Je regrette: Towards marshalling remorse in knowledge transfer

Abstract

In the manifold excesses of current Anglo-American managerial praxis, from short-term time horizons, grossly distorted expressions of managerial prerogatives and remuneration rationales and a calculated brutality far in excess of any Human Relations sensitivity, the need to inflate shareholder perceptions of the “bottom line” has led to a managerial immorality that staggers many ethical and stakeholders’ boundaries. Post Enron, Tyco and others, can much change? Are all senior managers doomed to the moral/ethical vacuum of the “bottom line”? With remuneration packages deliberately focused around an economic-rationalist “brutality,” what reflective space, what discourse allows and enables moments of remorse/regret and accommodates the inevitable need for personal accountability and attempts at restitution? Is it merely recourse to recalcitrant legal/governance codes that provides for accounting for managerial incompetence and ideologized greed? How will management discourse remember the current regressive nature of managerial behaviour? How will Knowledge Management, in full flight with rhetoric about the importance of Tacit Knowledge, deal with organizational incompetence?