Philosophy of Management

The Application of Philosophical Categories in Production Management

To grasp the potential effectiveness of applying a particular philosophical category to production management, it is essential first to distinguish between essence and phenomenon when making any managerial decision.

A manager consistently engages with phenomena, as these are evident. For instance, when considering a product's price, the manager calculates the potential profit from its sale, taking into account a certain level of demand. The price, in this context, is not a fixed phenomenon. Thus, it is vital to determine the essence of the phenomenon, that is, to establish why it is of a particular nature, and to identify the factors influencing its formation, as well as the potential of these factors for the near future. Therefore, the assurance of profit lies not in focusing on a specific price, but in understanding the underlying factors that determine it across time and space. These factors are not readily apparent because they constitute the essence of the price, while the price itself is a phenomenon that can vary widely. Typically, errors in management arise when only the phenomenon is considered without sufficiently analyzing its essence. The guarantee of infallible management resides in discerning the essence rather than merely the characteristics of the phenomenon.

It is known that management can be fruitful only when the relationship between essence and phenomenon is clarified in its abstract and concrete manifestations. This is crucial for the manager, as understanding the underlying processes and internal, hidden connections that serve as the foundation for all forms of external manifestation is vital. For the manager, essence primarily represents the measure and mechanism of interaction between the quality and quantity of facts, events, and phenomena that help penetrate the fundamental properties not only of the organizational process but also of individual facts, establishing the causes of their emergence. This understanding creates conditions for revealing the laws or tendencies governing the functioning and development of organizational phenomena, namely specific facts and events.

As in other spheres of nature and society, phenomena in management reflect their essence and diversity, manifesting spatially and temporally. Thus, a phenomenon is singular, external, transient, mutable, and even arbitrary. This is why the pursuit of understanding essence through phenomenon is a continuous quest for truth, that is, for an inexhaustible essence. In this regard, the philosophical thesis concerning management as a measure of the possible acquires a substantial scientific foundation. Moreover, it is particularly important for management to establish, within a given phenomenon, that very essence designated by the term "being," and those manifestations defined by the term "seeming." The latter primarily reflects the discrepancy between essence and its external manifestation, although this manifestation, under conditions of particular "usage," can transform into essence and thus obscure the phenomenon that adequately reflects that essence.

Meanwhile, the term "organizational phenomenon" has become so ingrained in official discourse that the concepts of "phenomenon" and "essence" are rarely considered in relation to one another. To identify a phenomenon, or even simply to denote a sum of facts as a phenomenon, is already seen as a fruitful penetration into its essence. In other words, the notions of "phenomenon" and "essence" are generally not distinguished; at least, they are not regarded as fundamentally different, which undoubtedly leads to managerial errors.

It is necessary to emphasize once more that the ability to differentiate between phenomenon and essence is especially important because, at a non-professional managerial level, what we typically first perceive is the phenomenon, as it is outwardly visible, whereas essence remains hidden and is not easily seen or understood, at least not immediately alongside the phenomenon. Even human civilization, having distributed various historical phenomena across time and space, does not reveal their essence to all or even to most immediately. It requires meticulous, often protracted intellectual effort or vast experience to establish the essence of a phenomenon. When we speak of individual or group capabilities, professional talent, or a manager’s skill, we refer primarily to the ability to ascertain the essence of phenomena, even when the phenomenon has not yet sufficiently revealed itself for the essence to be recognized. Prognostic vision embodies this very capacity, serving as a guarantee of success in managerial endeavors. If leaders across various structures possessed such abilities, many tragic events might have been averted.

In Ukraine, the scientific category of "essence and phenomenon" holds particular significance in contemporary conditions. This is related to the fact that Ukraine has existed for several centuries as a phenomenon that inadequately reflects its essence. The ultimate purpose of Ukrainian society, especially its economic component, is to establish a system of relationships, particularly economic ones, that would allow Ukraine to align itself fundamentally as a phenomenon with its essence. In this journey, Ukraine's transition to a new social system, especially to civilized market relations, represents one of the most significant changes that will objectively mitigate the historical discrepancy between essence and phenomenon that has developed in Ukraine.

