Review
`I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in critical approaches to management' - Asia Pacific Business Review
`The reader will find a number of stimulating analyses of management practices' - European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology
`The Politics of Management Knowledge explores the relations between management knowledge, power and practice within the context of globalisation.... [the book] presents open discussion on a range of issues, identification of advantages and disadvantages of various perspectives followed by the identification of possible criteria for choosing a solution. There is a constant ideology throughout that is averse to adopting one model, rather the need for flexibility and creative lateral thinking is encouraged in the reader. Overall I feel that this is an interesting read which could benefit many academics and students' - School Leadership and Management
Product Description
The book recognizes the political nature of management knowledge as a discourse produced from, and reproducing, power processes within and between organizations. This theme underpins discussion of the ways in which management ideas and practices `produce' managers of a particular kind - person of enterprise, bureaucrat, heroic leader and so on. Critical examinations of certain current management theories - lean production, excellence, entrepreneurship - illuminate the myriad modes in which relations of power intermingle with relations of knowledge.
Eminent authors from a variety of countries address the social and political processes involved in cross-cultural transference of management ideas across the world. They also look to the future, stressing the need for a substantial new understanding that is less attuned to the corporate worlds of today and more appropriate for the increasingly diverse organizations likely to emerge in the twenty-first century.
The Politics of Management Knowledge will be of interest to academics and students in organization theory, organizational behaviour and the sociology of organizations.
