“ADMINISTRAÇÃO É CIÊNCIA OU ARTE?” O QUE PODEMOS APRENDER COM ESTE MAL-ENTENDIDO?

• Main Author: Pedro Lincoln C. L. de Mattos
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Fundação Getulio Vargas 2009-07-01
• Series: RAE: Revista de Administração de Empresas
• Subjects: Scientificity in administration; science-administration; art-administration; academic activity; scientific marking
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-75902009000300009&lng=pt&nrm=iso

In classes and lectures of introduction to administration, when the question “What do you think: Is administration science or art?” isasked, the audience is always curious. We face here an interesting and discussion-stimulating dictum. This article has two goals: to disclose the question ambiguity – maybe one of the reasons for its survival – and from there, analyze how appropriate it is to discuss “scientificity” in our knowledge system, an important question for academic routes in that area. For the first – more modest – goal, we will use language pragmatic and semantic analysis; for the second, concentrating most of the text, theories about science nature and the intended distinction between scienceand non-science. Evidences arise, then, that the dictum contains a misunderstanding.