Managerial Ethos Research Articles

Clowns, pirates, poets and garbage collectors: the beauty of paradox in the poems of James March

ABSTRACT James March’s poetry and poems are an insightful, delightful, witty and aesthetic – yet ultimately marginalised – provocation. With a cheekiness that exploits his scholarly reputation while undermining it, he sympathetically debunks the managerial ethos (indeed ideology) of rational certainty and strategic purposiveness. In introducing his poems, we draw on (arche)typal tropes of the clown, pirate, poet and garbage collector to reveal how March’s poetry provides valuable insights into the lived experience of paradox. In conclusion, we use his marginalised provocation to argue for a bearable lightness of being in using art to surface and address the challenges of living with paradox.

Validity and fairness of utilising student evaluation of teaching (SET) as a primary performance measure

ABSTRACT In a super-saturated world of academia, the real power has slowly moved from academics’ ownership of their own means of production to a more managerial ethos, with all the accompanying control systems, surveillance, bureaucracy, performance audits and judgements that that entails. Student evaluation of teaching (SET) has become a significant evaluation tool, focusing on front-line contact and quality of teaching, allowing students to make that judgement call. This leaves out a large part of the picture of how institutions are managed and function, putting the onus on the academic and their relationship with students, teaching capability and cohort results. This leads to a sense of unfairness and poses questions about the validity and reliability of judgement calls based on student evaluation of teaching data and subsequent fairness in reward and recognition. This work considers the perceptions of Jordanian academic staff in a private institution of the use of SET as a summative tool for performance appraisal. This research has confirmed that the use of SET as a dominant, if not sole, factor in judging performance can extenuate academic stress. Thus SET results need to be used in a measured way.

Why, Exactly, Is Climate Change a Wicked Problem?

Abstract This contribution explores the assertion that climate change may be described as a “wicked problem.” It notes that the term was introduced in the context of the management sciences where a managerial ethos prevailed and where moral connotations were excluded. Subsequent references to climate change as a wicked problem maintained both these features. Yet, if climate change not only poses technological, economic, and political problems but also has moral and, indeed, spiritual challenges—as is widely maintained—then such moral connotations cannot be avoided. The description of a problem as wicked then becomes part of the problem. It is argued that the term is best understood as one used in jest, so that if we seek to define a problem’s wickedness in a conceptually precise way, we are missing the joke. The major moral dimensions of the challenges posed by climate changes should be taken seriously, but perhaps there is no need to take the term wicked problems all that seriously. What should not be laughed off is the managerial ethos that presumes that the challenges posed by climate changes can be addressed “exactly” through climate engineering or even social engineering.

“It’s an Ongoing Bromance”: Counterculture and Cyberculture in Silicon Valley—An Interview with Fred Turner

Fred Turner is considered one of the most influential experts on, and critical observers of, cyberculture. He is Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University in the Department of Communication. Through his work, he provided a thoughtful analysis of the politics and culture of Silicon Valley. In his books, he explored the connections between the collaborative and interdisciplinary research culture of the Second World War, the protest movements of the 1960s, and the managerial ethos permeating digital and new media industries. In this interview, we discuss about the consequences that the countercultural movements had on the organization of labor in modern tech giants, especially in relation to the substitution of hierarchies for flat and more entrepreneurial structures. We also talk about the consequences that a code of ethics might have in the democratization of technology and the responsibility that we have as citizens and academics.

Feminist social work pedagogy: personal, cultural and structural advocacy in the academy

ABSTRACT The principles of social justice underpin the various professional standards that guide social work practice in Australia and internationally. Although the work of practising social workers is explicitly guided by these principles, little is currently known about how social work academics enact these principles in their pedagogical practice and administrative work within the neoliberal academy. As a response to the managerial ethos of the university, the authors developed a feminist collaborative, research, teaching and advocacy centre called Critical Edge Women (CrEW). Drawing on the literature and our own reflections as feminist social work academics, CrEW interrogates the processes and tensions experienced in trying to embody a socially just pedagogy and practice in a social work program. We report on what has been trialled over the past two years. In this article, the connection between the administration role of social work academics and feminist social work pedagogy is foregrounded. An introductory framework is offered outlining principles of a feminist social work lens for socially just pedagogy and practice. Although focused on an Australian context, the pedagogical processes and advocacy practices discussed have implications for feminist pedagogies more broadly in higher education, and for social work practice in organisations.

