Chapter 2

Management Methods

Many people probably see organizations as something obvious, like a table, a chair
or the moon. They use the word in a generic sense and forget, at least for a while,
that there is no organization unless there is somebody to manage it.
The idea of management, in contrast, indicates that there are people involved and
that these people are engaged in some activity. Managers are there to help change
the activities of their organizations, whether by expanding or reducing a business,
introducing new products, entering new markets with old products, creating a
strong brand, reorganizing, or simply improving the efficiency of the existing
production.
Regardless of how organizations define the changes they want to accomplish,
management (and managers) shall help them achieve their goals. Every organiza-
tion has its own unique goals, but in general terms management shall help orga-
nizations become successful. Preferably, they shall survive as organizations for a
long time (indeterminably), which means that for many organizations long-term
organizational success is a target in its own right (Holmblad Brunsson 2002; Teece
2009). How success and long-term success shall be defined differs from one
organization to another: Business firms must charge more for what they sell than
they themselves pay for the resources they use; public agencies must deliver ser-
vices to the citizens that the citizens like, or at least accept; and non-governmental
organizations must be active in areas, which members and supporters appreciate.
Organizations may produce transportation, social security payments, robots,
hairdressing, or polls. They may deliver products that many dislike like weapons,
unhealthy products like pastry, or dangerous activities like motor cross. If only
there are enough people willing to pay for, support or contribute to the production
of an organization, it may prove successful despite such objections.
A limited number of customers can make a business firm profitable. It need not,
nor does it necessarily want to, expand and find new profitable customers. The same
holds true for non-governmental organizations; they need only a ‘sufficient’ number
of members. For public agencies, the objective may even be to reduce the number
of people they serve. This is true, for example, of hospitals, prisons or employment

© The Author(s) 2017 13

K. Brunsson, The Teachings of Management, SpringerBriefs in Business,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56120-2_2
14 2 Management Methods

offices, where one indication of successful work is a reduction of the number of

‘customers.’
Whether or not an organization was successful depends on the ambitions of
those who make the judgment. The higher the ambitions of owners or other
stakeholders, the more likely organizations are to fail. It does happen—and is in fact
quite common—that growing and profitable business firms find that the price of
their shares fall—because those who planned to invest in these firm expected higher
profitability.
Depending on the organization, success can be measured as profitability, higher
appropriations from parliament, satisfied customers or fewer employees. Whichever
the case, the organization itself is its number one stakeholder. Other stakeholders
are secondary.
There are at least two explanations for the relationship between management and
organizational success: one practical, the other a historically based, almost tauto-
logical stereotype. The practical explanation is the following (Locke 1996).
Management is a North American invention, and this is true for the presumption
of a relationship between management and organizational success as well. This—
typically American—notion was translated from the US to Europe after the Second
World War, when the Marshall help made war-torn countries aware of the wealth of
the American states. Like the American citizens, the Europeans concluded that there
is a relationship between management and organizational success, and that this is
true also for individual organizations. Military assistance and management educa-
tion later corroborated this understanding, which in the US is taken for granted.
With time, it has become a natural starting point for discussions about management
(Burck 1957, cited from Locke 1996: 29):
The American way of doing business … is the natural way of doing business.

One possible reason why Europeans and other people believe that organizations
become successful (partly) due to skillful management is thus that they were
impressed by American business firms and simply copied North American beliefs
and arguments.
This explanation is probably related to the other explanation, referred to in
Chap. 1 concerning the general understanding that organizations need management.
It is difficult to make such an understanding plausible, if management is perceived
to be insignificant, even harmful to an organization. There must be a relationship
between management and organizational success; this is a consequence of the idea
that management is important for the idea of ‘organization.’ With this line of
reasoning it is irrelevant whether the arguments come from the US or not; the
interesting question is if this understanding is at all empirically valid.
2.1 Engineering Views 15

2.1 Engineering Views

Two engineers stand out as ‘management forefathers’: Frederick Winslow Taylor

and Henri Fayol. Approximately contemporary, active in the early 20th century, but
from different parts of the world—the US and France respectively—these engineers
both took an interest in management: in creating order, improving efficiency, and
handling internal organizational affairs.
Both wrote books where they described and discussed their experience from a
long working life. Taylor was 45 when, in 1911, he published the two books The
Principles of Scientific Management and Shop Management, but he started his
working life as a young boy; besides had been interested in measurements and
calculations from early childhood (Parker and Lewis 1995). Fayol summarized
56 years of working experience, when, at the end of his career, aged 75, he first
published Administration industrielle et générale. (The book was translated into
English in 1930 and 1949: ‘General and Industrial Management.’)
Although they based their recommendations on their own experience from
working in and with large industries, they did not hesitate to claim general appli-
cability for their recommendations. Said Taylor (1911/1998: iv):
… the fundamental principles of scientific management are applicable to all kinds of human
activities.

