Management Writers Research Articles

Out of Place: Management Studies’ Temporal Misplacements of Mary Parker Follett

It is hard for management studies to place Mary Parker Follett. She is a woman, and she did not focus on corporations or factories, like the so-called early management pioneers. She is not an academic or a consultant. In this article we examine a further problem contributing to her ideas failing to get the recognition they deserve. We argue that this is because it has proved difficult for our field to place her chronologically and too easy to place her spatially into different management ideas (and fads). Even when management writers have grasped aspects of her contributions, they appear out of step with the accepted chronological ordering of management thought. This contributes to Follett being forgotten and then remembered with surprise, over and over in numerous different ways. Out of step with management studies’ accepted chronology, her legacy floats and is continuously clutched, but our perpetual memory loss means that it never sticks long enough to take root and be cultivated. This also contributes to her epithet: while signifying her as the ‘Prophet of Management’ - which may seem like a plaudit but instead further undermines Follett’s insights and contribution.

Management Millennialism: Designing the New Generation of Employee

The idea that society can be divided into discrete generations, each with its own essential characteristics, is treated with caution in sociology, but has had considerable influence among human resource management writers and practitioners. ‘Millennials’ – today’s young adults – are said to bring unique attributes to the workplace that may fit uneasily with current management practice. Given the well-documented weakness of generational categories, both in analysis and practice, this article asks how the archetype of the Millennial has taken such a hold. By focusing on recruitment and training within a large company, the article argues that the idea of the Millennial has been validated by repetition and imitation, but that it also serves the more rational purpose of respecifying performance criteria. The Millennial has been constructed as a ‘challenge’, but specifically as a challenge to poor management.

Examining the Effect of Linguistic Style in an MD&A on Stock Market Reaction

This article investigates the impact of linguistic style in the Management Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations (hereafter MD&A) section of a company’s annual report on stock market response. It provides a new technique for combining qualitative with quantitative information by applying the partial least squares–structural equation modeling. In this article, we model the influence of verbal tone from the MD&A section on stock market reaction. The quantity predicted is the cumulative abnormal return as a proxy of market return, while the capital assets pricing model and volatility are a proxy of market risk. Furthermore, Future of Return on Assets is a proxy of expected future financial performance. Results show that the model for predicting future performance is considered moderate, while it is considered poor for predicting market reaction. As for the path coefficients, we find no evidence that the linguistic style in an MD&A has a significant effect on market reaction in general. The results reveal an insignificant difference between the effects of the long MD&A and the short MD&A on market reaction. However, based on the disclosure year of an MD&A, there is a significant difference between 2010 and 2012 in terms of impact on expected future performance by net optimism. Nevertheless, descriptive statistics designate that the verbal tone in an MD&A was not adequately consistent with financial performance. Therefore, it can be concluded that management writers create an MD&A as part of an annual routine just to satisfy the shareholders. Due to some limitations, these findings must be interpreted with caution.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF USING INNOVATION AND CREATION MANAGEMENT APPLIED STUDY ON THE CENTRAL AGENCY FOR ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION

The organizations aim at efficiency, prosperity and growth, which requires to learn new methods of management, in order to face the contemporary challenges , while working to achieve their goals. Whereas the environmental impact of the use of innovation and creation management in government units is focused on addressing the internal and external environmental changes of these units, which relates to the developments that have resulted from the information revolution and the technological trend in the business, which necessitates the organizations to respond to these developments by making the modifications that accompany these developments. Responding to new ideas and modern methods that enable organizations to address these challenges and problems. Where different organizations face many issues and problems that require their leaders and employees to think about reducing the reliance on the traditional approach based on trying and error in solving problems, and try to employ the creative approach in this regard. The management writers and managers today think that the need for organizations to Administrative innovation is an urgent need imposed by economic, social, political, cultural and other changes in society, as well as the changing and complex circumstances of contemporary organizations. The internal environment of governmental organizations in terms of administrative leadership and organizational aspects, as well as the external environment of governmental organizations in terms of legislation and governing laws and the surrounding cultural and social aspects affecting them may be hindered or counteracting the creativity and administrative innovation of these organizations, thus affecting the services provided To citizens and to the environment surrounding the organization positively or negatively by degree of empowerment or restriction of creativity and innovation in those organizations (Muhammad et al.,2016). Therefore, the research deals with the environmental impact of using the management of creativity and innovation in governmental organizations by applying them to the central organization for management and administration, in order to improve the performance of the system and the employees. Keywords: administrative innovation, management of creativity

