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Bringing the Heart and Soul Back in: Collaborative Inquiry and the DBA

    Published Online:29 Mar 2019https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2017.0020

    Abstract

    Waddock and Lozano (2013) propose that there is an urgent need to bring the “heart and soul” back into management education. Indeed, its absence has also been implicated in the plethora of recent scandals and the global financial crisis. We suggest that such issues are, in part, attributable to a continued overreliance on a scientific and detached form of knowing that displaces particular “human characteristics” and in so doing, downplays our inherent connections to others. In contrast, we identify the importance of embracing a supplementary form of knowing, collaborative inquiry, which potentially restores our connections to others in ways that provide opportunities for a more heartfelt and soulful management practice. Specifically, we extend Van de Ven and Johnson’s (2006) notion of collaborative inquiry to consider how it is mobilized in the context of a U.K. DBA program and in turn we examine the impact this move accomplishes. Drawing upon a detailed analysis of 20 students’ reflective journals, we illustrate the ways in which they develop a form of empathy. Crucially, we found that this was one important means for (re)connecting to others in ways that begin to bring a sense of heart and soul back into management education.

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