Pedagogical strategy, design strategy, and positioning of practitioner doctorate: Grounding business practice in subjectivism and first-person research in an Irish institution

For the practitioner doctorate program offered at the School of Economics, University College Cork, Ireland, the focus is on enhancing effectiveness of participants’ professional and organizational practice. For this to happen consideration of “personal elements of knowledge�? (Polanyi, 1966, p. 11) is required, that is, knowledge as experienced, accumulated, and transformed in both practice and in reflection on practice. Such knowledge is based on “tacit thought & an indispensable part of all knowledge�? (Polanyi, 1966, p. 11). While economics as a discipline has over recent decades displayed increasing formalization and mathematization, alternative lines of thought outlined here provide foundations for our program within business economics and business.