The distinction between essence and phenomenon becomes particularly pronounced when the managerial formula of "necessity" and "contingency" is applied.

In management, especially within managerial activities, it is often challenging to discern the relationship between necessity and contingency.

The scientific construct can be framed in the following way: necessity in management is a calculated, recognized need expressed in a certain type of relationship among phenomena, arising from the stability of their internal foundation and conditions of existence. Contingency, on the other hand, is a possibility that emerges from the type of relationship resulting from incidental factors, with the connection potentially being both internal and external, deriving from the nature of the object or lying beyond its confines.

Management, in essence, embodies that necessity wherein possibility manifests as a calculation primarily bounded by the constraints of necessity. To utilize a given possibility at times represents the highest necessity in management. For instance, it is an extremely subjective and erroneous behavior for a manager to reform a certain social (production) object by altering a distorted state that does not align with its needs. The necessity for a fundamental change in such an object, to create conditions for its realization, and to fundamentally reconstruct the object of management as an unrealized possibility, cannot be supplanted by any reformation of the old, stagnant, and ineffective.

Since necessity represents a lawful need of the object, the issue of managerial intervention in these processes arises.

In individual or group managerial activities, necessity is generally taken into account and even calculated, while contingency is assessed at a more commonplace level of consciousness. It is perceived as something resistant to prediction and even calculation. Yet, even at this level of consciousness, contingency is not envisioned as something absolute, typically eliciting regret over the inadequacy of efforts made to avert it: “if only I had known,” “if only I had thought of it in time,” or “this could not have been predicted,” and so on. Here, one can clearly see the human hope for the possibility of avoiding contingencies, predicting them, which are essentially the same. However, while such hopes are often unfulfilled at the everyday level, they should be a task—if not a principle—in management and managerial activities. There is no contradiction here since no level of development in everyday life can adequately eliminate contingencies. However, limiting this existence within the framework of a type of activity, concentrating within it the most effective organizational potential (material, organizational, and spiritual), transforms management into an activity that focuses the main organizational strength of a given social coexistence, thereby creating a fundamentally different “environment of existence” for contingencies. In this context, not only does the possibility arise, but also the necessity for such anticipation and calculation, which practically mitigates the impact of contingencies on both the object and subject of management. Essentially, the criterion for the effectiveness of managerial activity becomes the manager's ability to foresee and calculate contingencies, which thus lose their status as random occurrences. If a manager admits that they could not foresee the consequences of their proposed reform program, this can only be classified as managerial irresponsibility. Should this arise from individual unpreparedness, it becomes a matter of professional incompetence.

The following philosophical categories are "reality," "possibility," and "probability."

Once again, the external outline appears quite simple: in any management action, it is essential to accurately understand the reality upon which a decision is made. Yet, which manager is content with merely a snapshot of a certain reality? As a professional, they must ascertain what can be extracted from this reality: profit for their firm or for another economic entity they represent. Consequently, reality immediately transforms into a calculation of the possibility of that reality. However, this alone is insufficient; establishing possibilities does not equate to mastering them. Therefore, a probabilistic assessment of utilizing these possibilities is required. Ultimately, it is the probability of employing this reality and its possibilities that constitutes the essence of managerial decision-making. Nevertheless, without the first and second, such decisions lack sufficient guarantees of infallibility.

In production management, possibility forms the foundation of efficiency. Thus, the manager's task is to identify the operation of a certain law within a given situation, to determine the conditions for its manifestation, as well as to clarify the nature of possibilities (whether real, minimally promising, formal, etc.) and their extent, namely the probability of realization, which can be internal, linked to the object's structure, or external, related to the activities of that object.

The presence of a possibility connected to reality serves as a sufficient basis for making a managerial decision, which is grounded in a clear calculation of probability. The limited prospect of such probability, from a philosophical standpoint, does not diminish the necessity of a managerial vision regarding the possibility of its enhancement. This pertains primarily to the economic entity within an environment that creates temporal and spatial situations for the manifestation of possibilities. It is the responsibility of each manager to facilitate this manifestation through managerial means if it contributes to the entity's development, or to mitigate or prevent the consequences of this manifestation if it hinders that development.

