Chapter 04: The Cornerstone of Corporate Ethics: Executive Critical Thinking

Ozzie Mascarenhas, S.J.; Ph.D. March 01, 2012

Edward Deming, in writing an introduction to Peter Senges (1990), The Fifth Discipline, wrote:
Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, causes further loss, unknown and unknowable. [Cited in Senge (2006: xii)]

Critical thinking is a discipline that questions and challenges our prevailing system of management and its assumptions and generalizations. In the process, it is an attempt in transforming the prevailing system of management. Deming believed that a common system of management governed our modern institutions, and, in particular, formed a deep connection between work and school. From early infancy, we have been socialized in ways of thinking and acting that are embedded in our most formative institutional experiences. The relationship between a boss and subordinate is the same as the relationship between a teacher and student. The teacher sets the goals, the students respond to them. The teacher has the answer, the students work to get the answer. Students know when they have succeeded because the teacher tells them so. By the time the children are ten, they all know what it takes to get ahead in school and please the teacher a lesson they carry forward in their later academic and management careers. Hence, Deming would often say, We will never transform the prevailing system of management without transforming our prevailing system of education. They are the same system. In a broader role, critical thinking questions and challenges our system of education. We wade through the maze of critical thinking through the following Parts and topics:

Part One: What is Critical Thinking: Alternative Approaches

Critical Thinking: Etymologically viewed Why do we need Critical Thinking? Critical Thinking as Making Better Sense of the World around Us Critical Thinking as Thinking Critically Critical Thinking as Thinking that Challenges Critical Thinking as Positive and Normative Science Critical Thinking as Spiritual Intelligence Critical Thinking as Valuing Hierarchically Critical Thinking as Building your Strengths Towards a Synthesis of these Definitions of Critical Thinking Critical Thinking as Defensive Routines

Part Two: Critical Thinking as Virtuous Thinking

Critical Virtuous Thinking and Post-Enlightenment Philosophy The Theory of Goodness and Critical Thinking Postmodern Approach to Virtue Ethics and Critical Thinking Problems with Postmodern Thinking The Postmodern Stance of Critical Thinking Aristotelian Phronesis as a Bridge to Postmodern Concept of Virtue In Defense of the Classical-Medieval Virtue-Based Critical Thinking Good, Moral, Ethical and Legal Critical Thinking

Part Three: Applications of Virtuous Critical Thinking to Business Situations

Critical Thinking Applied to the Theory of Capitalism Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism Capitalist Constraints and Business Executive Responsibilities Critical Thinking applied to Opportunistic Executive Behavior Critical Thinking Applied to the Theory of Industrial Economics Marketing-Based Critical Thinking As Intellectual Development Marketing-Based Critical Thinking as Volitional Development Marketing-Based Critical Thinking as Moral Development The Supremacy and Primacy of Technology! Critical Thinking applied to Human Resources Management Critical Thinking as Identifying and Combating Biases, Prejudices and Presumptions in Business Thinking Concluding Remarks Business Executive Exercises 4.1 4.13

Part One: What is Critical Thinking: Alternative Approaches

In writing a preface to the new edition of The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge (2006: xiv-xv) summarized the maladies that afflict most organizations today. We capture and expand them in Table 4.1. Table 4.1 is fodder for critical thinking. Critical thinking questions obsessive generalizations, constraints and best practices of the prevailing system of management, and tries to replace them with more valid assumptions and generalizations that uphold the dignity, uniqueness and inalienable rights of the individual person and the community. The old prevailing system of management focused on the shareholders raising their share value, and most often, at the expense of individual, social and natural capital. Following this prevailing system of management, the gaps between the poor and the rich, the enriched and the marginalized, the haves and the have-nots, are widening in almost every country of the world. In the diverse, pluralist culture environment, the promise of a truly generative dialogue among cultures and civilizations holds great hope for the future. Critical thinking can facilitate this dialogue such that all of us

have a meaningful place in this universe. An alternative to the prevailing system of management must be based on human dignity and equality, self-respect and self-esteem, dialogue and sharing, love rather than fear, curiosity rather than an insistence on right answers, transparency rather than secrecy and executive privilege, a shared vision and a shared ongoing journey rather than a fixed destiny of growth targets, and learning rather than on controlling. Senge (2006: xviii) believes that the prevailing system of management is, at its core, dedicated to mediocrity. It forces people to work harder and harder for the corporation and its shareholders, while failing to tap the spirit and collective intelligence that characterizes working together at their best.

Critical Thinking: Etymologically viewed

The word, critical (from the Greek word kritikos) means to question, to make sense of or able to analyze. It is by questioning, making sense of things, events and people, and by analyzing them that we examine and improve our thinking and the thinking of others (Chaffee 1988: 29). The word critical is also related to the word criticize that implies questioning and evaluation in a constructive way. Thus, at an initial and etymological level, critical thinking is thinking that questions and challenges our past and present thinking on subjects and objects, their properties and events. Critical thinking is constructive thinking about the world of ours that questions and evaluates its operations, history and management. The word critical is closely associated with the concept of a threshold or a critical point. For instance, in physics, the critical point is the point above or below which certain physical changes will not occur. In thermodynamics, the properties of the substance at this point are called its critical constants. There are numerous other instances of this application of the word critical as limiting. Applied to business knowledge, critical point would mean a critical threshold beyond which we want the students to emerge free from their critical constants of management apathy and malaise, value-hibernation, selfcenteredness and individuality to thinking for others, for the five billion that are poor in the world, the masses that our business education or capitalist system does not directly benefit. Critical thinking thinks beyond the short-term to the long-term goals and consequences of our thinking, decisions, choices and actions. Critical thinking, therefore, thinks beyond revenues, market share, profits and shareholder value to the intended and unintended long-term consequences of corporate decision-making, strategies and implementations. Critical filtering of one's knowledge before it is communicated to the students or other stakeholders is important, and makes a good and professional scholar who becomes the "conscience" of one's discipline or field. A good scholar owes it to his/her profession to be its own objective critic. A scholar who loves his/her profession is not afraid to criticize it.

Why do we need Critical Thinking?

The role of a teacher, a professional role, can be kept analytically separate from the role of a scholar. Scholarship implies realized or developing expertise in one's field, regular updating of one's skills, intellectual honestly and respecting intellectual property. The role of a teacher is to communicate one's expertise and skills, and advances of knowledge to one's students. Both roles assume and imply ethical responsibilities. Critical filtering of one's knowledge before it is communicated to the students is important, and makes a good and professional scholar who becomes the "conscience" of one's discipline or field. A good

scholar owes it to his/her profession to be its own objective critic. A scholar who loves his/her profession is not afraid to criticize it. In this sense, "all teachers in professional education are teachers of ethics" (McDowell 1992: 54). Ethical instruction occurs in any discussion about applying specialized expertise where there are ethical aspects to judgments being made. There are very few areas in business management or business management education that do not imply ethical aspects and judgments. Even professors who teach only the technical aspects of business management (e.g., Business Statistics, Operations Research, ....) can be also teachers of ethics. Rhode (1992) makes a strong argument for the need and responsibility of professional faculty to teach ethics throughout the curriculum. The term "integrity" is used in two different senses: a) consistency between one's beliefs (professed values and attitudes), principles (moral or ethical) and commitments (e.g., contracts, duties, aspirations) and one's actions (speech, deeds, ...), especially in the face of dangers and enticements of various sorts; b) wholeness or consistency in the ordering of one's beliefs, principles, and commitments. One cannot be all things to all people at all times - one must decide which of one's commitments are more important and which can be jettisoned with relative ease; which commitments may change over time, and which cannot be changed. Moral integrity of professionals includes other dimensions too: moral commitment to identifiable moral goals and ideals of the profession, and maintaining the ethical integrity of one's profession by being its conscience. Probably the single most serious ethical problem for professional is sloppy performance. This problem may often arise from our claim of being professional experts in our field, an expertise not available to everyone, and thus incapable of being fairly judged by anyone other than a fellow professional. While this claim for expertise leads to the claim of professional autonomy, it can also create a license for careless, wasteful and incompetent performance. However, our students understand our justifiable priority decisions given competing pressures of our own professional and private lives. This position paper has two parts. Part One presents, discusses and synthesizes some of the major approaches to critical thinking in the relevant literature. Part Two applies these approaches to various disciplines of the business education curriculum. This Chapter has three parts. Part One presents, discusses and synthesizes some of the major approaches to critical thinking in the relevant literature. Part Two discusses the virtue aspects of critical thinking. Part Three applies these approaches to various disciplines of the business turnaround executive education and curriculum.

Various Approaches to Critical Thinking

The concept of critical thinking, however, is variedly defined in the relevant literature. We select a few thematic views of critical thinking, especially as they relate to business and business education.

Critical Thinking as Making Better Sense of the World Around Us

Chaffee (1988) views critical thinking (CT) as an active and organized effort to make a better sense of the world around us. Thinking represents our active, purposeful, organized efforts to make sense of the world (Chaffee 1988: 26). Thinking critically is our active, purposeful, organized efforts to make sense of the world by carefully examining our thinking and the thinking of others in order to clarify and improve our understanding (Chaffee 1988: 27). Thinking is the way we make sense of the world; thinking critically is thinking about our thinking so that we can clarify and improve it.

Critical thinking is not simply one way of thinking. It is a total holistic approach to understanding how we make sense of the world and the universe. When we think critically, we are actively using our intelligence, knowledge and skills to effectively deal with our lifes situations and ourselves (Chaffee 1988: 30). Critical thinking involves taking an active attitude toward the situations encountered in life. Thinking critically does not mean simply having thoughts and waiting for things to happen. This would be passive thinking we would be letting events, others and their thinking to control us and define us. Watching too much television, for instance, is passive thinking; we allow ourselves to be influenced by the thinking and acting of others. Critical thinking is active, proactive and interactive dialogue with our world of people, properties and events.

Critical Thinking as Thinking Critically

According to Paul and Elder (2002), critical thinking is reflective thinking or thinking critically. Thinking critically is reflection to think back on what we are thinking or feeling. It is thinking back on thinking. To think critically is to think carefully about our thinking and the thinking of others. It is a serious study of thinking. It is serious thinking about thinking. You become the critic of your own thinking.1 CT is to improve your thinking. Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances (Paul and Elder 2002: 7). Our thinking influences everything we do, want or feel. Critical thinking refuses biases, prejudices or stereotypes, false beliefs, myths or illusions to influence our thinking There is what we might call a first-order thinking that is our everyday thinking, spontaneous and nonreflective thinking. It contains insights, prejudice, truth and error, good and bad reasoning, misconceptions and ideological rigidities. Critical thinking is second-order thinking: it reflects on, reconstructs, analyzes and assesses the first-order thinking (Paul and Elder 2002:14). Critical thinking is self-directed, selfdisciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and is a careful command of their use. Critical thinking implies and empowers effective communication and problem-solving abilities (Paul and Elder 2002: 15). Based on Paul and Elder (2002:17-36), Table 4.2 distinguishes the traits of disciplined critical thinking versus those of undisciplined, uncritical and blind thinking

Critical Thinking as Thinking that Challenges

According to Collins (2001), critical thinking is questioning and challenging what you learn. Critical thinking is letting students question and challenge what you teach. The best students are those who never quite believe their professors (Collins 2001: 16). CT does not reject the data merely because one does not like what the data implies. CT confronts the implications. CT does not reject the data merely because it rejects the theory one espouses. CT questions ones espoused theory. CT does not reject the data merely because it rejects ones assumptions and presuppositions. CT questions and challenges ones assumptions and presuppositions about oneself, the society and the world.
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Critical thinking must be distinguished from literary criticism that has come down from ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle to modern thinkers such as Francis Bacon, S. T. Coleridge and T. S. Eliot. As understood by these scholars, literary criticism is a reasoned and systematic discussion of the arts (especially poetry, drama, rhetoric and oratory) in terms of explaining or evaluating their genres, constructs and structures, and techniques and products.

CT does not reject the theory merely because the data does not confirm it. CT sifts the data and questions its reliability, validity and objectivity or veracity. CT is prepared to revise the theory if the data justifies it. CT does not generalize when there is no evidence to back the generalization.

Critical Thinking as Positive and Normative Science

According to Hunt (2002), positive science is a body of systematized knowledge concerning what is. A normative science is a body of systematized knowledge discussing criteria of what ought to be. Critical thinking, then, should be a balanced mixture of both of what is and what ought to be. That is, the is/ought, fact/value, knowledge/wisdom, relative/absolute, temporal/eternal, descriptive/prescriptive and positive/normative dichotomies should be part of:

a) The business education inputs (e.g., vocabulary, books, articles), b) The teaching-learning-process (e.g., inquiry, search, analysis, synthesis, assessment) and c) The learnt or internalized outputs (e.g., values, service learning, voluntary hours, meaning and
quality of life, ethical and moral behavior, social justice, spiritualism and eternity) Applied to business education, critical thinking should deal with three dichotomies: the micro versus macro aspects of institutions, organizations and markets, their profit versus nonprofit orientations, and positive versus normative evaluations. Any institution, organization or a corporate entity could be analyzed from these three dichotomies. Table 4.3 presents a schema of such an analysis.

Critical Thinking as Spiritual Intelligence

According to Stephen Covey (2004), the four magnificent parts of our nature consist of body, mind, heart, and spirit that have corresponding four capacities or intelligences: physical or body intelligence (PQ), mental intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ). PQ is something that happens within our body controlling the respiratory, circulatory, metabolic, nervous and other vital systems. PQ constantly scans our environment, adjusts to it, destroys diseased cells and fights for survival. PQ controls and coordinates the function of roughly 7 trillion cells of our body with a mind-boggling level of biochemical and biophysical coordination that controls our reflexes, instincts, drives, passions, habits, manual skills and body routines. PQ manages the entire system, much of it unconscious. IQ or mental intelligence is our ability to reason, analyze our reasons and reasoning, think abstractly, use language, visualize, conceptualize, theorize and comprehend. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is ones self-knowledge, self-awareness, social sensitivity, empathy and ability to communicate successfully with others. It is a sense of timing and social appropriateness, having the courage to acknowledge weaknesses, and express and respect differences. Abilities such as leadership, successful communications and relationships are primarily a function of EQ than IQ (Covey 2004: 50-51). Spiritual intelligence (SQ) is today becoming mainstream in scientific inquiry, philosophical and psychological discussion. SQ is the central and the most fundamental of all four intelligences because it becomes the source of guidance of the other three. SQ represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite. SQ is thinking with your soul (Wolman 2001:26) and represents the ancient and abiding human quest for connectedness with something larger and trust-worthier than our world and us. Unlike IQ that computers and robots have, and EQ that higher mammals possess, SQ is uniquely human and most fundamental. It stands for our quest for our longing for meaning, vision and value; it allows us to dream and to strive; it underlies the things we believe in and hope for; it makes us human. SQ relates to the whole reality and dimension that is bigger, more creative, more loving, more powerful,

more visionary, wiser, and more mysterious than the materialistic daily human existence. While IQ relates to becoming more knowledgeable, PQ to becoming more healthy and strong, EQ relates to becoming more relational and sensitive, SQ relates to becoming a person (see Rogers 1961). High IQ is not enough: brilliance is not necessarily humanizing. High PQ is not enough: athletes, boxers and heavy weight fighters have it and it did not necessarily humanize them. High EQ is good but not sufficient: it provides passion but not humanity. High IQ may provide vision, high PQ may imply discipline and high EQ may mean passion. Adolph Hitler had all three but produced shockingly different result (Collins 2004: 69). High IQ, EQ and SQ is a great combination: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi and a few others had them. High IQ, PQ, EQ and SQ is a perfect combination. The prophets and patriarchs of the Old and New Testaments are good examples. A contemporary example is Mother Teresa.

Critical Thinking as Valuing Hierarchically

Critical Thinking should distinguish between the following layers of intellectual resources:

DATA/EVENTS: facts, figures, events, information, narration, descriptions, and statistics INFORMATION/MEANING: Analysis and interpretation of data in terms of finding trends, patterns and connections between data, deriving inferences or conclusions from data, and thus, seeking meaning and significance of data. EXPERIENCE/KNOWLEDGE: Based on analysis and interpretation of data from various fields, disciplines and domains one derives intelligent (or empirically verifiable) propositions, hypotheses, connections and conclusions, and accordingly, builds theories, axioms, and paradigms. Knowledge can grow from theory that is verified by data (deductive: theory to data) or from data that grounds theory (inductive: data to theory), and based on both theory and data to forecasting the future (predictive: from the past to the future). VALUES/PRINCIPLES: what are the lasting, enhancing and humanizing values or principles in the data, our analysis of and knowledge from it, that will make life better for all? What are also the temporal, degrading and dehumanizing values that could make life worse for all? WISDOM/FREEDOM: Based on data, experience, analysis, knowledge and values, one finally obtains and cumulatively stores wisdom that discerns what is truth from error and falsehood, what is right from wrong, good from evil, just from unjust, ethical from the unethical, moral from the immoral, virtue from vice, grace from sin, life from death, lasting values from the ephemeral, and from earth to heaven, and from time to eternity

Critical thinking based education should lead students from data/events to analysis that generates information and meaning, from information and meaning to experience and knowledge, from experience/knowledge to lasting values and universal principles, from values and principles to wisdom and freedom to pursue wisdom.. In the context of defining and defending consumer privacy, De George (1995, 347-349; 1999: 346353) distinguishes between facts, data, information, knowledge, and understanding. A fact is defined as "a statement of the way the world is" (p. 347), the way of the world being independent of our knowledge. Any individual may appropriate these facts without depriving anyone else from them. In this sense, facts, information and knowledge are infinitely shareable. But the discovery of some facts, collecting and sorting them, often involves time and expense, and this provides a basis for claims to some "facts" as

proprietary, at least for a short period of time. Knowledge can be of facts, known or at times unknown but speculated. Understanding consists of knowledge that is integrated in some unified way and evaluated. Information is sometimes used to include data, facts, and knowledge, as when we speak of information systems. This information is entered or fed into the (computer) information system by way of codes as numbers, words, letters, symbols and these are called data. While facts are common property and cannot be owned, data representing facts may be owned to the extent that the person collected facts and entered into the computer as classified and organized data. Data are not owned as tangible objects are owned; but print out of data can be owned to the extent one has collected, organized and classified them and made available in a package form usable for a given target market. Facts cannot be falsified, but data can. Data may represent falsehood as well as facts. Such distinctions have legal implications: to what extent are data as mailing lists (collection of names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers) and stored and sorted in computers by an information broker, can be owned, and hence sold as a commodity?

Critical Thinking as Building your Strengths

Guided by the belief that good is the opposite of bad, we have unduly focused on our faults and failings in building our strengths. For instance, doctors study diseases and its symptoms in order to learn about health; psychologists investigate sadness in exploring joy; marriage therapists study causes of divorce in identifying characteristics of a happy marriage; in schools and workplaces we are advised to look into our faults and weaknesses assuming that we can build strengths by eliminating weaknesses. Buckingham and Clifton (2001) disagree with this approach. According to them, faults and failing deserve investigation, but they reveal little about strengths. Strengths have their own patterns. To excel in your chosen field and to find lasting satisfaction in doing so, you will need to understand your strengths and their unique patterns. HR managers must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different, it must capitalize on these differences. They must watch for clues to each employees natural talents and then position and develop each employee so that his or her talents transform into bona fide strengths. By changing the way you select, measure, develop and channel the careers of your people, your organization can be revolutionary and could build your entire enterprise around the strengths of each person. To spur highmargin growth and thereby increase their value, great organizations need only focus inward to find the wealth of unrealized capacity that resides in every single employee (Buckingham and Clifton 2001: 6). Most organizations are built on two flawed assumptions about people: a) Each person can learn to be competent in almost anything; b) Each persons greatest room for growth is in his or her areas of greatest weakness. Thus, if everyone can learn to be competent in almost anything, those who have learnt the most must be most valuable, and hence, by design, the organization gives the most prestige, respect and promotions based on the skills or experiences they have acquired in the company. Hence, organizations spend more money in training people once they hire them than on selecting them properly in the first place. They spend most of their training time and money on trying to plug the gaps in employees skills or competencies, calling the latter weaknesses as areas of opportunity. In training the incompetent, organizations legislate work styles by emphasizing on work rules, policies, procedures, and behavioral competencies. Most organizations take their employees strengths for granted and focus on minimizing their weaknesses. Most HRD learning-experiments focus on fixing each employees weaknesses than building on their strengths. Most often, however, this is not human development, but just damage control. Damage control is a poor strategy for elevating either the employee or the organization to worldclass performance. Buckingham and Clifton (2001: 8) offer alternative counter-assumptions: a) Each persons talents are enduring and unique; b) Each persons greatest room for growth is in the areas of his or her greatest

strength. These two assumptions should guide HR managers to select, develop, measure and channel the strengths and careers of their people. These assumptions should explain why great managers are careful to look for talent in every role, why they focus performance on outcomes than on work styles, why they treat each person differently, and, finally, why they spend most time with their best people. Hence, in this context, a critical thinking exercise should start with yourself: What are my strengths? How can I capitalize on them? How can I combine them? What are my most powerful combinations? Where do they take me? The real tragedy of life is not that each of us does not have enough strengths, but that we fail to use the ones we have. Benjamin Franklin called wasted strengths sundials in the shade. Hence, identify your sundials in the shade. Look inside yourself and identify your strongest strengths, reinforce them by practice, learning and training, and then carve out a role that draws on these strengths everyday. When you do, you will be more productive, more fulfilled, and more successful (Buckingham and Clifton 2001: 21). Warren Buffett once said to the students at the University of Nebraska: If there is any difference between you and me, it may be simply that I get up every day and have a chance to do what I love to do, every day. If you want to learn anything from me, this is best advice I can give you. Buffett was a patient man; his mind was more practical than conceptual. Like many people who are both fulfilled and successful, he found a way to cultivate his strengths and put them to work. His investor strength was his now famous twenty-year perspective that led him to invest only in those companies whose products and services he could intuitively understand and whose trajectory he could forecast with some level of confidence for the next twenty years. Some such companies were Dairy Queen, Coco-Cola Company, and the Washington Post Company. He started his first investment partnership with $100 in 1956. He has honed this patient investor talent, perfected it, and stuck to it despite the quick high-margins in the other high-tech companies. Tiger Woods had a different strength his length with his woods and his irons and tremendous accuracy in his putting. His ability to chip out of a bunker was no good; he did not need it either; and much less did he cultivate it. Instead, he deliberately played to his strengths. He loved what he did because he deliberately played to his strengths. Bill Gatess strength was at taking innovations and transforming them into user-friendly applications and marketing them effectively. His ability to maintain and build an enterprise in the face of legal and commercial assault was his weakness he let Steve Ballmer handle that. Buckingham and Clifton (2001: 25-61) offer some useful definitions and rules in this regard:

Strength: consistent near perfect performance in an activity. Talents, knowledge, and skills combine to create your strengths. Talents: are your natural recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied. Most talents, like intelligence, leadership, and team-building, are value-neutral. Talents are innate, and are not the same as values. You can learn values; you can change values; but your innate talents grow with you. We accept our talents, become aware of them, and build and refocus our lives around them. Knowledge: consists of the facts and lessons you learn. Knowledge is factual, experiential, also conceptual and theoretical, logical and rational. Skills: are steps to an activity. Skills bring structure to experiential knowledge. That is, you can sit back and formalize your accumulated knowledge into a sequence of step that lead to a trained activity. Think of a concert pianist, a great preacher or public speaker, a creative writer, a trained diplomat, and a patient mother they all have accumulated knowledge at their fingertips. Skills enable you to

avoid trial and error, and empower you to immerse directly into performance. However, skills without underlying innate talents may lead you somewhere, but not to glory.

