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Rethinking Management Knowledge - MAN00046H

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  • Department: The York Management School
  • Module co-ordinator: Prof. Leo McCann
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: H
  • Academic year of delivery: 2022-23

Module summary

This module will develop students understanding of how contemporary management ideas have developed and spread over time around the globe (and into outer space!). Received understandings of the institutions, ideas, and practices of management will be contrasted with that arising from recent research which has identified the extent to which the invention of ‘new’ management approaches is often old idea recycled as fads and fashions.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Spring Term 2022-23

Module aims

This module will develop students understanding of how contemporary management ideas have developed and spread over time around the globe. Received understandings of the institutions, ideas, and practices of management will be contrasted with that arising from recent research which has identified the extent to which the invention of ‘new’ management approaches is often old ideas recycled as fads and fashions. Accounts of the internationalisation and globalisation of management as recent are likewise contrasted by evidence that management’s very foundations are in the organisational complexities of imperialism and colonialism.

Rather than simply impart abstract knowledge, the module empowers students in their final year as they embark on careers in which they will be consumers of management ideas and practices (as managers and managed), developers of new management ideas, and implementers of managerial change. Students completing this course should be more able to make informed choices about the selection of management approaches, their strengths and weaknesses in national and international contexts, and recognise the processes, for the good and otherwise, whereby management models and philosophies become fashionable and unfashionable.

Module learning outcomes

Students will be able to

  • develop an understanding of how contemporary management ideas develop and spread around the globe
  • evaluate the implications of this for their own lives and practise as managers
  • assess the extent to which new management knowledge products are genuinely innovative
  • make better informed ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ decisions as producers and consumers of management knowledge/practices in their post-graduation careers.

Module content

Specific themes may include

  • Received accounts of the international rise of classical management ideas
  • Management and managerialism
  • The cyclical nature of management practices and ideas; management fads and fashions
  • International/global institutional transmitters of management knowledge – business schools, management gurus and consultants, ‘pop management’ journalism.
  • Alternative perspectives on the development of management – management as a geo-political phenomenon
  • The roots of classical and scientific management in transatlantic slavery
  • The influence of Cold War era research on management theory
  • The Management of Culture and ‘Soft Management’ roles in marketized transformations of organizations
  • The MBA and the formation of Global elites
  • How managers and organisations ‘use history’ for strategic and/or operational advantage

Teaching will focus on set readings ranging from ‘standard’ academic texts, through to popular management publications and media – magazines, airport management theory, guru presentations – and major management consultancy publications and web resources. Lectures will be accompanied by seminars which enable the framing concepts to be explored.

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
3000 word essay		 N/A 100

Special assessment rules

None

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Essay/coursework
3000 word essay		 N/A 100

Module feedback

Module assessment reports to students are written/spoken by the module leader for all assessments (open and closed) and placed on the VLE after the Board of Examiners has received the module marks.

Additionally, for open assignments students are given individual written or spoken feedback via or based on The York Management School assignment feedback form. The feedback form provides guidance on key areas for focusing upon improvements for future assessments, and ties module specific learning outcomes to marking criteria. This form is normally provided after the relevant Part A and Part B Board of Examiners meeting. However, if a module has more than one assessment element feedback on earlier submissions is released as soon as possible after marking of the assignment element.

Indicative reading

Indicative texts include:

Barley S.J. & Kunda G. (1992) Design and devotion: surges of rational and normative ideologies of control in Managerial Discourse. Administrative Science Quarterly 37, 3 pp. 363-399

Bridgman, Todd, and Stephen Cummings. 2020. A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Management Theory. London: SAGE.

Burnes, B. & Cooke, B. (2013) The Tavistock’s 1945 Invention of Organization Development: Early British business and management applications of social psychiatry. Business History, 55, 5

Clark, T. & Greatbach, D. 2004. Management Fashion as Image-Spectacle: The production of best-selling management books, Management Communication Quarterly. 17 (3):396-424

Cooke B (2011) The Early Cold War Politics of Action Research and Group Dynamics. In Boje, D. Burns, B. and Hassard, J. (eds) The Routledge Companion to Organizational Change. New York, Routledge.

Cooke B. (2003) The Denial of Slavery in Management Studies, Journal of Management Studies, December, 40, 8, 1895 - 1918

Kipping, M., Engwall. L., and B., Üsdiken U. (2008) “Preface: The transfer of management knowledge to peripheral countries.” International Studies of Management and Organization 38, no. 4 (2008): 3-16.

Klikauer, Thomas. 2015. “What Is Managerialism?” Critical Sociology 41 (7-8): 1103–19.

Murphy, J. (2008) The World Bank and Global Managerialism. London: Routledge


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.