In a broader sense, possibility, reality, and probability in Ukrainian management are represented as Ukraine's movement from less perfected forms of self-organization to more advanced ones. This movement has a single, objectively determined direction, the energy of which is generated precisely by this correlation. Since reality is the actualized possibility, Ukrainian managers must continually assess the degree of this realization, beyond which a new possibility arises, which they must transform into reality. The degree here serves as a temporal indicator by which one can judge the level of actualized possibilities.

For Ukraine, possibility and reality constitute the primary movement from which management emerges and which sustains it. Currently, Ukrainian possibilities are, to put it mildly, modestly represented in Ukrainian reality. One could even assert that Ukraine exists in a state of potential realization of possibilities, a state that cannot even be termed as having initially occurred, as the principal indicator of actualized possibility—namely, the affirmation of a contemporary social system that meets global standards—has yet to exist. If we consider the potential of Ukrainian identity, for which such a system is merely a possibility for the realization of national potential under favorable socio-economic, spiritual, and political conditions, the fact of unrealized possibilities becomes evident. Therefore, contemporary Ukrainian reality should be perceived as a weak reproduction of Ukrainian possibilities. For management, this is the primary source of efficiency, the super-profit it can derive by continually referencing this source. The development here lies in the ongoing augmentation of reality through actualized possibilities. There is no alternative; any encroachment upon this source of self-development for Ukrainian management turns into an anti-Ukrainian action, which meets with appropriate social response. The tragedy of this formula for management, especially for the Ukrainian context, lies in the fact that these real possibilities may not materialize if management does not create the necessary conditions for them, although, conversely, the dangerous impasse for the nation is that this manifestation relies on the managers. This has been demonstrated throughout modern Ukrainian history.

To realize its possibilities, both potential and historically newly created, strong professional management is required, along with a consistent movement from reality as one realized possibility to others. Everything else is external, temporary, and must be understood with sufficient managerial professionalism in this manner.

The philosophy of management is perceived as quite effective, particularly through the use of categories such as "form" and "content."

In the everyday understanding of any individual, the essence is, without a doubt, paramount, while form serves to facilitate it. However, this emphasis can be quite detrimental: often in management, form acts as a substitute for content. Who has not encountered the decisive role of form, especially in management: the ability to negotiate, the manner of communication, the presentation of documents, the office's appearance, its respectability, and ultimately, all promotional materials constructed on the powerful influence of form?

Undoubtedly, content is the main focus; it is integral and merely manifests in various forms.

However, there are no so-called abstract forms divorced from content, entirely independent. The manager's task is to consider both aspects of a phenomenon or object.

In organizational and production relationships, content is based on contractual principles (from which, as a rule, the next economic action begins). Therefore, from a formal perspective, the most challenging aspect is the articulation of the content of production activities. This provides the manager with the necessary insight into production activities, enabling them to navigate the relationships they enter.

This situation creates a constant necessity for scientifically credible, managerially competent articulation of production relationships. The letter of the legal document serves as a reflection of the content, although it cannot be the absolute regulator, at least when it contradicts common sense. This presents one of the complex contradictions of management, the resolution of which is nearly impossible. Thus, a situation may arise where form becomes the guiding principle, supplanting content, losing its autonomy, effectively ceding it to content, which replaces it with another, more adequate form. Hence, in management, form holds significant weight, as the transition from form to content can occur imperceptibly.

Forms that do not reflect content may include agreements lacking certain objective content, even contracts signed between states regarding mutual supplies of specific products, and any legal acts in the economic sphere. The Ukrainian market itself is a form into which the current level of economic and production relationships, productivity, etc., is compressed.

Simultaneously, in managerial practice, a situation may arise where decisions are made during a transition between form and content. At this time, management activity assumes the role of accelerating the process of transferring the qualities of content to a new form, which generates a particular demand for the maturity of the management subject's object.

At the individual level, the form significantly influences the content, particularly when this form offers a new and more perfect space for the expression of that content. In such a scenario, the personal qualities of the manager, articulated in a manner optimal for the given situation, may serve as a means of harmonizing the connection between form and content. However, such a compelling influence can only occur when the form is "genuine," accurately reflecting the content, rather than being the result of a deliberate distortion of the content through the creation of an artificial formal structure.

