Read more
Conceived by Chris Grey, the Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap series offers an antidote to conventional textbooks. Each book takes a core area of the curriculum and turns it on its head by providing a critical and sophisticated overview of the key issues and debates in an informal, conversational and often humorous way.
In Management Theory, Todd Bridgman and Stephen Cummings uncover enduring myths about famous theorists, from Adam Smith and Max Weber to Frederick Taylor, Mary Parker Follett, Abraham Maslow and Kurt Lewin. By exploring how these myths became cast as the foundations of management, this accessible and engaging book generates new ways of thinking about what management could be today and in the future.
Students can head to YouTube to watch a selection of specially-curated, bitesize videos - 20 Insights on Management Theory - which explain key topics relating to management theory. Lecturers can visit https://study.sagepub.com/bridgman to access a range of PowerPoint slides that can be used in their teaching.
List of contents
Chapter 1 Why another book on management theory?
Chapter 2 The Classical School: Looking again at the foundations of management theory
Chapter 3 Management theory discovers the human worker
Chapter 4 Fitting the worker to the organization: Personality, groups, teams and culture
Chapter 5 Heroic leaders and the glorification of change
Chapter 6 The rise of ethics and corporate social responsibility
Chapter 7 Conclusion: The past, present and future of management theory
About the author
Todd Bridgman (@toddbridgman) is Associate Professor in the School of Management at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Todd completed his PhD in organization studies at the University of Cambridge. His research interests lie at the intersection of management history, management education and critical management studies. In particular, he is interested in challenging conventional histories of management that appear in textbooks and writing alternative histories as a way of rethinking how management is taught to students. Todd edited The Oxford Handbook of Critical Management Studies (Oxford University Press, 2009) with Mats Alvesson and Hugh Willmott and his research won Best Paper prizes in Human Relations (with Stephen Cummings and Kenneth Brown) and Academy of Management Learning and Education (with Stephen Cummings and Colm McLaughlin). Todd is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Management Learning and is a member of the editorial boards of Academy of Management Learning and Education and Organization.
Stephen Cummings (@theatomnz) is Professor of Strategy and Innovation and Co-Director of The Atom Innovation Space, at Victoria University of Wellington. He completed his PhD at Warwick Business School. Stephen’s research investigates how assumptions about history can limit innovation and he is currently Co-Chair of the Critical Management Studies Division at The Academy of Management. His recent books include Handbook of Management and Creativity (Edward Elgar, 2014 – with Chris Bilton), Strategy Builder (Wiley, 2015 – with Duncan Angwin), A New History of Management (Cambridge University Press, 2015 – with Todd Bridgman, John Hassard and Michael Rowlinson), and the forthcoming A New History of Sustainable Management (Palgrave – with Todd Bridgman). His article, Unfreezing Change as Three Steps published in Human Relations (with Todd Bridgman and Kenneth Brown) has been downloaded over 200,000 times.
Summary
Debunks and uncovers a number of enduring myths about famous theorists such as Adam Smith and Abraham Maslow in an informal, conversational and often humorous way.
Report
Relentlessly probing the field's foundations, the authors fully overturn the conventional wisdom of management. Their gift is a vast space for imagining new futures. For the first time since the field began, limitless possibility is a realistic framework for moving forward.
Ellen O'Connor 20200511
