Management Thinking (management + thinking)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


The Recontextualization of Management: A Discourse-based Approach to Analysing the Development of Management Thinking*

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 4 2003
Pete Thomas
ABSTRACT Many analysts have sought to explain the development and growth of management ideas and discourse in recent years, using notions such as the diffusion and consumption of ideas, and analogies with the fashion industry. These frameworks have a number of weaknesses that inhibit their value. Conceptualizing management knowledge or ideas or thinking as a form of discourse leads us to alternative frameworks for examining developments in this field. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) can be used to explore the social processes and structures from which discourse emanates and which discourse in turn underpins. Bernstein's concept of recontextualization can be employed to analyse the discursive relations between different social spheres or conjunctures within which human action takes place and how discourse is changed as it moves between conjunctures to meet the needs of different social agents. In this respect it can be used to analyse how management discourse unfolds as it is produced, distributed and acquired by agents within the academic, consultant and practitioner conjunctures. By doing so we can explore: the intertextual relations between the discourses; how the management discourse becomes technologized; and how hybrid forms of discourse, which mix genres and styles, emerge. [source]


A model for evaluating the effectiveness of middle managers' training courses: evidence from a major banking organization in Greece

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2009
Ekaterini Galanou
Contemporary management thinking embraces the organizational training theory that sustainable success rests, to a great extent, upon a systematic evaluation of training interventions. However, the evidence indicates that few organizations take adequate steps to assess and analyse the quality and outcomes of their training. The authors seek to develop the existing literature on training evaluation by proposing a new model, specific to management training, which might encourage more and better evaluation by practitioners. Their thesis is that training evaluation is best if it can be based on criteria derived from the objectives of the training and they draw on the management effectiveness literature to inform their proposed model. The study seeks to examine the effect of six evaluation levels , reactions, learning, job behaviour, job performance, organizational team performance and some wider, societal effects , in measuring training interventions with regard to the alterations to learning, transfer and organizational impact. The model was tested with data obtained from 190 middle managers employed by a large banking organization in Greece and the results suggest that there is considerable consistency in the evaluation framework specified. The paper discusses these results and draws conclusions about their practical implications. The study's limitations are considered and some future research needs identified. [source]


Fads, Techniques and Control: The Competing Agendas of TPM and TECEX at the Royal Mail (UK)

JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 4 2000
Mike Noon
The paper offers empirical insight into how traditional thinking can continue to dominate contemporary change initiatives, and suggests that the propensity to repackage and sell ,old' management theory as new techniques reflects the persistence of fundamental, insoluble dilemmas in the nature of organizing. Empirical evidence is drawn from a detailed qualitative study of two case study sites at the Royal Mail, the UK postal service. The analysis shows how the two different change initiatives of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) and Technical Centres of Excellence (TECEX) are in competition through their methods and discourse, and how this reflects underlying and competing differences in ideologies of management. It vividly demonstrates how contemporary management thinking can involve repackaging old ideas in new rhetoric and a tendency for faddism. In organizations such as Royal Mail the consequence is that far from proving to be the solution to organizational problems, the techniques perpetuate a traditional management dualism in strategies of labour management between control and autonomy. [source]


,Learning hospitals' and quality

KNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 4 2003
Anastasius Moumtzoglou
In the next generation of management thinking, we must go beyond TQM and on to Deming's theory of profound knowledge, much of which is embodied in the field of organizational learning and in particular, in Senge's ,Fifth Discipline' or systems thinking. In this framework there is no explicit mention of quality but the goal is still a process of ongoing improvement, that is, quality is implicitly treated. Hospitals are thought to be pretty complex organizations to implement Senge's theory because they are hierarchical, skills intensive and most health care workers deal with their emotions, patient's emotions, doctor's emotions and fellow employee's emotions in highly intense situations. However, Senge's five ,component technologies' provide an excellent framework to begin with. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]