An illustration of this principle is found in the bureaucratic approach, which serves as a managerial distortion of content. Here, the purpose of this distortion may be either the utilization of positive content for personal interests or the concealment of negative content, relying on the relative autonomy of the form and its inherent potential.

In every managerial decision and action, there exists a certain quantity and quality. Yet, the mundane perception of these elements often obstructs understanding. What indeed constitutes quantity? It can be measured in items, tons, units, various sums, and so forth. And what about quality? It pertains to the level, the potential of the object or decision, its ability to influence the environment or itself. Everything seems clear, yet within quantity and quality lies a complexity that we previously depicted as autonomous. The very concepts of quantity and quality and their interrelationship are much more intricate, and it is essential to acknowledge this complexity, as ignorance of it is a persistent source of significant managerial errors.

The most complicated aspect of this relationship is the measure. Let us pose the question: ten absences in one production unit and twenty in another. Does this mean the condition in the second unit is worse than in the first? The measure here acts as an absolute indicator of the relationship between quantity and quality. In a managerial context, such a measure may be erroneous if it derives from the quality of the sources that gave rise to these phenomena. The answer is evident. Consider another example: identical negative consequences resulting from two managerial decisions made by different departments of the company. To what extent can the uniformity of outcomes serve as a measure to determine the competence level of these managers? The answer is clearly ambiguous.

For a leader, the actual connection between quality and quantity, their unity manifested in measure—meaning the quantitative boundary of a given quality within which it can change without losing its essence—is of paramount importance. Under certain conditions, quantitative characteristics may transform into qualitative ones, and vice versa.

Gradual quantitative changes and alterations in specific aspects of a certain quality that arise from these changes manifest as evolution, as a continuous alteration. An interruption in such gradualness signifies a transition to a new quality. In this context, a leap represents the emergence of distinct new properties of an object or phenomenon, determined by external and internal developmental factors and their full affirmation.

Quantity in production (for instance, defects) is not merely a statistical indicator but a direct indication of the necessity to create a new quality, as there is no quantity devoid of context for management.

In production management, it is crucial not to absolutize the law governing the transition from quantity to quality. The true art of the manager lies in averting the accumulation of negative quantities. This constitutes their task: to mitigate the impact of negativity, allowing the object to experience it less acutely. Evolution, in this sense, is more natural and sufficient for the advancement of production.

For the manager's activity, it is imperative to effectively utilize the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the object or phenomenon, establishing the quantitative threshold of a given quality, that is, its measure.

Quality is what distinguishes one thing from another, those properties and states that enable a comprehensive characterization reflecting both the internal and external determinacies of an object or process, as well as the potential for possible changes under the influence of the environment, which creates its relative stability. This is all the more significant, as the properties of such an object or process may transform under various influences, potentially leading to the emergence of new properties.

Quantity reflects the general and the particular within things and phenomena, although this reflection possesses an objective content. Yet it is precisely this objectivity that allows quantity to fulfill its fundamental role—serving as the formal expression of the objective discreteness of things and processes.

In this regard, a genuine connection between quality and quantity is crucial for management, as is their inseparable unity, which is revealed in measure—namely, the quantitative boundary of this quality within which it can change without losing its essence, even as quantitative characteristics may transform into qualitative ones and vice versa. Furthermore, gradual quantitative changes and the resultant alterations in specific aspects of that quality appear as evolution—a continuous transformation. An interruption in such gradualness signifies a transition to a new quality, which stands as a unity of what has departed and what has emerged, embodying both negation and affirmation.

It is commonly held that management should not be pedantic regarding quantity, considering its higher qualitative purpose, since it is meant to preemptively account for losses in their quantitative equivalents. This represents the greatest error rooted in empirical foundations. Management, as a field of activity, is tasked with avoiding sacrifices that lead to human losses, especially in preventing social conflicts and confrontations arising from the coercive imposition of objects through violent means. Conflict is already a specific quality of management, specifically its failure, as the realization of interests, as a universal human quality, has objective foundations embedded within the biosocial environment.

