Abstract

Confronting Managerialism offers a scathing critique of the influence of neoclassical economics and modern finance on business school teaching and management practice. Locke and Spender show that responsible management has given way to ‘managerialism’, whereby an elite caste of businessmen disconnected from any ethical considerations call the shots. The book traces the loss of managers’ earlier social concerns, amply encouraged by management education’s transformation since the 1960's, especially in the US. It also questions not only the social ethics of the US management caste but its management efficacy compared to systems of management that are highly employee participatory and dependent, such as in Germany and Japan. A unique, topical and controversial look at a subject that impacts us all.
'Everyone should read this book to see what is so wrong with finance capitalism U.S.-style. The book's expose of bad "management philosophy from hell" carries one forward like an adventure story as it describes the academic and global diplomacy whose infighting has spread it. Most important is the authors' conclusion that it doesn't have to be this way!' Michael Hudson, author of 'Super Imperialism' 'Timely... Incisive... and right on target. The authors mount a fierce attack on "managerialism" and the business schools that promote it. The book should leave the professors, the deans, and the CEOs at prominent U.S. businesses nervously looking over their shoulders at the global competition.' Louis Galambos, The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise, Johns Hopkins University 'In this fascinating book Locke and Spender show us what is wrong with managerialism and what might be done to ensure more participative and long term approach to running organizations.' Martin Parker, Warwick University Business School, and author of 'Against Management' 'Business Schools are one of the most important institutions of our times; managerialism perhaps the dominant ideology of those times. How strange, then, that the relationship between the two has not been exposed to much serious analysis. In this excellent volume, Locke and Spender do just that and through a combination of historical and comparative international analysis explain the complex and often malign enmeshment of business schools with modern society. Written by acknowledged experts in the area, this is an important book for those who work in business schools; but an even more important book for those who don't and will be informed, astounded or perhaps appalled to discover what goes on within them.' Christopher Grey - Professor of Organizational Behaviour, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick and Visiting Fellow, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge 'In a brilliant and compelling narrative, Locke and Spender trace the decline of American business after World War II to the extinction of socially-responsible management by an amoral 'managerialist' caste of professional business school graduates trained to view reality through arcane mathematical tools of abstract decision making, not through the lens of concrete relationships linking humans to each other and to the planet they inhabit. This is a truly important book . . . definitely a must read.' H. Thomas Johnson, Professor of Sustainability Management, Portland State University
Robert R. Locke is Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including The End of the Practical Man (2006), The Collapse of the American Management Mystique (1996), and The Entrepreneurial Shift (2004). J.-C. Spender is the author of Industry Recipes (1989) and, with Burton-Jones, the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital (2011).