A Celebration: Reflections on Management Learning and the Humanities

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the editorial that we wrote in 1995 to lay out the directions in which we thought we might see Management Learning, the journal, and Management Learning, the field, developing during our time as editors. We anchor our comments on two references: one to a novel by Balzac in which he suggests that economic reductionism is inimical to human life, and one to an article by Hendry (2006) in which he comes to very similar conclusions, but for quite different reasons and in a different context. Along the way we refer to several other articles that have appeared in Management Learning since our editorial, and delight in the development of a tapestry of learning where the narrative, the literary, the critical, the managerial, the dramaturgical, the dialogic, the aesthetic and many others all play their part.