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Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company Hardcover – October 4, 2022
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As business struggles to adapt to a rapidly changing world, managers are bombarded with a bewildering array of schemes for how to be a boss and make an organization tick. It’s tempting to be seduced by futurist fantasies where every company has the culture of a startup, and where employees in wacky, whimsical office settings, liberated from hierarchies and bosses that oppress them, are the foundation for breakthrough performance.
“Get real,” warn Nicolai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein. These fads ironically lead to micromanaging and, often, to disaster. Companies and societies, they show, need authority and hierarchy to coordinate work, including creative work. And, counterintuitively, Foss and Klein illustrate how the creative use of authority and hierarchy helps companies to be more agile and flexible, enabling educated, motivated people and teams to thrive.
And not a moment too soon: Foss and Klein provide evidence that global challenges such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence, economic disruption, empowered knowledge workers, and black swan events such as the pandemic actually make hierarchy and the job of the manager more important than ever.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPublicAffairs
- Publication dateOctober 4, 2022
- Dimensions6.35 x 1.35 x 9.55 inches
- ISBN-101541751043
- ISBN-13978-1541751040
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“In Why Managers Matter, Nicolai Foss and Peter Klein have created a welcome counter to the voices who see management as the problem rather than the solution. Absent hierarchy, they teach, unfocused variety grows but lacks the value and competitive punch of focused activity. If you are struggling within the vaporous terrain of a ‘bossless’ company, get a copy of Why Managers Matter. Or, even better, give a copy to the person who should be the boss.”
―Richard P. Rumelt, author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy and The Crux“Leaner and flatter are better, but bosses and hierarches still matter. We just have to get them right for our times in a world that is more diverse, more teamed, and more driven by empowered leadership up and down the hierarchy. Foss and Klein have compellingly made the case. Long live the principle-driven manager!”
―Michael Useem, faculty director, McNulty Leadership Program, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Edge“Managers matter, and this book shows why. Using careful research, solid evidence, and a thoughtful perspective on management and organizations, Foss and Klein persuasively demonstrate that managers—and management—will remain essential to the modern economy in the twenty-first century.”―Henry Chesbrough, University of California, Berkeley; Luiss University, Rome; and author of Open Innovation
“Readers will develop managerial mindsets to continually think about hierarchies and reexamine how hierarchies are organized and designed.”―Library Journal
“Why Managers Matter does a comprehensive job of both describing the fallacies of the bossless company narrative and redeeming hierarchy.”―Strategy + Business
About the Author
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicolaiFoss
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ProfessorNicolaiJFoss; LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolai-j-foss-8b4849b/
Peter G. Klein is W. W. Caruth Endowed Chair, Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation at Baylor University. He was a Senior Economist at the US Council of Economic Advisers in the Clinton Administration and is author or editor of six books and numerous articles, chapters, and reviews.
https://twitter.com/petergklein
https://www.facebook.com/prof.peter.g.klein
https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergklein/
www.petergklein.com
Product details
- Publisher : PublicAffairs
- Publication date : October 4, 2022
- Language : English
- Print length : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1541751043
- ISBN-13 : 978-1541751040
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.35 x 1.35 x 9.55 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,843,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,530 in Workplace Culture (Books)
- #5,619 in Business Management (Books)
- #7,003 in Leadership & Motivation
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Nicolai is a Danish management professor. He is a Professor of Strategy at the Copenhagen Business School. His original training is in the dismal science (i.e., economics), but economists will probably argue that he isn't much of an economist (anymore).
Nicolai has been affiliated with many different universities, such as the Bocconi University in Milano (where was a chaired professor for four years), Warwick Business School, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Norwegian School of Economics,and Luiss Guido Carli-Roma. He has always been an academic entrepreneur, building academic environments at his school as well as being one of the founders of the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics and a co-founder of the industry-funded Center for Policy Studies, the most influential privately-funded think tank in DK.
Nicolai has written many academic articles book chapters and books on firm strategy and organization and entrepreneurship. His research on these things is heavily cited by other academics. However, he increasingly enjoys writing for (and engaging with) a practioner audience, including writing for newspapers and magazines.
Contrary to what some claim, he does have a life which he spends with his wife and their dog in their house north of Copenhagen, Denmark. Nicolai is an avid reader and nature lover and has for more than four decades dabbled with playing jazz guitar. He has been more successful career-wise than hobby-wise.

Peter G. Klein is a professor, speaker, writer, and consultant who studies entrepreneurship, in-novation, business strategy, and public policy toward business. His 2010 book The Capitalist and the Entrepreneur (Mises Institute) explains the unique role of the capitalist-entrepreneur in a market economy and his 2012 book Organizing Entrepreneurial Judgment (Cambridge University Press) shows how entrepreneurs deal with the uncertain future as they organize and co-ordinate unique bundles of valuable resources. His newest book: Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company (PublicAffairs/Hachette), coming in October 2022, explores the flattening hierarchy and the role of the traditional manager in the digital, networked, knowledge-based economy.
Klein is Chair of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business, where he also holds the W. W. Caruth Endowed Chair and directs the academic program of the Baugh Center for Entrepreneurship and Free Enterprise. He also serves as Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Management at the Norwegian School of Economics and Carl Menger Research Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is author or editor of seven books and over 140 scholarly articles, chapters, and reviews. He co-edits the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal and is Past Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management, the largest global association of management researchers and teachers. He serves on the editorial boards of several other academic journals and the advisory boards of research centers in the US, Brazil, and South Africa.
He received his PhD in 1995 from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied un-der the 2009 Nobel Laureate Oliver E. Williamson. He has held faculty positions at the University of Missouri, the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Georgia, and Washington University in St. Louis and has guest lectured at universities in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and China. He was a Senior Economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 2000–01, specializing in business regulation, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on the economic organization of the Federal Reserve System.
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- Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2022Format: HardcoverGreat book highlighting the importance of managers/management in today's evolving economy.
It is difficult to prioritize and stay focused in a 'bossless' organization.
Recommended for future and present business leaders.
Top reviews from other countries
Peter CReviewed in Australia on October 22, 20235.0 out of 5 stars Set yourself up for better organizational design
Format: HardcoverVerified PurchaseThere are many book on novel ways of setting up structures for coordinating and cooperation in organizations, but your ability to critique such ideas will be enhanced by this book. I especially liked the last half. It’s good to be challenged.





