Management Knowledge and the New Employee

Chris Carter, Damian Hodgson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Business
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351153423
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Hodgson and Carter present a volume that contributes to the ongoing debate in Knowledge Management. They develop themes explored in Roy Jacques' influential text, Manufacturing the Employee, as a starting point the authors consider the status of contemporary management knowledge. They do this from a range of theoretical positions that draw key implications for both research and teaching. The volume hosts an array of eminent scholars in the field. The collection explores, and at times takes issue with, the increasing influence of post-structuralist thought on our understanding of the nature of management knowledge, and draws key implications for both research and teaching. The various chapters consider the nature of management knowledge from perspectives as diverse as management history, discourse analysis, gender, post-structuralism, social construction, neo-institutionalism, and critical realism.

Chapter 1
Critical Approaches to the Conceptualization of Management Knowledge: Reconsidering Jacques

Chris Carter and Damian E. Hodgson

In recent years Organizational and Management theory has witnessed a proliferation in epistemological and paradigmatic perspectives. One of the notable features of the development of Organization and Management theory has been the importation of theoretical perspectives from other disciplines, especially French philosophy. Such an assertion is borne out by the revelation that by 1995, Michel Foucault was the 7^th most cited author in the journal of Organization Studies (Usdiken and Pasadeos, 1995). The interest in poststructuralism has been further fuelled by fora such as the Critical Management Studies meetings in the UK, APROS in Australasia and the OMT division of the American Academy of Management. What is equally clear, however, is that this has led to the opening of greater fissures in the zone of consensus of organization studies. For some, this amounts to a crisis within the discipline, for instance, Jeffrey Pfeffer has argued for a robust return to functionalism. In contrast, Stewart Clegg has argued for the precise opposite:

Such conflicts (Pfeffer) regards as dangerous, corrosive of moral authority, and destructive of professional reputation and discipline. Order is what is required. I would argue to the contrary: I would argue that intellectual communities - just as political communities - that suppress conflict do so at considerable risk to their vitality

(Clegg 2001, p. 11).

The poststructuralist turn has thus provoked intellectual endeavour and has attracted derision in equal measure. This collection seeks to add to current debates with Organization and Management theory engaging directly with issues of critical theory and organization. It does so by building on a workshop, convened at the University of Birmingham in late 1999 that sought to discuss the ideas set out in Roy Jacques' influential book Manufacturing the Employee: Management Knowledge from the 19^th to the 21^st Centuries. In and of itself, Jacques' book is interesting and merits attention. That said, its significance extends further in that it constitutes an attempt to theorize the development of management knowledge from an explicitly Foucauldian perspective. Simply put, Jacques attempts to understand how we are to make sense of the creation of the canon of management thought that provides the central foundations of Business School education. Jacques is well placed to comment on such issues as before entering academia he had a lengthy career as a working manager. He then took time out from being a manager to read for an MBA at the University of Massachusetts. MBA programmes of course claim to be able to help managers to manage 'better'. Thus, unlike many other intellectual disciplines, management stakes claims about having direct links with performance in the workplace. In the United States this equates to being a 'professional' school, which among other things, means that students spend considerable time developing practical skills.

In the UK, however, the professionalization of general management took place much later than in North America. In place of getting an MBA, in contemporary times is rather akin to the acquisition of accountancy qualifications a generation ago, as it is the means of obtaining a 'business education'. The exponential take-off in such courses demands searching questions to be posed with regards to the status of management knowledge. It was this very question that led Jacques to pursue PhD studies following his Masters degree. The MBA, a self-styled 'how to do it' for managers, had little connection with Jacques' lived experience of managing. This led him to conduct a study into the history of management thought, by tracing from the 19^th century to the modern day the emergence of what we know recognize as 'the employee'. His concern was to provide a genealogical account that sought to understand the various junctures and discontinuities that have led to the contemporary canon of management studies - as it is taught on MBA programmes. His argument is that what counts as management is historically specific but that management students are taught to concentrate upon transitory and superficial issues that are nonetheless represented as the transcendental problems of organizing. In particular, Jacques suggests that it is because of these limitations that 'management knowledge' as we now know it risks becoming obsolete in the face of the challenges of a postindustrial, knowledge economy.

