Management and the Dominance of Managers

Thomas Diefenbach

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415888684
• eBook ISBN: 9781135227654
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Managers are powerful. The organizations of our time are in essence managerial organizations, even our societies are managerial societies. This book looks behind the portrait of management as value-free 'technicality' and challenges the image of managers as the selfless pursuer of an organization's survival and development. It explains that individual interests and careers of managers are only part of a wider epochal and historic picture – the picture of managers as the new ruling class using and misusing organizations for their own personal and group interests while portraying their own roles and actions as 'increasing the efficiency of organizations' and 'serving the public interest'.

But why exactly are managers so powerful? Why and how do managers dominate our organizations? It will be argued that the prevailing understanding of management and managers is only at the surface about functional aspects. In its very core management has been, and is, all about the power and control, interests and ideology of managers--in short, the dominance of managers over other groups of people. In order to investigate and explain this dominance, a multi-dimensional 'theory of social dominance of managers', will be developed which reveals the personal and group interests behind such claims and is based in its core on three explanatory factors; power, interests, and ideology. These factors themselves will be analyzed as comprehensive, multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary concepts in order to address the complex nature of managers' dominance appropriately.

1
Introduction

The existence of an identifiable group of people who are labelled ‘managers’ has been one of the most significant aspects of the organization of work and society for well over a century.

—Grey (1999, p. 561)

THE PUZZLE OF MANAGERS’ DOMINANCE

When it is about organisations then it is about management. The organisations of our time are in essence managerial organisations (e.g. Grey 1999, Jacques 1996, Rosen 1984, Burnham 1941); even our societies are managerial societies. Our businesses and companies, both private and public sectors, our whole economy and society, even our private lives haven been conquered by yet another ideology—the ideology of management. As Thrift (2002, p. 19) put it: ‘The awful thing about modern management discourse is that you can’t escape it. It is on the walls, in people’s mouths, creeping into every moment of human interaction.’

Management is everywhere; ‘managerial bureaucracies are now to be found in government, in the City, the Church, the multinationals, the armed forces, the universities, the business corporations and every sector of public life’ (Protherough / Pick 2002, p. 16). Management—and discourses about the roles and importance of managers and managing—is part of the prevailing zeitgeist. Apparently, it doesn’t make much sense to be ‘against’ management either (Parker 2002, pp. 1–2); ‘If we want to control nature and ourselves, and do so in a transparent fashion, then management is an obvious answer. It is the consolidation of order and efficiency, and who could be against order and efficiency?’ (ibid., p. 4). What we have witnessed is not only the managerialisation of our private and public sector organisations, but of our society, our private affairs and even our personal lives (Alvesson / Willmott 1992a, p. 3). There is hardly anything left nowadays which doesn’t need to be managed. Like myths and mythology in ancient times, Christianity in medieval times, Manchester capitalism in modern times, like cancer even, management has crawled into every fibre of our work and social life. It has reached hegemonic status—and it continues to spread. Even the serious flaws and limitations of orthodox management concepts do not stop its proponents from spreading the word and disseminating it further and further. There is an endless stream of strategy papers, mission and vision statements, (allegedly) ‘new’ business models, management concepts and change initiatives. There are an ever growing number of books and papers, conferences and workshops, meetings and projects all on management and managers. We live in ‘the age of management’—and it seems likely that we will have to live with it for a long time.

