Florian Kragulj

• PhD
• Senior Scientist at Vienna University of Economics and Business

ARTICLE HISTORY This special issue explores the integration of practical wisdom and spirituality in organizational contexts, examining their complementary roles in enhancing ethical decision-making and sustainable business practices. Through five empirical and conceptual studies, the issue advances our understanding of how practical wisdom and spir...

Recent publications in the field of KM emphasize the importance of topics such as Spirituality (e.g. Bratianu, 2017; Kaiser, 2023; Rocha & Pinheiro, 2021), Phronesis (practical wisdom) (Kragulj, 2022; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 2019; Rocha et al., 2022; Serenko, 2024), Organizational Purpose (Kerschbaum, 2022), dealing with future potentials and future-ori...

Purpose- This study aims to empirically examine the unexplored effects of organizational spirituality on the relationship between knowledge sharing and organizational practical wisdom (phronesis). By integrating these constructs, this study seeks to uncover the mechanisms through which organizations can cultivate practical wisdom and foster a more...

To tackle grand societal challenges and make decisions that serve the common good, we need well educated business successors who will become the practically wise entrepreneurs of tomorrow. This paper presents a pioneering educational framework, i.e., the WiseUp Cube framework, to enhance the decision-making skills of business successors through the...

This chapter delves into organizational practical wisdom, which draws from Aristotle׳s phronesis. We conceptualize organizational practical wisdom as the organizational proficiency of acting efficiently and effectively toward its purpose and values, leading to high performance and the common good, doing the least harm, and envisioning the long turn...

Sustainable management requires companies to build up new knowledge to acquire the competencies needed for action. This chapter aims to deliver knowledge about sustainability and knowledge for sustainability. Firstly, we systematically analyse the sustainability literature in the social sciences through a bibliographic analysis and topic modelling...

Recently, the field of Knowledge Management has seen some movements towards sustainability and more responsible business practices. Especially sustainability has become a hot topic for almost every organization. In this paper, we try to locate the concept of sustainability in the field of Knowledge Management. We argue that lived sustainability is...

Purpose – This paper empirically demonstrates that an organisation’s ability to exercise phronesis shapes its learning strategy and promotes socially responsible practices. It highlights the implications of organisational phronesis for enhancing an organisation’s performance and contributing to the larger societal good. Design – This study employs...

Sustainable management requires companies to build up new knowledge to acquire the competencies needed for action. This paper aims to create knowledge about sustainability and knowledge for sustainability. The article comprehensively analyses the sustainability literature in the social sciences through a bibliographic analysis and topic modeling, u...

Ikujiro Nonaka's contribution to the knowledge management (KM) field over the last decades is remarkable. His research has heralded major paradigm shifts (e.g., emphasis on tacit knowledge). In this regard, we can consider his widely received article-The Wise Leader in Harvard Business Review (May 2011)-as an attempt to develop KM towards a new dir...

After having illuminated the foundational pillars both in theoretical and empirical terms, I synthesize the findings and derive conceptual principles of the Need Knowledge-driven Organization (NKDO). To pursue the common good of its stakeholders and achieve organizational sustainability and responsible outcomes, the NKDO capitalizes on shared stake...

In this final chapter, I present a framework for putting the Need Knowledge-driven Organization (NKDO) into practice. Emphasizing the importance of need knowledge, I condense and translate the foundational pillars (see Sect. 3.2) and conceptual principles of the Need Knowledge-driven Organization (see Chap. 4) into an integrated framework. This fra...

Voices from the business community, most evident in Europe and North America, form a chorus calling lately for a “more fair, inclusive, and sustainable ‘new capitalism”’. This is arguably due to public pressure and a changing zeitgeist there that attributes an important role in addressing social and environmental challenges that societies are facin...

This research has been driven by one central question: how can organizations produce sustainable and responsible outcomes by instrumentalizing the concept of needs? To seek an answer to this question, I have initiated a “dialogue between theory and practice.” Both the current academic debate and recent calls from practice fueled the engagement with...