Digging deeper towards capricious management: ‘Personal traits become part of the means of production’

What follows examines the shifting nature of work to argue that we need to look beyond the employment relationship and the work organization to understand labour. It suggests one tendency in capitalism is to generate ‘all labour as productive of value’ (Harvie, 2005: 161), so that we subsume life to work. The article also suggests that, rather than being new, this development is an intensification of the past. Indeed, by returning to early management writers, it asserts that we can see the scale of management’s political ambition to subsume life to work. As such, to understand labour we need to comprehend the broader issue of capitalism’s social reproduction and the manner in which it recalibrates the subject as a ‘subject of value’.

‘Management is the gate’ – but to where? Rethinking Robert McNamara’s ‘career lessons’

Career narratives could make a potentially valuable contribution to an ‘historic turn’ in management and organization studies. This paper provides an historical narrative on the career of Robert S. McNamara, former President of Ford, US Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of the World Bank. Based on a thorough exposition and deconstruction of historiographical and journalistic sources, the paper makes two contributions. Firstly, it argues that McNamara – a major figure in the disciplines of history, politics, and security studies – has been given a somewhat superficial treatment in management history despite being one the most high-profile managers of his generation. Where McNamara appears in management literature, the discussion has typically been historically inadequate, taking a simplistic line about his actions and approach, one limited to discrediting his ‘outdated’ forms of technique or management style and paying little attention to context and historiography. Secondly, the paper notes that management and organizations have in significant ways not moved beyond the McNamara approach now condemned by management writers. Many of the fundamental imperatives of commercial and governmental organizations that impacted McNamara’s career persist today, problematizing ideological prescriptions about ‘learning lessons.’ The distancing of today’s ‘best practice leadership’ from the ‘bureaucratic’ forms of administration associated with McNamara in the 1960s is therefore more rhetorical than real; a typical manifestation of a historical business school discourse that the historic turn tries to address.

Learning from experience: reflective practices amongst higher education professionals

The practice of reflecting on work-based experiences has received an increasing amount of attention from management and leadership writers in recent years. Yet, few empirical studies have been conducted into the use of reflective methods in the workplace. In response, this study explores the reflective practices of nine managers working in the higher education sector. Three broad methods of practice are identified. Whilst characterised by a number of shared features, significant variations were also evident in the way individual practitioners employed each method. These variations and the initial choice of reflective method can be explained as a response to the circumstances practitioners operated in, along with their personal preferences – the latter an outcome of a process of experimentation. Indeed, each method profiled was subject to continued evolution, as reflective practices were themselves reflected upon. Although time had been invested in the development of these practices, all were positive about the benefits and certain that reflective practice constituted a highly effective use of time. Whilst these findings help underpin the value of reflecting on work-based experiences, it is hoped that they also offer an insight into the means by which such practices may be pursued by others.

Assessing an approach to the capturing and sharing of work-based learning with a focus on improving practice and provision

The value of learning from work-based experience has been advocated by a number of commentators, including management writers as well as those addressing aspects of organisation and leadership in the higher education (HE) sector. Yet, in the field of HE administration, as is the case more generally, evidence suggests the limited application of this form of learning in practice, despite recognition of the benefits that can arise from reflecting upon work-based experience. Such modest levels of adoption may, in part at least, relate to the challenge of identifying suitable reflective tools. This study considers the findings from the piloting of one such tool aimed at identifying, capturing and sharing experiential learning within a university-based team working in student outreach and recruitment. The evidence gathered reveals a high and sustained level of take-up, as well as confirming the value of this approach; not only in terms of individual practice but as a means of enhancing the work of the team through the sharing of insights into the quality of the interventions team members deliver. It is hoped that the tool profiled in this study has the potential to be used elsewhere. To this end, the paper concludes with some recommendations for wider adoption whilst also reflecting upon the importance of an organisational culture that supports such practice.