But it is not simply buzzwords, fads and fashions, glossy brochures and management-speak. Managerialism produces real consequences—very real consequences. It has changed the world. From its early modern beginnings, it has been portrayed as a functional, even scientific approach, concentrating on the improvement of the ‘technical’ aspects of organisations and business (e.g. Kraut et al. 2005, Hales 1999, Mintzberg 1994, Taylor 1911/1967). It is said to be about increasing efficiency and productivity, shareholder maximisation and value for money, organisational objectives and strategies, structures and processes. But it is so much more. It has changed the way organisations operate. More importantly, it has changed the way people see, create, and solve problems—the way they talk and behave, think and act. After more than one and a half centuries of justification for management, for socialisation, conditioning, and indoctrination, people can hardly conceive of organisations without management. Moreover, management strongly contributes to the continuation of unequal and unjust social systems such as hierarchical organisations. It has created new social groups and classes, new layers of society and a whole new cosmos of social relationships. These aspects are crucial. Managerial discourses and their consequences may well create differences in technological terms, but even more so in socio-economical, organisational and socio-cultural terms. Hence, the interesting question is not so much “what is” management or “what is management about” in a functional sense, but what and who is behind management? For what purposes exactly is it used and what are the consequences? Who profits from it the most, and in which ways?

One part of the answer to these questions is straightforward. Managerial concepts, the managerial organisation and, overall, the ideology of management are primarily useful for managers.¹ As Hood (1991, p. 9) stresses, the introduction of management concepts in the public sector is primarily ‘designed to promote the career interests of an elite group of ‘new managerialists’ …’. Senior and middle managers particularly have an interest in the ‘legitimization of management for its own sake’ (Deem / Brehony 2005, p. 220) since it strengthens and justifies their roles and privileges within organisations. According to Abercrombie et al. (1980, p. 135) managerial ideology ‘is concerned to justify, not the ownership and rights of property, but the economic privilege and social power which the relatively property-less managerial stratum that controls modern industry wields.’ More especially, it is not about the dominance of just any manager; it is particularly about the dominance of the new breed of ‘all-purpose managers’ (Protherough / Pick 2002, p. 16). These are the ones who don’t care about the actual business their organisations do (and how they do it). They don’t care about the employees who work for the organisation, the real value and sense of the products produced or services provided by their companies, or the overall impact all these aspects and activities have on individuals, our communities, society and the environment.² All they care about is the pursuit of their egoistic and career-oriented interests, the cynical and calculated use of their power and the further dissemination of their own narrow-minded and ignorant ideology of management.

These managers dominate organisations and business, the public sector and other parts of society. This epochal trend began in the early days of capitalism³ and gained momentum in the second half of the 19th century. Although managers were already well established at this stage, by 1911 Taylor still felt the need to demand and justify management’s prerogatives and dominance within organisations on a ‘scientific basis’ (Taylor 1911/1967, pp. 26, 32, 36–38). Just a generation later, Burnham (1941, p. 71) had already identified a transition ‘from the type of society which we have called capitalist or bourgeois to a type of society which we shall call managerial…. What is occurring in this transition is a drive for social dominance, for power and privilege, for the position of ruling class, by the social group or class of the managers (…)’. Burnham predicted that capitalist society would be replaced by a managerial society (ibid., p. 29). Later, Petit (1961, p. 99) warned about the ‘danger of coming under the domination of a management elite’, and Galbraith (1977, p. 271) compared the dominance of managers to the earlier dominance of priests: ‘These men of the technostructure [pioneered by Harvard Business School] are the new and universal priesthood. Their religion is business success; their test of virtue is growth and profit. Their Bible is the computer printout; their communion bench is the committee room.’ This process is now complete. We live in a managerial world where ‘propertied corporate elites have been replaced by property-less managerial elites’ (Scott 2003, p. 159). Many even regard top managers as global leaders (e.g. Heames / Harvey 2006, describing the role of managers as ‘undoubtedly a central one in all advanced economies and societies’ (Poole et al. 2003, p. 1). In summary, within a century we have witnessed the creation and establishment of ‘the managers’ as a new ruling social group, if not to say dominating class.

By having their personal and group interests not only accepted, but actually institutionalised as the prevailing norms and values of organisations, managers have managed to establish and to advance their sectional interests as universally accepted, even as universal interests (Alvesson / Willmott 1992a, p. 6). With management, the modern organisation and business managers have managed to establish yet another group-based social hierarchy (Sidanius / Pratto 1999) primarily for the pursuit of their interests. In this sense, management is first and foremost about the power, interests, and ideology of management and managers; managerialism is primarily not about management but about the dominance of managers!