In management, it is also essential not to absolutize the law governing the transition from quantitative changes to fundamentally qualitative ones. The true art of the manager should prevent the accumulation of negative quantities while promoting the accumulation of positive quantities, ensuring that the former do not transition into a new quality and that the latter do so as quickly as possible. The fact that the accumulation of facts and events—especially negative ones—contributes to development does not negate the possibility of using managerial means to extend their influence in time and space, allowing the object to feel their negative charge less acutely in its development.

The structure of the overall connection and interaction within management, of course, includes certain causality and objective necessity.

Establishing the cause of a phenomenon, fact, or action is one of the fundamental requirements for management and managerial activity in general. The cause and its consequence serve as the "raw material" for managerial decision-making.

As in other phenomena, causality in management represents an organic connection that gives rise to another quality, resulting from causal dependencies, though not all connections are directly dictated by cause: regarding one consequence, it may be a functional dependence, while to another, a causal link.

It is particularly crucial for a manager to avoid the temptation to pinpoint the first cause of a phenomenon or fact, as causality is the continuity of causal connections that have neither beginning nor end, just as moving matter does not possess them. This circumstance presents specific professional challenges for the manager in establishing a suitable boundary in defining cause and effect, considering the law of feedback and the invariability of the temporal direction of the process itself, which creates a particular mechanism for the interaction of cause and effect.

Thus, it is essential to distinguish between the cause and the condition of the emergence of a phenomenon or fact. A cause necessarily involves the transfer of some form of potential force to the object of influence, while a condition creates a sum of factors and circumstances that facilitate such transmission of information or energy. Moreover, the transfer (or transmission) of information or energy can occur in various ways, the primary of which are dynamic and statistical (deterministic and probabilistic).

Furthermore, in the realm of management, it is vital to define the cause as general, primary, particular, singular, objective, subjective, immediate, mediated, simple, single-factor (or multi-factorial), systemic (or non-systemic), proximate, distant, and deep, as well as in relation to spheres of interaction: economic, social, political, spiritual, and so forth. All these types of causes are part of the structure of managerial determination, which, based on causality, expands the scope of its influence on the course of the process and enters into the analysis of causal dependencies.

When discussing causality in management, it is important to highlight not only those classes of causes that give rise to certain managerial actions or decisions (as forms of action) but also the managerial action itself as a factor of causality, arising from the autonomy of managerial relationships and activities. These can serve as an organic link that generates a new quality. Ultimately, managerial activity would be nonsensical if it did not produce such a quality.

However, it is fundamentally important to prevent the transformation of management and the managerial activities it implements into the primary determining causal dependency. The focus can only be on the managerial calculation of the process, phenomenon, or fact, which embeds the deep interest of the object that a particular management engages with. The internal cause of management should not manifest as a testament to its healthy organic connection with interests, as well as with the objects it "services."

In direct managerial activity, the establishment of the cause largely depends on knowing whether the cause that led to certain consequences is managerial, or whether it only becomes managerial in its consequences. Professionalism and competence of the manager play a crucial role here, as identifying organizational consequences and their actual organizational state in an externally non-managerial phenomenon, fact, or event is a task that is not always within the grasp of even the most experienced and highly professional managers.

A constant unprofessional attitude toward causality as an organizational phenomenon, and the transformation of causality into a form of self-sufficiency, creates many artificial problems in modern production management, including those of a fundamental nature. Even competitive struggle is sometimes put forth as a cause of negative phenomena, while the existence of, for example, unhealthy competition—even in rather weak forms—is not a cause but a consequence of several factors, with the primary one being the inconsistent economic policy of Ukraine, the weak reformative activities of the state, and consequently certain destructive sentiments among parts of the population.

Today, such an attitude toward causality on the part of the management and political figures of Ukraine should become a norm in their activities, as ultimately, Ukraine must transcend causality as a source of development and enter into a common civilizational creative stream, which would signify the end of its colonial past and the affirmation of its equal standing within the system of developed countries in the world.

In practical management, such an approach to causality in Ukraine means transforming the category of causality into an instrument for making managerial decisions and evaluating them as causal or evolutionarily creative. The more objective opportunities there are for making the latter, the more this will signify a weakening of the political-pragmatic factors influencing the former.