Accounting's Latent Classicism: Revisiting Classical Management Origins

The historical classical management roots of contemporary accounting are still embedded in theory and practice, but invariably unacknowledged. This paper revisits the discourses and philosophies of three leading management writers generally regarded as proponents of scientific and classical management: Frederick Taylor, Henri Fayol, and the longest standing advocate, Lyndall Urwick. The paper argues that traditionally Taylor has been regarded as the dominant influential figure on early management and later accounting theory, but that this reflects an inaccurate stereotyping that ignores the greater reflections in contemporary accounting of Fayol and Urwick. Their approaches to planning, control, and coordination, as well as their accounting and financial management philosophies are revisited. This examination aims to better recognize their contributions to the latent classicism that still pervades accounting thought and practice.

Productivity for Librarians: How to Get More Done in Less Time

Productivity for Librarians: How to Get More Done in Less Time

Revisiting Organisational Personality: Organisations as Functional and Metaphysical Entities

This article reflects aspects of the debate between constructivism and rationalism by suggesting that rationalist accounts of the nature of organization may be limited, and that recent events around the crisis in world financial systems demonstrate the failure of the latter to provide adequate explanatory theory. The paradigms of mythos and logos reflect the dichotomy, where the former represents meaning and sense making as opposed to the rational pragmatic science of logos thinking. In the context of organization theory it is proposed that people create their worlds through language and that to propose an organization possesses a type of personhood in the metaphysical sense, a trope familiar to the literary scholars but not always appreciated by management writers. However, some scholars are now attempting to link the two worlds: an example is the use of the organic metaphors favoured by the Romantic poets to understand the nature of economic turbulence. The paper argues that such attempts to employ mythos-type thinking are a helpful counterweight to rational attempts to explain apparently non-rational organizational actions.

The cinematic mode of organizing: Media and the problem of attention in organization theory

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the concept of perception was reformulated and was gradually conceived of as a contingent and subjective capacity rather than what is impersonal and therefore essentially unproblematic. In this new perspective, the concept of attention also became a source of interest for both researchers and management writers. Theories of perception and attention are closely associated with the use of media. While media have always been used in organizing, more recent digital media are producing new forms of communication and control in organization. Following [Beller, J. (2006). The cinematic mode of production: Attention economy and the society of the spectacle. Duke Hanover: Dartmouth College Press.] idea of an emerging “cinematic mode of production” characterized by the reliance on digital media and the visual labour of spectators as a value-adding process, the implication for organization are examined in such a perceptual regime of accumulation. The paper concludes by calling for a more detailed analysis of how media are structuring organizations in the present regime.

Becoming fully functional: The conceptual struggle for a new structure for the giant corporation in the US and UK in the first half of the twentieth century

The rapid growth of the larger corporations in the US from the late nineteenth century onwards made the question of the appropriate structure for these new corporate giants of increasing importance to management writers. Particularly difficult was the relationship between line management and functional management as management hierarchies lengthened and specialisms grew in number and scope. Developing ideas from F.W. Taylor and Harrington Emerson by US and UK writers brought confusion as much as it brought progress. Attempts from the late 1920s to evolve organisational proposals by establishing principles of organisation brought modest advances but no conceptual breakthroughs. By the Second World War no management writers appear to have proposed or identified anything resembling the multidivisional form.

Artisans, Athletes, Entrepreneurs, and other Skilled Exemplars of the Way [1

We introduce management and spirituality scholars to the “knack” passages from the c. 4th century B.C.E. text, theZhuangzi[Inline graphic]. The knack passages are parables about low status figures, such as wheelwrights, furniture makers and cooks, whose actions offer insights into the spirituality of ordinary work and, we argue, of entrepreneurship. Such non-corporate settings are lesser-studied domains for spirituality. Ancient Chinese writings have been noticed by spirituality and management writers but we call for deeper scholarly textual attention. We seek also to model more attention to the renaissance in scholarship on classical China. More ambitiously, we hope to show that these passages are not only germane but worthy of careful consideration. Our efforts reflect the influence of Slingerland's (2003) study of “effortless action” as a central soteriological goal in ancient China.

