FIELDS AND ARENAS OF MANAGERIAL WORK: ELEMENTS OF A SENSITISING FRAMEWORK

Abstract

There are few social phenomena which have as significant effects on our lives in industrial societies as the management of firms. Despite this the empirical study of management is still an underdeveloped area of social scientific research. Though very much has been written about management it can still be argued that very little is known about it as a social practice in concrete historically specified contexts. Such a state of the art is mainly due to the fact that there has been a tendency to take the individual manager as the unit of analysis and abstract away from the historical, organisational and wider institutional context of managers and managing (Willmott 1984; 1987). By emphasising abstract‐general and universalistic determinations of managers and managing, most traditions of management research have missed crucial aspects of the nature of these phenomena. The problems to be solved by managers in firms and in the wide societal environment are, however, both varied and historically specific. The types of knowledge and skills required of managers are highly specific and related to particularistic objects of work (cf. Whitley 1988). In addition, success on the part of management is very much dependent on the right timing of their interventions.