Talents, knowledge and skills are raw materials to building strengths; but most important among these are talents. Talents are innate, while knowledge and skills can be learned and cultivated. You can never possess a strength (e.g., salesmanship, closing a sale) without a requisite talent (e.g., gift of persuasion, talent for negotiation). The key to building your strengths is to identify your dominant talents and then refine them with knowledge and skills. Skills determine if you can do something, whereas talents reveal how well and how often you do it. Buckingham and Clifton (2001: 26-27) state three principles in this regard:

For an activity to be a strength, you must be able to do it consistently, and you must derive some intrinsic satisfaction from that activity. This implies that it is a predictable part of your performance. You do not have to have strength in every aspect of your role in order to excel. Tiger Woods and Bill Gates had their limitations; they got around them. Excellent performers do not have to be wellrounded; they were sharp. You will excel only by maximizing your strengths, never by fixing your weaknesses. Of course, you do not ignore your weaknesses, but manage around them. Find people whose strengths are your weaknesses. That would free you up to hone your strengths to a sharper point.

Buckingham and Clifton (2001: 28-35) suggest three revolutionary tools to build strengths:

Distinguish your natural talents from things you can learn (e.g., knowledge, skills, experience, and selfawareness). Your natural talents are innate, and directly build your strengths. Identify your dominant talents. Step back and watch yourself for a while try and activity and see how quickly you pick it up; how quickly you skip steps in the learning and add twists and kinks to make that activity your own. See, next, if that activity absorbs you, that you have a passion for it, and time spent on that activity satisfies and fulfills you. This is a talent zone. Use a common language to explain or share your talents and accept those of others. Our language to describe, explain and treat weaknesses such as diseases, neurosis, psychosis, depression, mania, hysteria, panic-attack, and schizophrenia is well developed. However, our language to describe, share and accept natural talents is sparse. The terms that we use such as, she is people-skilled; he is selfmotivated; she is a born leader; she is a team-builder, and the like, are still vague, undefined, unmeasured, and hence, underdeveloped. HR people are rarely on the same page when they discuss these talents

What are talents? If you are instinctively inquisitive, then it is a talent. If you are competitive, it is a talent. If you are persistent, persuasive, compelling, then this is a talent. If you are ethical, moral, responsible, sensitive to others, then this is talent. If you can readily pick up on the feelings of others, then you have the talent of empathy. Some negative talents (e.g., obstinacy, pride) and frailties (e.g., stammering, dyslexia, and autism) can be developed into positive talents and strengths. Most of these recurring patterns of behavior we call talents are woven in your brain as a network of your strongest synaptic connections. Your talents, your strongest synaptic connections, are the most important raw material for strength building. Identify your most powerful talents, hone them with skills and knowledge, and you will be well on your way to living the strong life (Buckingham and Clifton 2001: 61).

Towards a Synthesis of these Definitions of Critical Thinking

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Each definition of or approach to critical thinking has specific inputs, process and outputs that distinguish one approach from the other. Table 4.4 is a summary and synthesis of the above six approaches to critical thinking based on inputs, process and outputs. Each approach emphasizes a specific philosophy or methodology of critical thinking. Education in general, and business turnaround education in particular, can incorporate any or all of the six approaches to critical thinking depending on the specific content and methodology of the discipline. Each approach to CT asks a different fundamental question.
CT as making sense of the world (Chaffee 1988) asks: What is the positive and lasting impact upon the world we live by what I know, do and become? CT as thinking critically (Paul and Elder 2002) asks: What is the positive and lasting impact on my mind and thinking by what and how I think, I know, do and become? CT as challenging thinking (Collins 2001) asks: How do I positively and lastingly shape my thinking and understanding by what I learn, read and observe? CT as positive/normative thinking (Hunt 1991, 2002) asks: What is the normative or moral imperative value of what my corporation and I know, decide, do and become? CT as spiritual intelligence or SQ (Covey 2004) asks: What is the spiritual, lasting and divine impact upon the world and I by what I know (IQ), live (PQ) and feel (EQ)? CT as hierarchical valuing asks: What is the normative and lasting wisdom that I derive from the data, information, theory, knowledge and values that I am confronted by? CT as building ones strengths asks: What are my talents and strengths? How do I identify my talents and strengths and build them up? How do I distinguish my strengths from the three components that support them - my talents, knowledge and skills?

Wisdom should be distinguished from cleverness, shrewdness, cunningness and one's manipulative capacities. All these so-called skills imply taking right steps but to wrong ends. Real wisdom or prudence takes right steps to right ends, especially those that serve common good. There may be a strategic virtue in doing things rightly; but there is a moral virtue in doing right things rightly. Thus, one could do right things rightly or wrongly: the former is wisdom while the latter is cunningness. Also, one could wrong thing rightly or wrongly: the former is deception or trickery, while the latter is wickedness ands evil. Accordingly, Table 4.5 proposes a fourfold typology of critical thinking domains. Critical thinking in business education should enable students and teachers to achieve the lasting outcomes of Cell 1 and avoid the deceptively attractive offerings of Cells Two to Four. One hardly admires courage in a villain or charity in a thief who donates stolen goods, or fortitude in a murderer. In a similar sense, vices such as vanity, avarice, worldliness are contrary to wisdom, since they pursue wrong values. Vanity sees admiration as the highest value; worldliness pursues good life primarily in terms of wealth and power; avarice seeks money and other money equivalents (such as land, investments, and business) as supreme values.

Critical Thinking and Defensive Routines

[See Peer Senge (2006), The Fifth Discipline, pp. 232-240]

For more than forty years, Chris Argyris and his colleagues have studied the dilemma why bright capable managers often fail to learn effectively in management teams. Their work suggests that success of team learning and productivity is dependent upon how managers face conflict and deal with the defensiveness that invariably surrounds conflict. Argyris (1985) coins the concept in this regard and proposes a theory

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of defensive Routines can help us further to hone our critical thinking skills. Writes Argyris, "We are programmed to create defensive routines, and cover them up with further defensive routines. This programming occurs early in life. Defensive routines are mental models that express our entrenched habits of thinking, deciding and acting that we use to protect ourselves from the embarrassment and threat that come with exposing our thinking. Defensive routines are our deepest assumptions that not only defend us against pain but also keep us from learning about the causes of pain. The source of our defensive routines is the fear of exposing the thinking that lies behind our views. Defensive reasoning protects us from learning about the validity of our reasoning. We often feel exposing our thinking very threatening because we are afraid that people will find errors in it. This perceived threat from exposing our thinking starts early in life in home, and is steadily reinforced in schools, colleges and the workplace. Top executives or senior managers, who pride themselves as skilled communicators and risk takers, may be, in fact, so brilliant at articulating their vision that they intimidate every one around them. Consequently, their subordinates rarely challenge their views publicly. Further, people feel afraid to express their own views and opinions around them. Such CEOs may not see their own entrenchment and forcefulness as a defensive strategy, but they function in exactly that way. This strategy has become the CEOs most effective defensive routine. Presumably, the CEOs hoped to provoke others into expressing their thoughts, but their overbearing behavior prevented them from doing so, thereby further protecting their views from challenge. Defensive routines are a response to a problem. In general, a problem is a need to learn, arising from the learning gap between what a company knows and what they should know. The fundamental solution is objective inquiry that eventually generates new understanding about the problem and new behavior that is, organizational learning. However, the need for learning also creates a threat, which, in turn, leads to symptomatic solutions prompted by defensive routines that apparently reduce the learning gap by reducing perceived need for learning. Problems caused by defensive routines compound in organizations where to have incomplete or faulty understanding is a sign of weakness or incompetence. Deep within the mental models of managers in many organizations is the belief that managers must know what is going on. All managers are expected to know the causes of problems within their organization. Some managers respond to this expectation by internalizing an air of confidence that makes their subordinates believe they know the right answers to the most important problems in their division or company. Often, to protect their air confidence, they will close themselves to alternative views, become rigid, and make themselves un-influenceable, even though, deep down they may be fully conscious of the uncertainty in their understanding of the problems and the solutions. Alternatively, to maintain a faade of confidence they may even obscure their ignorance. In short, managers who must take on the burden of having to know the answers become highly skilled in their defensive routines. They play political games in their organizations. Defensive routines are like diseases the top executives carry them, and the organizations are the hosts. Soon the organizations are infected, and they too become carriers. To illustrate how defensive routines function within an organization, consider the case of ATP Products, a young division of an innovative and highly decentralized company. Jim Tabor, 33, was the divisional president, deeply committed to the corporate values of freedom and local autonomy. He believed strongly in the state-of-the-art technology products (new printed circuit boards) of ATP, rallied tremendous support from his subordinates, who in turn shared Tims enthusiasm for their prospects. Divisional bookings grew rapidly 30% to 50% each year until sales reached $50 million in 1994. Accordingly, ATP doubled its capacity. In 1995, with the disastrous downturn in the minicomputer

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industry, ATP experienced a 50% shortfall on projected bookings. The industry did not bounce back in 1996. Jim Tabor was fired from division president to an ordinary engineering manager. What happened? Tims locked-in strategy was flawed owing to several defensive routines. His team had set aggressive growth targets, in part, to please the top management; he strongly believed in the product without letting his beliefs challenged; meeting these targets put too much pressure on his subordinates that they had no time to question what they were doing; and they relied on a few major customers upon whom they became very dependent. When the business of these customers failed, ATP was doomed. Why did not the top management at ATP sanction a strategy that was so vulnerable, and force Tim to diversify its customer base? The top management had its own defensive routines. Although the CEO had recognized the problem of the narrow customer base, he did not want to violate the corporations decentralized policy or interfere with the forceful strategy of the young ATP division president. Moreover, Jim had questions that he was reluctant to discuss with his superiors, as he did not want to let them down, nor was he prepared to face criticism from them. Hence, there were defensive routines throughout the organization that did not enable free inquiry and reflection. The more effective defensive routines are, the more effectively do they cover up underlying problems, the less effectively do you face the problems, and the worse the problems tend to become. The paradox, write Argyris, is that when defensive routines succeed in preventing immediate pain they also prevent us from learning how to reduce what causes pain in the first place. Defensive routines are self-sealing they obscure their own existence. If you cannot easily identify or state your defensive routines, you do not have leverage for reducing them either. In most shifting the burden structures, there are two possible areas of leverage:

Weaken the symptomatic solution; you do this by diminishing the emotional threat that prompts the defensive response in he first place. For instance, if Tim Tabor had acknowledged his uncertainty about ATP products and the fast growth targets to his superiors, and if the latter felt comfortable raising and addressing questions, both would have understood their defensive routines, and thus weaken the symptomatic solutions they had proposed. Defensive routines are powerful only when they are not discussed and challenged, or only when managers stuck with them pretend they have no defensive routines. Strengthen the fundamental solution. Skillful managers learn to confront defensiveness without producing more defensiveness. They do so by self-disclosure and by inquiring into the causes of their own defensiveness. The skills for diffusing defensive routines are essentially the same skills for strengthening the fundamental solution in the context of shifting the burden structures they are skills of reflection and mutual inquiry. By revealing your assumptions and reasoning behind your force strategies, you unearth your defenses, make then open to influence and correction. If we have a ruthless commitment to telling the truth about current thinking and strategies, they empower shared vision and team learning, they weaken symptomatic solutions and strengthen fundamental solutions.

One of the most useful skills of a learning team is the ability to recognize when we are not reflecting on our own assumptions, when we are not objectively inquiring into each others thinking, and when we are not exposing our thinking in a way that encourages others to inquire into it. This is critical thinking. It is to dismantle our defensive routines and defensive reasoning and have everything exposed for checks and balances. Critical thinking enables us to acknowledge our own defensiveness without provoking more

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defensiveness. Often, the stronger the defensiveness, the more important is the issue or the problem around which we defend or protect our views. If these views are made transparent, they will provide windows onto each others thinking. It is not the absence of defensiveness that characterizes learning teams, but the way defensiveness is faced. A team committed to learning must be committed to tell the truth about our thinking and assumptions underlying the forceful strategies we propose. To see reality of the markets more clearly, we must also assess and see our strengths for obscuring reality.

Part Two: Critical Thinking as Virtuous Thinking

For Aristotle, as stated in the pioneering work on ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics (1985), virtue is the state of character that makes a person good or happy (eudemonia) and makes that person to do what is good (e.g., work). Hence, virtue is a character trait (not an unconscious reflex habit) under rational control, a predictable disposition to choose and do good whenever confronted with choice. A virtuous person knows good, is good, and does good. That is, a critical thinker knows what is good, is good, and does good. For Aristotle, the central (cardinal) virtue is practical wisdom (Greek: phronesis): Virtue determines the end, and practical wisdom makes us do what is conducive to that end. Phronesis combines intellectual virtues, such as science, art, and intuitive wisdom that have truth as their end with moral virtues, such as temperance, justice, and wisdom that have good as their end. Thus, following Aristotle (1985), critical thinking is practical wisdom (phronesis); it is both a moral and an intellectual virtue. Virtue as practical wisdom is learned by practice: by repeatedly acting in conformance with the end of human life, a person with practical wisdom becomes habitually disposed to act virtuously (Aristotle 1985). One can then depend on the virtuous person to act well under all circumstances. A virtuous person can never do certain things such as adultery, murder, and theft, and never entertain certain dispositions such as spite and envy. With the exception of these acts and dispositions that do not allow a "mean", Aristotle did not lay down further rules or principles or duties, but stated that a virtuous person must be "content" with the "truth roughly and in outline" (NE 1094b20). The virtue of excellence is a state of choice "lying in a mean related to us and in the way the person with practical wisdom would determine it" (NE 1107a1-3). Aquinas (1963) develops a virtue-based ethics very much along Aristotelian lines, however, making provision for the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (whose end is union with God). While practical wisdom is the central virtue, Aquinas proposes "prudence" as a link between intellectual, moral and theological virtues. Prudence is a right way of acting according to reason; it disposes one to choose means most conducive to the telos of an act. Thus, following Aquinas (1963), critical thinking is prudence or wisdom (prudencia).

Critical Virtuous Thinking and Post-Enlightenment Philosophy

The concept of virtue has been varied across Post-Enlightenment moral philosophers. For instance,

For Hume (1975: 211), virtue is a "quality of mind agreeable to, or approved by, everyone who considers or contemplates it." For Kant (1986), virtue is the coincidence of the rational will with every duty firmly settled in the character. For Bentham (1969), virtue is a trait that disposes its possessor to a larger quantity of happiness.

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For Rand (1964) who condemned the classical-medieval conception of virtue as antithetical to the ethic of the marketplace, virtue is an ethos of success via selfishness. According to Frankena (1975), virtues merely augment an existing method; they do not supply specific directives for determining right or wrong conduct. For Foot (1978: 8), virtue "is a corrective to the tendency to act against the good."

For others, virtue is a trait that ameliorates the human condition (Warnock 1971) or something that enhances evolutionary adaptation (Casey 1990; Wilson 1980). Moral principles and rules direct, while virtues just enable us to act in accordance with the principles. Virtues are auxiliary and derivative, and as such, are exercises necessary to accomplish the end to which the principles and rules direct us. Others counter argue (e.g., Nussbaum 1988, Kekes 1988) that the Greeks used virtues precisely to judge moral conduct - virtues therefore can provide the standards for morally right conduct. In fact, virtues, not moral rules and principles, are the source for understanding and force for performing normative conduct, while moral principles and rules are derived from virtues. MacIntyre (1984, 1990) trying to recapture Aristotelian notions of virtue, regards virtue as dispositions or acquired qualities that are necessary a) to achieve personal (internal) human good, b) to sustain communities in which individual persons can seek higher good, and c) to sustain traditions that provide historical context for individual moral lives. We understand critical thinking as virtue in the MacIntyre sense.

The Theory of Goodness and Critical Thinking

Something is called good insofar as it is perfect, since the perfection of anything is its goodness. The perfection of a thing is called good because the perfect is that which all of us seek. Good perfects because it is perfect. Goodness is, then, the completion or fulfillment of some entity, i.e., its perfection. Should a being lack something that it ought to have, it would be imperfect. According to Aquinas, virtue is an operative habit: it does something. Virtue perfects a power for its operations. It perfects the intellect in intellectual virtues, and it perfects the will and the appetitive powers (e.g., emotions, passions) in moral virtues. As a form, virtue perfects the power in which it resides. Thus, virtue perfects the person, making the agent good and the operations also good. Critical thinking as a virtue perfects both the intellectual in intellectual thinking and the will in willful or deliberate thinking. In general, people perform right activity based on their strengths, and wrong activity from their weaknesses. Since each person has a different set of strengths and weaknesses, each person is differently inclined to right or wrong. One could improve upon ones strengths and reduce ones weaknesses this is the exercise of virtue by which one orders oneself. The more a person enjoys personal freedom, the more is that person rightly ordered, and vice versa. Conversely, the more a person is rightly ordered, the more is that person predisposed to realize right activities, and this is goodness. The reason that some people behave more rightly than others is not necessarily due to striving. Rather, those who behave rightly tend to be persons that are rightly ordered, and those who behave wrongly tend to be persons that are disordered (wrongly ordered) people. They (e.g., those who are inclined to excessive drinking, dishonesty, or opportunism) are less likely to behave rightly (Keenan 1992: 9). Critical thinking is ordered thinking; it is right thinking. Rightness concerns two dimensions of human living: a) that the agent is rightly ordered; b) that the act is rightly ordered. One does not follow from the other for instance, temperate people may occasionally

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fall, and not all alcoholics always drink excessively. Consider, prudence, the most important of the virtues: the selfish and the amoral are as capable as the saints of giving right advice. Similarly, one can imagine the loving and the selfish to be temperate, or the wicked to be brave (MacIntyre 1981: 166-7). No one, no matter how well ordered, is perfect. No one, no matter how disordered, is an absolute failure. Hence the need to distinguish whether a person is actually living a rightly ordered life and whether a persons action is right; neither description, however, depends upon goodness. Goodness asks whether one strives through right action to make oneself rightly ordered. The good person consistently looks for opportunities that better ones strengths and reduce ones weaknesses, that order oneself, that make one more free. Critical thinking is rightly ordered thinking. Critical thinking is goodness when one strives through rightly ordered thinking to make oneself rightly ordered. We generally call a person virtuous who is both rightly ordered and therefore, predictably good. When we attribute a specific virtue to someone, we imply that we can predict a specific behavior relative to that virtue. For instance, a temperate person will enjoy a party without getting drunk; a brave person will neither shun nor search for danger; a just person will take delight in respecting the rights of all people; a prudent person will always assess the costs and benefits before deciding on a value-balanced activity. Each attribution of virtue describes someone as rightly ordered in a specific area of human activity. Often goodness is not even presumed. And in general, we call someone virtuous, if that person demonstrates striving to right activity in all the dimensions of his or her personality. Moral critical thinking, accordingly, is striving to right activity in all the dimensions of his or her personality Basically, to remark that a person is virtuous is to predict that the person will consistently perform rightly ordered behavior (Keenan 1992: 10). In practice, that person is temperate, brave, just and prudent. A rightly ordered person is one with virtues: his/her will, reason, and passions are ordered. In turn, virtues enable persons to act rightly. The virtues are acquired not by repeatedly performing the same types of actions but by intending and executing the same types of actions: the virtues are acquired willfully and not accidentally (Keenan 1992: 13). Practical and moral critical thinking is deliberate and willful thinking that is perfected by rightly ordered thinking. Current understanding of moral goodness is fundamentally related to the concept of human freedom (Schller 1979; Fuchs 1983). Each individual enjoys a distinct degree of personal freedom. Due to nature, nurture, economics, luck, and other external causes, some people are more capable of realizing right activity; that is, realizing goodness. Some have a ready disposition to be temperate; others have a ready disposition to be chaste; some can never be racist; some are timid by nature, while others are innately brave. Personal strengths and weaknesses arise from a variety of formative forces (Keenan 1992: 8). Critical thinking is thinking with human freedom. It is unconstrained by passions and unfettered thinking without man made boundaries (e.g., national biases and ethnic prejudices). Critical thinking that enjoys moral freedom is moral goodness. Table 4.6 summarizes our discussions on virtuous critical thinking thus far under the aspects of moral, ethical and legal critical thinking.