Developing accountability mechanisms in NGOs in providing health services

ABSTRACT Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate NGOs’ accountability in delivering sub-district (upazila) health services in Bangladesh Methodology: The approach of this study is qualitative and 85 respondents, including two focus group participants (each focus group consists of 8 respondents) from rural and urban areas, have been selected for the interview to collect data for understanding accountability mechanisms and NGOs in health care delivery. Findings: The study found that the staff members of NGOs ensure their accountability to their higher officials and the conditions of fund-receiving agencies. Field data demonstrate that NGOs have poor accountability to the government and the local elected representatives because of their poor coordination, lack of policy, and an inadequate legal framework. In addition, NGOs work with limited clients in a particular area, but they have no direct accountability to service users as the policy of the organization does not allow being accountable. The mechanism of supervision is cooperative and supportive which closely guides the staff to contribute to the effective and efficient health care. NGOs have limited capacity and resources for promoting health care although they use their available resources efficiently, with strong monitoring and supervision to provide satisfactory health service delivery. In addition, the positive behavior of NGO health care providers, the minimal amount of time needed in getting services, friendly insurance schemes, freedom from politics and greater fairness all contribute to the effective and efficient health care delivery. Practical Implications: The evidence of this research will promote health care management and ensure good governance in health service delivery as NGOs in supervision mechanism and resource management are highly appreciated and could be a good example for health service managers. Also, this research can be a policy guideline for health care managers for future improvement for many developing countries. Originality/value: This paper demonstrates that managerial efficiency, intensive supervision, need-based motivation, commitment and positive ethos contribute to promoting NGOs’ health service accountability and the quality health care. The ideas on accountability mechanisms promote good governance in the health service organizations and can be a valuable understanding for international health care managers around the world. Abbreviations: BRAC: Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee; CC: community clinics; GK: Gonoshasthaya Kendra; NGOs: Non-governmental Organizations; PNC: Post natal care; TB: tuberculosis; UHC: Upazila health complex; UPHCP: urban primary health care project (UPHCP)

The continuing resonance of the war as risk management perspective for understanding military interventions

ABSTRACTIn the late 1990s and 2000s, a slew of books and journal articles proposed that a nexus between risk management and warfare was emerging. This article argues that risk management ideas continue to shape recent campaigns against Libya, Islamic State, Syria, and the war on terror from Niger, Yemen to Somalia. It uses existing literature on risk and warfare to examine four key aspects of contemporary interventions. First, the article evaluates the overall strategic context as security concerns shift from terrorism toward renewed great power competition. Second, it re-assesses the risk calculus for military action through the language and grammar of risk invoked by politicians. Third and fourth, it addresses the continuing reliance on air power and the managerial ethos of military operations as important features of war as risk management.

Building Innovation Excellence of World Class: The Cluster as an Instrument of Spatial Governance in the European Union

European spatial governance is becoming an intriguing mix of ideas from the economic, political and cultural spheres. This article asserts that, in the EU's spatial planning, the cluster is increasingly part of a hybrid spatial politics, here named the 'cluster gaze', based on the interplay of innovation-oriented political rationality and spatial governance. To study this process, the article provides an empirical investigation into selected EU documentation. The investigation is based on two perspectives. First, the cluster is analysed as a mediating instrument to stimulate and rescale transnational market developments in the EU. Second, the cluster is studied as an instrument of spatial management - one that builds on a business managerial ethos and endorses a specific hierarchical spatial imaginary and a cluster evidence base to assess the productivity and efficiency of European clusters. Both of these perspectives pave the way for a European 'politics of cluster excellence' that is about the constant sharpening of cluster practices, continuous evaluation and ranking, and the enhancement of cluster performance to rise from the ' European league' towards the 'world class'.

The New Agricultural College and the New Agricultural History

The recent upsurge in agricultural college enrollments has prompted observers to celebrate the rejuvenation of those institutions and, by extension, rural life. A closer examination suggests otherwise. Rather than engage in traditional agricultural pursuits, agricultural colleges now seek to employ science to produce managers of living biological and ecological systems, managers who will prevent degradation and generally achieve results that ultimately approximate a steady state. Rural America receives markedly little attention in these colleges. This managerial ethos has also overtaken the scholarly discipline of agricultural history. Health and longevity, sustainability and environmentalism have assumed center stage. Whether deliberate or en passant, these new metrics have first supplemented and, in many cases finally supplanted, race, gender, and class as useful categories of historical analysis. The new agricultural history has victims, but it lacks people.