Politics and the Limits of a Science of Governance: Some Reflections on the Thought of Bernard Crick

This paper examines Bernard Crick’s ideas on the nature of politics and explores their implications for a scientific approach to governance like that advocated recently by public management writers. It is argued here that such an approach generally downplays the inherently political character of governance because it ignores the conflicts of values and the uncertainty that are an inherent part of the way in which we have come to govern ourselves.

A continental philosophy perspective on knowledge management

Abstract. Knowledge management is the computer’s contribution to management ‘science’ and claims to be the successor of various trends in the business world, including, but not necessarily limited to information resources management, business process reengineering, management information systems and organizational memory. A number of definitions have been proposed for it. The very concept of knowledge used by knowledge management writers, however, is based on a dubious epistemology. This paper looks at the concept of knowledge from a continental perspective. With this perspective, we question whether what is being managed is, in fact, knowledge, and whether management will get business what it wants anyway.

Managing change in social care services

AbstractThe management of change has become a key imperative for social care managers and a crucial skill. This paper considers the way in which management in social care has developed alongside important shifts in policy direction. It argues that management skills have been somewhat slow to influence social care practice and identifies some practical applications of models from some of the major management writers. The main message of the paper is that, although there are no quick fixes, there is much to be learned from experience and a reflective approach to management.

The limits to designed orders: Authority under “distributed knowledge” conditions

We examine the argument, put forward by modern management writers and, in a somewhat different guise by Austrian economists, that authority is not a viable mechanism of coordination in the presence of “distributed knowledge” We define authority and distributed knowledge and argue that authority is compatible with distributed knowledge. Moreover, it is not clear on theoretical grounds how distributed knowledge impacts on economic organization. An implication is that the Austrian argument that designed orders are strongly constrained by the Hayekian dispersed knowledge (Hayek, Kirzner, Sautet) is less decisive than it has usually been taken to be. The positive flipside of this argument is that Austrians confront an exciting research agenda in theorizing how distributed knowledge impacts economic organization.

IFORS' Operational Research Hall of Fame Stafford Beer

Innovative Operational Research practitioner, intellectual leader in the development of systems ideas, and founder of the field of management cybernetics. Born: September 25, 1926 in London, England. Died: August 23, 2002 in Toronto, Canada. Education: D.Sc., University of Sunderland, 2000. Key positions: Production Controller and Head of OR Group, Samuel Fox (1949–1956); Head, Operational Research and Cybernetics, United Steel (1956–1961); Managing Director, SIGMA (1961–1966); Development Director, International Publishing Corporation (1966– 1970); Consultant (1970–2002). Awards and Recognition: Silver Medal, Royal Swedish Academy for Engineering Sciences (1958); Lanchester Prize, Operations Research Society of America (1966); McCullough Plaque of the American Society for Cybernetics (1970); Norbert Weiner Gold Medal, World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (1984); Lifetime Achievement Award, UK Systems Society (1999); Honorary degrees: Doctor of Laws, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada (1988); Doctor of Economic Sciences, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland (2000). Key OR roles: President, Operational Research Society (1970–1971); President, Society for General Systems Research (1971–1972); President, World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics (1970–the time of his death). Stafford Beer was one of the most remarkable figures that Operational Research (OR) in any country has produced. A charismatic, even flamboyant, character, he founded two major and pioneering OR groups; wrote some of the best books about the subject; and was a world leader in the development of systems ideas. He is widely acknowledged as the founder of the field of International Transactions in Operational Resarch.

A case-study into change influences within a large British multinational

This paper evaluates how obvious the concepts of internal, external, planned and emergent change were within a UK based manufacturing company. It tracks multiple change programmes over several years across two company sites. The implementation of change programmes based upon common constructs as defined by management writers and consultants formed the foundation for the research. It is argued that an interpretation of the change process has to take into account multiple and varied forces and that specific influences do come into play. How these forces interact over time has a direct impact on perceived success. The intent of this paper is to reveal the underlying rationales that drove the change programmes, through an analysis of whether initiatives were internal, external, planned or emergent. Moreover, it identifies the principal influences upon organizational change for the case sites.