Debate on Roy Jacques' book as the subject of the workshop provoked the development of discussion by the participating academics into asking 'how are we to understand the status and epistemological foundations of managerial knowledge?' Further, the workshop attempted to provoke debate as to how we might understand the functioning of management knowledge in contemporary work contexts? We would suggest that these questions are of direct concern to all of those researching, teaching and studying management. Yet we would also argue that all too often such questions are sidestepped in favour of the rather comfortable suggestion that management knowledge is technocratic, politically-neutral and constantly progressing. For instance, hundred years ago, British colonial administrators were prepared for their careers by being drilled in a rigorous regimen of ancient languages and classical history. This knowledge, it was held, was the 'very best that had been thought and written' and consequently was the training for a future administrator. It is easy to ridicule such notions, but it leads us to the heart of the present. More particularly, it leads us to question whether what we teach today's equivalents of the Victorian administrators, i.e. executives, consultants and so forth, will be regarded with bemusement by future generations. To the modern management academic the syllabi of the Victorians is at best eccentric, at the same time managerialists regard their knowledge as being performative: that is, being usable in the context of application. This collection goes some way to problematizing such assumptions.

One of the consequences of the close reading of Jacques is to highlight difficulties with the theoretical, methodological and empirical precepts that underpin his work. This collection highlights many areas for further debate, from the need for a greater understanding of the historical development of management knowledge, to the limits of such critiques of management practice. Other themes addressed among the papers include the political limits of management education, the control of management in a knowledge economy, the potential and limitations of discourse analysis, and management's failure to properly address issues of diversity and equality. To a varying degree, each of the contributors felt the book worthy of attention because of the contribution it makes, and in this sense the criticisms were at the same time a mark of respect for the wide ranging and provocative arguments contained within Jacques' work. We see this as entirely in keeping with the spirit of Manufacturing the Employee itself; as Jacques himself argues in the final chapter of this collection, 'As far as I'm concerned, it would not just be a legitimate project, but would show respect for my work and further it, for others to identify what I overlooked or misrepresented' (Jones, Grice and Jacques: 2004).

Michael Rowlinson opens the debate by addressing the perspective on history which is central to the contribution of Manufacturing the Employee. While applauding Jacques' recognition of the importance of 'an historical perspective' in studies of organization, Rowlinson aims to explore the various forms an 'historical' perspective might take. In particular, Rowlinson differentiates the Foucauldian, archaeo-genealogical approach of Jacques from both factual and narrative approaches to history and organizations. Although the notion of a 'factual' approach to history is highly problematic, as much of the field of business history exemplifies, there are alternative approaches which avoid naive empiricism and eschew a simplistic belief in the power of 'historical facts'. Thus Rowlinson argues that a postmodern scepticism towards evidence and authorship has moved the field towards an engagement with deconstructionist perspectives on the nature of history. However, rather than the Foucauldian approach of Manufacturing the Employee, Rowlinson argues forcefully that a narrative form of deconstructionism is more likely to bring about a rapprochement between historians and organization theorists.

David Crowther and Anne-marie Greene continue the historical perspective in both criticizing and also building upon Jacques' understanding of the gendered nature of management knowledge in Manufacturing the Employee. In common with a number of other contributors to the collection, they single out specific aspects of Jacques' book for praise; in particular, his recognition of the masculinist bias of management theory, as embodied by the American Dream and other 'frontier myths' which underpin management knowledge as we now know it. However, they draw attention to a blind-spot in most histories of management, including Jacques' own - an important and frequently overlooked instance in the history of the organization of work in the US, the example of the American Shaker communities. Although frequently 'written out' of accounts of the evolution of management and management knowledge, Crowther and Greene argue that the Shaker model provides a powerful and effective example of an 'androgynous' form of organization in which gender difference is recognized without imposing a hierarchy or privileging masculine elements. This they contrast with the contemporary discourse of 'managing diversity', which frequently serves to reinforce the devaluation of feminine skills and attributes as a consequence of its foundation in US ideology of a 'society of equals'.