To advance the academic debates and respond to the recent “calls from practice” (see Chap. 2), in this section I develop a theoretical framework that provides a systematic perspective on the causal pillars that are constitutive for the Need Knowledge-Driven Organization, that is, an organization that leverages knowledge about stakeholder needs in o...

Purpose This paper aims to stress the importance of practical wisdom (phronesis) for the knowledge management field. It is a relevant intellectual and ethical resource for responding to recent changes in the business environment and for responsibly and sustainably aligning organizations for the future. Organizations must find ways to reconcile soci...

Society is calling for practically wise organizations, companies with humanized strategy and highly innovative sustainable performance. Searching for answers, researchers are looking back to phronesis, the Aristotelian construct, also known as practical wisdom and prudence. While leaders guide organizational practical wisdom development, employees...

Despite its increasing appearance in management literature, there is still a long way ahead to understand organizational phronesis (practical wisdom) profoundly. The Aristotelian concept that merges intellectual and moral virtues is still little known by both researchers and practitioners. This article's purpose is to empirically test Rocha and Pin...

In early March 2020, Austria declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19. Social life was put on hold, public and private organisations were largely shut down, and universities had to adapt their operations. A group of WU academics investigate how one of Europe’s biggest public universities in business and economics responded to the crisis and in...

As robots, automation and artificial intelligence systems perform more tasks and lead to a massive disruption of jobs, what role will skilled crafts and trades play in a shifting knowledge economy? As of 2020, more than 35% of all Austrian businesses engage in this economic sector and represent 22,5% of the national workforce. As a result, it seems...

Following recent calls to extend our understanding of organizational unlearning, we gain empirical insights into how the process unfolds in practice. Based on the findings of a study with change consultants in Europe, we conceptualize two forms of organizational unlearning. First, open-ended unlearning refers to instances where organizational knowl...

The concept of Creating Shared Value (CSV) (Porter & Kramer, 2011) received considerable attention from scholars and practitioners alike. It fuels an alternative view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sparks the discussion on how organizations can simultaneously create economic and social value. However, the concept has been criticised f...

This conceptual paper outlines the descriptive theoretical foundations or kernel theories for designing an information and communication technology (ICT) tool to assess professional competences in the Austrian trade and craft sector. Upon completion, the ICT-tool serves as a boundary object in which applicants and assessors can interact. While this...

Purpose Considering personality as changeable through a bottom-up process of altering states, habits and traits, constitutes a shift in the predominant paradigm within personality psychology. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Bateson’s theory of learning and organizational triple-loop learning in light of this recent empirical evidence. D...

We report about the design and implementation of an undergraduate course on organizational learning in an Austrian business school. Using problem-based learning, this course enables students to put theories on organizational learning into practice. In a live case study, a case partner from industry provides an unstructured and ill-defined problem w...

Despite ongoing interest in organizational visions, both in research and practice, there is little understanding of what a vision should entail. What makes a good vision? We approach this question from a knowledge perspective and explore what organizations need to know in order to effectively plan and perform organizational activities. We will revi...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a decision support system to prioritize needs that are anchored in an organization. We build on a systems-thinking approach and develop a weighted additive index which considers different viewpoints of organizational stakeholders. First, we briefly review the literature about identifying and prioritizing ne...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a decision support system to prioritize needs that are anchored in an organization. We build on a systems-thinking approach and develop a weighted additive index which considers different viewpoints of organizational stakeholders. First, we briefly review the literature about identifying and prioritizing ne...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play a significant role in Europe’s economy. Since SMEs have distinct organisational practices and structures (e.g. owner-run, continuity over several generations, regional engagement), their intellectual capital (IC) differs from large enterprises. However, there is little research on IC in SMEs. Placing special...

