This edition has five articles that are mainly conceptual in nature. The first, entitled “Breaking the Chains of ignorance: manager-philosophers in recent management history”, is by Steven Segal and Kyle Bruce, the latter being a regular contributor to this journal. In essence, Segal and Bruce take up the philosophic ideas of Plato to explore how managerial assumptions shaped the practices of two leading managers – Richard Semler (CEO of the Brazilian company, SEMCO) and Jack Welch (CEO of General Electric). Only by overturning their own assumptions, and those that dominated behaviour within their organisations – the paper argues – was business advance possible. In revisiting Plato’s philosophy, Segal and Bruce instigate a reconsideration of the methodological principles that underpin our research.