Fayol similarly argued that all kinds of organizations need management; the
family, small and large business firms, and, not least, the French government.
Nor did Taylor or Fayol hesitate to moralize. Taylor encouraged friendly rela-
tionships between managers and subordinates: the workmen should see their bosses
as teachers, even as their ‘very best friends,’ he hoped (1911/1998: 35). Fayol’s
(1916/1949) advice to young engineers covered their private lives as well: do not
forget to get rest and exercise, to take active part in social affairs, to look out for a
worthy spouse …
Despite these similarities, the two engineers approached the topic of management
from radically different directions. Taylor started with the individual employee
(workman), studied his physical and mental capacities and tried to find the right man
for a specific task. He then trained this person to economize on body movements, but
increase the speed at which each movement was performed. Taylor reported on
astounding productivity increases; for example:
• skillful bricklayers handled 350 instead of 120 bricks per man per hour,
• ‘Smidt’ handled 47 ½ tons of pig iron, instead of previously 12 ½ tons,
• thirty-five girls inspecting bicycle balls could do the work that formerly required
120 girls.
When employees were left to their own devices, the result was often ‘soldiering,’
Taylor observed. Because they lacked the proper knowledge and, in addition, did
not want to lose their job—or make others unemployed—people worked at a much
slower than optimal pace. Taylor saw managers as technical experts, each with their
16 2 Management Methods

own area of expertise. Consequently, employees could relate to up to eight man-

agers, depending on the issue at stake. Fayol questioned this type of matrix orga-
nization. Polemicizing with Taylor, he insisted on what he called unity of command
—every employee should have but one manager, he argued.
Fayol saw management from a top-down perspective. Himself the CEO of a
large coal mine industry, Fayol emphasized that managers must understand the
technical aspects of the productions of their organizations. But he realized that to
expect top managers to have detailed knowledge of the entire production process
was unfeasible. Fayol estimated that managers in large firms spent 40–50 % of their
time on management. As a result, he insisted on a general management education
for future engineers (who were also the future managers of business firms).
According to Fayol, management consists of a number of activities that all
organizations engage in, irrespective of what they produce:
• Planning—in a comprehensive plan, managers should estimate available
resources, the value of the ongoing work, and the technical, commercial,
financial and other changes that they expect will take place;
• organizing—to organize is to provide the organization with all necessary
resources; raw materials, machines and equipment, capital and personnel;
• commanding—good managers are well acquainted with their subordinates, and
ready to dismiss any employee who does not meet the standards of work;
• coordinating—regular meetings among responsible managers is the most
effective coordinating mechanism, Fayol believed; and
• controlling—every department should be responsible for controlling its own
activities and appointed inspectors relied on only in exceptional cases.
Fayol found that these activities dominated the work of managers in large
organizations and at the top of an organizational hierarchy. The managers he
described were different from those of Taylor. Rather than technical specialists on
different parts of the production, Fayol expected managers to specialize in
management.

2.2 Bottom Up or Top Down?

The previous section illustrates how even (roughly) contemporary men with
(roughly) the same background and with substantial experience of management
may come to different conclusions of how to approach this topic. Taylor and Fayol
were both highly influential, but in different ways. Taylor was part of a professional
movement of mechanical engineers that started in the US in the 1870s and where
political conflict was redefined into technical—and ‘neutral’—issues of rational-
ization, standardization and progress (Shenhav 1999). Had Taylor not existed and
published his books, ‘Taylorism’ would probably have appeared under some other
name.
2.2 Bottom Up or Top Down? 17

