Management Fads and Buzzwords

Critical-Practical Perspectives

David Collins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415206396
• eBook ISBN: 9781136295157
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Around 5,000 business and management titles are published every year, and increasingly, their preferred mode of presentation is centred on the creation and marketing of buzzwords and fads. This book argues that these management fads and buzzwords deflect critical inquiry and limit useful action because they present a 'ready made' view of the world, which rejects the benefits of theoretical analysis and reflection. Topics covered include:

* the 'guru industry'
* 'excellence'
* business process re-engineering
* empowerment
* culture
* knowledge work
* globalization.

'Unpacking' the 'guru industry' and analyzing the fads and buzzwords, this book provides a 'critical-practical' analysis, designed to allow readers to locate, understand and critique management fashion.

1 Practical Management and its Critical-Practical Alternative

Over the last few years the market for literature on management has expanded rapidly. Burnes (1998), for example, estimates that each year some five thousand titles are published which, in various ways, offer advice and guidance on how best to run organizations. Similarly, Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) have also observed the tremendous market for ‘management books’. Choosing to segment the market, they note that two thousand ‘guru’ titles were produced in 1995.

In part this growth has been due to the mushroom-like growth of formal business and management education which, in Britain, has taken place at all levels: within schools, colleges, ‘new’ universities, and even within the most traditional of the ‘old’ and ‘ancient’ universities. Indeed, such has been the growth of management education in Britain that a few lucky and talented scholars (Laurie Mullins (1996) author of Pitman's Organizational Behaviour textbook for one), have become ‘best-selling’ authors.

Yet, it is noteworthy that, in spite of this growth in the provision of formal management education, a minority of the management literature currently in production is of the scholarly, or textbook variety. Indeed it seems that scholarly works on management now represent the marginal fringes of the market for management books when compared to the mass-market appeal of a group of management commentators often termed the ‘gurus’ of management (see Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997; Huczynski, 1993; Collins, 1998; Kennedy, 1996).

This book has been written because of the mass-market appeal of these ‘gurus’ of management. Yet unlike many of these texts (see Kennedy, 1996) it is not a hagiology. Hagiologic texts on management, texts which attempt to celebrate the lives and works of the ‘gurus’ (discussed in more detail in chapter 3) have become widely available as authors, and publishers, have seen opportunities to cash in on the ‘guru’ phenomenon.

While recognizing the market opportunities within this increasingly important arena, and recognizing too, the market penetration and influence of a few key concepts and commentators, this book articulates a dissatisfaction with the management ‘gurus’ and their ideas, and so, represents an attempt to do something other than celebrate their wit and wisdom. Rather than offer genuflection, the book attempts a critical account of the ‘gurus’ and their works and ideas. With this in mind the book, as a whole, pursues a theme which has underpinned my work for some time now. Thus the book might be considered as part of a project which, sometimes in jest, and at other times quite seriously, I have termed ‘management reeducation’. Reflecting this project, the book might be considered as an attempt to enter, yet also to reshape and to reconfigure the market for ‘management books’.

In attempting to reshape and to reconfigure what we might term the market for advice on management and managing, this book reflects a concern that, for all the earnest, scholarly activity of much of management academia, students and practising managers appear to receive their management ‘education’ through rather less formal channels. Thus the book articulates a concern that students and managers seem to derive many of their insights on management, business and commerce, not from academia, nor from their own life experiences, but from popular and populist ‘guru’ works; works which as we shall see are limited, limiting, and in any sense of the term, partial in the understanding they foster.

This book, then, represents a concern that, increasingly, management education is being forced to dance to the (bland and repetitive) ‘tunes’ played by ‘gurus’ such as Kanter (1989), Peters (1988, 1993) and Hammer and Champy (1993) to name but a few, who have, at best, marginal involvement and a marginal interest in the mainstream, critical and academic concerns, which might otherwise underpin ‘management education’. Yet in spite of this rejection of traditional academic concerns and cautions (or perhaps because of this!), it appears that it is the ‘gurus’ who have the ear of management, and the attention of students and would-be managers. So while the ‘gurus’ thump out their tunes, students chant the shrill lyric; culture, empowerment, quality, re-engineering … and demand, as ‘customers’, that these pressing and ‘practical’ (Collins, 1996) matters be made central to the syllabus (Clark and Salaman, 1998; Abrahamson, 1996).

Of course concepts such as culture, empowerment, quality and re-engineering are, as most conscientious educators would readily concede (although perhaps reflecting a different calculus), important to the analysis of modern management and so should be regarded as important issues in management education. Similarly most educators would acknowledge that the ‘tunes’ played by the ‘gurus’, arguments which reflect concerns regarding the globalization of business and the social and economic consequences of restructuring (Collins, 1998), are important issues which require careful and considered reflection, and so should be central concerns in teaching and research. The problem, as we shall see however, is that in receiving their ‘education’ and ‘insight’ from the ‘gurus’, students are encouraged to accept, rather than to reflect upon issues (Latour, 1987), since they are encouraged to use a form of ‘grammar’, which inhibits reflection and reflexivity.

