Abstract Knowledge and Reified Financial Innovation: Building Wisdom and Ethics Into Financial Innovation Networks

David Rooney, Tom Mandeville, Tim Kastelle

Journal of Business Ethics · 2013 · Volume 118 · Issue 3

Abstract

This article argues that abstract knowledge in the form of formally developed theory plays an increasingly important role in the economy and in financial innovation in particular. Abstract knowledge is easily reified, and this is an aspect of knowledge work that is insufficiently researched. In this article, we problematize reification of abstract knowledge in financial innovation from wisdom, ethics, and social network analysis perspectives. This article, therefore, considers the composition and structures of financial innovation networks that help avoid reification by building ethicality through social practice wisdom. Finally, we discuss future directions that empirical ethics research can take.

Keywords

Abstract knowledge, Financial innovation, Reification, Social networks, Theory, Wisdom

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