But Taylor did exist—as does his views on standardization and efficiency, which
a century later form the basis not only of the worldwide mass production of goods,
but also—and to an ever larger extent—of the production of various kinds of
services. Only when ‘efficiency’ is promoted to such an extreme that it is not
efficient anymore—as when human bodies are worn out by monotonous move-
ments, or employee safety is at stake—does some objection to the idea of efficiency
seem justified. (This topic is further discussed in Chap. 4.)
The fact that efficiency ideas were—and still are—carried out to an extreme has
given ‘Taylorism’ a bad name. To be classified as a ‘Neo-taylorist’; a Taylorist
disguised in modern rhetoric, is certainly no compliment.
Fayol fared differently. People do not go around accusing each other of being
‘Fayolists,’ most likely because they are all Fayolists, but unawares (Holmblad
Brunsson 2007). Though perfunctorily mentioned in many management textbooks,
Fayol as a person did not make much impact—he was put in the ‘rubbish bin’ of
management history (Parker and Ritson 2005: 1351). But his ideas are taken for
granted—to the extent of being cited more or less verbatim in management
accounting or management control textbooks (Harding 2003). In order to remember
what management is all about, British students are asked to memorize the acronym
POSDCORB—planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting,
budgeting—prescriptions which are only slightly different from Fayol’s account
(Watson 2001).
Like Taylor, Fayol engaged in professional discourse where he related his
managerial experience and ventilated his views on the training of engineers. His
views on management were not as clearly related to a ‘movement’ as those of
Taylor, but perhaps Fayol, too, articulated views that somebody else might other-
wise have published. There is a striking similarity between Fayol’s conclusions and
those of Florence Nightingale fifty years earlier.

2.3 Nursing Views

More often than not, Florence Nightingale is portrayed a the self-sacrificing nurse,
who cared for sick and dying soldiers during the Crimean war in the middle of the
19th century; she was ‘an angel made human’ (Moberg 2007: 15, translated from
Swedish). But Nightingale was a clever manager and organizer, whose great
interest lay with economy and statistics. Due to this interest she succeeded in
radically reducing the mortality rate among the British soldiers (Wendt 1989).
Nightingale focused on nursing and health care; nevertheless, her observations
and conclusions resemble those of Henri Fayol fifty years later. Like Fayol,
Nightingale appreciated planning and organizational hierarchy (cited from Ulrich
1997: 20):
18 2 Management Methods

The very essence of all good organization is that every body should do her (or his) own
work in such a way as to help and not hinder every one else’s work.

Like Taylor and Fayol, Nightingale emphasized that managers must observe and
encourage their subordinates. Routines should be installed to guarantee that orga-
nizational activities be carried out even if the responsible manager was absent. Like
the two engineers, Nightingale argued that her recommendations were generally
applicable. But whereas Fayol asked for a general management education,
Nightingale saw experience as the decisive factor for good nursing. Nurses must
learn to closely observe their patients (Dock 2007, cited from Wendt 1989: 9):
This is the reason why nursing proper can only be taught by the patient’s beside, and in the
sickroom or ward. Neither can it be taught by lectures or by books, though these are
valuable accessories, if used as such; otherwise what is in the book stays in the book.

Despite many similarities with later management ideas, Nightingale’s manage-

ment recommendations were all but forgotten—perhaps because Nightingale was a
woman who claimed to have her calling from God; perhaps because she was
seriously ill and spent almost thirty years in bed (Moberg 2007). An important
additional reason is probably her loose connection with any existing organization.
Taylor and Fayol both referred to the positive effects of their recommendations on
organizational efficiency, which Nightingale could not do.
Whichever the case, the ideas of another woman interested in management—
Mary Parker Follett—were similarly ignored.

2.4 Social Views

When, in the early 1940s, management expert Peter Drucker first became interested
in management, he asked knowledgeable colleagues about the most influential
people in the field. No one mentioned Mary Parker Follett. Only ten years later,
when Drucker was already professor of management, did he hear her name for the
first time (Drucker 1995/2003).
Yet in the late 1920s and early 1930s Mary Parker Follett was a well-known
management writer. She had no business experience, but businessmen in the US,
Great Britain and Japan appreciated her ideas nevertheless (Kanter 1995). Her book
The New State (1918/1998) was published only two years after Fayol’s
Administration industrielle et générale, but described an altogether different type of
management than that of either Taylor or Fayol.
Most importantly, Follett outlined prerequisites for democratic society in its
totality. To her, industrial organizations were but a means to a true democracy,
where interests were to be integrated, and neither the power of capital, nor that of
labor should dominate.
In contrast to Fayol, Follett did not describe coordination as a managerial
activity; instead she stressed reciprocal adaption and general agreement as coor-
dinating mechanisms. Divergent opinions within a group should spur a creative
2.4 Social Views 19

process and be understood as an experiment in cooperation, Follett maintained. And