The Hungry Spirit?

Reflecting this concern with the vocabulary and ‘grammar’ of management, Jackson (1996) notes that ‘guru’ works are: ‘generally considered to be too philosophically impoverished, theoretically underdeveloped and empirically emaciated to warrant serious academic scrutiny’ (Jackson, 1996, p. 572).

Jackson argues that this ‘emaciation’ is doubly unfortunate for all concerned (with the exception, perhaps of the million-selling ‘gurus’ and their affluent, consulting colleagues). First, Jackson argues, the rather limited treatment of management, and of the contemporary developments in management, which is offered by the ‘gurus’, tends to close off the truly important, and interesting issues and topics, which should be of central concern. As a result of this foreclosure, Jackson suggests that students and managers are seriously constrained in their attempts to understand, and to act upon, their reading of these important developments, and trajectories in management. Yet Jackson also makes the second point, that in dismissing ‘guru’ analyses as shallow and biased, academics have also acted to stymie critical analysis, and so, have denied practitioners the grammar and vocabulary they would require to challenge the ‘gurus’, and their construction of the world of work.

Noting the importance of providing practitioners with the tools and techniques necessary to challenge the ‘gurus’, Jackson applauds the efforts of Wilmott (1994) and of Grey and Mitev (1996) in their attempts to provide practitioners ‘with the arguments that might enable them to constructively [sic] respond to, and, if possible, resist’ Jackson 1996, p. 587) the ‘gurus’. In a similar fashion Abrahamson (1996), in his analysis of ‘management fashion’ calls for the intervention of academics and business schools, so that the ‘consumers of scholarly management rhetorics’ (Abrahamson, 1996, p. 279) might be better trained, and so, more discerning in their reading of management's fads and buzzwords.

This book is a reaction to the problems identified above. It is an attempt to question, and to overthrow, the patterns of thinking which foster limiting forms of analysis. It is, in short, an attempt to overthrow the analyses which underpin the fads and buzzwords of management. To this end, the book aims to challenge the ‘gurus’. However, and reflecting the discussions of Abrahamson and Jackson, the book, through its challenge, aims to do more than debunk the ‘gurus’, and their vocabulary of fads and buzzwords. Instead the book attempts to offer a challenge to the ‘grammar’ invoked by the ‘gurus’. Through this challenge, I hope to offer readers a more objective, and critical account, of the key ideas and concepts, variously discussed and deployed, by a range of key management commentators.

The book, therefore, readily concedes that much of the vocabulary of the ‘gurus’ is, indeed, worthy of analysis. However, while acknowledging this fact, the text attempts to go beyond the normal managerialist confines of ‘guru’ analysis; and beyond debunking, to offer a a challenge to the ‘grammar’, which gives force and meaning to the fads and buzzwords of management. Together with our preface, therefore, this chapter, and the two chapters which follow, are intended to provide a means by which readers might locate, reflect upon, and so, better understand the concepts which they are being urged to implement, or indeed which they may have had enacted/enforced upon them by others.

As distinct from the largely uncritical, and often largely acontextual, celebrations of management offered by the so-called ‘gurus’ of management, this text will attempt to offer a critical, objective, contextual account of contemporary developments in management. As part of this programme, the book will also attempt to locate, so that we might better understand, those factors, which underpin the developments in management, which we have witnessed. Through this project, it is hoped that students and managers might be better placed to understand the complexity, and ambiguity, which surrounds social action at work. In this way, the book has as one of its key aims, the attempt to establish the usefulness (indeed the indispensability) of a critical and contextual account of the ‘guru’ phenomenon, and of the concepts and strategies which the ‘gurus’ would seek to apply. As an initial step on this journey, the remainder of this chapter will attempt to outline the significance of the ‘critical-practical’ conjunction of the book's sub-title. Accordingly, the remainder of this chapter is structured as follows.

In the next section we will pause to examine the extent of the ‘guru’ phenomenon, so that we might better understand the extent to which both managers and ‘management education’ have changed. This analysis should also allow us to examine the pace with which management discourse, and ‘management education’, continue to change. From here, we will move on to examine some of the critiques made of the ‘gurus’ and their works. While acknowledging the validity of a great deal of this criticism, we will begin to analyse the critiques themselves. In chapter 3 we will offer a more detailed analysis and critique of the ‘gurus’ and their commentators. In this chapter, therefore, we will offer only the briefest of critiques. Just enough of a critique, in fact, to allow us to pin-point the basic, conceptual limitations and over-sights of those works which, themselves, have set out to critique the ‘gurus’.