Postmodern Approaches to Virtue Ethics and Critical Thinking

In the post-Medieval and post-Enlightenment periods up to the present, the Classical metaphysical grounding of an objective moral order and an objective human nature has been seriously questioned. The possibility of a metaphysical definition of human nature or the good, the epistemological possibility of moral knowledge, and the possibility of a philosophical anthropology - all three have been subjected to eroding criticism by serious philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, Bentham, and Stuart Mill (For a history of such development, see Sidgwick 1988; Becker and Becker 1992). MacIntyre (1984)

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detailed the decline of virtue-based ethics since the Enlightenment and the obstacles to its current restoration. According to postmodernism, the failure of traditional foundational systems to recognize the sociocultural embeddedness of rationality and the historical facticity of human discourse has led, inevitably, to atomistic and ontologically inappropriate ideas about what truth is. Under the forceful influence of Heideggers hermeneutical consciousness and Wittgensteins linguistic analysis (dissection of the language of moral discourse), postmodernity argues that truth is entirely mediated by historical flux, societal norms, and cultural warrants. In assuming the timelessness of truth, the traditional view assumed a human capacity to know that truth, thus a human nature that, if only in virtue of that decisive capacity, is unchanging (Campbell 1992: 398). Currently, the revolution against a metaphysical foundation for ethics has turned to postmodern hermeneutical meta-analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1975), Jacuqes Derrida (see Caputo 1987; Gasch 1986), Clifford Geertz (1984), Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984) and others, to the intuitive grasp of the good or prima facie principles discoverable by morally mature persons, or to a variety of alternatives to moral principles, such as, casuistry, hermeneutics, narrative, and feminist liberation. Also, hotly debated is the nature of the good (or its opposite, vice) or the nature of the telos of human life.

Problems with Postmodern Thinking

In this section, we can only afford to touch the main highlights of some these postmodern philosophers, mostly for illuminating our understanding of the virtue and virtue ethics of critical thinking. Briefly, postmodernity is that type of thought that rebels against any totalizing understanding of reality; it accuses its predecessor, modernity or Enlightenment, of having sacralized human rationality. In the quest of Enlightenment to uncover the basic and essential structures of human life, thought, and discourse, modernity leveled and homogenized reality. The Enlightenments concern with methodology as the path to truth caused it to veil historicity and ignore the nuances, complexities, and ambiguities of being and knowing. This truncated notion of humanity led, in science, to an excessive Baconism that ignored the historical-hermeneutical elements of thought and inappropriately canonized the foundations of positivism and empiricism (Guarino 1996). Postmodernity seeks to stop this manipulative domination of instrumental reason with its nostalgia for presence and its romance for totalities. It seeks to achieve this by emphasizing the heteromorphous nature of life, thought, and speech, and at the same time by celebrating the opacity and sovereignty of the other. By unmasking horizons rooted in our social situation, ideological determination, cultural embeddedness, saturated reason, paradigm-bound rationality, contextualized knowledge, and the ontological productivity of history, postmodernity has become a militant protest against universalizing tendencies (Guarino 1996). Fixed meanings and dogmas are illequipped to handle human historicity and human limitations. The traditional theological and doctrinal assessment has sought to freeze the flux, to deaden historical consciousness, and to finish the conversation. In replacing this movement, postmoderns foster civilized discourse to keep the conversation going. Rather than speak of a stable and universal human nature, they relate more easily to a culturally constituted human rationality emerging from the tight web of history, society, and language. Postmodernism represents a new movement in the history of philosophy. Apparently, postmodern philosophers are fighting their philosophical way between ontological objectivism on the one hand, and its fluid counterpart, relativism, on the other. As Bernstein (1983) puts it, they are seeking a rationality that is hermeneutically and ontologically appropriate to the contemporary post-metaphysical and post-transcendental age. Lonergan (1972, 1978) has addressed several postmodern concerns and has consistently sought to show the extent to which historical consciousness and its attendant horizons have affected traditional understanding. Lonergan argues that classical culture was

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right in assuming there was a universal human nature, but that it misunderstood the extent to which this essential nature was open. Hence, Lonergan (1978) developed a transcendental philosophy outlining the invariant structure of human consciousness while concomitantly championing changing worlds of meaning and conceptual constructs. Sokolowski (1994: 697), seeking to illumine the complementarity rather than opposition between nature and culture, writes: We never have sheer nature without convention, or sheer convention without nature; the two are always tangled. Nature is displayed to us as refracted through custom and custom always mixes with the natural. The interweaving of the two is what makes it apparently so plausible to say that there is no nature, but only convention. Most agree today that Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), a German philosopher of Polish descent, was the turning point into postmodernism in philosophy, and Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), a German philosopher and a professor at Freiburg for most of his life, was the catalyst of the transition to postmodernity in the 20th century (Lawrence 1993: 63). Heidegger (and later Jacques Derrida) called into question several presuppositions of the Kantian version of the Enlightenment schools: a) the primacy of the so-called subject-object split; b) the putative objectivity to be attained through bridging this split by means of pure perception alone; c) the very fact of pure perception as isolated from any mediations whatsoever; d) the object as already-out-there-now, e) the subject as the privileged already-in-here-now and f) the primacy of time as a raceway of instants and correlative image of the present as a punctual, isolatable, yet spatialized event (Lawrence 1993). These assumptions and their ramifications in the construction of our world must be dismantled or deconstructed in the interests of a certain ethical integrity. Heideggers thesis that the human phenomenon of perception, even sense perception, is mediated by language brought about the transition from the phenomenology of perception to hermeneutic phenomenology (Lawrence 1993). As a language-animal, Martin Heidegger claimed that human beings exist only rarely in the world of immediacy. Instead, human beings inhabit worlds mediated by meaning and value; that is, concretely we experience our world as worded: our world is always fore-grounded for us through interpretation. As a result, in almost all lived human experience, our self-understanding is mediated by the self-understandings of others. Hence, from the standpoint of linguistic (or hermeneutic) philosophy, to be human is to share in a conversation that constitutes the human race as a whole. This conversation that we are is irreducible to the perspective or the explicit knowledge of any single human perception. Gadamaer (1975, 1991) speaks of the experience (Erfahrung) as an encounter with an unfinished event and is itself a part of this event (1991: 99); this experience has to with self-understanding as occurring through understanding something other than the self, and including the unity and integrity of the other (1991: 97). Experience as being happens whenever we understand ourselves in and through something other than ourselves, and in doing so we sublate the discontinuity and atomism of isolated human experiences (Erlebnis) in the continuity of our own existence (Gadamer 1991). Thus, for Gadamer, the experience of being occurs as mediation of past and present, of self and other, of whole and part; it is enacted as interpretation (Verstehen), as question and answer, as decision and self-correction. In all its compactness and undifferentiatedness, it is never merely a matter of the pure perception or feeling of internal immediacy (the already-in-here-now of the self) or of external immediacy (the already-out-therenow of objects (Lawrence 1993: 66). As a mediation of self-understanding with what is other, experience involves a reversal: in the moment of having ones anticipation of meaning and intelligibility corrected by a new experience, one finds that the elimination of past understanding is actually a deepening or validation of what one thought one had already appreciated before. As opposed to Cartesian and Hegelian disengaged absolute self-consciousness, Gadamer (1991) proposes his hermeneutic consciousness that is actually available to us. Hermeneutic consciousness acknowledges that the dialectic of experience has its proper fulfillment not in definitive knowledge but in openness to experience that is made possible by experience itself. Given our human finitude, hermeneutic consciousness realizes that the truth of experience always implies an orientation toward new experience because the nature of experience is conceived in terms of something that surpasses it. Thus for postmodernism, as opposed to the modern perspective, consciousness

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means an internal experience in the strict sense of the self and its acts. One must begin from the performance if one is to have the experience necessary for understanding what the performance is. In other words, to know consciousness as internal experience is to know something that is contingently constitutive of the being of the subject. But inasmuch as it involves using our ordinary language to inquire, grasp, and formulate, and then to check out and judge whether articulations of possible relevant relationships are contingently verifiable in the experiences themselves, such self-knowledge is the same as what Habermas calls reconstruction. In the postmodern understanding of our consciousness as experience, reconstructive and empirical assumptions can be brought together in one and the same theory (Habermas 1987: 298). Commenting on Nietzsche, Freud and Marx, Michel Foucault (1967) believed that interpretation has no foundation and points to nothing beyond itself but further signs, that are themselves sedimented interpretations. Crucial signs, like money for Marx, symptoms for Freud, good and evil for Nietzsche, have a distantiating, threatening, and defamiliarizing role to play. They indicate the subterranean role of dissonance in our lives, whatever their surface sweetness and light. In a later work, Foucault (1984: 76) calls into question all history insofar as its looks to an endpoint or operates teleologically, thereby obliterating the contingency of events, the discontinuity involved in emergence and decline or extinction, the conflictual singularity of events. According to Foucault, Nietzsche is teaching us to regard the entire history of a thing, an organ, a custom as a continuous sign-chain of ever new interpretations and adaptations whose causes do not even have to be related to one another but, on the contrary, in some cases succeed and alternate with another in a purely chance fashion(Foucault 1984: 77). All concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition; only that which has no history is definable (Foucault 1984:80). In his far-reaching research, Foucault sought to show empirically how social institutions pragmatically impose distinctions in discourse. That ruling metaphors or modes of discourse are constantly reconstituted in radically different ways at different times in history. His genealogical method sought to trace these correlative changes via quite unusual stints of archival work: the thrust of his method was to incite the experience of discord or discrepancy between the social construction of self, truth, and rationality and that which does not fit reality within these folds (Lawrence 1993: 77-8).

The Postmodern Stance of Critical Thinking

Thus, essentially the postmodern stance is: understanding is always interpretation, and that understanding is an event over which the interpreting subject does not ultimately preside. Postmoderns want to replace the homogenous and unified classical ego with a decentered, detotalized, heterogeneous self, capable of unmasking and resisting controlling narratives that would smother or extinguish the selfs capacity ever to be otherwise. That is why, by demonstrating the conventionality and revisability of social and cultural schemes of recurrence, postmodernists are out to deconstruct the oppositions between normal and abnormal that serve to close down certain directions of thought and action in our deliberating upon proposals for action (Lawrence 1993: 89). Postmodernism celebrates the hetero-morphous nature of discourse and life (Lyotard 1984). The program of deconstruction and genealogical strategies is one of distantiation and defamiliarization as a way of enacting a responsibility for otherness. Thus the heart of the postmodern protest is the relationship of contingency to an ultimately unlimited plurality of meanings and values, and therefore to many possible concrete solutions to the problem of human living (Lawrence: 78). While there is definite erasure of ontological foundations, there is no attempt to eradicate rationality itself. However, this rationality must be consistent with our finitude, with our historicity, with the dependence of thought or changing social conditions (McCarthy 1988: 79). Thus, the radicalness of historicity, the fore-structure of understanding, and the linguisticality of thought are major themes in postmodernist thinking (Guarino 1993: 44). They help us appreciate the liberating character of prudential judgment in the context of the contingency of particular and concrete situations (Lawrence 1993: 90). They

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have also taught us to be more sensitive to plurality, differences, instability, the dissolution of arbitrary hierarchies, and the like, in order to heighten our responsiveness to the other. They also remind us of Lonergans (1972, pp. 40, 122, 237-40, 269) contrast between a horizontal and a vertical exercise of liberty: by the former we operate within an already established orientation to choose courses of action within some already understood and agreed upon horizon of meanings and values specified by some master narrative; by the latter we undergo a radical change of overall orientation in which a different, incommensurate or disproportionate horizon of meaning and value is specified by a new master narrative. Postmodernism awakens us to the fact that claims to truth are largely, if not exclusively, culturally constituted frameworks. We cannot underplay the role played by language in perception, imagination leading up to insight, and in human discourse; nor can we deny the role of available and to-be-invented language when it comes to communicating and formulating ones own understanding to another, prescinding from all this irrelevant or adventitious. Nevertheless, we can over-blow the role of language in our understanding, verifying, and deliberating to deny the fact that we understand and make limited judgment of fact and value that are achievements of intentional and cognitive and real self-transcendence (Lonergan 1978). If it is true that all knowledge not only arises within but is also determined and delimited by a web of contingent, finite, socio-cultural situations, then the postmodernist task must be to develop new understandings of truth and rationality consonant with some level of ontological epistemology (Guarino 1996). It is one thing to stipulate that radical historicity and linguisticality demonstrate the inappropriateness of metaphysics; but it is another task to provide democratic societies with political and philosophical guidance on the proper functioning of the marketplace of human ideas (Habermas 1992: 40). If our very humanity differs from age to age, from culture to culture, then our own being varies relative to differing historical situations; in turn, that seems to imply that what is appropriated, the truths we claims to grasp, are likewise relative (Campbell 1992: 402). After all, the postmoderns themselves employ necessities and certitudes (even though illusionary by their own stance) which are meta-linguistic to frame metanarratives to impose their view upon others, depriving us of the liberty to be ourselves (Lyotard 1984). As intelligent, reasonable, and responsible human beings, we use language to get beyond ourselves in knowing reality and transforming it. In the process language may use us perhaps even more than we use it; but by being more attuned to the way the structure and dynamisms of consciousness mutually horizon language, we may be more responsible and careful in our utterances and actions (Lonergan 1978: 562-94). There ought to exist a certain minimum of personal freedom that must on no account be violated by deconstructivist and genealogical postmodern concerns (White 1991). All the postmodernist highlighting of the inexhaustibly opentextured character of language and world disclosing power of innovative linguistic expression (White 1991: 21) can be re-understood as the role played by beliefs in the light of faith as the eyes of being in love (Lonergan 1972: 115-9). Whenever we make assertions about any matter or fact, all that is required for the truthfulness of the prediction is that the conditions for the existence or occurrence of its finite number of referents be fulfilled, conditioned either intrinsically or extrinsically by space and time, even though they might not have been fulfilled, and even though things might have been otherwise this is what Lonergan (1978: 703-18) calls the idea of contingent predication. Hence, Habermas (1992) defends the importance of the public redemption of warrants for the substantiation and validation of truth claims. Without such publicly redeemable warrants, even if these are deeply embedded within human community, society cannot function. There is, then, no denial of rationality, but a recognition that communicative praxis and reason is a rocking hull not totally lost in the sea of contingencies, but copes with these contingencies (Habermas 1992: 144). This truth characteristic of the rocking hull of communicative rationality is the practical reason: truth is reached by the community of inquirers through free, rational, and undistorted appeal, not by coercion or through the stipulation of first principles. Reason may be thoroughly historical and functional with highly delimiting circumstances; nonetheless, historical situated reason must redeem its assertions through public warrants. This pragmatic understanding of truth, subtly structured as communicative praxis, has the further advantage of fundamental congruency with the aims of egalitarian liberal democracies increasingly heterogeneous in population,

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views, customs, and mores (Habermas 1992). Habermass discourse theory, thus, seems to heal the split between the public and private domains, between religion and the marketplace. Ghettoizing religion serves neither believers nor the societies in which they are citizens (Guarino 1996: 664). However, Habermas does not want religions a priori ontology or teleology to destroy the freedom of communicative praxis; he fears that religion can also provide public warrants for societys truth claims; instead, he prefers the authority of consensus ethics to the authority of the sacred (Meyer 1995). But what brings about consensus ethics? Here, we find that Gadamer (1975) has a better solution than Habermas: he reconstructs Aristotelian phronesis or practical wisdom. Inasmuch as it is possible, Table 4.7 tries to capture the essence of the schools of Enlightenment, Modernism and Postmodernism, especially as related to critical thinking.

Aristotelian Phronesis as a Bridge to Postmodern Concept of Virtue

Gadamers (1975) fundamental argument is that the only ontologically appropriate rationality for the post-metaphysical, post-transcendental age is the practical reason or phronesis championed by Aristotle (in Book 6 of his Nichomachean Ethics (NE)). This is because the practical reason is concerned with reason and with knowledge, not detached from a being that is becoming, but determined by it and determinative of it (p. 278). According to Aristotle (1985), phronesis is equivalent to deliberating well in contingent circumstances (NE: 6.1140a.26-32), hitting the best thing available by action (NE:6.1141b.11) thus issuing some kind of correctness (NE:6.1142b.8). In this argument, Gadamer follows the thought of Heidegger and Wittgenstein who also maintained that there is no from of rationality that is exercised apart from the contingent, finite and delimiting horizons of the enveloping life-world (Guarino 1993: 45). Even though Aristotle (1985) understood phronesis as essential, but ultimately secondary to the pure and certain knowledge yielded by theoretical reason, Gadamer (1975: 280) argues that phronesis is the prime analogue for all rationality: one cannot speak about necessary (epistemological) as opposed to contingent knowledge because all rationality is exercised in radically finite circumstances.2 Thomas Kuhn (1962) also sought to uncover the ubiquitous historical and hermeneutical dimensions that inform thought. He pierced the fortress of natural science with issues such as theory-laden interpretation and paradigm bound rationality. Like his contemporaries, Kuhn (1977) was also groping after a theory of rationality that is concretely determined by its historical circumstances. He sought in the natural sciences (what Winch (see footnote 2) sought in the social) for an ontologically appropriate theory of truth and rationality. But, because Kuhn insisted on incommensurability, theory-ladenness, and nonpositivistic dimensions of all scientific thinking, he was also accused of irrationality and epistemological nihilism. Basically, like Winch and Gadamer, Kuhn could find a solution to his quest in Aristotles
2

Prior to Gadamer, and strongly influenced by Wittgenstein, Peter Winch (1958)also sought to develop a nonfoundationalist, non-positivistic sociological theory that at the same time would avoid irrationality. He claimed that there existed a priori structures on the societal and cultural level that constituted regulative forms of life for the members of particular communities. All knowledge gained by individuals was, therefore, deeply informed by social practice, local custom and common usage. Modes of social life and discourse possess logic and criteria internal to them, and they are not subject to external verification that is, all thinking is bound to regulative paradigms, frameworks, forms of life and traditions. Human rationality is exercised within radically contingent circumstances, thereby excluding overarching objective criteria applicable to all forms of life and discourse. Kai Nielsen (1967) criticized Winchs (1958) seeming obviation of universal standards of rationality, and thereby succumbing to an epistemological nihilism. Nielsen (1967) argued that by retreating into the epistemic authority of socio-cultural customs and regulative forms of life one cannot assert the incoherence, illogicality, irrationality or unintelligibility of a regulative form of life itself. However, Bernstein (1983) defending Winch (1958) argued that Winch was inchoately groping for the phronesis tradition of rationality defended by Gadamer. While Nielsen (1967) is certainly correct in arguing that one must be able to distinguish incoherency from coherency, unintelligibility from intelligibility in a social discourse, he does derive one solution himself, and an appropriate solution would be Aristotles practical reason (Guarino 1993: 47).

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phronesis (Guarino 1993). The debate continued whether Aristotles phronesis as invoked by Gadamer (1975) as a process for deliberating well and hitting the mark could provide an adequate criteria for objectively determining coherency from incoherency and intelligibility from unintelligibility. Because of this apparent weakness in Gadamers thought, Jrgen Habermas (1983) sought to supplement the phronesis tradition by his theory of communicative praxis. Together with Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Gadamer, Harbermas recognizes the thoroughly determinative and constitutive dimensions of historicity and finitude, but he also has deep respect for the capacities of human rationality. His theory of communicative praxis seeks to reclaim the positive heritage of the Enlightenment, with its concern to unmask the distortions of the traditions and to allow reason its liberative, transformative, and emancipatory role. Thus, he speaks of the ideal-speech situation where free and autonomous adults can exercise their critical faculties, seeking consensus in intersubjective communication and domination-free discussion. He does not understand reasoning as an instrument of foundationalist ontology that enforces ruthless transcultural absolutes through the mythology of universal truths. Rather, human rationality that is deeply embedded in society, history, and language should enable free and respect conversation this is communicative praxis. In its concrete and public form communication praxis and inter-subjective communication should bring the phronesis of deliberating well to publicly redeemable truth warrants for determining the results of proper deliberation. This is how the practical reason should proceed in a democratic and egalitarian society (Habermas 1987). Of course, Habermas critics asked: Is legitimacy to be found in consensus obtained through discussion as Jrgen Habermas thinks? Such consensus always does violence to the heterogeneity of language games. And invention is always born of dissension (Lyotard 1984: 60). Often, the so-called grand arch-narratives (grand rcits) of inter-subjective consensus may eventually veer towards totality, systematization, and dominance (Lyotard 1984). Similarly, Gadamers ontologization of history has been accused for its closet essentialism that seeks to avoid the abyss, rupture, and breach of radical historicity (Caputo 1987: 108-19).