a diversity of groups should be understood as a token of civilized society. Progress
was not primarily an effect of economic conditions, Follett argued; it should follow
from genuine cooperation.
Follett saw the neighborhood group as the primary basis for organizing society.
Individuals do not exist in isolation, she emphasized: there is only
‘self-in-and-through-others’ (1918/1998: 8). Not only do individuals depend on
others for their self-realization, but they are most ‘real’—and creative—when they
meet others face to face.
Contrary to organizations (but similar to the idea of individuals), neighborhood
groups have no preconceived objective. Instead, the evolvement of groups becomes
learning processes, where objectives emerge and change according to circumstance.
Nor did Follett (1927–28/1941) expect any preconceived center of group authority;
she expected the members of a group to work together and to solve problems
together (‘power-with,’ not ‘power-over’). Control should be the responsibility of
everyone, not left to a limited number of officials, as a Fayolist type of management
presumed.
Follett was ahead of her time in many respects and was later called ‘The prophet
of management’ (Drucker 1995/2003: 9). For example some of her ideas are similar
to those of stakeholder theory some sixty years later (Shilling 2000). Her ambition
was challenging: it implied a fundamental change of the existing social order. But
Follett seems to have underestimated peoples’ mobility and the precariousness of
the neighborhood groups on which she based her organizing ideals (Mattson 1998).
Neither Follett, nor Nightingale explicitly addressed organizations, but as it
turned out, organizations became all the more robust—and the most attractive loci
for ever-new ideas of management.

2.5 Management Fashions

An increasing number of organizations worldwide helps explain an increasing

number of management ideas (Alvesson 2006; Røvik 2008). Neither academics, nor
other management writers or management consultants are content with sticking to
the Fayolist conclusions they teach to university students. Instead, they want to go
beyond this ‘traditional’ approach to management and propose something new,
hopefully more insightful, and hopefully more productive in terms of organizational
success.
Over the years, different approaches to management were given different names,
as they dominated managerial discourse (Table 2.1).
As seen from this exposition, ideas of (arguably) functional management
methods come and go. At one time focus should be on the employees; at another on
the ‘culture’ of the workplace. Because many ideas are popular only for a limited
period of time, scholars coined the phrase ‘management fashions’ (Abrahamson
1996).
20 2 Management Methods

Table 2.1 Some popular management methods

1950s Management by objectives (MBO), program evaluation and review technique
(PERT), employee assistance programs (EAPs)
1960s Sensitivity training and T-groups
1970s Quality-of-worklife programs, quality circles
1980s Corporate culture, total quality management (TQM), international standards
organization 9000 (ISO 9000), benchmarking
1990s Employee empowerment, horizontal organizations, vision, reengineering, agile
strategies, core competencies
Carson et al. (2000: 1144)

Table 2.2 Attributes of 1. A bias for action—the excellent firms were not paralyzed by
excellent business firms analysis. Instead, the standard operating procedure was: ‘do
according to Peters and it, fix it, try it’
Waterman
2. Close to the customer—the firms became excellent because
they got their best product ideas from their customers
3. Autonomy and entrepreneurship—the firms were innovative
because they encouraged practical risk taking and supported
good tries
4. Productivity through people—the excellent firms treated the
rank and file people as the source of quality and productivity
gains
5. Hands-on, value driven—the basic philosophy and a close
relationship between managers and subordinates proved to be
decisive for excellence
6. Stick to the knitting—excellent performance was more likely
for firms that stayed close to the businesses they knew how to
run
7. Simple form, lean staff—the excellent firms had a small
top-level staff, none used a matrix organization structure
8. Simultaneous loose-tight properties—the excellent firms
were both centralized and decentralized; centralized around a
few core values, but allowing product teams or the shop floor
a great amount of autonomy
Peters and Waterman (1982: 13–16)

2.6 Some Success Recipes

In the early 1980s, a study of 43 large—and ‘top performing’—US business firms

from various industries led to a widely spread ‘success recipe’ of eight recom-
mendations (Peters and Waterman 1982, Table 2.2).
As it turned out, however, only a few years later the ‘top-performing’ firms
performed below average. The authors of the excellence recommendations did not
take into account that success often makes firms change averse, while competition
2.6 Some Success Recipes 21

increases—or that rapid environmental change is often difficult to predict (Ansoff