Need satisfaction plays a fundamental role in human well-being. Hence understanding citizens’ needs is crucial for developing a successful social and economic policy. This notwithstanding, the concept of need has not yet found its place in information systems and online tools. Furthermore, assessing needs itself remains a labor-intensive, mostly of...

An inspiring and compelling vision can help cities and regions to develop knowledge-based capabilities; it can guide future policy making, and it can set a city apart from other cities. In this article, we will apply the theoretical framework of the ‘Theory Wave’ to suggest how cities can develop a vision that is (1) participative as it involves pe...

Needs drive organizational learning and guide organizational change. Current research proposes efficient methods to identify (shared) needs in organizations. However, there is a lack of organizational learning methodologies that utilize knowledge about (shared) needs and promote the development of need‐based solutions. In organizational practice, w...

Organisational learning causes organisational change; it utilises and results in (new) knowledge. Needs are crucial in these processes, since they govern behaviour and cause us to act. Consequently, it seems to be worthwhile to consider what needs are and how they can be exploited in organisational learning processes enabling innovation. In this co...

Organisational learning causes organisational change; it utilises and results in (new) knowledge. Needs are crucial in these processes, since they govern behaviour and cause us to act. Consequently, it seems to be worthwhile to consider what needs are and how they can be exploited in organisational learning processes enabling innovation. In this co...

The authors regret that the published version of the above article contained a number of errors. The correct and final version follows. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Strategy development results from a knowledge-creating process to guide organizational behavior and achieve (long-term) goals. However, a strategy rarely considers the needs of the organization and its members explicitly. If known and considered, needs might have an existential impact on behavior. Therefore, we propose that a profound strategy shou...

Needs are crucial in organisational learning processes, but yet not formally conceptualised as a distinct type of knowledge. In this conceptual paper, I establish a knowledge perspective on needs and the transformation process from needs towards need satisfaction. Based on an ontology clarifying the concept of need and its means of satisfaction, I...

Innovation processes require organizations to transcend current boundaries. These include not only technological as well as social limitations but-above all-the way we address the future. We are used to face the future with our existing knowledge and experiences from the past. This strategy, however, can hardly lead to knowledge off the beaten path...

We introduce a new methodological framework, called Bewextra, for the creation of the knowledge of needs in organizations. The development of our framework builds on theoretical engagement with literature from several disciplines including visioning and philosophy of needs as well as empirical data from vision development processes we have accompan...

Hidden needs are defined as requirements that customers or users have but which they have not yet directly recognized. As these requirements rest on a subconscious level, users are unable to articulate them (Goffin & Lemke, 2004). The identification of hidden needs and the externalization of knowledge about needs are very important and highly valua...

Hidden needs are defined as requirements that customers or users have but which they have not yet directly recognized. As these requirements rest on a subconscious level, users are unable to articulate them (Goffin & Lemke, 2004). The identification of hidden needs and the externalization of knowledge about needs are very important and highly valua...

The main goal of this master thesis is to develop and propose a consistent methodological framework to generate explicit knowledge of need (especially for group settings). For this enterprise, an abductive and qualitative approach supported by heterogeneous paradigmatic views will be employed to foster the knowledge creation process. The starting p...

A focus on needs and the ability to generate knowledge about needs is highly valuable for organizations because it extends the range of possible solutions and therefore enables them to create more innovative and sustainable products and services. Our paper will explore how a framework based on an abductive reasoning process for the creation and dis...

I introduce and discuss an advancement of the idea of “learning from the future,” called “interacting with the envisioned future.” Further, this approach is put into the context of the target article and the perspective of radical constructivism.

Diese Arbeit untersucht, ob und welche Belege in der ausgewählten Literatur gefunden werden können, die zeigen, dass Wissen im Rahmen einer von Menschen konstruierten Kultur entsteht und diese Rahmenbedingung die Wissensgenerierung beeinflusst. Weiters wird untersucht, ob neues Wissen, welches das Handeln und Verhalten von Organisationsmitgliedern...