Albert J. Mills continues this discussion of the gendered nature of management knowledge with an empirical examination of the impact that writings on gender have made upon mainstream thought in the field of management. Reflecting Jacques argument that the management textbook is out of step with business practice, the research underlines the limited impact such work has made beyond the problematic heading of 'diversity'. Mills argues that the traditionally masculine sphere of business, shaped by an ethos of competition, remains relatively untouched by the traditionally feminine sphere, which has been consigned primary responsibility for relationship maintenance. The consequence of this tendency is felt far beyond the lecture hall; while the 'body of knowledge' of management does not predetermine the individual qualities a man or woman will bring to the organization, Mills maintains, it does indicate a powerful set of forces telling the organization member how s/he is expected to behave, both at work and in the broader world.

In the next piece, Tony Tinker takes up Jacques' challenge to reconsider what is meant by management education. As Jacques argues in his book, it was largely his dissatisfaction with what today counts as a 'managerial education' as epitomized by the modern MBA which led to his inquiry as to the nature and limits of 'management knowledge'. Tinker addresses this theme head-on, drawing a sharp contrast between the strictures of the MBA system and the social and political consequences of the capitalist system which it both legitimizes and perpetuates. Tinker therefore makes explicit the connections between liberal democracy, the corporate power of the world's multinationals, the casualties of globalization and a technocratic management education insulated from its wider political and social context. In conclusion, Tinker sets out a vision of how management education might be reoriented to allow students a purchase on the historical, political and sociological ramifications of management knowledge. To do otherwise, he warns, would maintain management's 'connivance in repression'.

Hodgson and Ball then attempt what they describe as a 'modest and sympathetic' critique of Jacques's work. Their criticism focuses upon the methodology employed by Jacques and in particular his conception of discourse, which he bases upon the work of both Saussure and Foucault. Discourse analysis has in recent years been a very productive methodological approach, particularly in the field of organization studies, and Manufacturing the Employee is an excellent example of this trend. However, the authors argue that Roy Jacques' argument is undermined as he leaves his understanding of discourse largely unarticulated. While the diversity of discourse is often seen as a strength of the approach, its ambiguity as a concept has become a matter of serious concern to a number of writers. To attempt to understand how Jacques conceptualizes 'discourse', Hodgson and Ball draw upon a taxonomy of discourse proposed by Alvesson and Karreman (2000), and in particular their notion of 'levels of discourse'. They argue that the link between micro instances of 'discourse' (textbooks, speeches, papers cited) and a broader, universal 'Discourse' of US Management Knowledge is not explained, and that Jacques' methodological approach risks universalizing what can only ever be a partial and situated account of what constitutes 'management knowledge'.

The next contribution from Robert Willmott reflects upon the critical intent of Roy Jacques in Manufacturing the Employee. Jacques describes his critical position as 'more liberal than radical', and thus aspires to an pragmatic, incremental transformation of capitalist society and social relations. Willmott draws on a background in critical realism to follow through some of the implicit consequences of Jacques critique of management knowledge. Willmott is supportive of Jacques recognition of the limits of transformation and the necessity to deal with established elements of contemporary society, such as the division of labour within contemporary capitalism and the inequalities which result from this. Nonetheless, Willmott argues strongly that an effective critique of existing social and economic arrangements requires the setting out of feasible, grounded alternatives. Following Hodgson (1999), Willmott sets out a number of possible scenarios for a post-capitalist society, looking forward towards a knowledge-intensive economy and leaving behind old dichotomies of free markets versus state socialism. Without developing such a vision, he argues, Jacques' critique of management knowledge is caught between a rock and a hard place; a veiled conservatism or vain and empty utopianism.