1987; Clayman 1987). So the search for a success recipe continued.
Some twenty years later a study of 28 successful US business firms with a
history of long-term mediocre and long-term (at least 15 years) exceptional per-
formance concluded that these firms combined a strong belief in the value of their
business and concentration on their unique competence (Collins 2001). The
‘hedgehog’ concept required discipline: disciplined people, disciplined thinking,
and disciplined action. Business firms should be simultaneously change averse and
change prone; they should keep a core of fundamental values, but be open for
changes of goals, strategy or culture. Careful analysis should precede any important
decision.
And ten years after that, a similar study of seven exceptionally successful US
business firms, which, in addition, experienced turbulent environments, found disci-
pline, creativity, and paranoia to be hallmarks of success (Collins and Hansen 2011):
• Discipline: the top managers of the successful firms were individuals who stuck
to their long-term goals and fundamental values, irrespective of any external
pressure or social norms.
• Creativity: the successful firms did not trust authorities or conventional wisdom
in times of uncertainty; instead, their decisions and actions were empirically
based, which reduced risks and provided for creativity based on self-assurance.
• Paranoia: the successful firms were extremely cautious; even when things were
running smoothly, they reckoned with potential failure, therefore systematically
built slack into their organizations.
The authors of these ‘success recipes’ all emphasized that management must
adapt to the unique premises of individual organizations; in this sense they com-
bined Tayloristic and Fayolist viewpoints. Their general and prudent recommen-
dations further indicated that they were anxious to be politically correct and popular
with many.
In contrast to Taylor and Fayol, who based their conclusions on their own
experience—and seem convinced that they were right—later management writers
based their recommendations on studies. Interviews and documents were their main
sources of information, and this is probably one reason why these writers preferred
to phrase their ‘new’ management methods in a cautious and ambiguous manner.
Besides outlining their recommendations in a non-specific way, many authors of
popular management books (also referred to as the ‘Heathrow organization theory;’
Burrell 1989) simplify: they disregard managerial practice and refer only to the
change that they find urgent, they make subordinates into predictable, easily
manipulated, submissive and fairly uninteresting figures, and they deal with man-
agerial attitudes, rather than technical or organizational aspects of management
(Holmblad Brunsson 2007). Yet they claim to propose new modes of management,
which are bound to lead to organizational success.
22 2 Management Methods

2.7 Evidence-Based Management

All too often, managers allow management fashions to substitute for thinking, or
finding out what actually works in their organizations, say the authors of a book on
evidence-based management, copying an idea from the field of medicine (Pfeffer
and Sutton 2006). Arguably, evidence-based management is no new management
method: It is a new approach to management, a new mind-set.
Evidence-based management should not build on emotions, or the personal
charm of the manager, but on experience. It questions the predominant Fayolist
view on general management and proposes a modern, politically correct, version of
Taylorism.
‘Half-truths’ rather than specific advice to managers tend to dominate. The
proponents of evidence-based management question, for example, presumptions to
the effect that:
• the best organizations have the best people—while, in fact, talent is difficult to
identify; it is not stable over time but can be developed; besides, the ‘best’
people are likely to move on to some other organization,
• financial incentives drive company performance—while, in fact, incentives are
blunt signals of what is important; less may be as effective as more,
• strategy is destiny—while, in fact, competitive advantage comes from having—
and using—rare and valuable resources, not from having the right strategy,
• change is always necessary for organizational survival—while, in fact, change
should not be undertaken for its own sake, but only after careful scrutiny of its
advantages over the existing mode of production.
The general proposition—to base management on experience and facts—con-
curs with ideas of formal rationality, which appear similarly sensible, but are
unrealistic with regard to managerial practice (see Chap. 5 for a detailed explanation
of this argumentation). Some more specific advice may be questioned: Is it actually
efficient to let subordinates organize their own work? Is it true that cozy work
environments promote efficiency? Are meetings where people stand more efficient?
The fact that evidence-based management is based on highly general, but
unrealistic, and specific, but doubtful, recommendations indicates once more that
there is no certainty as to which management methods actually make organizations
successful. It is easier to find and attack management ‘half-truths’ than to replace
them with generally accepted truths.

2.8 Process Organizations

While Fayol (1916/1949) saw organizing as one way for managers to create a
special kind of order in their organization, later scholars used the gerund form of
‘organization’—organizing—to describe organizations not as fixed entities, but as
2.8 Process Organizations 23

natural, non-hierarchical phenomena, constantly changing and adapting to various

circumstances (Weick 1969/1979; Czarniawska 2003, 2004). (Gerund is a hybrid
between a verb and noun; Jespersen 1933/1954.) The organizing idea has little
room for people. Management becomes unimportant, even problematic (Weick
1969/1979).
Though allegedly based on the notion of organizing, the idea of process organi-
zations again makes a distinction between management and organization, however.
Like the idea of organizing, the idea of process organizations refers to nature,
and changes that are embedded in everything natural but independent of human
interference. In both cases, organizations are seen to make ‘discoveries,’ rather than
construct man-made order (Weick 1969/1979; Hammer 1996). (The connotations of
‘process’ are different from those of ‘procedure,’ an arrangement to create order,
which clearly involves people. The literature on organizations and management has
been much attracted by process ideas, while finding procedures to be boring,
bureaucratic inventions.)
Despite an explicit mistrust of hierarchical managerial arrangements, descrip-
tions of process organizations nevertheless include hierarchies. In these organiza-
tions there are peer reviews, ‘process owners,’ ‘coaches’ and ‘business leaders’
(Hammer 1996). Perhaps ‘process owner,’ or ‘coach,’ or ‘business leader’ are more
attractive titles than ‘manager,’ because they signal something new and different
from the previous—old and boring—Fayolist view on organizing. But other than
that the idea of process organizations was yet another attempt at finding the optimal
management method. When operationalized, the idea of organizing turned into yet
another success recipe.