Forgetting the art world

The work of art's mattering and materialization in a globalized with close readings of works by Takahashi Murakami, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Hirschhorn, and others. It may be to forget art world-or at least to recognize that a certain historical notion of art is in eclipse. Today, art spins on its axis so quickly that its maps can no longer be read; its borders blur. In Forgetting Art World, Pamela Lee connects current state of this to globalization and its attendant controversies. Contemporary art has responded to globalization with images of movement and migration, borders and multitudes, but Lee looks beyond iconography to view globalization as a process. Rather than think about global art world as a socioeconomic phenomenon, or in terms of imagery it stages and sponsors, Lee considers the work of art's world as a medium through which globalization takes place. She argues that work of art is itself both object and agent of globalization. Lee explores ways that art actualizes, iterates, or enables processes of globalization, offering close readings of works by artists who have come to prominence in last two decades. She examines just in time managerial ethos of Takahashi Murakami; production of ethereal spaces in Andreas Gursky's images of contemporary markets and manufacture; logic of immanent cause dramatized in Thomas Hirschhorn's mixed-media displays; and pseudo-collectivism in contemporary practice of Atlas Group, Raqs Media Collective, and others. To speak of the work of art's world, Lee says, is to point to both work of art's mattering and its materialization, to understand activity performed by object as utterly continuous with it at once inhabits and creates.

Managing academic freedom: recent cross-Atlantic developments

This paper charts the legal and institutional status of academic freedom in America after Garcetti v. Ceballos, a key First Amendment case decided by the US Supreme Court in 2006. It also addresses, in comparative compass, academic speech protection in the UK and the EU more broadly. Although a managerial ethos of university governance has reshaped academic freedom on both sides of the Atlantic, the shaping process has not been uniform. Differences in policy formation and institutional structure have produced significant variations in the safeguarding of faculty speech. Policy groups on the Continent have been particularly active in drafting aspirational statements on academic freedom. Both the UK and the EU also have legislation outlining the rights and responsibilities of university teaching and research. No such legislation exists in the US, where the courts have played a central role in determining the legal status of academic speech. Statutory provisions in Europe, by contrast, remain judicially untested. It is anticipated that academic freedom on both sides of the Atlantic will increasingly be defined in contract, with varying degrees of third-party appeal.

Managerial ethos of the Indian tradition: relevance of a wisdom model

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present a broad historical review of critical wisdom literature of ancient Indian tradition and examine how these precepts can complement and enrich the contemporary managerial frames.Design/methodology/approachThe paper attempts to critically review remarkably deep religious and secular traditions of India and integrate them in a conceptual model.FindingsThe paper findings point towards the need for a holistic frame in overcoming fragmented viewpoints of contemporary management by strengthening the reflective domains of the managerial world.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitation of the paper lies in its didactic nature and the specificity of the contextual boundary limiting its ready transferability.Practical implicationsThe paper provides a pointer in extending horizons of business or non‐business organizations in opening up their possibilities for achieving holistic managerial perspectives by combining economic, social and other higher order sustainable goals.Originality/valueThe paper's contribution is in its integrative value of some of the key themes of Indian wisdom literature and demonstrating their relevance to the modern management.

Elizabeth Green Musselman, Nervous conditions: science and the body politic in early industrial Britain, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century Series, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2006, pp. xi, 276, $75.00 (hardback 978-0-7914-6679-7), $24.95 (paperback 978-0-7914-6680-3).

Elizabeth Green Musselman, Nervous conditions: science and the body politic in early industrial Britain, Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century Series, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2006, pp. xi, 276, 24.95 (paperback 978-0-7914-6680-3). - Volume 52 Issue 3

Influence of Organizational Culture on Female and Male Upward Mobility into Middle and Senior Managerial Positions

Research from different parts of the world has consistently confirmed the maleness of managerial culture that is averse to female success. The article reports on an exploratory study undertaken in Zimbabwean banks and hotels to explore managerial explanations of how to achieve successful upward mobility into middle and senior managerial positions. The results confirm that in Zimbabwe, the managerial cultures that prevail in banks and hotels are modelled after what Kanter refers to as a western managerial ethos. These cultures are further reinforced by traditional African culture that precludes females from taking an active role in public life. The article concludes by making suggestions on how organizations can change their culture to accommodate diversity in their human resources.

