A Critical Rationalist Inquiry of Managerial Epistemology. Toward the Confrontation of the Unawareness Problem.

This study applies Critical Rationalism (CR), a stance associated with the philosophy of science, to solve a practical problem: management unawareness. Managers (as any other human being) hold a theory through which they explain the world and rationalize their decisions. Like any other theory, the one held by managers may be false. The problem of unawareness is a state in which the theory holder does not imagine the very possibility that the theory may be indeed false. Since managers’ theories underlie the recognition of potential problems that managers have to address (as well as the subsequent solving process), the state of unawareness prevents problem recognition, and consequently problem solving. This study confronts the problem of unawareness and overcomes it.