In the next chapter, Clegg, Ray and Carter take on the global subtext of Jacques' work by considering the specifically American, indeed Anglo-Saxon, quality of much of what is accepted as management knowledge. They take as a contrast the institutional foundations of Japanese society, and in particular its implications for the development of management knowledge within Japan. In light of a carefully historicized reflection on the cultural and institutional specificity of Japan, Clegg et al. consider the limitations of Nonaka and Takeuchi's (1995) account of tacit/explicit knowledge. Building instead on Cook and Brown's (1999) typology, the authors propose an additional hybrid 'Mode 3' to better reflect the distinctive 'rules of the game' in a Japanese context, quite distinct from the modes of knowing characteristic of Western knowledge. In doing so, the chapter supports and develops Jacques' arguments by providing a clear challenge to universalizing epistemologies of management knowledge.

Ball and Carter take up the Foucauldian theme of Jacques' work and extend his analysis into the institutional and discursive shifts which underpin the emergence of modern 'best practice' management. Rather than the historical focus of Jacques, however, they concentrate upon an examination of discourse and practices associated with the modern-day growth of 'New Managerialism'. Taking the case of a newly-privatized public utility, the paper provides a model example of how the work of Foucault on discourse can be adapted to develop a precise analysis of the legitimation and operationalization of modern management knowledge in contemporary organizations. Through the use of social psychology, and in particular Potter and Wetherell's (1987) concept of interpretive repertoires, the authors analyse the narrative of a chief executive drawing upon 'New Managerialism' to reinvent and transform the organization. Around the themes of charisma, anachronism, inevitability, external alliances and empowerment, Ball and Carter offer a compelling illustration of the power of discourse, showing how popular texts, consultancies, and the various institutions of management education constitute a direct and tangible influence on the transformation of modern work organizations.

Randall develops the discursive theme of the previous chapter by reflecting on the changing construction of the employee in times of employment insecurity and enforced change at work. What distinguished the discourse of i'employe' in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries was the shift from self-reliance to reliance upon an employer in both a material and existential sense. The 'company man', the 'hireling for life', in Jacques' terms, was the motif of an age in which loyalty and constancy came to stand for what Richard Sennett calls 'character' (1998). For an understanding of the recent transformations of the employee, it is necessary to examine the consequences of situations where the social contract is violently and unilaterally transformed, where the basic assumptions of the employee are proven to be unfounded. Randall's research points to the emergence of a new employee without the traditional reliance upon such institutional supports, and tentatively suggests a form of emancipation through insecurity.

The final paper offers a dialogue between Roy Jacques and Shayne Grice and Campbell Jones in which the range of criticisms directed towards his work are addressed clearly and directly. Here, Jacques engages directly with the criticisms and both develops his position and sets in context a number of the arguments made in Manufacturing the Employee. Through the debate, Grice and Jones press Roy Jacques on a range of issues; from hi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Contributors
• 1. Critical Approaches to the Conceptualization of Management Knowledge: Reconsidering Jacques
• 2. Historical Perspectives in Organization Studies: Factual, Narrative, and Archaeo-Genealogical
• 3. Deconstructing the Employee: A Critique of the Gendered American Dream
• 4. Feminist Organizational Analysis and the Business Textbook
• 5. Ending the Velvet Revolution: Managing the Re-Education of Vaclav Havel
• 6. Problematizing Discourse Analysis: Can We Talk About Management Knowledge?
• 7. Explanatory Critique, Capitalism and Feasible Alternatives: A Realist Assessment of Jacques' Manufacturing the Employee
• 8. Japan as Institutional Counterfactual: Knowledge, Learning and Power
• 9. 'He Came, He Saw, He Re-engineered': New Managerialism and the Legitimation of Modern Management Practice
• 10. 'Plus Ça Change ...': Enforced Change and its Influence on Employees' Assumptions
• 11. Contesting Critical Strategies for the New Millennium: A Conversation with Roy Jacques
• Index