In Defense of the Classical-Medieval Virtue-Based Critical Thinking

Given the progressive abandonment of the Classical-Medieval notion of metaphysical (objective) moral good, the probability of shared agreement on the concept of good and telos among modern ethical scholars is rather low (MacIntyre 1990). Moreover, given modern pluralism, relativism, and privatization of morals, there seems to be little hope of agreement on questions regarding what is objective good or objective evil. Murdoch (1992) recognizes the need for and the difficulty for recovering a shared conception of the good as a foundation of moral life and of the virtues. While a shared notion of the good was the foundation of the Classical-Medieval virtue-based ethics, it is the disagreement on the good that divides modern and contemporary ethical and metaphysical theory. Contemporary ethical scholars are much inclined to abandon the quest for a common notion of good, and to define it (following Moore 1903) only by intuitive grasp, or to deny its existence altogether. However, most of the contemporary debate still centers round the virtuous person, the character of the moral agent (Hauerwas 1981; Kuperman 1991). Other recent counterarguments against the classical virtue-based ethics focus on the fortuitous or genetic or environmental determinants of virtue (Casey 1990; Wilson 1980). How can virtue be demanded from those who do not possess it innately, or who are not genetically disposed to it, or from those who are congenitally indisposed to perform even ordinary duties? On the contrary, what is so virtuous about those who are genetically and innately predisposed to virtue? Also, in the individualist tradition of USA that emphasizes and glorifies individual choices and lifestyles (Bellah et al., 1985, 1992), role-related responsibilities and virtues are outmoded. The only duty of every American is not to infringe on the liberty of others; everything else is beyond duty (Rand 1964). The so-called classical (cardinal) virtues based on "excellence" demand much too much by way of supererogation from American individuals, communities and institutions.

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Good, Moral, Ethical and Legal Critical Thinking

What makes critical thinking good, ethical, and moral? Critical thinking, if it is really critical, must not only be intellectually rigorous and legally sound, but it must be morally good and ethical. In addressing these important questions about critical thinking, we follow the discussion of such concepts as intention, choice, goodness and evil acts in the will, and interior and exterior acts of the will as provided by Thomas Aquinas.3 Almost all of these concepts are rooted in his concept of the object, which is the primary notion in his moral writings. Since this moral theory of the object has potential for special applications in business turnarounds, we pursue this discussion in some depth. According to Thomas Aquinas, the intended object specifies our reason, will, and our subsequent acts; it provides the context of intelligibility and specificity for any type of intention and action. Without an object, we cannot understand what an action is. The object reveals to us what exactly we intend, what meaning we give to our actions, and whether our intentions and chosen actions are right or wrong. This object could be internal (e.g., our own body, mind, heart, emotions, passions, memory, instincts) or external (anything outside us in the environment). From a business point of view, the object could be

Any thing (e.g., positive cash flow, cost-reduction, better capacity utilization, better produce, product or service), Any person (e.g., a distressed customer, supplier, creditor, employee, intermediary, retailer or a shareholder), Any event (e.g., stop cash bleeding, improve employee morale, ensure stakeholder confidence, the timing of a turnaround strategy or product, preannouncement of a plant closing, new product advertising, a clearance sale, a new stakeholder relationship), or Any property (e.g., employee morale, organizational climate, work-ethic, product quality, quantity, price, and place; brand image and brand loyalty, local community loyalty).

The will wills under two forms: a) the exercise of willing per se: the will can will itself; b) the specification of willing: the will can will this or that. The latter, the primary domain of Aquinas discussion here, is totally specified by the object. That is, if we will (specification), then we must will something, some object. The object should not be confused (as moderns do) as equivalent to an act of choice or an external act. For Aquinas, the object is that which the will first needs in order to will anything. That is, the first object the will needs is not what it chooses, but what it intends; choice follows intention. The first object becomes an internal act (of willing), and not the external act (the choice). An intention means, according to Thomas (as also etymologically), to tend to something (ST I.II, 12, 1c). The will needs something toward which to tend: The will has no inclination for anything except insofar as it is apprehended by the intellect (ST II.II, 4, 7c). The will can desire no good unless it has been first apprehended by the reason and then presented by the reason to the will (ST I.II, 27, 2c; I, 82, 4c; II.II, 98,1.ad3). The will as inclination has no meaning without an object apprehended. An intention requires an antecedent act of apprehension that presents the object to the will (ST I.II. 12.1. ad1 and ad3). The interior act of the will begins with the acceptance of the object presented by the reason, and the object specifies the act (ST I.II 19.1, ad3; 19.2c). The object gives specifications to both interior and exterior acts of the will (ST I.II 18, 2c; ad2; 4c; 5c ad2; 6c; 7c; 8c).
3

Thomas Aquinas handles the problem of the cause of goodness in oneself primarily in his Summa Theologiae (ST), Part One of Volume Two (designated as I.II), and predominantly in Question 18 (Of the Good and Evil of Human Acts in General) and Question 19.

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Hence, the classification of the wills acts as good or bad is dependent upon the objects that are presented to the will through the reason. The interior act of the will begins with the acceptance of the object as presented by the reason through which the act is specified (ST I.II 18.6c; 19.1, ad3; 19.1 1c; 2c; 3c; 5c). This first object, if it is in accord with reason, even causes moral goodness in the will (ST I.II 19.1 ad3). 4 The goodness of the interior act of the will is solely caused by the object (ST I.II 19.2c), but is also attributed to the reason as much as its presents the object to the will (ST I.II 19.3c). The object provides the intelligibility and measurability for both external and internal actions of the will (Keenan 1992, p. 69). Thus, the object causes goodness not as a physical cause, but as a formal and final cause. The objects intelligibility and measurability (which is the form) is presented to the reason; the objects proximate end (finality) is also presented by reason to the will. The original source of the object is not the will, but reason, and the object as intelligible is measured by reason. Its measurability gives specification to the various dimensions of moral matters (Keenan 1992: 72).5 The object is the subject matter that the wills acceptance transforms into an end being sought. This object is not the object realized, but the object as it is in the intention, which gives form to the act (ST I.II 91c;18.2c ad 2, ad3). Thus, Aquinas distinguishes two notions of the object: a) that which is offered to the will, which stands as material circa quam of the intention, and therefore, provides the form and species of the act; this is also called the ratio objecti; b) that which is realized by the will after being presented by the reason. The object as it is formally accepted, not as it is materially realized, specifies habits and virtues. As accepted, the object becomes the form of the act to be realized (ST I.II 8.1c; 18.2, ad3). These distinctions are important. For instance, in the question whether lying is always as opposed to truth, Aquinas makes three distinctions in the act of lying: falsehood materially, formally, and effectively. If we intended to be truthful but unintentionally told a falsehood, this is falsehood not formally but only materially. If we intent to tell a falsehood, even though we end up accidentally saying the truth, it is not material falsehood but formally lying and belongs to the species of lying. Thirdly, if we intend to deceive somebody, and tell several falsehoods in the process, then there is no formally lying but only effective lying; the real act does not belong to the species of lying, but to the species of deception (ST II.II, 110 1c, ad 1 and ad3). Thus, according to Aquinas, the object concerns not so much what we do, but where we begin. The wrongness of lying has its origin, not in the act, but in the intention. We are not liars because we commit the act of lying; we are liars when we think it right to contradict in word what we have in mind. Being liars, we consequently commit the act of lying. Thus, formal objects precede the commission of acts (Keenan 1992: 81-2).

Writes Aquinas, Now in human actions, good and evil are predicated in reference to reason (ST I.II 18 5c). Good and evil are also predicated of the human will. The good and evil will are acts differing in species, and the specific difference in acts is according to objects. Therefore, good and evil in the acts of the will are derived properly from objects (ST I.II 19 1c).
5

In this connection, Aquinas distinguishes two types of operations: immanent and transient (e.g., ST I 14 2c; 18.3 ad1; 23.2 ad1; 54. 2c; 56.1c; 85.2; 105.3c). Immanent operations remain in the agent and are acts and perfections of the agent; transient operations pass into external matter and are acts and perfections of the receiver (patient). Insofar as they are perfections of the agent, all moral acts are immanent acts (ST I.II 74.1c). As the operations differ, so do the objects. In transient operations, the object is external to the agent; the object passes out of the agent into something that is made. In immanent operations, the object as intended is within or internal to the agent; it gives form to the agents activity, transforms the activity, and in turn, transforms the agent, In immanent operations, the agent is not a maker, but doer; the agent cannot be easily distinguished from the activity, even as love cannot be distinguished from the lover, the dance from the dancer, and parenting from the parent (Keenan 1992, p. 92). In all immanent operations, the object acts as form and perfects its matter, the subject and itself (ST I.II 57.5, ad1). For instance, prudence, through operation, perfects itself (see Keenan 1992, pp. 73ff).

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In the same way, lust is not defined as intending to commit acts of rape, seduction or adultery. Lust as a formal object appears when we allow venereal pleasures to overcome preferred ways of human acting (ST II-II 153, 2c; 3c; 154, 1c); one commits these acts because one is dominated by lust. Our disorder comes, not from assuming, intending, or committing these acts, but from our assumption of the object of lust - the unrestricted indulgence in venereal pleasures. This formal object is the matter of lust, not the acts. Though the end gives species to moral acts, it is only the end as proximate to the formal object, which needs to be corrected more than the lustful acts. Morality is primarily defined by the formal object (intention, preference), while legality is primarily defined by the provable acts (e.g., rape, adultery). Every object has en end, a purpose, or a good for which it is made. The will needs the object not only to will something, but also to will something good or bad. The goodness or badness of an act of willing is, according to Aquinas, derived from the object (Keenan 1992: 67). Aquinas repeatedly insists that the good or bad is presented by the reason to the will as its object (ST I,II 19.1 ad3; 19.3c ad1, ad2; 19.5c; 19.10c). The object, then, is that which becomes the end when the will accepts it. However, the goodness of the will solely depends upon the goodness of the object, and for Aquinas, the entire discussion of the goodness of the intentions revolves around the object, not the end. The end is purely a formal concept. However, since the end is the object received by the will, the goodness derived from the object does not differ from that derived from the end (ST I.II 19.2, ad1). 6 That is, in effect an act is good because reason judges it appropriate or fitting to the end of the object. However, the end is properly the object of the interior act of the will (ST I.II 18. 6c), and specifies the act of the will in as much as it has the meaning of the object (ST I.II 18.6 ob1 and ad1). But the goodness derived from the object does not differ from the goodness derived from the end (ST I.II 19. 2c ob1 and ad1). The end that gives specification is the object that gives specification: the two are not different because the proximate end is the wills inclination (intention) informed by a conceived, presented, and accepted object (Keenan 1992: 72). At the same time, all moral acts (commissions or omissions) are voluntary, and being voluntary, they have an end (ST I.II 74. 1c, 2c, 3c; I.II 1,1c; 18.6c and 9c). The end determines whether actions are moral, for human acts are acts done for an end and such acts are moral ones (ST I.II. 1.1c and 3c). Thus, though specificity is derived from the object, moral specificity is derived from the end; an object alone does not determine the morality of an action, but only if the object is willed, and willed as an end. The end is proximate or immediate that constitutes every object, (ST I.II 1.3c and ad3; I.II 60 1 ad3), and not necessarily, the last or ultimate end which may always not be inscribed in the object (ST I.II 19.1. ad2). Thus, restricting the interior willed act to specification and excluding the last end, Aquinas has provided a way of measuring the specific end; this end, the object in the intention, is measured by reason (Keenan 1992: 69). Combining the two viewpoints, we may summarize as follows: If an act is moral, it must somehow be attributed to an end. However, its morality must have content; the act must have intelligibility, some meaningful directionality or inclination. Its intelligible content is derived from an object apprehended by reason and accepted as an end or as informing the end, whereby the object gives species to the moral act (Keenan 1992: 68). The proximate end (and not the last end) that gives species is the object that gives species; the object that gives species is the object formally understood. The proximate end gives species only by the will intending the object as conceived and presented by reason, and not as realized. The species establishes the essential difference between good and evil in as much as the object fits reason (Keenan 1992: 72).
6

In contemporary discussion, such a measure is the measure of rightness or wrongness. The concept of end, insofar as it refers to the proximate end, pertains to rightness alone. The measure of the end in specified acts, both internal and external, is derived not from the last end (that moves the will in its exercise of willing pr se), but from the object alone that moves the will as form in giving specification (Keenan 1992: 69-70).

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Finally, if objects that give species are antecedent and not subsequent to willing and cause goodness (or evil), what is their relation to virtues, since the latter are moral habits of good (or evil)? Aquinas responds that the object specifies a virtue as temperate or just (not as it is materially realized), but as it is accepted by the will in the intention. Moral matters do not receive their species from the last end, but from the proximate end of the objects as presented by the reason to the will (ST I.II 60.1 ad 3). Since the end that gives species in morals is always the object that gives species to things in morals, it follows that the difference of objects always causes a specific difference of virtues. The function of the object as antecedent to any act of the will is to establish the specific virtues. Prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude are each distinguished by their formal objects relation to reason, that is by its intelligibility, and so too, the same formal object is determined either good or bad, virtue or vice, right or wrong, by its fittingness to reason (ST I.II 54. 3c; 63. 2c).

Part Three: Applications of Virtuous Critical Thinking To Business Situations

The real challenge is to understand and apply the various approaches to critical thinking discussed thus far to various disciplines of the business education curriculum. We present two macro applications in the general field of capitalist free enterprise system and industrial economics, and two micro applications in the specific field of marketing.

Critical Thinking Applied to the Theory of Capitalism

It is good to start applying critical thinking (CT) to the large macro system, the capitalist free enterprise system our market system is based upon. In fact, our business curriculum is premised on the capitalist free enterprise system (CFES). We have already defined and discussed capitalism in Chapter 01. We revisit the subject from a critical thinking viewpoint. The United States of America has favored a capitalist free enterprise market system since its early beginnings. Adam Smith's seminal treatise on the Wealth of Nations (1776) could have also influenced this choice. The list of conditions that constitute an ideal free market system has been given different forms (Buchanan 1985; Hunt and Morgan 1995). But among other things, it provides that:
1. 2. 3. There shall be many sellers and buyers, none of whom has a substantial share of the market. All the sellers and buyers are in a position to enter or exit the market freely. All have complete information about the prices, quantities and quality of goods placed in the market. The costs and benefits of production and the use of goods exchanged should fall entirely on those who buy or sell the goods, and not on outside third parties.

4.

The first two conditions define "perfect competition" and the latter two define the perfect market. All four combined constitute the free market method of organizing productive and distributive economic activity. It prescribes that the quantity of goods offered and the prices attached to them will spontaneously tend toward a "point of market equilibrium" at which prices reflect: a) the value that the consumers attach to goods they purchase and b) the costs that sellers sustain in producing and marketing them. Following CT approach (4) and based on Hunt (1991; 2002), one should seek: The above four conditions are the positive aspect of CFES. Critical thinking should search for the normative. Are these four conditions verified in our market systems? If not verified, why not?

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Given such ideal conditions and using any of the six approaches listed in Table 3, critical thinking (CT) should verify if various desirable outcomes of CFES or ethical imperatives are realizable. Some of these imperatives are:

1. Teleological Justice: each buyer or seller can maximize one's own interest, thereby
automatically producing an economic and social asset conducive to common good of all and national prosperity.

2. Deontological Justice: the free market system (especially via conditions one and two) can
safeguard as well as realize the rights of the individual freedom of all entrepreneurs involved.

3. Distributive Justice: In this way, the moral demand of equity and justice is also realized, more
precisely as commutative justice who prescribes that each participant in the exchange receives the exact equivalent of what he/she gives (Lattuada 1997).

4. Ecological Justice: perfect competition strives optimal efficiency of the productive system
understood as the elimination of waste that producers will produce only those goods and services for which there is adequate and real market demand such that market gluts are avoided, superfluous needs are not created or fulfilled, and scarce resources are never wasted.

When these or similar ideal conditions of the ideal free market system are realized, CT could pose even further concerns such as: Is the capitalist free enterprise system (CFES) too ideological in that it systematically leaves the fundamental reality of our earth and society out of account? That is, the market mechanistic growth that the CFES presumes, abstracts from the physical conditions of our existence, the finitude of our natural resources, and from our real needs. Said differently, the market reacts to market (often created) demand, but not necessarily real needs. The natural conditions of human existence, namely, the consumption of energy and other resources, are external to the logic of the free market. That is, natural resources that are not produced by the free market are treated as though they were unlimited. In our current CFES, the market economies that keep the classical promise of rationality of all actors, and prosperity and freedom for all are almost nonexistent. Scientifically considered, the free market system is viewed as a natural phenomenon, with an internal self-regulatory mechanism that enables it to function as though it were a physical system independent of all human interference. The prevailing belief was that economics followed mechanistic laws like those of classical physics. Adam Smith was regarded as the Newton of Economics, i.e., its founder as science. Sociologically viewed, Adam Smith believed that the intrinsic laws of the free market system will lead to the prosperity of all nations provided that one allows them to work without outside intervention of the state. When each strives for riches via absolute competition, the selfish agents in the market systems will hold one another in check and advance developments in a way that would be favorable to all. Epistemologically seen, the free market is seen as a privileged place for costless information access so that meaningful and informed economic decisions and exchanges may be brought about. While Smith (1976) advocated a free market system, self-regulated by the "invisible hand," he also followed the administrative tradition in dealing with fiscal problems. Hence, Smith saw the economics of the free market system as a branch of moral philosophy and jurisprudence. Further, Adam Smith (1976) defined a capitalist corporation as an institution for:

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1. 2. 3.

4. 5.

Managing productive skills of the labor force. Stimulating, diffusing and institutionalizing technological innovations; Accumulating the nation's human, physical, and money capital; Developing a strong and large market that controls itself, and thus, for Raising sufficiently high living standards among the nation's people.

CT questions if American capitalism has basically fulfilled this fivefold mission. Today, the United States of America is the largest industrial capital base in the world, but has it fulfilled its CFES mission? CFES can and does fail when corporate power gets abused along the same five dimensions [(a) to (e)] for which capitalism was instituted in the U.S. Corporate power is the ability of executives, corporations and other economic institutions to manipulate the market or business environment (Steiner and Steiner 1991). Several values and disvalues emerge from wielding this manipulative power. Table 4.6 documents some basic values and disvalues that currently emerge and affect our capitalist society. American capital accumulation is second to none in size, quality, coverage, and relevance (Chandler 1977; Schumpeter 1934). Despite our enormous federal budget deficits and gaping trade deficits, our massive socio-economic infrastructure has been our ransom during these years of uncontrollable recession, technological and corporate restructuring, and industrial depression. Yet, the same accumulated capital and unbridled progress has created problems (Laudan 1977; Winner 1977) such as highly skewed income distributions and social inequalities, ghost towns as an aftermath of massive plant closings, periodic liquidity crises, and low interest rates that have seriously eroded fixed incomes of the elderly. Regional and national retailing concentrations (e.g., casinos) and giant chain stores (e.g., WallMart) have left neighborhood retailing stores and independents less than fighting chances for survival. Our greed for market control has also triggered countless hostile company takeovers that have rendered firms, both big and small, increasingly vulnerable (Ackerman and Zimbalist 1978; Mascarenhas 1980; Mascarenhas, Kesavan and Bernacchi 2005a, 2005b; Okun 1975). Capitalism is basically capital accumulation. But capital accumulation does not progress evenly and smoothly since there are both regular business cycles as well as irregularly recurring periods of stagnation and chronic depression. The reasons for the latter economic ailments are built into capitalism: e.g., often capitalists slash wages or attrition labor thus depressing consumer demand, thereby also increasing profits, retained earnings and expanding productive capacity. The result is the ever-present tendency for supply to outrun demand a typical case of subprime lending and housing market today. The more this happens, the more giant corporations will emerge, smaller corporations weakened, and mergers or leverage-buyouts will be the order of the day. Industrial concentration will result in monopolies and serious income inequalities (Mascarenhas, Kesavan and Bernacchi 2005a, 2005b). Poverty and marginalization will coexist amidst affluence and luxury (Galbraith 1956, 1958, 1967). Corporate monopolistic power can control expansions, create or depress labor demand, convert labor-intensive to capital-intensive productivities, create artificial shortages in essential commodities; in short, re-enact the Great Depression of the 1929-1933. Actually, we may not be too far from it if monopolistic capitalism is allowed to rule the national economy. For instance, consider recent massive mergers of:
Banks (e.g., Chase Manhattan with Chemical Bank in a $13 billion deal; The Travelers Group and Citicorp combining $70 billion - a pending deal still), Savings institutions (e.g., Astoria Financial & Long Island Bancorp combining in $16.6 billion in assets), Auto-companies (e.g., Daimler-Chrysler; Daimler-Chrysler-Cerberus),

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Electronic communications corporations (e.g., WorldCom and MCI Communications combined $37 billion; Bell Atlantic Corp. and Nynex Corp. resulting in $25.6 billion combined assets), and other Diversification mergers (e.g., RJR Nabisco and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in $25 billion, and Walt Disney Co. with Capital Cities/ABC resulting in $19 billion)

Such mergers and acquisitions are basically downsizing, restructuring and cost-reduction turnaround strategies. But simultaneously, they could be power-concentration and intra-industry giant competition strategies.

Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism

In his book, The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, Daniel Bell (1973) states his central thesis that capitalism has some inherent cultural contradictions. For instance, capitalism emphasizes and glorifies accumulation of wealth or capital as an end in itself, and not as a means for higher ends such as civilization and virtue. Capitalism fosters individualism since much of capitalist accumulation is for individualist ends, with very little geared for social and collective betterment. Hence, the very culture created by capitalism can some times backfire leading to its eventual destruction (Bell 1973, 1976). Galbraith (1976) agrees with Bell (1973) and further expands this thesis. Others feel that capitalist business, which is the groundwork for American business, seems to be inherently immoral - this is because its task presupposes the legitimacy of the private pursuit of at least economic self-interest, and this pursuit may be immoral or may lead to immorality (Machan and Uyl 1987). If business ethics is understood as a science of socio-economic values identifying what business executives ought to do and ought not to do in promoting common socio-economic good, then capitalism that is ex professo fueled by private self-interest may be geared to do the opposite (Bell 1973; Galbraith 1956, 1958; Mascarenhas 2008). Obviously, capitalism-fed corporate greed can also dominate marketing executive thinking. Several theories explaining or justifying market inequities and injustices have been suggested. For instance, Machiavellianism believes that "might is right" and grabs the largest share one can get regardless of inputs and efforts (Christie and Geis 1970). 7 Darwinian Justice or Spencer's Social Darwinism (Hofstadter 1955) advocates natural selection by "survival of the fittest" corporations (Lerner 1977). The philosophy of Justified-self-interest distributes goods proportional to what the distributor wants - self before others; particularly, distributor's needs come first when goods are scarce (Lerner 1977). The theory of the bigger the better control proclaims that larger sales and revenues yield larger market shares and profits, which in turn generate better scale economies, optimal size, expansion opportunities, and increased market power and control (Shoemaker 1983). Capitalist business can be a corrupting influence on social life and values. By commercializing everything from Christmas to the professions, business can have immoral influence (Jung 1983). Advertising and marketing creates trivial, frivolous and extravagant needs in peoples that would never have risen without media influences. Allegedly, media advertising siphons off scarce consumer resources that could have been better spent on other real needs (Galbraith 1976). Thus, if a capitalist system by its very nature institutionalizes selfishness as virtue (Rand 1964), and, accordingly, exploits opportunities to advance corporate goals and personal wealth, then the business or
7

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was an Italian (Florentine) statesman and political theorist. Based on his writings, Calhoon (1969: 211) defined a Machiavellian executive as one who "employs aggressive, manipulative, exploiting, and devious moves in order to achieve personal and organizational objectives."

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turnaround executives who works within that capitalist system could get unwittingly caught up in this race. They could be fired by and committed to its ideology, and propelled to work hard, especially when rewards are ultimately conditioned on and determined by higher levels of profitability (Molander 1980). In particular, big business corporations controlled by a self-perpetuating, irresponsible power-elite are charged with the exercise of concentrated economic and political power contrary to the public interest (Jacoby 1973). The United States of America is the largest free market system in the world with enormous consumer buying power accompanied by strong consumption and investment multipliers. Yet for all this market power, we have forced consumer overspending through easy credit card buying privileges (Feinberg 1991), exorbitant pricing (Aram 1983), undue profiteering (Mascarenhas 1987, 1988a,b), planned shorter product life cycles, and fast-obsolesced life styles (Belk 1985, Hirschman 1985, Hirschman and Holbrook 1982). American capitalism has generated enviably high quality standards of healthy living, and vigorously promoted advanced health care coupled with long life-expectancies. At the same time, during the last two decades, industrial capitalism has spawned too many destitution pockets, poverty corridors, slums and ghettos, too many middle class and elderly living on the margin, drug and substance abuses, geriatric enclaves, over thirty million Americans with no health insurance, and another sixty million under-insured (Blumberg 1980; Scitovsky 1976). Also, during these last two decades, American capitalistic greed has spewed underground drug markets, stock exchange scams, organized bank scandals, and hostile takeovers. Capitalism must now show the ability to solve successfully its newly created problems. Currently, American capitalism has generated several all-time highs of social burdens:
Nationwide massive structural unemployment and underemployment created by progressive industrial plant closings or downsizings, highest rates of unemployment and part-time employment since the second World War, highest income inequalities since the turn of the century, most skewed health care distribution that has seriously jeopardized access of over 100 million Americans to adequate health care, ecological degradation caused by limitless use of limited resources, highest number of harmful products as evidenced from the highest number of product liability lawsuits each year, highest incidence of deceptive advertising and unsubstantiated advertising claims, highest number of commercials per media hour, highest exposure of sex, crime and violence in adult and children's movies, and a host of other organized scams and scandals.

The need for ethics in business and government institutions has also reached an all-time high level since the founding of this country. If capital accumulation is the heart of American capitalism, American executives and entrepreneurs are the heart of capital accumulation. American marketing executives in particular can make the difference, turn the tide, and put America back on the track of honesty, integrity, and hard work.

Capitalist Constraints and Business Executive Responsibilities

Despite the internal contradictions of capitalism, however, business executives can still exercise both contractual and relational responsibilities under capitalist constraints. Table 4.8 is an outline of such responsibilities. Typical capitalist constraints:
Capitalism may emphasize and glorify accumulation of wealth or capital as an end in itself, and not as a means for higher ends such as humanization, civilization and virtue;

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Capitalism may foster individualism since much of capitalist accumulation is for individualist ends; and Capitalism may legitimize the private pursuit of at least economic self-interest, and this pursuit may be immoral or lead to immorality.

Under each of these capitalist constraints, Table 4.8 specifies corresponding transactional-contractual and transactional-relational executive responsibilities. For instance, while formation of capital and accumulation of wealth are important for economic growth and for the development of all citizens, emphasis on individual amassing of wealth, power and control that goes with wealth is counterproductive. Greed breeds greed. One could use capitalist mechanisms to promote social and public good (Bollier 1997). Individualism may be a dominant habit in America (Bellah et al., 1985, 1992), yet the same habit can be transformed and dovetailed for common good this is an executive responsibility, both at the individual and corporate levels. In general, corporations who have shared profits and wealth opportunities with their stakeholders have been most successful (Bollier 1997; Collins 2003; Peters and Waterman 1982; Peters and Austin 1985).

Critical Thinking applied to Opportunistic Executive Behavior

One of the major cultural contradictions and consequences of unbridled capitalism is opportunism and the opportunistic executive behavior it stimulates. Opportunism is a strategic behavior whereby one makes false or empty "threats and promises in the expectation that individual advantage will thereby be realized" (Williamson 1975: 26). Opportunism is "seeking self-interest with guile" (Williamson 1985) or seeking "self-interest unconstrained by morality" (Milgrom and Roberts 1992). Opportunistic behavior manifests itself in various ways such as lying, stealing, cheating, or other "calculated efforts to mislead, distort, disagree, obfuscate, or otherwise, confuse" (Williamson 1985: 47) partners in business. Opportunism is "the ultimate cause for the failure of markets and for the existence of organizations" (Williamson 1993: 102). But for opportunism, "most forms of complex contracting and hierarchy vanish" and markets alone would be sufficient for handling most transactions through autonomous contracting (Williamson 1993: 97). Opportunism is a central concept in Transactions Cost Economics (TCE) theory originally proposed and developed by Williamson (1975, 1985, 1990, 1991, 1993). According to TCE, organizations exist because of their superior abilities to attenuate opportunism through the exercise of hierarchical (both rational and social) controls that, in general, are not accessible to "markets." 8 In this regard, TCE makes two behavioral assumptions: a) one cannot predict others' behavior, and b) one cannot identify one's own best behavior. Not all are inclined to opportunistic behavior; those who do, the "determined minority" (Williamson 1993: 98), may do because of the above two assumptions. Some may be inclined to "instrumental behavior" in which there is no necessary self-awareness that the interests of a party are being furthered by opportunism (Williamson 1975). These people, without being aware, are instrumental in opportunistic outcomes of others.

However, recently some critics of TCE (e.g., Bromiley and Cummings 1992, 1993; Chiles and McMackin 1996; Goshal and Moran 1996; Masten 1992; Moran and Goshal 1996) have shown that hierarchical controls need not necessarily curtail opportunistic behavior. Indeed, they are more likely to cause the opposite effect (Goshal and Moran 1996). Non-control mechanisms have been suggested instead such as joint ventures or strategic alliances (Balakrishnan and Koza 1993), trust (Bromiley and Cummings 1992, 1993; Chiles and McMackin 1996), leveraging work-force ability to take initiative, to cooperate, and to learn (Goshal and Moran 1996; Pfeffer 1994). Organizations created to attenuate opportunistic behavior fail when they are unable to create the social context necessary to build the trust and commitment that are needed for maintaining cooperation in transactionexchanges.

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There is much scope for opportunistic behavior (acts of self-interest with guile or unconstrained by morality) in business, and in marketing in particular. According to Williamson (1993: 102), opportunism is primarily a "human condition," a human tendency or attitude (inclination, proclivity, propensity). Opportunistic attitudes are "rudimentary attributes of human nature" (Williamson 1991: 8). Opportunism is distinguished from opportunistic behavior; the latter constitutes acts of self-interest with guile (Goshal and Moral 1996). Opportunism also differs from mere "self-interested behavior." One presumes the latter is constrained by obedience to rules and faithfulness to promises, while opportunism (which is self-interest with guile) is not. Opportunism seeks self-advantages with no concern for the advantages of the other. Williamson (1991) however, does not specify the mechanisms (e.g., economic institutions, markets) through which opportunism is created or reduced (Hart 1990), and instead assumes it to be a "human condition" (1993: 102). Even though this behavioral assumption of opportunism is regarded as an "extreme caricature" of human nature (Milgrom and Roberts 1992: 42), yet Williamson believed that opportunistic behavior (specific acts of self-interest with guile) might be controlled by proper social sanctions. Various factors that spur opportunism have been identified. All these very well apply to the business executive. We highlight a few below. Other things being equal, opportunism can thrive:

When the transaction partner has invested much capital and technology in the transactionexchange that cannot be used for other products (this phenomenon is called asset specificity in TCE theory), the predator can "hold-up" such assets by being opportunistic. Such hostage type of terrorist opportunism is the ultimate cause of the failure of the free markets and for the existence of organization. When asset specificity is high, it acts as a "locomotive" for opportunism (Williamson 1985: 56). Analogously, when the outcomes of transaction-exchanges are highly uncertain, opportunistic behavior can go undetected (Hill 1990: 508) and un-tethered, and hence, can get stimulated. When behaviors of individuals and of the outcomes of those behaviors become uncertain, and this uncertainty in turn makes measurability of individual or group performance uncertain, and when rational control on such behaviors cannot be cost-effectively enforced, then opportunism abounds (Ouchi 1979). When short-term gains of opportunistic behavior are very large.

High-discretion (that is, non-fiat, non-monitored) environment within an organization facilitates opportunistic behaviors (Goshal and Moran 1996). When the predator nurses negative feelings for or an unfavorable assessment of the specific transaction partner (Goshal and Moran 1996). When the predator perceives biases, inequities or unfairness in the organization he or she works for (Goshal and Moran 1996).

Opportunism under any form is not a typical constraint according to Aristotle (1985), nor is it ignorance as he understands it. Hence, actions resulting from opportunism cannot be involuntary as defined by him. Moreover, Aristotle (1985) maintained that certain conditions do not make an action involuntary, such as compelling pleasure, emotions or appetites howsoever strong, and willed ignorance, or ignorance without regret. To our understanding, opportunism is best described in Aristotelian terminology as a compelling pleasure or a strong appetite and such conditions cannot make opportunistic actions

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involuntary. They are voluntary. Hence, despite opportunistic challenges in a corporation, executives can and should always exercise responsibility. Table 4.9 depicts some of these executive responsibilities, both transactional-contractual and transactional-relational. Table 4.9 defines opportunism in some of its main features (Column 2) and enabling factors (Column 3). Against each enabling factor, counter-opportunistic contractual (Column 4) and relational (Column 5) marketing responsibilities are suggested. However, according to TCE, opportunistic behavior is positively related to the opportunity (i.e., expected benefits) for such behavior. Opportunistic behavior is also positively influenced by opportunism itself as a tendency, which in turn, may be conditioned by one's upbringing, childhood and adolescent exposures, and social heredity (Goshal and Moran 1996). Opportunistic behavior is negatively related to organizational sanctions such as fiat, monitoring and incentives. Hence, opportunism is not a fixed trait, unaffected by context, but a covariant of opportunity determinants (Williamson 1985, 1991). 9

Critical Thinking Applied to the Theory of Industrial Economics

Management strategy literature identifies several industry drivers that affect executive decisions and choice-situations at any given stage. Porter (1980, 1985, 1986) proposed four such drivers: market, competition, cost, and government. Others (e.g., Glazer 1991; Hoffman and Novak 1996; Prahalad and Hamel 1990) seem to identify a fifth driver that drives the other four: technology. We believe that all five drivers together constitute the general executive choice-situation for organizational efficiency. Each driver can serve to motivate and enhance executive responsibility, and at the same time, given market constraints, serve to constrain and exonerate marketing responsibility (Mascarenhas 1995). Table 4.10 illustrates the general executive choice situation under these five industry drivers. Within each of these drivers some major elements are identified that act both as a driving or motivating force, as well as a de-motivating or constraining factor. That is, in general, every industry driver has its potential positive vector for stimulating the economy, and at the same time, with its vector of constraints, to depress the firm, local, domestic or international communities. Table 4.10 focuses on the constraints, and does not list the obvious positive aspects of industry drivers. Following Hunt (1991, 2002), Table 4.10 looks for the normative behind the positive. Or following Collins (2001), it challenges the current system of industrial economics for its normative and humanizing values, for its spiritual intelligence (SQ: Covey 2004), for its positive impact upon the world we live (Chaffee 1988). It reflects on whether our industrial economic thinking, deciding, and acting is right (Paul and Elder 2002). Or, following the sixth CT approach, It sifts through data, information and theories, and looks for knowledge, value and wisdom in our industrial world. For instance, in Table 4.10 under technology, the industry forces enriching executive choicesituation are such factors as discoveries or inventions of new process and product technologies, that in
9

Several scholars carefully critique Williamson's (1985, 1991) theory of TCE. Common weaknesses detected are: a) TCE exaggerates opportunism in markets; over time, the invisible hand of the markets will weed out habitual opportunism (Hill 1990). b) According to TCE, organizations primarily exist because of their ability to attenuate opportunism through control. That is, organizations begin where markets fail. For one thing, organizations may not weed out all opportunism by rational or social control, and the other, that in the bureaucratic process of doing so, they may generate more opportunism, as is argued by the "self-fulfillment prophecy" theory advocated by Goshal and Moran (1996). c) The distinction between markets and hierarchies is overstated; most markets function within an organizational economy that continuously generates innovations and new products in the market place; thus, the reverse may be equally true: "markets begin where organizations begin to fail" may be a more realistic assumption (Rumelt, Schendel, and Teece 1991: 19). d) TCE over-focuses control; although control is necessary in all organizations, a preoccupation with control obscures and weakens an organization's fundamental source of advantage over markets (Goshal and Moran 1996).

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turn, result in better quality products, shorter production-cycles, automation and robotics, computerization and global networking technologies. All these can boost industries, markets, gross national product, buying power, and in general, the domestic, international and global economies. But, almost every invention, new process and product technology, automation and robotics, computerization and global networking, can bring in their wake serious diseconomies for the operating firm itself, local economy, as well as added costs for the consumers and the local communities. For example, a new process technology will imply new materials, better quality standards, better scale economies, faster production, - in general, higher productivity. However, every process technology innovation implies reengineering and rescaling of the entire production floor and processes, retraining of employee skills, rehiring additional new skills, new risks and new uncertainties, new roles and ambiguities - all these are incremental costs to the firm that eventually get passed on to the consumer. Similarly, each new discovery or invention generates a new technology that in turn gives rise to a new product offering in the marketplace, that often stimulates a new wasteful lifestyle. But by the same token, the new product offering obsolesces and devalues the previous generation products, and forces consumers and societies to adopt and absorb the new technology via new training skills, all of which regularly imply additional costs. High costs of innovations have to be absorbed by the company by passing them on to the customer through high prices. Every new technological wave implies costs of obsolescence since adopting new technology is generally expensive. Automation is a wonderful cost-cutter, but it displaces manual labor, and cost of retrenchment in terms of money and loss of good will is generally very high. Computerization is wonderful for the economy, but the accompanying hardware/software obsolescence drives database management costs high, outdates previous generation database management skills and software, and passes such costs to the consumers. Similarly, current networking technologies such as the Internet, the Web, e-marketing, e-banks, e-trade, and in general, all electronic commerce applications offer tremendous new market, product and service opportunities, but automatically obsolesce existing retailing outlets, retailing skills, force retraining, retrenchment, and relocation, often restructuring and downsizing, - all of these represent significant costs of time, money and executive stress. Moreover, while the benefits of online marketing are substantial, the potential hazards of Internet marketing in terms of consumer online privacy abuse, pornography exposure to children, Cyber-fraud, and Cyber-hackers (Bloom, Milne, and Adler 1994; Mascarenhas 2000) cannot be ignored, and are currently, great challenges to the Internet marketing executives moral responsibility. Similarly, cost drivers impact executive responsibility both positively and negatively. The current abundant supply of materials, land, workspace, capital, labor, merger opportunities, and technological alliances challenge the executive to be morally responsible to the resources. However, each of these resources can also cause stress on executives and employees and their families as suggested in Table 4.10 - these are additional challenges to executive moral responsibility.

Marketing-Based Critical Thinking As Intellectual Development

Marketing is fundamentally new product and service development. Hence, we apply CT to the very core of marketing: the new product development process. We apply CT to the intellectual, volitional and moral skills that are needed for a productive (positive) and normative (ethical and moral) process of generating and developing new products. Intellectual development refers to several aspects of the marketing profession: one's understanding of the marketing choice-situation in relation to products and services opportunities (product mix), ones capacity to identify and evaluate possible market opportunities and courses of marketing action (marketing

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mix), critically grasping the managerial and moral content of the alternatives, (value mix) and objectively evaluating the legal, ethical and moral responsibility implications of the consequences of the alternatives to be chosen (responsibility mix). In general, the higher one's intellectual critical development, the greater is one's accumulation of insights, greater is the development of one's practical intelligence, greater is the range of possible courses of action one can grasp and consider, and wider is the domain of ones critical thinking and assessment. Conversely, the lesser ones development of practical intelligence, the lesser is the range of possible courses of action that one can identify and explore, and the lesser is the domain of critical thinking and assessment (Lonergan 1957, 627-34). Obviously, one's internal psycho-biological state of sensitive skills and mental habits, coping skills in relation to executive anxiety, stress and strain, and ones addictions and obsessions can condition ones intellectual development, and can restrict one's capacity for effective deliberation and choice (see Lonergan 1957, 618-25). Higher levels of intellectual development expand the domain of critical thinking and assessment of alternatives, and hence, may often slow down ethical decisions. What one does not understand, one can learn; but learning takes time, and until it takes place, otherwise possible courses of action are excluded. Conversely, lower levels of executive intellectual development precipitate ethical judgments. Intellectual development can imply several marketing skills, such as those we list in Table 4.11 These skills are just illustrative, and for proper focus, they are marketing-problem-centered. Marketing executives could use these skills in identifying, defining, formulating, modeling, and resolving product-service related problems from the stage of new product ideation to its testing to national launching to its monitoring and phase-out processes. Several of these skills and procedures are time consuming, difficult, and rarely fully realizable (Goolsby and Hunt 1992; Kohlberg and Turiel 1973). In trying to provide "workable guides to help a marketing executive to evaluate alternative courses of action in a specific concrete situation," Patterson (1966) adds that there could be effective structural limitations such as competition and government regulation, which can seriously limit feasible alternatives. According to Hunt and Vitell (1986), major sources of variance in ethical judgments of marketing executives concern assessing alternative strategies. Variance was found in the identification, enumeration, and evaluation of all available alternative courses of action and their consequences to different stakeholders, and in how marketing executives perceive the probability of the occurrence of consequences and their desirability. Both these sources of variance could be minimized with proper managerial intellectual training and development. Other things being equal, the higher is the level of intellectual development among marketing executives, the higher is their capacity for: a) identifying marketing problems, b) defining and formulating the controllable and uncontrollable variables constituting the problems, c) identifying alternative strategies for resolving these problems, and d) for foreseeing and evaluating the consequences of these strategies to various stakeholders. That is, the more informed are marketing choices and strategies, the higher is the marketing executives capacity for critical thinking and the higher is the moral responsibility for the social outcomes of the chosen strategy. The converse of this proposition is only conditionally true. The lack of general product-service related intellectual skills (as visualized in Table 4.10) might not always exonerate executive responsibility. Their continued lack over a long period of professional years could be construed as inexcusable ignorance or executive negligence.

Marketing-Based Critical Thinking as Volitional Development

Volitional development relates to one's ability to deliberate over alternatives and choices, and critically reflect over ones decisions and actions (Lonergan 1957: 627-34). Volitional development is

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basically "antecedent willingness" (Lonergan 1957: 630) that relates to the habitual accumulation of practical insights such that external persuasion is not needed to bring one to a decision. When volitional development is lacking, persuasion is needed. All persuasion takes time, and till one is fully persuaded, one remains closed to otherwise possible courses of action. Volitional development for a marketing executive involves training of one's will to acquire various marketing-related moral habits. Some of these are: a) executive capacity and willingness to accumulate sensitive insights in relation to all stakeholders; b) executive capacity and willingness to identify and examine ethical issues in marketing situations; c) executive capacity and willingness to resolve ethical issues by universal moral standards or corporate codes of conduct; d) ones preparedness to always will good ends for customers, clients and consumers; and e) ones capacity to will and act calmly and objectively under executive pressure or boundary spanning duress. These are some of the ethical sensitivities (Sparks and Hunt 1998) that enable one to "commit" (Dewey 1925; Weber 1958) and "surrender" (Sartre 1956) to choice-acts under market uncertainty. All these virtues characterize also one's "antecedent willingness" to deal effectively and morally under role-ambiguity and pressure (Williams and Murphy 1990). Corresponding to the intellectual development imperatives of Table 4.11, Table 4.12 lists corresponding marketing skills that reflect executive volitional development Thus, giving honest and best value to ones customers, continuously reducing inherent product risks and manufacturing defects in new product offerings, providing clearer user-instructions and warnings that avoid all product post-use complications, and adequately compensating product-related injuries - are some moral imperatives that call for strong executive volitional development (Boedecker and Morgan 1993, Cox 1987, Laczniak and Murphy 1993). In this context, one's past track record of efforts and achievements in product safety, product quality, product equity (best value for price), product social usefulness (e.g., not wasteful extravagance), product ecology, and product redress are good (surrogate) measures of marketing executive's volitional development. The converse of this proposition is only conditionally true: lack of executive marketing-related volitional development might not always exonerate executive responsibility. Not developing ones volitional skills over a period of years as a marketing executive is tantamount to inexcusable and willful professional negligence. However, the higher the marketing executive's intellectual and volitional development, the higher should be one's commitment to offer safe, quality, equitable, socially beneficial, and ecology-conserving products. In general, the higher one's volitional development, the higher is one's willingness to do good and avoid all evil in one's market offerings (see Table 4.10).

