Responsible Ontological Work: Guidance for Doctoral Education and the Ontological Turn

Responsible management education and research movements have recently begun to highlight the importance of responsible doctoral education. In parallel, signs of an increasing turn to ontological matters concerned with the nature of existence have emerged. The implication is that becoming a responsible researcher requires that we learn to responsibly practice our ontologies, navigating their immanent epistemic (ir)responsibilities to society and moral (ir)responsibilities to our respective research communities. This narrative review introduces seven salient ontologically responsible practices: ontological appreciation, emancipation, dialogue, symbiosis, alignment, inclusion, and politics. I propose the label of “responsible ontological work” to capture the efforts of enacting these practices to cultivate one’s beliefs about the nature of reality and to responsibly engage with others’ beliefs. Learning responsible ontological work requires engaging two key competences: ontological reflexivity and empathy. These key competences offer targeted pedagogical guidance, while the seven ontologically responsible practices offer ample contents to draw from when teaching and learning responsible ontological work. This article contributes to the responsible management education and research movements by offering an ontological-theoretical foundation and a pedagogy for developing responsible role model academics. I close with an outlook on responsible ontological work in times of rampant anti-intellectualism and pervasive artificial intelligence.