What Popper would say about the market administrative literature?

Abstract

The production of knowledge in the field of administration, nowadays, tends to oppose - at least methodologically - academic settings and those where that knowledge grows under market motivation. This article, written from the point of view of the former, is a critical reflexion on the epistemological background supporting the latter. The main method and argument of the management market discourse, in the border between the simple common sense and the traditionally called scientific knowledge, is the induction from experience (“one fact after the other, if it has worked for others, will also work for you”). It directly feeds firms, their consultants and a growing number of readers. This is really a classical,epistemological question which was anthological treated by Karl R. Popper and constitutes the core of this paper. From the philosopher’s conclusions on scientific logic, interesting deductions could stem to the world of management.