
In Chapter 7 I recognise that, although the Conjunctive Theory of Art (CTA) posits the conjunction of craft, innovation and mimesis, a temporal disconnect exists between the mimetic facilitation engaged in by the artist and the mimetic learning of art’s audience. While this disconnect is theoretically dealt with by CTA’s process of socialisation, t...
How do we know the potential of an undirected society of individuals? Events, such as the November 2019 terrorist murder of two young people at the start of their working lives in the service of a ‘good’ society at the Fishmonger’s Hall in London, UK, propel this question to the heart of any critique of contemporary society, and its organisation an...
This working paper constitutes an updated form of the 2008 article Dancing "the management": on social presence, rhythm and finding common purpose. It forms part of the development of a book manuscript An Inspector Calls. The paper explores the concept of an organizational dance by considering the notions of presence and rhythm in the context of a...
Chapter 4 of my PhD thesis which develops the essential Conjunctive Theory of Art, a theory which can be applied to transcend the particular artistic skill in any artform, to allow a conceptual discussion of any skill as an artform in its own right. In the thesis, I explore the application of this theory to management. In subsequent work, I have us...
In Chapter 4, I derive the Conjunctive Theory of Art (CTA) from an explorative theorising about art, drawing on Art-as-Expression, Art-as-Craft (Resemblance, Representation and Imitation), Art-as-Mimesis (through Functionalism), and Art-as-Seeing & Telling (Language, Intention & Communication). I explicate CTA as a tripartite relationship of innova...
Facing a post Covid-19 future with unprecedented levels of uncertainty, this conceptual paper asks do we seek to design a better social system, or turn our backs on the challenge and opportunity it presents? It argues that our concern should properly be over what changes persistent advances in technological innovation cause to our contemporary soci...
This conceptual paper is inspired by a critical and counterfactual application of science fiction. Although both science fiction and counterfactuals in futures studies are not uncommon, this paper sets out a theoretical position for a critical perspective on their use. A critical counterfactuals method is proposed, in which a device of fictional ne...
This conceptual paper uses a methodology of story to explore the nomothetic essence of the character: The Entrepreneur. Through surfacing the conscious and unconscious needs that motivate the entrepreneur's entry into entrepreneurial action, it contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial intent (EI). A needs-consciousness model is illustrated,...
Purpose
– This paper seeks to explore the concept of dance as a metaphor for relating to the challenges of management and human relations within the organisational space. It asks in what way can the art‐related concept of dance be applied to the benefit of a dominant science‐led management learning and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
– The p...
It is a basic premise that management is frequently concerned with the “means” of movement of an organisation and its people from one place-in-time to an “other” place in-time in the achievement of some “end” of economic and/or social value. This paper is a philosophically reflexive essay which invokes dance as a metaphor for relating to the challe...
Management-science or management-art? This text addresses this question through a philosophy of an art-related management practice, contributing a paradigmatic thesis of management practiced as an art-form. It goes beyond the extension of aesthetic understanding to management and organization study to aid understanding of management.
I have described the perceived gap between management theorizing and management practice within the context of the Mode 1 and Mode 2 knowledge production debate. A perceived failure of Mode 1 academic study to be of direct benefit to practice suggests a certain value to the so-called Mode 2 research. Contra to Mode 1 then, Mode 2 research has been...
In the academic world of universities and their business schools, a concern of some scholars is that the output of research appears little adopted by the world of practice.1 Conversely, railway station and airport bookshops reveal volumes of management secrets marketed to this alter-world; they offer its population of managers the seven, ten, 20 or...
At the close of Part I, I presented a critical reading of Degot’s 1987 article: Portrait of the Manager as an Artist. Although I argued that Degot elicited useful insights into management and organizational practice, his basic premiss of an evolutionary parallel between both art and management was, at best, dubious. However, in recognizing the valu...
Although Degot’s Portrait of the Manager as an Artist is very much an antithesis of a profit-performance motivation, his contribution appears to have been largely overlooked for its potential to contribute to the post-rationalistic, postmodernistic management debate. As Degot (1987) observed:
We live in a society where the yardsticks of performance...
This conference paper pre-print is a synthesis of two Chapters of work-in-progress towards a PhD in Critical Management at Lancaster University's Management School. The aim is to develop a narrative of Art and Management as a philosophical basis for an Art of Management. It is based on the premise that the concept of an Art of Management has (achie...
This conference pre-print is a synthesis of two Chapters which formed work-in-progress towards a 2006 PhD in Critical Management at Lancaster University's Management School. The aim is the development of a narrative of Art and Management as a philosophical basis for an Art of Management. This is based on the premise that the concept of an Art of Ma...
Questions
Questions (7)
Following a short discussion in another forum, in which reference was made to AI having a Theory of Mind (ToM), I am interested in other opinions from RG members who have an active interest in an Ethics of AI.
In a sense, one of the critical emergent capabilities (in my thinking: limitations) is the idea that AI may possess a ToM. This presents an argument that any AI with a ToM exhibits a form of imagination, since it can attribute mental states to human subjects. However, the very act of such attribution is, to my mind, problematic in the least.
I have written, elsewhere, that “…through subjectification, [a] ToM assumes a rationality of action that may be irrationally violated by an ‘Other’. We are shaken when an absurd action is taken by an ‘Other’ that appears to us as irrational, or wrong, or immoral, or illegal; we question mental states we have ascribed to that ‘Other’, and whether they are an ‘other’ at all. Thus …the axiomatic variability of an individual’s mental state ensures there can be no level of universal access to reality…”
Allowing AI to (imaginatively) attribute mental states as part of its outputs raises ethical concerns we perhaps have not yet begun to grasp. Is the real problem here that, perhaps ironically, generative AI is more human-like in its processing (flaws and all) than we might have anticipated.
Interested in other perspectives...