Marketing-Based Critical Thinking as Moral Development

Sound volitional development and responsible agency follow good moral development, and vice versa (see Table 1). Moral virtue and moral development presuppose integrity of character and strengthen the latter in turn. Responsible moral agency and moral development comprise sound moral principles, uncompromising ethical universals, morally good intentions, motivations, and well-informed deliberations. The possibility of a desirable modification of character and selection of the course of action that will make that possibility a reality in the future is the central fact in responsibility: "one is held responsible that he might become responsible" (Dewey 1925, p.170). Accordingly, responsibility is not necessarily a retrospective blame or punishment, but a prospective amendment: Attribution of praise and blame is intended to so amend or modify one's character that an agent takes into account the consequences which one has failed to consider in what one has done (Dewey 1925). Responsibility balances evil with good in every decision.

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Weber (1958) contrasts an "ethic of responsibility" with an "ethic of ultimate ends." The latter concerns absolute injunctions, and interdicts any use of means that would compromise ethical absolutes. In this sense, the ethic of responsibility engages the marketing executive in a meticulous search for the best available means within a highly deficient world. Executive responsibility, then, is not only a response to the call of values, it also is a free commitment of oneself to act, regardless of what the act might be (Bonhoeffer 1955). Thus, Weber, and Bonhoeffer trace responsibility to one's moral development. Even though marketing as an exchange-science may not own or profess any Weberian "ethical absolutes" (Bartels 1966; Patterson 1966; Robin and Reidenbach 1993), it can still be committed to an ethic of responsibility or duty (Gundlach and Murphy 1993; Laczniak and Murphy 1993) and trust (Morgan and Hunt 1994). Hence, following Table 4.11 and Table 4.12, Table 4.13 enumerates corresponding marketing skills that reflect moral marketing executive development. We need better measures of moral development. Those of Kohlberg and Associates (e.g., Kohlberg and Turiel 1973) or Rest (1979) have major cognitive (Goolsby and Hunt 1992; Whitebeck 1992) and moral (Gilligan 1982) biases. Real moral development is not only one's capacity to solve ethical dilemmas, but one that is sensitive to ethical issues, and one that primarily reflects lived moral principles that underlie one's long-term "commitment" to consumer duty, and to the building of strong buyer-seller trust-relationships (Ganesan 1994; Gundlach and Murphy 1993). Hence, the specific items 8-12 in Table 4.13. Not developing ones moral development over long periods of executive years is equivalent to inexcusable moral negligence. From a practical viewpoint, a marketing executive's moral and volitional development is reflected in one's past and present track record of commitment to product safety, security, and quality, consumer primacy and privacy, consumer complaint redress, consumer and producer ecology. Ones moral development also reflects the moral principles, imperatives, virtues and moral habits that underlie one's volitional development.10 As stated earlier, the items in Tables 4.11 to 3.13 are more illustrative than exhaustive. More could be added specific to the company, industry, services or product problem involved. All item statements can be evaluated either by ones own ratings, or, more importantly, by ones superiors, peers or subjects, both within the company and without, on an appropriate scale (e.g., a percentage scale from 0 to 100%, or on an equal interval agreement-disagreement scale). Whatever measurement method chosen, the items chosen should be relevant, unambiguous, statistically reliable (Nunnally 1978), and should possess the usual features of content, face, construct, discriminant and nomological validities (for details see Churchill 1979; Peter 1981; Peter and Churchill 1985). The higher the executive development scores (say close to 100%), the higher are executive capacities for critical thinking and executive accountability. A useful outcome measure of critical thinking is to get business students or turnaround executives to respond to the contents of Tables 4.11 to 3.13 using a Lickert scale. We can assess both agreementdisagreement as well as importance-unimportance of these statements. Using the importance scores as weights, a weighted sum of agreement-disagreement scores would measure critical thinking at a given point in time. A before (during the first core course), during (at the end of the core courses) and after (during a capstone course) measure of critical thinking would trace the critical thinking impact our MBA or BTM programs has on our students.

10

For other measures of executive moral development, see Trevino (1986) and Ferrell and Gresham (1985). Both models incorporate Kohlberg and Turiel's (1973) cognitive and moral development stages in their models of ethical decision-making in corporations. Trevino hypothesizes that higher levels of academic training and higher levels of moral development acquired through in-company ethics programs should result in better ethical decisions.

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The Supremacy and Primacy of Technology

The capitalist world is advancing every day in its research and technology capabilities. It can technically produce almost anything. The moral and ethical questions now are: Is it permissible to make everything we are capable of making? Is it permissible to market everything we are capable of marketing? These two questions are very much similar, yet have different practical implications. Currently, several theories influence our attitudes toward these questions:

1. Break-through theory: mankind will always achieve a technical break-through into all the problems 2. 3. 4. 5.
that arise in its technical environment. Balance-of-nature theory: human life and the life of our environment will always adjust to each other. Neutrality theory: science and technology in themselves are neutral (a-moral or trans-ethical), and must be freed from any ethical and moral impositions of a few, lest humanity's progress be impeded. Self-limitation theory: our commitment to quality life and moral values imposes limits on human inquiry on the one hand, and on technological progress on the other. Creation theory: our universe and the world of humankind are created realities. The world and its nature should be left as God created it. Nature has been given a fixed form, and man and woman have their place in it. Humankind should not play God, nor displace or dispense God, nor try to take control of nature and thus author or alter its own destiny. We ought not to create a new humanity that intends to solve all the problems of nature. Anthropocentric theory: Humankind is the center of the universe; it is been given the task of shaping the world to its own ends. Manipulation of the world and its resources (which includes man himself) for the betterment and survival of mankind is not only a human right and duty, but is essential for a better understanding and realization of human destiny.

6.

The first four theories are primarily philosophical; the last two are theological. The best way to approach these problems is through a holistic approach such as "integral humanism." Integral humanism stands to better the whole human system, body and spirit, mind and matter, individual and society, present and future, all human beings and the cosmos we live in. Integral humanism as applied to capitalist business implies a basic shift in values such as:
From "big is better" to "small is beautiful" From unscrupulous profiteering to equitable profit-sharing From limitless possessions of the few to prosperity of the many From industrial concentration to wholesome competition to unraveling new markets From uncontrolled free trade to managing global trade From total mastery over nature to harmony with nature From the primacy of productivity to the primacy of human dignity From individual claim of rights to mutual duties toward human dignity and justice From work as bondage and duty to work as freedom and right From authoritarianism and dogmatism to participative management From centralization and uniformity to decentralization and diversity From individual aggrandizement to social betterment From unbridled individualism to a generous form of community From limitless consumption to resourceful conservation From total independence to healthy interdependence

Critical Thinking applied to Human Resources Management

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The most important asset in a company is the right people the ones who provide the team and customer service behavior the organization needs. Employees represent a companys first market. If companies are not investing in and listening to their employees, as well as their customers, they are probably missing opportunities to create competitive advantage (Jones 2000). High turnover is a major problem that can be addressed through trust. If employees do not trust their organization to provide equitable pay, training, and advancement, they will not stay long enough to become effective and affective team members. When a company focuses on creating quality for employees and competence in employees, they can be empowered to create happy customers. And, happy customers buy more! (Jones 2000). Human resources planning is an essential part of successful customer service, because to a customer anyone working for an organization represents the organization. Each employee is a potential customer service representative (Jones 2000), and salespersons, particularly, are frontline company ambassadors (Sirdeshmukh, Singh, and Sabol (2002). Customers truly enjoy having a well trained, knowledgeable person o deal with their concerns and orders. An organization needs to know how it impresses on its customers who contact it. Much of the impression would depend upon how the organizations employees interact with the customers. Value-chain involvement enables this knowledge.

Three philosophies underlie personnel management: 1. Organizational Theory: This theory believes that human needs are either so irrational or so varied
and adjustable to specific situations that the major function of personnel management is to be pragmatic as occasion demands. Hence, if jobs are organized and structured in terms of clarity of job goals and objectives, favorable worker attitudes will follow. Industrial Engineering: Humankind is mechanistically inclined and economically motivated and human needs are best met by attuning the individual to the most efficient work process. Personnel managers should therefore concoct the most appropriate incentive systems and design specific working conditions that maximally utilize the human machine, and worker attitudes will follow. Behavioral Science: Mankind is basically social, group-oriented. Hence, personnel managers should work on group sentiments, organizational, psychological and social culture and climate. Personnel managers should focus on human values and human relations and these in turn will generate healthy employee attitudes.

2.

3.

All three theories duly applied should motivate employees as evidenced by a significant reduction in absenteeism, errors, and violation of safety rules, strikes, restriction of output, higher wages, greater fringe benefits and labor turnover. Herzbergs (1968) motivation-hygiene theory works on the same principle of industrial engineering but for opposite goals. Rather than rationalize work to increase efficiency, the theory suggests that work be enriched to bring about effective utilization of employees. The theory advocates a systematic manipulation of the motivation factors for motivating the employees. Applying CT to the above theories of HRM, we may ask the questions as listed in Table 4.14. Changing the way people work means changing the way they behave. Changing behavior requires changing thinking, feeling and communicating. That is, changing the head, the heart and the hands. Without adjustments in the way we think, feel and act, nothing really changes. Questions that need attention under each body part arena are:

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Head: Where are we? What brought us here? Where are we going? What change of behavior can get us there? Heart: Why are we here? Why do we want to go there? Why must we change? What is in it for me? Am I capable of change? Do have the heart and the will to change? Hands: What do I need to do? What skills should I train myself in? What behavior changes do I require? Do I have the energy and the team-support to acquire those behavior changes and skills?

Any strategic change requires energy, discipline and time. A successful change process passes through three stages:

Coming to grips with the problem: Do the people involved perceive and acknowledge the problem? Do they still resist or deny it? Have peoples mindsets changed? Do they intellectually recognize the need for change? Do they have a sense how their organization must respond to the problem, and the change the problem demands? Working it through: Are people intensely and honestly working to accept and internalize the required change and its implications? Have the things that must change been well communicated? How do people feel about the changes? Are they adequately ready in mind, heart and hands for the change? Maintaining Momentum: Is the organization committed to bring about this change and support it with all its resources? Is the organization keeping the required pace of change? Is the organization ready to incorporate the change into its management practice, climate and culture?

How do I know that my team, the organization and I are really changing? Is there is an appreciable difference between the before and the after? What is this difference? Is this the real change we want? Measuring change is a powerful change-management technique? Implementing strategic change requires that people learn new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. We know that people learn and change much more efficiently when they receive fair and objective feedback on how they are doing. Table 4.15 lists the critical questions when the three body part arenas are crosschecked against the three stages of implementing change. One can develop a scorecard that measured progressive change in response to the relevant questions raised in each of the nine cells of Table 4.15. This is a change process tracking scorecard and not an outcome realization scorecard. The change implementation scorecard can diagnose problems that arise while the people learn (head), internalize learning (heart) and live, witness and communicate (hands) learning.

Critical Thinking as Identifying and Combating Biases, Prejudices and Presumptions in Business Thinking

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A quick analysis of all these definitions and approaches to critical thinking reveals that CT identifies biases, prejudices and presumptions in our thinking, and rectifies them by replacing them with strong normative imperatives. Hence, our approach to CT is to identify typical biases, prejudices, presumptions and presuppositions inherent in the capitalist free enterprise system (CFES) that grounds our business enterprise, business schools, the MBA and the BTM programs, and to help executives and students to identify them, analyze them, and correct them. In the following sections, we analyze CFES from this perspective. According to the Websters New World College Dictionary (2000):
A bias is a mental leaning or inclination, partially bent. From a statistical viewpoint, a bias is any systematic error that contributes to the difference between statistical values in a population and a sample drawn from it. Hence, we define bias as the systematic leaning of ones thinking that deviates from the norm.

A prejudice implies a judgment or opinion formed before the facts are known. It is a preconceived idea, favorable, or usually, unfavorable, marked by a suspicion, intolerance or irrational hatred for other races, creeds and occupations.

An assumption is a more basic act of assuming a fact, property or event for granted without critically assessing its accuracy and veracity, reliability and validity. A presumption is a subset of assumption and implies taking something for granted or unjustifiably accepting it as true, usually on the basis of improper evidence. A supposition is the act of assuming something to be true for the sake of an argument or to illustrate a proof. It is regarding something as true without actual knowledge, hence, often tantamount to conjecture, guessing or mere imagination. In this sense, it is a subset of assumption.

A presupposition is an act or statement of supposing or assuming beforehand. It also means to require or imply as a preceding condition for something.

All of the above, biases, prejudices, assumptions and presumptions, suppositions and presuppositions, can be wrong inclinations or systematic errors in our thinking. CT intends to unearth them, confront them and rectify them or eliminate them. Based on the discussions thus far, Table 4.16 captures some major themes (Table 4.16, column 1) of the capitalist business system where unhealthy biases, prejudices and presumptions can arise and contaminate human thinking. To counteract these wrong drifts of thinking we need some strong human imperatives, some of which are listed in the last column of Table 4.16. These are italicized. Table 4.17 suggests some biases, prejudices, presumptions and presuppositions in our business education and learning. Finally, Table 4.18 indicates a fairly measurable process of assessing critical thinking in our business education and learning. According to Godel's theorem (Hofstadler 1979), as a formal system, no theory can be both complete and consistent. Consistency is the condition under which symbols acquire meanings; consistency seeks to derive true statements. Completeness, on the other hand, is the confirmation of these meanings; completeness seeks all true statements. Formal theory systems have to balance inconsistency and incompleteness. No theory is intended to answer all questions. Theories that seek too much comprehensiveness can become so overextended as to become ambiguous and complicated. As a social

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science, marketing theory can best develop through layered assertions into an integral theory. Just as a collection of sentences does not necessarily make a story, nor can a collection of assertions, even when verified, necessarily becomes a theory (Sutton and Staw 1995). Critical thinking accepts Godels theorem and its practical realism in formulating a comprehensive business turnaround management theory.

Concluding Remarks
To summarize the main imperatives of critical thinking, a turnaround executive should be a critic of ones own thinking and test the validity and reliability of ones turnaround thinking and solution against the following heuristics: Does this thinking and your best solution make a better sense of the world? (Chaffee 1988) Does the best solution help me to be unbiased and unprejudiced in my thinking? (Paul and Elder 2002). Does it help me to understand the assumptions and presuppositions behind this thinking? (Collins 2001; Collins and Porras 1989) Does it help me to appreciate the positive and normative content in this thinking? (Hunt 1991; 2002) Does it inspire me with spiritual meaning, vision, value and motivation to reach out to others? (Covey 1989) Does it help me to rise beyond data, information and knowledge to lasting values and wisdom? Does it empower me to be a servant leader for others? (Kahl 2004). A hundred years from now, the economic system may be very different. Technology may be unrecognizable; education and consumption levels will be far greater. New information and media technologies will continuously modify human behavior. Will this be still a capitalist system? The present imbalance between a scarce supply of capital and employment opportunity and an abundant supply of labor is producing a substantial shift of income growth from wages to profits. The modern corporation has shown considerable ability to shift incremental taxes forward to customers through higher prices, and shift them backward to workers through lower wages, or shift them to Washington by finding new loopholes to avoid taxes. A major question now debated is: is the American Capital System worth saving? The answer is a qualified YES: as long as increasing income inequalities and other social inequities of American capitalism can be gradually eliminated. The choice is not between pure competition and government socialism, nor between "more competition" and "more socialism", but between monopolistic capitalism and social capitalism. The former is industrial concentration, a few manufacturers and sellers controlling prices and wages and avoiding taxes, which quickly results in distressing income inequalities. Social capitalism is politically monitored private competition. With recent increased deregulation and continued privatization of hitherto government controlled industries, and with gigantic banks controlling credit and money supply, the U.S. federal government has been incapable of fighting the evils of monopolistic capitalism. Recent administrations at the Capitol and state capitals have consistently failed to bring about economic rejuvenation when needed. If free

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enterprise system cooperates (e.g., via business expansions, less indiscriminate plant relocations or downsizings, more employment, price decreases) with federal fiscal and monetary policies, then social capitalism can lead to integral humanism. If corporate executives, and marketing executives in particular, agree to be "good corporate citizens" (Nesteruk 1989) promising to "engage in full and fair competition without deception or fraud" (Friedman 1962), then the free market system can succeed. Our market system must operate on trust to be successful during any long-term relationship (Friedman 1962).

43

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Hunt, Shelby D. (2002), Foundations of Marketing Theory: Toward a General Theory of Marketing. New York: ME Sharpe. Kahl, Jack (2004), Leading from the Heart: Choosing to be a Servant Leader, Westlake, OH: Jack Kahl and Associates Kennedy, Kevin and Mary Moore (2003), Going the Distance: Why Some Companies Dominate and Others Fail, Financial Times Series: Prentice Hall. Loeher, Jim and Tony Schwartz (2003), The Power of Engagement. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mandela, Nelson (1994), Long Walk to Freedom. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Mascarenhas, Oswald A. J. (2008), Responsible Marketing: Concepts, Theories, Models, Strategies and Cases, North Richland Hills, Texas: Roval Publishing Company. Mascarenhas, Oswald A., Ram Kesavan, and Michael D. Bernacchi (2005a), Governmental and Corporate Roles in Diffusing Development Technologies: Ethical Macromarketing Imperatives, The Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, Volume 13: Nos 1&2, 271-292 Mascarenhas, Oswald A., Ram Kesavan, and Michael D. Bernacchi (2005b), Progressive Reduction of Economic Inequality as a Macromarketing Task: A Rejoinder, The Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, Volume 13: Nos 1&2, 313-318. McDowell, Banks (2000), Ethics and Excuses: Crisis in Professional Responsibility, Westport, CT: Quorum. Morgenson, Gretchen (2008), How the Thundering Herd Faltered and Fell, New York Times, Paul, Richard W. and Linda Elder (2002), Critical Thinking: Tools for taking Charge of your Professional and Personal Life, Financial Times: Prentice-Hall. Rogers, Carl R. (1961), On Becoming a Person. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Senge, Peter M. (1990), The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, New York, Currency: Doubldeday. Senge, Peter M. (2006), The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, Revised edition, New York, Currency: Doubleday. Story, Louise (2008), Wall Street Profits were a Mirage, but huge Bonuses were real, New York Times, Thursday, December 18, 2008, A1, A, 28. Wolman, Richard (2001), Thinking With Your Soul. New York: Harmony Books. Zohar, Danah and Ian Marshall (2000), SQ: Connecting with our Spiritual Intelligence. New York: Bloomsbury.

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Table 4.1: The Prevailing System of Management with its Constraints and Regimentation Prevailing System of Management
Management by measurement Compliance-based Cultures Managing outcomes

Obsessive Preoccupations, Generalizations and Overemphasizing Best Corporate Practices

Focusing on short term metrics Overvaluing tangibles - Devaluing intangibles You can only measure 3 percent of what matters (W. E. Deming). Getting ahead by pleasing the boss Compliance is rewarded - Non-compliance is punished Management by fear, rewards and punishments Management sets goals and targets. Employees must accept them. Employees are held accountable to realize them (regardless of whether they are possible within existing systems and processes). Realizing targets is considered success worthy of promotions Not realizing targets is deemed failure and disloyalty, punishable by firing. Right answers versus wrong answers Technical and linear problem solving is emphasized Short-term solutions are readily accepted Non-linear or circular innovative thinking is held suspect Diverging (systemic) problems are discounted Diversity is either discouraged, or is a problem to be solved. Uniformity and conformity are praised and institutionalized. Consensus-building is stressed at the expense of suppressing individuality. Conflict is suppressed in favor of superficial agreement. Employees are cog in the wheel or factors of production (Frederick Taylor) To manage is to command and control The holy trinity of management is: planning, organizing, and controlling Linear analysis of data to explain, predict and control Quantitative analysis based on systematic variance in data Qualitative analysis of non-systemic variance (e.g., outliers; beyond 6 ) is discouraged Success is to suppress competition win-lose game! Competition between people is essential to achieve desired performance Without competition among people, there is no innovation. We have been sold down the river by competition (W. E. Deming). Fighting competition is the only source of SCA and not blue oceans. Bigger the better: growth is by destroying competition Excessive fragmentation/compartmentalization of functions - divide and rule The efficiency of the whole is the sum of the efficiency of its parts Optimizing each part optimizes the whole! The whole is defined by its parts, and not vice versa. Interconnectedness and interrelationships are ignored Interactive effects are either not considered or irrelevant We are not equal but unequal in talents, skills, intelligence and possessions. Hence inequality of income, wealth and opportunity is essential for progress! Egalitarianism is a myth; it defies and negates reality. Inequalities between the rich and the poor spur growth and innovation. Creation of wealth and not redistribution of wealth is the engine of growth Survival of the fittest, the best, and the most productive is the law of evolution. Hence cultivate the best in this limited world; flotsam and jetsam the rest (Club of Rome)

Problem-Solving

Uniformity and Conformity

Predictability and controllability

Excessive Competitiveness

Loss of the whole

Equality and Inequality Management

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Table 4.2: Traits of Disciplined Critical Thinking versus those of Undisciplined, Uncritical and Blind Thinking
[Based on Paul and Elder 2002: 17-36]

Critical Thinking as Disciplined Unbiased Thinking Intellectual Operational Definition and Virtue Applications
Intellectual Integrity
Holding us to the same standards of evidence and proof to which we hold our opponents. Practice what you preach. Acknowledging and sensitive to inconsistencies and contradictions in our own thinking. Being aware of our own ignorance, biases and prejudices, and limitations. Claim to know what we know. Not giving up but working ones way through intellectual complexities despite the frustration involved in the task. Struggling with confusion and unsettled questions till one reaches some insight. Intellectual sense of justice and fairness: Objective and unbiased understanding and assessment of others viewpoints. Giving credit to each ones ideas and insights Recognizing that good reasoning has proven its worth; Faith in the unbiased reasoning capacity of oneself and others in arriving at truth and certainty Our willingness to challenge ones pet ideas, beliefs or viewpoints; our willingness to challenge the same set of ideas, beliefs or viewpoints in our society. Courage to unlearn in order to learn Understanding opposite views: Putting oneself in the place of others in order to understand them, their ideas and values, premises, presuppositions and assumptions Being an independent thinker; selfauthorship of ones beliefs, values and behavior

Uncritical Thinking as Undisciplined Biased or Blind Thinking Intellectual Operational Definition and Vice Applications
Intellectual Hypocrisy
Egocentric thinking that imposes standards on others that we do not live by or accept. We preach values and excellence without practicing either. Insensitive to inconsistencies and contradictions in our own thinking but sensitive to those of others. Refusing to be aware of our own ignorance, biases and prejudices, and limitations. Claim to know more than we know. Intellectual indolence: Giving up quickly when confronted by intellectual confusion and complexity. Low tolerance for intellectual pain and frustration that is called for in understanding others Intellectual injustice and unfairness: Unjust assessment of others and their ideas and work; i.e., using different criteria and standards than those used to assess ones own ideas and work Cognitive nihilism: Belief in the basic irrationality and incapacity of the human mind in relation to obtaining truth and certain principles, connections and causalities Fear of ideas, beliefs or viewpoints that do not conform to our own. Hence, a refusal to be challenged. Irrational defense of ones own sacred identity rooted in absurd and dangerous doctrines Thinking and attention centered on self: Refusal to understand thoughts, feelings and emotions of others. Inability to consider issues, problems and questions from the viewpoint of others Being totally dependent upon others for ones thinking, ideas, beliefs and motivations

Intellectual Humility Intellectual Perseverance

Intellectual Arrogance Intellectual Laziness

Intellectual Fairmindedness Intellectual Confidence in Reason Intellectual Courage

Intellectual Disregard for Justice Intellectual Distrust of Reason Intellectual Cowardice

Intellectual Empathy

Intellectual SelfCenteredness Intellectual Conformity

Intellectual Autonomy

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Table 4.3: The Domain of Business Executives Critical Thinking: The Three Dichotomies Model
[See also Hunt 1991: 10-11].