2.9 No Winning Formula

In 1999, thirteen scholars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) wanted to find out which managerial practices succeed and which fail in
globalized society. They took a bottom-up perspective on this question, and spent
five years studying industries where technologies had been changing rapidly, such
as electronics and software, and industries with slow change, such as autos and auto
parts, and textile and apparel industries. Their conclusions were based on 500
interviews in twelve countries across the world (Berger 2006: 24, italics added):
… there’s no winning formula for success.

The MIT scholars found that few business firms do well forever. Whether or not
firms are seen to be successful depends on when they were studied. Despite
‘mountains of information’ (p. 144) research cannot identify long-term winners.
A variety of management methods may prove viable in the same environment.
24 2 Management Methods

2.10 Belief in Methods

One might expect that an extensive and careful study, such as that of the MIT
scholars, would bring an end to the idea that certain management methods are more
likely to lead to organizational success than others. But that does not seem to be the
case. Instead, new methods appear, not only in slender popular books in airport
bookstores, but also as widespread beliefs that a different management focus—
change—will truly benefit the future of the organization. There are at least three
possible reasons for this:
(i) Managers who find that they spend their days solving all sorts of mundane
but urgent problems become frustrated; they never find time to manage (Hill
1992). By adopting a new management method, they hope to come closer to
an ideal view on management.
(ii) Managers who have difficulties relating their work to the (relative) success of
their organization feel uncertain about their own management approach. It is
safer to do as others do and copy some popular method. Besides, this
behavior proves that managers are up to date and change prone.
(iii) Managers who are appointed as managers by an organization must do
something. If they implement—or try to implement, or talk about imple-
menting—a new management method, it becomes apparent that they meet
expectations of being hard-working, change prone and modern managers.
Managers may be well acquainted with the idea of management fashions; they
know that there is no winning formula for success. Yet they adopt ever-new
management methods, because, they must believe that there is a relationship
between the way they manage and organizational success.
****
Can managers perhaps base their next adoption of a new management method on
some solid management theory? That is the question for the next chapter.

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26 2 Management Methods

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Chapter 3
Management Theory

‘There is nothing so practical as a good theory,’ said Lewin (1951: 169) in an

often-cited statement. He addressed psychologists, and argued that a lack of theory
will make science into a collection of data and descriptions. Frederick Winslow
Taylor and Henri Fayol were both interested in making management into a topic for
systematic studies. But whether or not they developed theory is a different matter.
Taylor (1911/1998) was indifferent to the idea of theory: Management should
build on a combination of activities; most importantly a scientific attitude, he
argued. Simple rules of thumb were useless, Taylor argued, instead close exami-
nation of people’s movements, their capacity to endure, and their reaction to
incentives, were called for. The aim was to fully use everybody’s competence and
capacity, which in turn should lead to increased production and cost reductions.
Whether or not his work was called theoretical was irrelevant (cited from Wren
2005: 150):
… all the men that I know of who are connected with scientific management are ready to
abandon any scheme, any theory, in favor of anything else that can be found which is
better.

Although Taylor was—and still is—influential, the modern idea of management

is based on the perception that basically the same managerial activities are relevant
for all kinds of organizations, as was the presumption of Fayol’s (1916/1949)
management recommendations.

3.1 Management Education

As the previous chapter observed, Fayol (1916/1949) was an ardent proponent of a

general management education. The mothers should be the first management
teachers, to be followed by elementary school training, and, most important,
management courses as part of the engineering studies. Because many future
engineers were also future managers, it was necessary for them to have manage-
ment knowledge, Fayol argued. A general management education should substitute

© The Author(s) 2017 27

K. Brunsson, The Teachings of Management, SpringerBriefs in Business,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-56120-2_3
28 3 Management Theory

for the advanced training in mathematics, for which the engineers-as-managers

would have little or no use (Fayol 1916/1949: 84):
Long personal experience has taught me that the use of higher mathematics counts for
nothing in managing business and that engineers, mining or metallurgical, scarcely ever
refer to them.

