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Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers Updated Edition
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- ISBN-100199729883
- ISBN-13978-0199729883
- EditionUpdated
- PublisherOxford University Press
- Publication dateDecember 8, 2009
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
- Print length294 pages
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"Reformers who want to change the corporation, first must understand it. Robert Jackall's carefully researched analysis of the 'bureaucratic ethos' is one place to
begin."--Ethikos
"A finely honed tour of an odyssey of moral transformation, in which the actors themselves remain largely unaware of the nature of their journey. It is a brilliant work."--Troy Duster, New York University
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- Publisher : Oxford University Press; Updated edition (December 8, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 294 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0199729883
- ISBN-13 : 978-0199729883
- Item Weight : 1.06 pounds
- Dimensions : 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #240,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #150 in Business Ethics (Books)
- #530 in Workplace Culture (Books)
- #2,315 in Business Management (Books)
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In the introduction to his original book, Jackall states that his objective is to answer the following question: “What rules do people fashion to interact with one another when they feel that, instead of ability, talent, and dedicated service to an organization, politics, adroit talk, luck, connections, and self-promotion are the real sorters of people into sheep and goats?” For a work by a sociologist, his is a bit of an outlier: no tables or graphs to bolster a “scientific, quantitative approach.” And I think it is all the better for it. He lays out his methodology at the beginning, and admits that the vast majority of corporations that he approached refused to let him conduct his research. In the end, it was the “old boy network” which he describes so accurately which is operative within the corporation that worked in permitting him to enter the corporate world: known friends from school. He is granted access to the managers at two firms, both of which he describes using pseudonyms, one being a large chemical conglomerate, the other being a textile manufacturing company.
Jackall commences with a an overall depiction of the rise of the bureaucracy, stating that what has evolved in most cases is a hybrid model between Max Weber’s paradigm of a functional organization with interchangeable people and a “patrimonial” bureaucracy operative from despotism to the “ward heeler,” where personal loyalty is paramount. The author must have presented an empathic ear that allowed managers to let down their normal reserve, and describe in pithy phrases how the individuals in an organization actually see their roles. After a certain level, “technical expertise” counts for little; the main goal is to achieve a favorable rating from one’s peers and superiors. I found myself underlining a passage of virtually every page. Jackall not only captures the essence of the situation with a manager’s own lingo, he is excellent at formulating his own. Consider: “Managers also stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to have the ability to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling and agreeable public faces....some managers don masks of Easter-Island-statuelike immobility; others a deadpan fish-eye; and the most adroit, a disarming ingenuousness.” Jackall understands so well the gamesmanship operative in the corporate world. He never mentions that the same gamesmanship, or worse (!), is operative in the academic world.
Morality and the corporate world simply do not mix. The author describes the fate of several “whistleblowers” who try to do the “right thing”, from Brady who is a chartered accountant from England who realizes that financial irregularities are occurring, and thinks surely the CEO would want to be informed... Hum... of course to learn that they originate at the top; and “White,” an audiologist who realizes that the textile workers are losing their hearing, yet sees (and hears!) the rationalization of the “Big Boys” that deny this reality. The author also relates an incident concerning the clean-up of the nuclear disaster at Three-Mile Island, and another “whistle-blower,” who wasn’t “practical enough” being shown the door.
There is much, much else, from examining the world of Public Relations in the chapter “The Magic Lateran” to describing how “good managers” seem to have the knack for “milking” their plants by delaying maintenance and needed capital expenditures, and then using the “fast track” of promotion to outrun their mistakes, and ideally be in a position to fire their replacement as plant manager for those delayed maintenance problems. It doesn’t get much more cynical than that. And always, to ensure that there is no system for tracking responsibility for a decision.
Relevant as today’s headlines concerning the website failure of healthcare.gov, designed to implement the Affordable Care Act. Once again, there is the lack of clearly defined responsibility coupled with “who knew what and when.” Robert Jackall has produced an excellent analysis of the operative factors relevant to decision -making in the corporate world. If there was one thing missing, it was a follow-up on how many of those “corporate skills” and “masks” became obsolete as so many of these manufacturing plants were moved overseas, and I think in particular of US Steel’s Homestead Works, where I saw so much of what Jackall described in operation, and closed in 1986. Overall, 5-stars plus for Jackall’s work.
The main theme of the book is that the ethics and morals inside an organization often are not the same as society as a whole. The way organizations are set-up, they create their own norms and people within organizations often are in conflict with the norms expected of them in society and that within in organization. The longer a person spends in the organization the more likely it is they'll start following the organizational norms and ethics. In a way, organizations are set up to award the ones who do and punish the ones who don't.
The book explores relationships in organizations, the organizational ethics and the behavior that happens within these relationships. Different chapters have a slightly different focus. Relationships between subordinates and their superior. Peer relationships. And then relationships with society then the ethics of an organization is contradicting that of society (and people in the organization do something about that). Additionally the role of consultants and agencies within corporates.
The book consists of eight chapters. The first and the last are provide a bit of sociology-historical context of ethics and norms. The other chapters mostly focus on different perspectives of relationships, morality and politics. The chapters are not well structures, they are just loads of text. The text is mostly stories and interpretations of these stories. It contains some sections, but these are simple numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. If I could propose one improvement in the future, it would be a better structure that makes it easier to browse and find things in the book.
But even without the structure in the chapters, I would still rate this book as 5 stars. I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed a book as much as I enjoyed this book. The stories were so vivid that I think I'll remember them forever. The conclusions scary yet insightful. I found it very useful and it changes the way I look at behavior in organizations. Very much recommended for people who try to make sense of organizations. If you are not one of these, then this book is probably not for you though. Still, for me, five stars.
Memory lane: I was the manager of a chain bookstore for eight months after I graduated from college. Our CEO visited one day, not long after he had summarily fired 30 percent of the managers in the Los Angeles area in order to terrorize the survivors. While inspecting my store, he paid close attention to the magazine racks. We had a normal assortment of periodicals: news magazines, sports mags, skin rags (Playboy and Penthouse, but not Hustler), womens' journals, biker mags, etc. After a long and careful scrutiny of the mix, the CEO pronounced his verdict: "This store needs more porn." So we put out Hustlers. The CEO had an MBA from Harvard. The chain went bankrupt about 10 years later. That made me glad.





