Collective phronesis building in a university council

Abstract Purpose: Collective decision-making is the process of making a decision means of a group. With the unavailability of sufficient legislation to support some decisions, collective decision-making demands a better understanding of how to make decisions by heading towards finding correct and fair solutions to them. The aim of the study is to help better understand how such collective ethics decisions are made in light of the Aristotelian ethics paradigm (phronesis) through an empirical study in a university council. Originality/value: Joint reflections and plural judgments, which often take place in decision-making meetings in councils, help achieving the ethical deliberative reasoning supporting collective phronesis. The originality of this study is to bring reflections on how organizations can proceed to maintain ethical collective decisions, and also by highlighting how decisions are made in a university council. Design/methodology/approach: A qualitative empirical research on collective decision in a university council, from a Brazilian Federal University, has shown a sort of collectively built phronesis. Through observations and interviews, we researched counselors and analyzed the information recalling counselors’ actions and relating them to the observed context. Findings: We talked about how the collective decision-making phenomenon takes place by bearing in mind its association with and addition to ethical reasoning. Ethical collective decision-making is socially built because it concerns a joint sense of morality. Collective judgment results from interactive and dynamic processes. Contribution/implication: The theoretical contribution is based on building the concept of collective phronesis. A practical contribution lies on reflections about collective decision-making and efficient management of processes involving the council.