Over the past one hundred years, Fayol’s request for a general management
education was granted to an overwhelming degree: MBA programs were developed
in the 1950s, and there was a demand for rigorous professional training, and a
‘coherent core’ (Barley and Kunda 1992: 376; Locke 1998). Management became a
popular academic subject, attracting many more students than either law or medi-
cine (Navarro 2005).
It follows from this development that management scholars became interested in
making their work ‘theoretical.’ This is a logical outcome of the nature of academic
work, where theory is the output of the endeavors, the very ‘product’ that scholars
should deliver (Holmblad Brunsson 2001). Theory makes scholars different from
for example consultants. Many journals that specialize in academic writing further
ask those who want to publish their articles to make ‘theoretical contributions.’ This
is true also of management journals.

3.2 A Crave for Theory

Like Taylor, Fayol maintained that his recommendations were valid for all kinds of
organizations; the family and the nation state alike. But in contrast to Taylor, Fayol
made no scientific claims. He saw his recommendations as a first step towards a
management theory (doctrine in French). If only other experienced managers took
the trouble to summarize and systematize their experience, such a theory would
emerge within the near future, Fayol believed. He described his own recommen-
dations, which were based on a combination of personal work experience, moral-
izing and pure conjecture, as an invitation to a discussion and exchange of
experience.
After Fayol, many asked for a management theory. This is true, for example of
management expert Peter Drucker, who in the mid-1950s believed that within
twenty years fundamental management principles would be developed. There were
reasons, Drucker believed (1954/1986: 288):
for the hope that, twenty years from now, we shall be able to spell out basic principles,
proven policies and tested techniques for the management of workers and work.

Ten years later, Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon was of a similar opinion:
management research had been so successful that a ‘viable science of management’
was clearly feasible (Sass 1982, cited from Locke 1998: 151).
But these expectations did not materialize. Some continue to hope; they find that
management knowledge is still lacking (Suddaby et al. 2011). Others point out that
3.2 A Crave for Theory 29

general relationships do not apply to individual organizations; reality is too varied

(von Hayek 1989), an observation that coincides with the conclusion that man-
agement ideas are no more coherent than a collection of anecdotes and case studies
(Corley and Gioia 2011).
The observation that there is not—yet—a coherent and generally accepted man-
agement theory is problematic for academic students of management. Fortunately,
there are many ways of defining ‘theory,’ including that of making recommendations
‘theoretical.’

3.3 Three Questions

Three questions are germane to the formulation of theory: what, how and why
(Whetten 1989).
The question what defines the phenomena included in one theory. A description
of how the different phenomena interrelate clarifies causal relationships and makes
the theory orderly. And the question why is ‘the glue’ that makes the theory hold
together (Whetten 1989: 491). By answering this question scholars describe the
logic on which they build their theory.
If ‘theory’ is primarily a descriptive and explanatory concept (as the account above
implies)—how does it combine with the ideas of improvement to be found in many
management recommendations? Is theory at all compatible with recommendations?
The immediate answer to this question is no. There is no generally accepted way
to derive ought from is (Lyotard 1979/1993; Føllesdal et al. 1990/1993)—unless
there is a normative content inherent in the very description, as with promises or
duties (Searle 1964). But this is not the case with management; rather people draw
radically different conclusions on how managers should behave, even when they
agree on the significance of management.
Theory-based predictions presume relationships that prove valid for long periods
of time. When scholars make recommendations without any support of such rela-
tionships, they base these recommendations on their own values and judgments,
like Fayol or any other citizen (although, perhaps, they are better at camouflaging
it). This is a frustrating conclusion for scholars who aspire to simultaneously for-
mulate management theory and help organizations become successful. It is prob-
ably one reason why ‘theory’ is a popular but sensitive concept within management
research.
• A study of 120 articles published in three well-known academic journals in 2005
found that all authors mentioned the word ‘theory.’ On an average this word was
mentioned eight times in articles on marketing, finance or accounting but 18
times in articles about management (Hambrick 2007, italics added).
30 3 Management Theory