Revalidation of the retired

As I shall later show, I am very much older than Sir John Rawlins and Dr E N Wardle, but I think that both of them are quite old enough to have discerned the motives for the General Medical Council's (GMC's) assault on retired doctors (May 2002 JRSM1,2). The GMC, having betrayed doctors and their patients by conniving in the subordination of the clinical/professional to the managerial ethos, is deeply concerned now to preserve its own existence. Retired doctors are an easy target at which the GMC can aim in order to show the Government its continuing zeal. Fifteen months ago, I responded to the GMC's request for comment on its paper Revalidating Doctors, putting most of the points now made by Rawlins and Wardle. Of course I received neither reply nor acknowledgment, but in the course of my enquiries I learned that, in spite of previous letters and phone calls, the GMC could not get my address right. Even better: my date of birth was (perhaps still is) recorded as 1 January 1700—for technical reasons, I was later told. This is the quality of body that now proposes to judge us. Quis, as we say in this part of Buckinghamshire, custodiet ipsos custodes. Or, as we used to say in Praed Street, Mit der Dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens.

Responding to Uncertainty

This paper examines the educational implications of recent transformations in the organization of welfare services. Three educational approaches are identified: acquiescence to the managerial ethos that increasingly characterizes public welfare provision; renewed commitment to critical social work principles; and new approaches which combine critical and postmodern perspectives and embrace uncertainty and dialogue as a basis for educational practice. The paper argues that postmodern ideas, though continuously problematic, can be used within critical social work education to continue progressive struggles under conditions of rapid change and uncertainty. The authors use excerpts from their dialogue with each other which reflect some of the differences between them and their own particular responses to uncertainty.

Managers' Perceptions of their Identity: A Comparative Study between the Czech Republic and Britain

After a period of more that 40 years of Communism, the Czech Republic is in the midst of an economic transformation. One aspect of this transformation is the development of a new managerial ethos, important to manage the current infrastructural changes and ensure that Czech organizations are able to compete in international markets.This paper reports research that examines what Czech managers think about themselves and their roles, and contrasts these perceptions with those of their British counterparts. Many of the concepts and development approaches being applied in the Czech Republic are closely related to concepts and development approaches in the West and have often been accepted unchallenged even though they are being applied in very different circumstances. The focus of this research was to understand how Czech and British managers view their jobs; how their different views relate to the techniques and approaches they adopt. The method chosen was discourse analysis applied to responses from a questionnaire, interviews and repertory grid technique. Using this approach a very different kind of understanding was gained in the way Czech managers think about management than has hitherto been assumed.The research takes a matched group of Czech and British managers and contrasts their respective views. Our findings give important new insights for management and management development practice for both the Czech Republic and Great Britain.

Public Policy Evaluation in a Centralized State

One feature of heavily centralized government with nationally uniform policies is the limited scope for policy experimentation. Policies cannot readily be trialled and there is little opportunity to learn from small scale implementation. Increasing centralization in Britain has been accompanied by a developing managerial ethos within central government. HM Treasury has demanded that new policies be given explicit objectives and an evaluation strategy be implemented. The inability to use randomized controls has led to creative evaluation strategies that stress the understanding of process rather than the measurement of outcome. With the desire to tighten further Government's grip on public expenditure, the demand is now for pilot schemes and impact analysis. Focusing on social assistance, the paper details the changing environment of policy evaluation in Britain, reviews non experimental methods that have been used and documents the first two policy pilots. The paper concludes with a discussion of the opportunities and dangers arising from the move towards experimentation.

Managerial values across cultures: Australia, Hong Kong and the United States

The relationship between personal managerial values and a range of important organisational variables has increasingly been recognised. Personal values are shaped by the wider cultural milieu in which the individual is socialised. Managers from different cultural contexts may therefore be expected to possess different work and business-related values. However, exposure to a more universalistic managerial ethos may also generate a degree of similarity in managerial values across cultural contexts. In order to examine these issues, the values and expectations of managers in Hong Kong (N = 653), Australia (N = 505) and the United States (N = 1,060) were compared. Both differences and similarities were revealed, leading to speculations about the relative impact of culture versus roles on managerial values.

The Gendered Nature of Managerial Discourse: the Case of a Local Authority

This paper is a response to organizational analysis which highlights the significance of discursive processes in the formation of occupational gender identity. A recurrent weakness in many of these accounts is their focus on the simple dualisms which structure gendered discourse. This tendency is often associated with the abstraction of debate from specific organizational settings. I aim therefore to address the question of the gendered nature of managerial discourse with reference to a case study of a local authority under restructuring. I argue here that the gendered nature of managerial discourse has to be seen as particularly complex, given the way in which it incorporates both ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ identities within an overarching managerial ethos, which is itself related to wider hegemonic projects.