General Business Phenomena

General Business Orientation

General Business Analysis

Problems, Issues and Imperatives For Critical Thinking

Business mission, goals and objectives Business suppliers, creditors and employees Individual business producer-distributor behavior New products and services development Old products/services maintenance and phase-out Packaging, labeling, pricing and distribution policies Communication and promotion policies Product liability and customer redress policies Marketing and customer feedback research What should a company produce? (Product-mix) What should a company market? (Marketing-mix) To whom should the company market? (Customer-mix) What is an equitable wage or salary? What is a fair executive compensation? What is an equitable price for products and services? What is non-deceptive honest advertising? What is non-deceptive securities-trading? Institutional mission, goals and objectives Institutional stakeholders Institutional offerings and services Institutional communications and promotions Institutional dues, pricing and distribution What should be institutional mission, goals and objectives? Who should be institutional stakeholders? What should be institutional offerings and services? What should be institutional communications & promotions? What should be Institutional dues, pricing and distribution Industry markets, suppliers, brokers, and distributors Domestic, international and global markets, trades and tariffs Domestic, international and global labor markets, wages & benefits Domestic, international and global media and communications Laws regarding industry suppliers, brokers, and distributors Laws on domestic, international and global trades and tariffs Laws on domestic, international and global labor wages & benefits Laws on domestic, international and global communications Federal and state business mission, goals and objectives Federal and state transportation & communication infrastructure National and international sources of scares resources International & global communication & transportation networks What should be federal and state mission, goals and objectives? What is an equitable interstate transportation & communication infrastructure? What is an equitable distribution of national, international and global non-renewable sources of scares resources? What is an ethical and educative international & global media and communication network?

Positive Profit

Micro

Normative

Positive Non-Profit Normative

Positive Profit Normative Macro

Positive Non-Profit Normative

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Table 4.4: Comparing and Synthesizing Various Definitions of and Approaches to Critical Thinking
Definition of Critical Thinking as: (Proponents)
Making sense of the world (Chaffee 1988)

Inputs to Critical Thinking

Our own thinking and the thinking of others about this world

Process to Critical Thinking

Active, purposeful and organized effort to make sense of the world by examining thinking patterns and thoughts Reflection to think back on what we are thinking or feeling Second-order thinking Questioning and challenging what you learn, its premises and principles, assumptions and prejudices No blind acceptance Let evidence speak Analyzing their positive versus normative content in relation is/ought, relative/absolute or descriptive/prescriptive values An abiding human quest for connectedness with something larger and more trustworthy than ourselves and our world

Outputs to Critical Thinking

Clarify and improve our understanding of the world Active and independent thinking Receptive to new ideas and evidence Serious study of thinking To be a critic of our own thinking Unbiased thinking - A disciplined mind Updated and revised facts, events data and information, and hence, revised theory and knowledge, laws and generalizations Positive versus normative benefits and values of all human institutions, especially business organizations SQ as meaning, vision, value and motivations for humanization of our doing, becoming and being

Remarks

Epistemological approach to thought and truth about the world Restrictive to this world a cosmological inquiry A cognitive or gnoseological approach to thinking that focuses on the mechanics of good and sound thinking An ethical treatise on intellectual virtues A verification-falsification based methodological approach to findings and theory

Thinking critically (Paul and Elder 2002) Thinking that Challenges Thinking (Collins 2001; Collins and Porras 1989) Positivenormative approach to thinking (Hunt 1991; 2002) Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) Covey 1989; 2004)

Our thinking and the thinking of others First-order thinking

What you learn from your peers and teachers, the media and the books

Organizational practices that are micro or macro, profit or nonprofit in nature and content Physical intelligence (PQ), intellectual intelligence (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ) as lived and experienced by individuals and organizations Facts, figures, data and statistics about our world of subjects, objects, properties and events

An axiological (value-based) analysis of institutional phenomena and practices

A theological and eschatological assessment of human and institutional routines, practices and orientations SQ is the source of all critical thinking, including IQ, PQ and EQ A hierarchy of resources for critical thinking, research methodologies and building critical thought and wisdom Real education is a journey of critical inquiry from data to information to theory to knowledge to values to wisdom Most HR managers build strengths on eliminating ones weaknesses. Instead, discover employee strengths and talents, and build them to the full.

Hierarchical Thinking

The hierarchical process of deriving information from data, theory from information, knowledge from theory, values from knowledge, and wisdom from values Identify your talents, accumulated knowledge and skills, and the combination your defining strengths.

Information, theory, knowledge, values and wisdom, in that order of sequence and subservience

Building on your strengths (Buckingham and Clifton 2001)

Our self-awareness of talents, knowledge, skills, and their combined result our strengths

You will discover, develop, and live your strengths, and manage around your weaknesses.

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Table 4.5: A Fourfold Typology of Critical Thinking Employing:

To Achieve
Right Ends or Outcomes Critical Thinking to Achieve:
Theory, Value and Wisdom Moral and Intellectual Virtues Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) Examples: Fortitude, Courage Compassion, Kindness Fairness, Justice Truth and Rectitude Honesty and integrity Balance and maturity

Wrong Ends or Outcomes Critical Thinking to Discourage:

Cunningness, thrift, street smartness Shrewdness, calculating, scheming Worldliness, extravagance, exotic Examples: Collateral damage Love to kill Serve to dominate Dieting to anorexia Merger to kill competition Acquisition to kill competition

Right Means

Critical Thinking to Prevent:

Manipulation and doctoring Deception, misrepresentation Trickery, chicanery

Critical Thinking to Denounce:

Wickedness and maliciousness Vice and tools of vice (e.g., bribery) Evil (e.g., genocide, terrorism) Examples: Avarice, greed Verbal or physical violence Coveting neighbors goods Coveting neighbors spouse Conspiracy and murder Exploitation and oppression

Wrong Means

Examples: Villains courage Murderers fortitude Preemptive war Stealing to donate Lie to save ones life Losing to win

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Table 4.6: Moral, Ethical and Legal aspects of Critical Thinking Dominant Dimensions
Dominant Domain Dominant Time-space Dominant Determinants Dominant Content

Moral Critical Thinking

Inputs Antecedents Ends and ideals Willing & voluntary acts Intending and intentions Preferences & attitudes Ideologies & assumptions (Prejudices, biases and moral boundaries) Willing outcomes Religion and conscience Religious affiliations Holy Scriptures/mandates Faith, hope and love Beliefs and worship Proximate end defines moral acts Object formally willed Will Appetites and passions Will-power skills Instincts and drives Moral habits Moral anchors Moral inclinations Moral virtues Wisdom and prudence Honesty and integrity Moral courage Greed and avarice Moral depravity Moral weakness Moral wickedness Moral goodness Moral evil Moral/immoral Good/bad Holy/wicked Honest/dishonest Graceful/sinful Morally good and wholesome Morally responsible Moral integrity

Ethical Critical Thinking

Process Concomitants Goals, means and objectives Intellection and reasoning Acts and actions Deliberative processes Suppositions & presuppositions (Discriminations and exclusions) Decisions and choices Corporate climate Codes & covenants Pacts & agreements Mores & conventions Cultural imperatives Intelligibility, directionality and functionality define ethical acts Object formally understood Intellect and reason Body and body language Manual skills/body routines Social drives & networking Intellectual habits Intellectual anchors Practice & procedures Intellectual virtues Practical reason Temperance & frugality Audacity and pertinacity Corporate fraudulence Ethical depravity Moral cowardice Dishonesty and deception Intellectual goodness Intellectual evil Right/wrong Ethical/unethical Transparent/corrupt Ordered/disordered Sincere/insincere Ethically/procedurally right, good and effective Ethically responsible Ethical/intellectual integrity

Legal Critical Thinking

Outputs Sequences and consequences Results or outcomes Foreseeing consequences Results and outcomes Willed process outcomes Standard outcomes & procedural routines (Discriminatory acts and outcomes) Willed outcomes Federal and state law Local laws & ordinances Strict liability laws Case law & jurisprudence Legal conventions Causality, strong correlation and harmful outcomes define liability Object formally caused Legal mind and mindset Legal counsel Legal skills Legal networks Social habits & mores Legal anchors and props Law and order Socio-cultural virtues Fairness & fair systems Justice & just systems Equity & equality Fraud outcomes Socio-cultural vices Unfairness & injustice Inequity & inequality Social goodness/benefits Social and legal evil Socially good or evil Legal/illegal True/false Just/unjust Innocent/guilty Legally just and fair, Accountable & committed Legally responsible Legal/social integrity

Dominant value source

Dominant specificity (i.e., species & specific differences) Dominant faculties Dominant predispositions Dominant virtues

Dominant vices

Dominant predication Dominant ascription

Dominant prescription

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Table 4.7: The Essence of Enlightenment, Modernism and Postmodernism in Relation to Critical Thinking Critical Factors
Representative Philosophers

Classical Enlightenment
David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, John Locke, John Stuart Miller, Karl Marx Post-Medieval: 1750-1900 Enlightenment: Triumph of reasoning. Human rationality is adequate and efficient in searching for ontological truth

Modernism
Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, JP Sartre, Fredrick Nietzsche, AN Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Thomas Kuhn, Lakatos, Post-Enlightenment: 1900-1970 Positivism and empiricism: The triumph of science and experimentation. Human language, discourse, shared meaning, narratives and culture are the sole source of truth. All truth has to be relative to ones culture and time.

Postmodernism
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Clifford Geertz, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jrgen Habermas, Michael Foucault Post-Modern: 1970-2000 Postmodernism: the triumph of human dialogue and discourse. Fixed meanings and dogmas are ill-equipped to handle human historicity and human limitations. The traditional theological and doctrinal assessment has sought to freeze the flux, to deaden historical consciousness, and to finish the conversation.

Approximate time period Major philosophical school Major philosophical assumptions

Major philosophical quest

A theory of truth and moral worth that is totally determined by the human mind. Thus, they question
the classical metaphysical grounding of an objective moral order and an objective metaphysical definition of human nature or the good. Quest for universalizing principles and truths Rationalism - unraveling and capitalizing the unbounded potential of human mind, reasoning, nature, and culture in grounding ontological foundations for truth, goodness and morality. Making philosophy and human thinking self-reliant, independent, rational, and totally freed from dogmatic impositions. Over-dogmatizes and oversacralizes human rationality; this is what happens when you negate the divine in search for truth. Atomistic and ontologically inappropriate ideas about what truth is.

A theory of human discourse and meaning that is concretely determined by its historical circumstances Hence, they
question the classical and Enlightenment assumptions of a metaphysical grounding of an objective moral language, values, code, meanings and culture. They see a total understanding of the present. Total understanding of human nature, the good, moral knowledge & philosophical anthropology, and also via positivism and empiricism.

A theory of rationality that is concretely determined by its historical circumstances such as history, culture,
language, morally mature persons, casuistry, hermeneutics, narrative, and feminist liberation. They foster civilized discourse to keep the conversation going. Hermeneutic phenomenology - analyzing and interpreting the socio-cultural embeddedness of rationality and the historical facticity of human discourse and social situation Militant protest against universalizing tendencies; emphasizes the heteromorphous nature of life, thought, and speech, and celebrates the opacity and sovereignty of the other. Given modern pluralism, relativism, and privatization of morals, there seems to be little hope of agreement on questions regarding what is objective good or objective evil.

Major philosophical methodology

Major contributions

Critique

Discovers the roots of our social situation, ideological determination, cultural embeddedness, saturated reason, paradigm-bound rationality, contextualized knowledge, and the ontological productivity of history. Over-dogmatizes and over-glorifies human language, discourse, thinking and culture; it relativizes truth and meaning to a given culture.

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Table 4. 8: Critical Analysis of the U. S. Capitalist Free Enterprise System (CFES): Values versus Disvalues Adam Smiths Qualities of CFES
Management of Productive Skills

Market Values

Market Social Disvalues

Labor productivity Labor specialization Labor enrichment Labor remuneration Skills development Product innovation Service innovation Innovations diffusion Technology transfers Enriched lifestyles Strong skills base Strong equity base Strong infrastructure Strong capital base Strong money base High growth, GNP High buying power Consumption multipliers Investment multipliers Market-based pricing Higher incomes Improved life-quality Longer life-expectancy High consumer convenience Advanced healthcare

Employee alienation, exploitation, Maquilladora Forced unemployment or under employment Child labor, sweatshops, hiring illegal immigrant labor Under waged, underinsurance, forced part-timers Planned skills obsolescence via outsourcing and Downsizing Planned product obsolescence Planned service obsolescence Diffusion not reaching developing countries; Diffusion of outmoded technologies Enslaving consumptive lifestyles jeopardizing family stability Cheap in-sourcing and outsourcing Growing income inequality & inequities Social de-structure and destruction; ghost towns Liquidity crisis; low interest rates; inflation Weakened dollar; reduced fixed income among the elderly. Uneven distribution of growth & opportunity Uneven distribution of consumer buying power Forced consumer overspending Corporate frauds and scams Profiteering and predatory pricing Income inequality and marginalization Ghettos, slums, ghost towns, pollution, AIDS High infant mortality; poor neonatal care Created needs and desires beyond convenience Large uninsured and underinsured in terms of healthcare; overpriced drugs and hospitalization; mismanaged Medicare, Medicaid and Disability

Diffusion of Technology and Innovations Human and Financial Capital Accumulation

Large Market Base

Raising General Living Standards

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Table 4.9: Corporate Executive Responsibilities under Involuntary Capitalist Constraints

Involuntary Actions done under: Definition of Constraint Constraints Under Capitalism Corporate Executive Responsibilities Under Exchanges that imply: Transactional Transactional Contracts Relations
Accumulate wealth and capital for higher ends such as overall enhancement of humans, society, and civilization

Constraint

A physical or psychological force brought to bear on the agent such that the actioninitiative comes from outside the person.

Capitalism emphasizes De-emphasize and and glorifies de-glorify wealthaccumulation accumulation as an of wealth or capital end in itself, without as an end in itself, compromising the and not as a means quality of the for higher ends such transaction as humanization, civilization and virtue Capitalism fosters individualism since Much of capitalist accumulation is for individualist ends. Its task presupposes the legitimacy of the private pursuit of at least economic self-interest, and this pursuit may be immoral or lead to immorality De-emphasize individualist motives in capital formation

Encourage capital formation for better social and public common good

De-emphasize legitimacy of the private economic self-interest unless it serves common good

Legitimize private economic self-interest only when it serves explicitly both social and public common good.

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Table 4.10: Corporate Executive Responsibilities under Opportunistic Conditions

Voluntary Actions done under: Definition of Opportunism Factors Stimulating Opportunism
Asset specificity whereby predators can hold large assets or assetspecific skills and investments as hostage for control When outcomes of transaction-exchanges are highly uncertain, opportunistic behavior can go undetected and un-tethered. When measurability of individual or group performance is uncertain, and when rational control on such behaviors cannot be cost-effectively enforced.

Corporate Executive Responsibilities Under Exchange that imply: Transactional Transactional Contracts Relations
Resist intentions to hostage asset-specific skills or investments or transactions for lucrative gains. Be accountable for all outcomes even though they may be uncertain. and hence, are not controllable. Reduce transaction costs by honest behavior, especially when detecting and controlling opportunistic behaviors is cost-prohibitive. Resist opportunism especially when shortterm gains of opportunism are very attractive. Minimize negative feelings in every exchange transaction. Minimize biases, inequities or any other prejudices in any business transactions. Encourage long-term asset specific investments to promote long-term relationships.

Is seeking selfinterest with guile or seeking self-interest unconstrained by morality Opportunistic behavior manifests itself in various ways such as lying, stealing, and cheating

Long-term relationships thrive in integrity and honesty, especially when opportunistic behaviors cannot be detected. Long-term open relationships can makeup for uncertainty of individual or group performance measures.

Opportunism

Or other calculated efforts to mislead, When short-term gains of distort, disagree, opportunistic behavior obfuscate, or are very large otherwise, confuse partners in business. Opportunism itself is a tendency, which in turn, may condition or be conditioned by one's upbringing, childhood and adolescent exposures, and social heredity.
When the predator nurses negative feelings regarding transaction partners When the predator perceives biases, inequities or unfairness in the organization he or she works for. Opportunism may be tendency in the executive ingrained from upbringing and environment.

Preserve and nurture lone-term honest relationships, despite large short-term opportunistic gains. Avoiding negative feelings about transaction partners can nurture long-term relationships. Avoid all biases, injustices, prejudices and other unfair practices to generate long-term healthy exchangepartner relationships. Foster ethical climate within the firm to counteract innate executive tendency for opportunism.

Hiring policy should detect and avoid innate opportunistic tendencies. Also, watch for such tendencies in every transaction.