In pinpointing the limitations of the ‘guru’ analysis, and the limited nature of the critiques made of the ‘guru’ works, we will argue that, often, these critiques remain limited and incomplete, because they do not build from a properly coherent and theoretically grounded model of managing and organizing. Accordingly, this chapter will attempt to offer a more rigorous theoretical account of managing and organizing. Indeed, it will conclude by attempting to show the inseparability of theory and practice, and so, will set the scene for our later ‘critical-practical’ account of the management ‘gurus’ and their fads and buzzwords.

Let us begin, then, with a brief reprise of the modern ‘guru’ phenomenon.

The Resistible Rise of the ‘Guru’?

Huczynski (1993) has observed that any analysis of management's ‘gurus’ must acknowledge that ‘gurus’ are not simply a phenomenon of the 1980s. Instead Huczynski reminds us that F. W. Taylor, the father of an approach to the design and management of work, known as ‘scientific management’ (Collins, 1998; Thompson and McHugh, 1995) is properly regarded as a ‘guru’ because of the influence he has had on management thinking and practice, through his publications, and also through his lectures and consulting activity. However, while it is quite correct that we should trace and acknowledge the importance of the ‘guru’ founding fathers, we must also acknowledge that the 1980s represent a period in which managerial interest in ‘gurus’ went into ‘over-drive’ (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997; see also DuGay and Salaman, 1992; Clark and Salaman, 1998).

Micklethwait and Wooldridge note that the management ‘guru’ business has been booming since the early 1980s. Indeed they have observed that the ‘guru’ business seems to be one, if not the only properly legitimate form of business activity, which does not seem to suffer from cyclical variation. They observe that by 1996 the market for business books was worth some $750 million dollars per year. In addition Micklethwait and Wooldridge estimate that, currently, US firms are spending vast sums of money on consultancy activities. Indeed they estimate that US firms spend $20 billion on ‘outside advice’ each year.

The year 1982 represents, probably, the birth date of the modern ‘guru’ phenomenon. That year saw the publication of Peters’ and Waterman's In Search of Excellence (Peters and Waterman, 1982) which, almost overnight, catapulted two management consultants to fame and fortune. Clark and Salaman (1998) have observed that In Search of Excellence sold 122,000 copies in its first two months of publication: ‘Within one year it had sold more copies than any other book except the Living Bible in 1972 and 1973. The book has sold more than 5 million copies world-wide’ (Clark and Salaman, 1998, p. 140).

In 1983, the year after the publication of In Search of Excellence, business books, many of them written by management consultants, began to appear on the US ‘best-sellers’ list, and for a period in 1983, business books occupied the top three positions in this listing. In 1985, lacocca's account of his managerial career (Iacocca with Novak, 1986) became the best-selling business book of all time (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997). Iacocca, however, faces stiff competition from a host of new and emergent ‘gurus’. For example, according to Crainer (1998), Steven Covey has sold some six million copies of his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey, 1989). Confirming Covey's success, Clark and Salaman (1998) observe that The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People has spent four years on the New York Times best-seller list.

Indeed the influence of management ‘gurus’ is such that their reach now extends beyond matters concerning management and the economy, so that they now seem to influence the polity as well! Thus Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) have observed the influence of certain management ‘gurus’ upon key politicians. For example, Newt Gingrich the (now former) Republican leader of America's House of Representatives and Bill Clinton, the American president, have each called upon key business ‘gurus’ for advice on ‘leadership’ and campaign management (The Sunday Times, 20/12/98). Yet in spite of these impressive sales figures, and in spite of the influence which ‘gurus’ clearly exert, they are not without their critics.

Micklethwait and Wooldridge (1997) note, for example, that the publisher and business magnate, Rupert Murdoch, has observed that for all his reading of the management ‘guru’ texts, he has learned little of significance from these works. Similarly, if a little more forcefully, Micklethwait and Wooldridge offer the opinion of a senior colleague at The Economist who states that the ‘guru’ works are ‘99 per cent bullshit. And everybody knows that’ (Micklethwait and Wooldridge, 1997, p. 4).

Are the Gurus Mad?

In comparison to the judgement offered above, Burnes (1998) presents a similar, if more reserved and academic form of critique. Burnes notes that the ‘gurus’ tend to develop programmatic approaches to key management problems. Such programmatic accounts Burnes terms ‘recipes for organizational success’. Analysing the works ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Practical Management and its Critical-Practical Alternative
• 2 The Nature of Management
• 3 The ‘Guru’ Industry
• 4 Culture
• 5 Excellence
• 6 Total Quality Management
• 7 Empowerment
• 8 Business Process Re-engineering
• 9 Downsizing
• 10 Knowledge Work
• 11 Globalization
• 12 Concluding Comments
• Bibliography
• Index