The prevalence of management over other discourses, the status and power of managers within organisations, and the institutionalisation of managerialism at a societal, even global level is all well known. Nonetheless, most investigations carried out so far into managers’ roles have ‘only’ provided descriptions, analysis, or critique of managers’ power. What we still need are explanations, theoretical concepts, to answer the question “why and how do managers dominate our organisations?” As Burrell (2002, pp. 32–33) put it: ‘the growth of large-scale managerial hierarchies, coordinating diverse economic activities in the last century, is seen by many as one of the most significant politico-economic developments humanity has ever witnessed. How do we explain such developments?’.

The dominance of managers is a puzzle in at least three respects: historically, methodologically and theoretically.

Historically

In historical terms, it has been surprising that managers have become the rulers of organisations. Originally, as Marx described it, managers were ‘special wage labourers’ who were hired by capitalists to control and handle the new workforce of unskilled or semi-skilled workers. When the modern type of managers emerged, they had nothing:

• NO property, money, ownership or other legal rights (like the capitalists)

• NO titles or inherited privileges (like royals or aristocrats)

• NO spiritual or metaphysical leadership (like priests)

• NO special knowledge (like professionals or military leaders)

• NO strength in numbers (like the workforce)

Initially, managers’ superior positions within (large) hierarchical organisations and their access to, and responsibilities for resources (including human resources) were enough to gain some influence. But it needs much more than this to become one of the dominant groups or ruling classes within society. In this long historical process, it is still surprising how dominant and hegemonic management and managers have become in the face of other aspirational social groups and professions. Although managers are still (special) employees (Jacques 1996, p. 87) and in the same formal contractual relationship with their employers (owners and shareholders) as they were many decades ago, they have made the transition from being the servants of capital to being (amongst) the new rulers. At this point in time, we still haven’t really understood how comprehensive, differentiated and multi-dimensional the system which creates and guarantees the dominance of managers is. We still need to understand much more about the factors behind managers’ epochal and global dominance.

Methodologically

Management and managers are nowadays so established that we take them for granted. The dominance of management and managers is apparently justified by their very existence; “management is necessary because things have to be managed and managers dominate organisations because organisations need managers”. However, such ‘explanations’ are nothing else but a “naturalistic fallacy”, i.e. the false assumption that things should be, because they are (as David Hume has explained in his ‘Treatise of Human Nature’ 1739–1740). In this sense the ‘naturalistic explanation’ (or even justification!) of management and managers—of any social institution or social event—does not hold sway. The prevalence of managers is neither self-evident nor necessary. There is no necessity in the social realm!

As indicated, managers came to power during a longer historical process. However, for the most of human history, large organisations and other social systems functioned (perfectly well) without managers. There are concepts and business models for organisations without dominating managers, and different contexts and times might produce very different understandings of what organisation and management (without managers) mean or could mean. Just because managers dominate so many of our contemporary organisations does not mean that this is, or should necessarily be the case. Hence, managerial dominance, and why and how managers rule, still needs to be explained.

Theoretically

Functional “explanations” (justifications) of management are not, however, convincing. Of course, from the very beginning the proponents of orthodox management and organisations studies have been keen to ‘explain’ and justify the prevalence of management and managers (e.g. Taylor, Fayol, Barnard, Dale, Drucker, Mintzberg, Porter). This is usually done by creating ‘an image of the manager as a functionally necessary facilitator and coordinator of others’ actions’ (Willmott 1984, p. 353). A...

Table of contents

• Routledge Series in Management, Organisation and Society
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Managers and Managerialism
• 3 Power and Control within Organisations
• 4 Managers’ Interests in Dominance
• 5 The Ideology of Management
• 6 A Theory of the Dominance of Managers
• 7 How Managers Create, Justify and Conduct Strategic Change in Their Organisation—A Case Study
• 8 Critique of Management and Orthodox Organisations
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index