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Table 4.11: Business Executive Choices and Critical Thinking The Business Executives Choice Situation: Challenges to Critical Thinking and Moral Responsibility Industry Drivers:
TECHNOLOGY: Process innovation Product innovation New state-of-the-art tech Automation/robotics Computerization Internet technology COST: Increased productivity Restructuring & downsizing Global supplier abundance Global standardization Global outsourcing Global financing Mergers or takeovers COMPETITION: Free market system Free exports and imports Global branding Global advertising GOVERNMENT: Global ecology Global antitrust legislation Global fiscal havens Global political unions MARKETS: Emerging global markets Emerging new trade areas Global investments Expanding profitability Global quality drive New consumer life styles Global cross-cultural risk New non-tariff barriers New market entrants Expanding opportunism Cost of total quality management Fashion/fads obsolescence Cost of adapting to new cultures Costs of non-tariff barriers to locals Decreasing market share for locals Cost of opportunism on locals Cost of quality-complaints and redress Fashion/fads phase-out costs Federal ecology regulation Global antitrust violations Domestic tax-base reduction Political unrest/ terrorism Cost of compliance on local consumers Cost of antitrust litigations to locals Cost of low tax base on locals Cost of terrorism on all stakeholders Increasing competition Trade imbalance/ Trade deficit New foreign brands Global communication problems Local weakened competitive advantage Trade deficit effects on domestic market Local brands-equity loss Impact on cross-cultural sensitivities Capital intensive drain White and blue collar attrition ISO 9000 noncompliance Global competition & price wars Local Labor-Unions unrest Capital inflation and uncertainty Corporate restructuring costs Money inflation effects on consumers Cost of attrition to all stakeholders Cost to local suppliers and families Lack of customization/personalization Cost of outsourcing to local communities Reduced local borrowing Cost of downsizing to local families Diseconomies; reengineering Old product obsolescence Old skills obsolescence Labor displacement & attrition Hardware/software obsolescence Cyber-fraud and Cyber-hackers New process costs passed to consumers Forced new product lifestyles Cost of retraining to all stakeholders Cost of labor retrenchment/displacement Computerized impersonal civilization Consumer online privacy invasion

Direct Effects On the Firm

Constraints: Spillover Effects on Domestic Economy and Local Communities

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Table 4.12: Critical Thinking in Turnaround Management as Intellectual Development Skills

1) Executive capacity to effectively scan competitive product-service market opportunities 2) Executive capacity to identify and examine ethical issues in these market opportunities 3) Executive capacity to define and formulate the corresponding marketing choice-act problem comprehensively with all its exogenous and endogenous variables 4) Executive capacity to search for as many available and feasible alternative marketing strategies to resolve the market opportunity choice-act problem 5) Executive capacity to critically evaluate these alternatives in relation to their ethical issues 6) Executive capacity to foresee social consequences of each alternative to various stakeholders 7) Executive capacity to correlate the social consequences of each alternative with those of other alternatives 8) Executive capacity to seek partnership or consultation with others for skills (1) to (7) 9) Executive capacity to solicit and incorporate feedback from affected consumer-communities or stakeholders in relation to the social consequences of ones marketing decision and strategies 10) Executive capacity to estimate the probability of various social outcomes of each alternative 11) Executive capacity to foresee the future ramifications of these outcomes to various stakeholders 12) Executive capacity to attribute and appropriate responsibility for ones chosen acts and consequences

Table 4.13: Critical Thinking in Turnaround Management as Volitional Development Skills

1) Executive will to accumulate and access experience and practical insights from past and present choice-act situations 2) Executive will to discern and objectively address ethical issues in marketing choice-acts 3) Executive will to discern, apply, and act by universal moral standards in identifying, defining, and formulating marketing problems 4) Executive will to patiently search for all available and feasible alternatives 5) Executive will to objectively and critically evaluate these alternatives 6) Executive will to seek unbiased expert consultation in identifying and analyzing alternatives 7) Executive will to critically foresee and evaluate social consequences of each alternative to various stakeholders 8) Executive will to dispassionately correlate the social consequences of each alternative with those of other alternatives 9) Executive will to desire good ends and purposes for all stakeholders concerned 10) Executive will to act (or omit act) under personal and social duress 11) Executive will to attribute and appropriate responsibility for ones chosen acts and consequences 12) Executive will to compensate affected consumers for the damages of social consequences

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Table 4.14: Critical Thinking in Turnaround Management as Moral Development Skills

1) The Executives accumulated virtue of prudence and moral wisdom in assessing past similar choiceaction situations 2) The Executives accumulated insights in identifying, defining and formulating moral issues in marketing problems 3) The Executives accumulated moral experience for searching as many morally acceptable alternative marketing strategies for resolving social issues in problems 4) The Executives accumulated moral insights in critically and objectively evaluating these alternative strategies 5) The executives moral strength in seeking morally acceptable partnership or consultation in identifying and analyzing these alternatives 6) The Executives accumulated moral prudence for discerning right from wrong, good from evil, just from unjust in relation to the social consequences of each alternative marketing strategy to all stakeholder groups 7) The Executives accumulated moral wisdom in correlating the social consequences of each alternative marketing strategy to as many stakeholder groups 8) The Executives accumulated sense of commitment and fortitude to good and moral marketing decisions, actions, no matter how risky and costly the consequences 9) The Executives accumulated experience of promoting common good and justice in relation to as many stakeholders as one can foresee 10) The Executives accumulated trust and good will won from all stakeholders 11) The Executives accumulated experience of building long-term relationships with customers and clients and consumers 12) The Executives accumulated understanding and sensitivity to social concerns, especially of the Third World countries

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Table 4.15: Critical Questions for Managing Required Change in Organizations

Strategy Implementation Stages Strategic Arenas The Head: Ones mindset
Do the people involved perceive and acknowledge the problem? Have peoples mindsets changed? Do they intellectually recognize the need for change? Are people intensely and honestly working to accept and internalize the required change and its implications? Have the things that must change been well communicated?

The Heart: Ones emotions

Do they still resist or deny the problem and the need for change? Do they have a sense how their organization must respond to the problem and the change it demands? Are people wholeheartedly facing the problem in all its dimensions? How do people feel about the changes? Are they adequately ready in mind, heart and hands for the change?

The Hands: Ones ergonomics

Where are we going? Why are we going there? What change of behavior can get us there? Do we have the energy to reach there?

Coming to Grips with the Problem

Working through the Problem and Change

Is there a lead team to help them work through the problem? Has the lead team changed enough to demonstrate to others the need for change? Are we ready to cooperate with the lead team to change ourselves in the required direction? How do we know that we are really changing? How do we measure the change in behavior and outcome? How do we know we have really changed for the better?

Maintaining Momentum through Strategic Change

Is the organization committed to bring about this change? Is the organization keeping the required pace of change?

Is the management committing its best resources to bring about change? Is the organization ready to incorporate the change into its management practice, climate and culture?

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Table 4.16: A Set of Biases, Prejudices, Presumptions and Human Imperatives

Thinking Base
Wealth

Biases
Wealth is limitless possessions of the few. Wealth is individual aggrandizement. Profitability is the necessary condition for growth. The primacy of productivity is a supreme principle. Humans are mere factors of production. Big is better. Mastery over nature is critical. Technology is conquest of nature. We ought not to create a new humanity that intends to solve all the problems of nature.

Prejudices
We are the world. We are the superpower. The world is for USA. Profits of one corporation are the losses of its competitor. Productivity is the increased efficiency of all resources. Limitless growth is corporate prosperity. Mankind will always achieve a technical breakthrough into all the problems that arise in its technical environment Manipulation of the world and its resources (which includes humans) for the betterment and survival of mankind is not only a human right and duty, but is essential for a better understanding and realization of human destiny. Respect for the dignity and interests of all its stakeholders are fundamental to globalization.

Presumptions
America is or should be the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world. Wealth is power. Profit is the bottom line of all business. High buying power and high market demand assure profitability. Industrial concentration spurs productivity.

Value Imperatives
The wealth of the nations is the prosperity of all people. The primacy of human dignity is the condition of all progress. Shared profitability is the engine of growth. The poor can be profitable too. All human beings are ends in themselves and cannot be used for the ends of others. Small is beautiful. Harmony with nature is growth. Respect for nature is civilization. Our commitment to quality life and moral values should impose limits on human inquiry on the one hand, and on technological progress on the other.

Profit

Productivity

Scale

Control

Larger corporations are more productive than small ones. Human life and the life of our environment will always adjust to each other

Research & Experimentation

Science and technology in themselves are neutral (a-moral or trans-ethical), and must be freed from any ethical or moral impositions of a few, lest humanity's progress be impeded.

Globalization

The mobility of employment, capital, produce and technology across countries and trade regions is critical for globalization. Our responsibility is for ourselves.

Current international laws and market forces are necessary but insufficient guides for global business conduct.

Shared values, including a commitment to shared prosperity are as important for a global community as for communities of smaller scale.

Responsibilit y Rights and Duties Happiness

Limitless consumption is our birthright. Limitless possession is supreme human happiness.

Compensating peoples and nations for the harm that our global greed and actions cause is global justice. Individual claims of rights are more important than claims of duties toward others. Happiness is the fulfillment of all our wants and desires.

The only responsibility of corporations is to make profits. Global social and economic betterment is the duty of all. Money is the root of all unhappiness.

Accepting global responsibility for the politics and actions of business is imperative. Scarce resource conservation is our global duty. Happiness doubles when shared.

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Table 4.17: Typical Sets of Biases, Prejudices, Presumptions and Presuppositions in Business Education and Learning
Component of Uncritical Thinking Management
Humans are not equal. Men are superior to women. Caucasians are superior to others. Western models of freedom, democracy and civilization are benchmarks for other continents to follow. Work is duty; wage is privilege. Education and employment are rights. Healthcare is a right.

Marketing
Consumers are only means and not ends-inthemselves. Consumption is happiness. Higher consumption implies growth. Immediate gratification is better than its delay. Consumers: be aware. Planned product obsolescence is growth. Outdated products are best exported to developing nations. Consumer delight and satisfaction is the goal of marketing. American fads and fashions are the norm for the world. Predatory and exorbitant pricing are normal. Not all product defects and risks can be eliminated. Consumer risk is OK. Credit based consumption is growth. Allopathic medicine is the best and should be nationally institutionalized. Fast foods do not lead to obesity. Tobacco products do not lead to cancer. Some drugs need to be legalized. Product safety is a consumer duty.

Economics, Accounting & Finance

Human labor is a factor of production; hence, exploitable. Plant closings, mergers, acquisitions, outsourcing, , are necessary means of growth. Granting credit spurs consumption. Debt-leverage is better than equity. Seeking bankruptcy protection is normal. Federal and trade deficits are normal. Labor is just a cost and not a human process. Dignity of labor is its productivity. Labor should be paid by efforts and outputs.

Technology and Information Systems

Innovation is power. Innovation is ethics neutral. Automation and robotics spell growth. Innovation is conquest and control of nature. Planned technology and skills obsolescence are growth. Outdated technologies should be exported to developing countries. Over-consumption of energy is not an ecological hazard. All technology implies an ecological cost. Harmony with nature is weakness. Innovation is useless without commercialization. Market success defines innovation and technology.

Biases

Prejudices

American Capitalism is the best free market system in the world. Big is better and beautiful. More is satisfying. Higher market demand is prosperity.

Presumptions

America is the superpower. Worlds energy resources should be governed by USA. USA should control nuclear weaponry and proliferation. Humans can be used for experimentation. Stem-cell research is a necessity. This world is for us; posterity will take care of itself.

No work is risk-free. No working conditions are totally safe. Worker safety is a luxury. Workers: be aware! Shareholder profitability is the end of capitalism. Corporations exist for shareholders. All corporate responsibility is for shareholders.

Presuppositions

The larger the number of new products and services the market offers each year, the better. Globalization is progress. Globalization eliminates global inequalities. Consumer privacy is a consumer problem. Privacy invasion is a necessity in emergency. Environment-friendliness is a weakness.

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Table 4.18: A Metric of Critical Thinking in Business Education and Learning Dimension Biases Your Discipline
Number of biases Degree of belief in the bias Universality of bias Potential harm of bias Number of prejudices Degree of belief in the prejudice Universality of prejudice Potential harm of prejudice Number of presumptions Degree of belief in the presumptions Universality of presumption Potential harm of presumptions Number of presuppositions Degree of belief in the presupposition Universality of presuppositions Potential harm of presuppositions Number of positive values identified Degree of belief in the positive value Universality of positive value Potential good of the positive value

Case Analysis
Number of biases Degree of belief in the bias Universality of bias Potential harm of bias Number of prejudices Degree of belief in the prejudice Universality of prejudice Potential harm of prejudice Number of presumptions Degree of belief in the presumptions Universality of presumption Potential harm of presumptions Number of presuppositions Degree of belief in the presupposition Universality of presuppositions Potential harm of presuppositions Number of positive values identified Degree of belief in the positive value Universality of positive value Potential good of the positive value

Essay Analysis
Number of biases Degree of belief in the bias Universality of bias Potential harm of bias Number of prejudices Degree of belief in the prejudice Universality of prejudice Potential harm of prejudice Number of presumptions Degree of belief in the presumptions Universality of presumption Potential harm of presumptions Number of presuppositions Degree of belief in the presupposition Universality of presuppositions Potential harm of presuppositions Number of positive values identified Degree of belief in the positive value Universality of positive value Potential good of the positive value

Prejudices

Presumptions

Presuppositions

Positive Values

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Business Executive Exercises

4.1 As a turnaround executive striving to turnaround your failing company, how would you apply the following rules of critical thinking? a) Critical thinking is questioning and challenging what you learn.

b) Critical thinking (CT) is letting stakeholders question and challenge what you think, decide and execute. c) The best stakeholders are those who never quite believe you as a turnaround executive.

d) CT does not reject the company data merely because you do not like what the data implies. CT confronts e) f) g) h) i) j)
4.2 a) b) c) d) e) f) the implications. CT does not reject the company data merely because it rejects the turnaround theory you espouse. CT questions your espoused theory. CT does not reject the company data merely because it rejects your assumptions and presuppositions about turnaround management. CT questions and challenges your assumptions and presuppositions. CT does not reject the turnaround theory merely because the company data does not confirm it. CT sifts the company data and questions its reliability, validity and objectivity or veracity. CT is prepared to revise your turnaround theory if the company data justifies it. CT offers everything for the thoughtful consideration of your stakeholders, not for their blind acceptance. In CT, the turnaround expert is the lawyer that presents and argues from the facts, figures and events objectively. CT lets the stakeholders be the jury or the judge; that is, CT lets the evidence speak.

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, critically assess the following value statements: Every customer is an absolute value to an enterprise. The customer is the primary focus of an enterprise. Every customer has unique preferences over products or services. Every customer seeks to optimize satisfaction in shopping, purchasing and using products or services. The customer and the producer best grow amidst market disequilibrium and uncertainty. The enterprise is responsible to each and every customer. The more the customers you have, the greater the responsibility. [The converse is not true because of (a)].

g)
4.3

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, critically assess the following value-loaded statements: a) b) c) d) The customer is the best resource of an enterprise. The customer influences the mission of an enterprise. The customer defines the competitor of an enterprise. The customer decides the value of an entrepreneurial creation, discovery, or invention. e) The customer best decides what is product or service standard. f) The customer is the final arbiter of quality of any product or service. g) The customer determines the success of every product or service or enterprise. h) Hence, the customer finally decides the value of an entrepreneurial innovation. i) An enterprise is more successful when the customer is a co-producer or co-designer. j) An enterprise is more successful when the customer is a co-partner or co-owner.

4.4

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, critically assess the following value statements:

a) Every stakeholder in a turnaround situation is an absolute value to an enterprise. b) The stakeholder is the primary focus of an enterprise. 63

c) d) e) f) g)
4.5

Every stakeholder has unique preferences over products or services. Every stakeholder seeks to optimize satisfaction in shopping, purchasing and using products or services. The stakeholder and the producer best grow amidst market disequilibrium and uncertainty. The enterprise is responsible to each and every stakeholder. The more the stakeholders you have, the greater the responsibility. [The converse may not be true because of (a)].

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, critically assess the following value-loaded statements:

a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j)
4.6

The stakeholder in a turnaround situation is the best resource of an enterprise. The stakeholder influences the mission of an enterprise. The stakeholder defines the competitor of an enterprise. The stakeholder decides the value of an entrepreneurial creation, discovery, or invention. The stakeholder best decides what is product or service standard. The stakeholder is the final arbiter of quality of any product or service. The stakeholder determines the success of every product or service or enterprise. Hence, the stakeholder finally decides the value of an entrepreneurial innovation. An enterprise is more successful when the stakeholder is a co-producer or co-designer. An enterprise is more successful when the stakeholder is a co-partner or co-owner.

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, as a turnaround executive how would you distinguish between the following information sets in your turnaround company, and why, and to what effect?

a) DATA: company facts, figures, events, information, narration, descriptions, and statistics. b) ANALYSIS: Interpretation of company data in terms of looking for connections between data, c) d) e)
deriving inferences or conclusions from data, and thus seeking meaning and significance of data. KNOWLEDGE: Based on analysis of data from various fields, disciplines and domains one derives intelligent (or empirically verifiable) propositions, hypotheses, and conclusions, and accordingly, builds turnaround theories, axioms, strategies and paradigms. VALUES: what are the lasting, enhancing and humanizing values in data, analysis and knowledge that will make life better for all your stakeholders? What are also the temporal, degrading and dehumanizing values that could make like worse for all? WISDOM: Based on company data, experience, analysis, knowledge and values, one finally stores and derives wisdom that discerns what is truth from error and falsehood, right from wrong, good from evil, just from unjust, ethical from the unethical, moral from the immoral, virtue from vice, grace from sin, life from death, lasting values from the ephemeral, and from earth to heaven, time to eternity. Critical thinking based education should lead you from data to analysis, from analysis to knowledge, from knowledge to value, from value to wisdom. Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, as a turnaround executive how would you distinguish between the following turnaround strategies for your company, and why, and to what effect?

f)

4.7

a) b) c) d)
e) f)

Wisdom should be distinguished from cleverness. Wisdom should be distinguished from, shrewdness, Wisdom should be distinguished from cunningness and one's manipulative capacities. All these so-called skills imply taking right steps but to wrong ends. Vanity, avarice, worldliness are contrary to wisdom, since they pursue wrong values. Vanity sees admiration as the highest value.

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g) Worldliness pursues good life primarily in terms of wealth and power. h) Avarice seeks money and other money equivalents (such as land, investments, and businesses) as supreme values. i) Real wisdom or prudence takes right steps to right ends, especially those that serve common good. There may be a strategic virtue in doing things rightly; but there is a moral virtue in doing right things rightly. [See Table 4.4 for a fourfold typology of critical actions]

4.8

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, as a turnaround executive how would you use the fourfold critical thinking paradigm in Table 4.4 to classify the following turnaround strategies, why and with what consequences?

a) Demanding excessive executive compensation, greenmail and golden parachutes for accepting turnaround b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k)
4.9 responsibilities Limiting severance pay and packages to your laid-off employees Trimming retirement benefits to your pre-retirees Outsourcing production to reduce costs Employing child labor, sweatshops to reduce labor costs Employing illegal immigrants to displace your current high-wage employees Transferring outmoded technologies to third world countries Forced obsolescence and planned obsolescence to boost sales of new products Downsizing to improve efficiency but creating ghost towns Deceptive contracts with your retained labor Declaring insolvency or bankruptcy to avoid labor union contracts

Applying the theories and rules of critical thinking, as a turnaround executive how would you use the fourfold critical thinking paradigm in Table 4.4 to classify the following market-based turnaround strategies, why and with what consequences?

a) Employing bait and switch and deceptive ads to attract customers b) Creating artificial shortages to raise prices
c) Engaging in dumping to kill your competition Engaging in price war to combat competition Engaging in illegal insider trading to boost your personal income Engaging in round trip sales to boost your corporate performance Inviting hostile takeovers to save your insolvent company h) Engaging in divestitures of questionable fixed assets to resolve current cash crisis i) Engaging in mergers and acquisitions to boost stock value of your company

d) e) f) g)

4.10 According to Critical Thinking, turnaround executive biases, prejudices, assumptions and presumptions, suppositions and presuppositions can be wrong inclinations or systematic errors in executive judgment and execution. How will you unearth the following, confront them and rectify them or eliminate them in your company?

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A bias is a mental leaning or inclination, partially bent. From a statistical viewpoint, a bias is any systematic error that contributes to the difference between statistical values in a population and a sample drawn from it. Hence, we define bias as the systematic leaning of ones thinking that deviates from the norm. a) A prejudice implies a judgment or opinion formed before the facts are known. It is a preconceived idea, favorable, or usually, unfavorable, marked by a suspicion, intolerance or irrational hatred for other races, creeds and occupations. b) An assumption is a more basic act of assuming a fact, property or event for granted without critically assessing its accuracy and veracity, reliability and validity. c) A presumption is a subset of assumption and implies taking something for granted or unjustifiably accepting it as true, usually on the basis of improper evidence. d) A supposition is the act of assuming something to be true for the sake of an argument or to illustrate a proof. It is regarding something as true without actual knowledge, hence, often tantamount to conjecture, guessing or mere imagination. In this sense, it is a subset of assumption. e) A presupposition is an act or statement of supposing or assuming beforehand. It also means to require or imply as a preceding condition for something. 4.11 According to Stephen Covey (2004), the four magnificent parts of our nature consist of body, mind, heart, and spirit that have corresponding four capacities or intelligences: physical or body intelligence (PQ), mental intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ). How will you incorporate, internalize and institutionalize the following heuristics in your turnaround strategies? a) b) IQ or mental intelligence is our ability to analyze, reason, think abstractly, use language, visualize, conceptualize and comprehend. PQ is something that happens within our body controlling the respiratory, circulatory, metabolic, nervous and other vital systems. PQ manages the entire system, much of it unconscious. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is ones self-knowledge, self-awareness, social sensitivity, empathy and ability to communicate successfully with others. It is a sense of timing and social appropriateness, and having the courage to acknowledge weaknesses and express and respect differences. Abilities such as leadership, successful communications and relationships are primarily a function of EQ than IQ. Spiritual intelligence (SQ) represents our drive for meaning and connection with the infinite. SQ is thinking with your soul and represents the ancient and abiding human quest for connectedness with something larger and trust-worthier than our world and us. SQ is uniquely human and most fundamental. It stands for our quest for our longing for meaning, vision and value; it allows us to dream and to strive; it underlies the things we believe in and hope for; it makes us human. SQ is today becoming more mainstream in scientific inquiry and philosophical and psychological discussion. SQ is the central and the most fundamental of all four intelligences because it becomes the source of guidance of the other three. While IQ relates to becoming more knowledgeable, PQ to becoming more healthy and strong, EQ relates to becoming more relational and sensitive, SQ relates to becoming a person (see Rogers 1961). High IQ is not enough: brilliance is not necessarily humanizing. High PQ is not enough: athletes, boxers and heavy weight fighters have it and it did not necessarily humanize them. High EQ is good but not sufficient: it provides passion and but not humanity. High IQ may provide vision, high PQ may imply discipline and high EQ may mean passion. Adolph Hitler had all three but produced shockingly different result (Collins 2004: 69). High IQ, EQ and SQ are a great combination: Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mohandas Gandhi and a few others had them. High IQ, PQ, EQ and SQ are a perfect combination. The prophets and patriarchs of the Old and News Testaments are good examples. A contemporary example is Mother Teresa.

c)

d) e)

f)
g) h)

i) j)

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4.12

Be a critic of your own turnaround management thinking. How will you test the validity of your reasoning and turnaround solutions using the following critical thinking rules? a) Does this thinking and your best solution make a better sense of the world? (Chaffee 1988)

b) Does the best solution help you to be unbiased and unprejudiced in your thinking? (Paul and Elder 2002). c) Does it help you to understand the assumptions and presuppositions behind this thinking? (Collins 2001; d) e) f)
Collins and Porras 1989) Does it help you to appreciate the positive and normative content in this thinking? (Hunt 1991; 2002) Does it inspire you with spiritual meaning, vision, value and motivation to reach out to others? (Covey 1989) Does it help you to rise beyond data, information and knowledge to lasting values and wisdom? Does it empower you to be a servant leader for others? (Kahl 2004).

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