Management Gurus and Management Fashions: A Dramatistic InquirySince the 1980s, popular management thinkers, 'gurus', have promoted a number of performance improvement programs and management fashions which have greatly influenced both the everyday conduct of organizational life and the preoccupations of academic researchers. This book provides a rhetorical critique of the management guru and management fashion phenomenon, building on the important theoretical progress that has recently been made by a small, but growing band of management researchers. Fantasy theme analysis, a dramatically-based method of rhetorical criticism, is conducted to critique three of the most important management fashions to have emerged during the 1990s: * the re-engineering movement promoted by Michael Hammer and James Champy In addition to its rhetorical and empirical contributions, this book stimulates a much-needed critical dialogue between practitioners and academics on the sources of the underlying appeal of management gurus and management fashions, and their effect upon the quality of management and organizational learning. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The wider view | 3 |
The purpose of the book | 5 |
The structure of the book | 6 |
The management guru and management fashion phenomenon | 8 |
Describing the phenomenon | 9 |
The backlash | 16 |
Emerging explanatory accounts | 22 |
The rhetorical vision of the effectiveness movement | 101 |
Managing spiritual movements in a secular age | 110 |
Summary | 116 |
Peter Senge and the learning organization | 118 |
Forerunners and variants of the learning organization vision | 119 |
Organizing the learning organization vision | 122 |
The rhetorical community of the learning organization | 131 |
The rhetorical vision of the learning organization | 135 |
Toward a rhetorical critique | 36 |
Summary | 42 |
Dramatistic rhetorical criticism | 44 |
The Fantasy Theme method of rhetorical criticism | 46 |
Research design | 62 |
Summary | 69 |
Michael Hammer James Champy and the reengineering movement | 71 |
The reengineering movement | 72 |
The rhetorical vision of reengineering | 78 |
The performance of reengineering | 85 |
Summary | 93 |
Stephen Covey and the effectiveness movement | 94 |
The seven highly effective habits of Stephen Covey | 95 |
Defining the rhetorical community of the effectiveness movement | 99 |
Sustaining the vision of the learning organization | 144 |
Summary | 151 |
Discussion | 153 |
The three rhetorical visions compared | 154 |
Assessing Fantasy Theme Analysis | 163 |
Extending the analysis | 166 |
Summary | 171 |
Conclusion | 173 |
Fostering a dialogue between academics and practitioners | 174 |
The road ahead | 175 |
Curtain call | 178 |
180 | |
201 | |
Other editions - View all
Management Gurus and Management Fashions: A Dramatistic Inquiry Brad Jackson No preview available - 2001 |