3.4 Normative Theory

If it is true that is and ought can only be related with the help of judgments and
values, and that management ideas are clearly instrumental—how do management
scholars approach the topic of management theory (besides talking about it)? The
argumentation above implies that management theory is a so-called oxymoron, a
combination of contradictory words. Management scholars handle this situation in
different ways.
One way is to ignore the problem and talk about management theory as if there
were such a thing. When that is the case, management theory may be used as a
contrast to managerial practice. ‘Theory’ may then combine with other nouns, such
as concept, purpose, or contribution: ‘theoretical concept,’ ‘theoretical purpose,’
‘theoretical contribution’—but with little or no explanation of the meaning of the
different phenomena. In this manner, management theory is talked into existence,
like a social construction (Hines 1988).
Another way of handling the management theory issue is to presume that
renowned management scholars or experts all developed theory. Although they did
not make any such claims themselves, many presume that Taylor or Fayol devel-
oped theories, as did Mary Parker Follett’s, Peter Drucker, Heny Mintzberg or
Michael Porter (Schwartz 2007; Pryor and Taneja 2010). They take this for granted
and do not question or scrutinize their presumption—or the views of the persons in
question.
Yet another way is to subtly mix accounts for an actual situation (or assertions
that a specific situation exists) with normative claims. Such subtle accounts dom-
inate management accounting and management control textbooks, where the
authors refer to managerial practice either by describing how successful business
firms worked in certain circumstances, or by asserting that a behavior (which the
authors find clever) is common among successful firms (Holmblad Brunsson 2011).
These authors make little distinction between description and prescription. ‘Theory’
may refer to a recommendation or a norm, or to empirically valid experience. This
is close to Fayol’s definition of theory, which builds on experience from practice
(1916/1949: 15):
… theory, that is to say, a collection of principles rules, methods, procedures, tied and
checked by general experience.

A related way of handling problems with normative theory, which textbook

authors also use, is to view their own methods and recommendations as theoretical.
When that is the case, everything mentioned in a textbook is ‘theory’ (Scapens 1985;
Ax et al. 2009). This approach resembles the conclusion that all prominent man-
agement experts developed theory. ‘Theory’ becomes a combination of descriptions
and somebody’s opinions.
But there are also scholars who explicitly argue that norms should be understood
to be ‘theoretical,’ if not in all situations, then when it comes to management. They
define ‘theory’ in a way that allows theories to be normative, their argument being
3.4 Normative Theory 31

that management is an applied science, the very purpose of which is to help

organizations improve their chances of success (Drury and Dugdale 1992: 344–
345):
Theory should represent the desired state and practice should represent the current state.

Management scholars do not want to be mistaken for mere consultants (Malmi

and Granlund 2009). Rather, they want management to become a respected aca-
demic subject, which does not only borrow theories from other disciplines, or other
parts of the business study field (Malmi and Granlund 2009; Suddaby et al. 2011).
Preferably, an inferiority complex with relation to better-established academic
subjects, including organizational scholars, should be eliminated (Grey 1996).

3.5 Ambiguous Theory

The fact that scholars use the word ‘theory’ in different ways implies that this
concept has no one, generally accepted meaning. Editors of academic journals
profess to a tolerant attitude to the concept. For example, the editors of the pres-
tigious Academy of Management Review make clear that ‘theory’ may mean dif-
ferent things to different scholars (Colon 2002: 498; Brief 2003: 7):
There is no one way to write about theory.
[Academy of Management Review] assumes an understanding of the concept of ‘theory’; it
does not assume, however, that such a understanding is shared universally.

Yet many journals demand that scholars make theoretical contributions. Many
profess on their own account that they are indeed interested in theory, and this
seems to be especially true for management scholars. But when theory means many
things, anybody can construct theory, as they like best. Is this, perhaps, why ‘there
is nothing so practical as a good theory’—as Lewin (1951) argued?

3.6 Debatable Success

Management shall help make organizations successful—but does it? The answer to
this question is that this may be the case in individual instances, but there is no
management theory that establishes once and for all the general relationship
between management and success (March 2010). Rather, the old sentence that
theories do not stand the test of practice still applies (March and Simon 1958: 32):
The theories tend to dissolve when put into testable form.
Nor is there any general agreement that there is such a thing as a management
theory. Those who speak about management theory (or theories) tend to add their
own views on how organizations ought to function. Perhaps it is easier to clarify
32 3 Management Theory

what theory is not, than to define this concept in an unambiguous way. Critics argue
that a predilection for theory leads authors to use this concept, when they are
referring to (Sutton and Staw 1995):
• references—and hide the absence of theory,
• data—and substitute empirical results for causal reasoning,
• lists of variables or constructs—and do not explain why variables or constructs
emerge and why they are connected,
• diagrams—and do not clarify why the proposed connections were observed, or
• hypotheses or predictions—and state concisely what they expect to occur, but
not why this is so.
The idea that there is a general relationship between management and organi-
zational success is—as yet—an understanding with an unclear relationship to
practice. But even those who reject the idea of theory and emphasize the importance
of managerial practice (like Frederick Taylor) must accept the existence of this kind
of relationship. This understanding is necessary as a basis for the understanding that
there are organizations, and as already noted this understanding is highly practical
in a society of organizations; the number one tenet of the teachings of management.

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