Management & Organizational History current issue

Invoking spirits in the material world: Spiritualism, surrealism, and spirituality at work

Corbett, J. M. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:02 PDT

This article considers the recent upsurge of interest in workplace spirituality through an analysis of three cultural movements — late 19th-century spiritualism, early 20th-century surrealism, and late 20th-/early 21st-century ‘spirituality at work’. These movements share a common interest in harnessing the power of the human spirit in the transformation and ‘betterment’ of social life. It is argued that these movements have successively adopted and de-radicalized invocations of the spirit world such that the proto-feminism and utopianism of spiritualism and the revolutionary pretensions of surrealism have been usurped by a strongly managerialist discourse of workplace spirituality. The paper ends with a consideration of the implications of these developments for the critical study of spirituality, management and organization.

In defence of Mandarins: Recovering the 'core business' of public management

du Gay, P. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:02 PDT

The article explores the office of counsel, indicating, in particular the historical centrality of such an office to the conduct of governing, as well as highlighting the relational uncertainties of that office, forever disputed in its workings. It then proceeds to describe the persona of the British career senior civil servant or ‘Mandarin’, as a particular elaboration of this office of governmental counsel. In so doing, it notes that the Mandarinate’s proclaimed right and duty to counsel carries with it certain dangers that have historically beset this potent but inherently interstitial office; that fearless counsel can easily appear to slide into attempted control (or be so made to appear). This point is highlighted through an exploration of recent and ongoing reforms of the British civil service, which both governments of left and right have introduced, under the rubric of ‘performance’, ‘mandates’ and ‘responsiveness’. Here the senior civil service’s proclaimed role and duty as counsel of government is precisely compromised through its re-description as illegitimate political interloper. The solution to this illegitimate usurpation involves the re-assertion of political authority by the government of the day through a re-definition of the Mandarin role. Thus, Senior civil servants are re-described as managers whose role is exclusively focused upon delivering the governing party’s programme with maximum enthusiasm and conviction. In the process, counselling becomes increasingly the preserve of partisan personae in government — most particularly special advisers, whose allegiance is exclusively to the governing party, rather than to the state.The article concludes with a brief examination of some of the political and administrative consequences of the decline of the ‘mandarinate’ and the related shift towards the institutionalization of partisan counsel within the machinery of government of the British state.

Constraints as sources of radical innovation? Insights from jet propulsion development

Gibbert, M., Scranton, P. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:02 PDT

In popular parlance, ‘necessity is the mother of innovation’.Yet, in innovation management and organizational behavior in general, there is little systematic study into the enabling role of constraints in innovation. In fact, constraints in terms of knowledge or resources are typically connoted negatively, and in order to limit their negative impact on innovation, such constraints need to be overcome.This article contributes to the prevailing notion of overcoming knowledge and resource constraints by discussing four historical cases in the early phases of jet propulsion development. We detail enabling effects of constraints on innovation by drawing on Gidden’s structuration theory, and discuss implications for innovation management.

BICC -- structural change and the development of management accounting, c.1945--c.1960

Boyns, T. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:02 PDT

This article, which is based on a study of the company’s surviving archives, examines the juxtaposition of management, organizational and management accounting developments which occurred at the electric cable manufacturer, BICC, between the company’s formation in 1945 and c.1960.These developments encompassed the move towards a multi-divisional structure and the utilization of ‘management accounts’. These simultaneous developments occurred at the time when W.H. McFadzean, a chartered accountant by training, began to take on the roles of Chairman and Managing Director of the company.

On the cultural locus of management theory industry: Perspectives from autocommunication

Ahonen, A., Kallio, T. J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:02 PDT

During the last century, a whole new ‘industry’ legitimized its locus as more books and articles in more and more magazines and journals offered more ‘new’ concepts and frameworks for the efficient running of organizations. In the article it is suggested that this management theory industry serves a wider cultural call. According to the interpretation presented, the management theory industry feeding the management wisdom of the efficient running of organizations is serving an internal, therapeutic, mission. In this sense, the thousands of studies and writings on the management and efficient running of organizations can be seen as communication not only to others but also to oneself. It is thus suggested that the idea of autocommunication, introduced by the Soviet semiotic Yuri M. Lotman, can be applied when trying to understand why the management theory industry gains its legitimacy again and again even though the promised fundamental changes and reforms of actual working life have remained modest.