Teaching business philosophy.
Reasoning about rationality
in management education
Christian T. Lystbaek
Ass. prof.
School of business and social science
Aarhus University
ABSTRACT
This paper describes and discusses the philosophical underpinnings of teaching
business philosophy. Management textbooks and curricula are dominated by a
“managerialistic” logic or ideology according to which rational planning, prediction
and control is the basis of managerial power and legitimacy. Critics have made
clear that this conception of rationality is reductionist. But the critique often
dismisses rationality altogether as the failed project of the Enlightenment.
My paper will argue that rationality should be seriously engaged with in
management education, but that such a serious engagement will illuminate
business rationality as a multi-faceted concept. Thus, teachers of Business
Philosophy should not be in the “trade” of promoting managerialism, neither in the
“trade” of diminishing it. Rather, illuminating business rationality as a multi-faceted
concept, allows us to teach Business Philosophy in a theoretical fruitful and
ethically engaged manner that challenges us to see rationality as a form of activity
or labor.
KEYWORDS
Teaching, Business Philosophy, Rationality
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Teaching business philosophy.
Reasoning about rationality in management education
Christian T. Lystbaek. Ass. prof., School of business and social science, Aarhus University
christianl@hih.au.dk
Managerialism in Moderns Business Philosophy
Management and managers are important in today´s world because what they do has impact on
evereone´s lives. As Peter Drucker has famously stated:
“The emergence of management in this [the 20th] century may have been a pivotal event in
history. It signaled a major transformation of society into a pluralist society of institutions, of
which managements are the effective organs.” (Drucker, 1973:1)
Thus, according to Drucker, the 20th century witnessed a management boom that changed
society permanently. Management has become a familiar and legitimate social practice, a
position of status supported by institutional and social norms that gave managers the right to
hire, fire, give orders, control and evaluate the efficiency and productivity of the performance of
others in the interest of profit or providing service for the common good.
Along with the management boom came the professionalization of management and the growth
of management and organization studies. The first MBA was offered by Harvard Business
School in 1910. In 1923, the American Management Association was established, followed by
the British Institute of Management in 1947. The second part of the 20th century saw the more
widespread emergence of Business Schools offering courses leading to certificates, diplomas,
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masters and ph.D.s. Hence, today, studies of management are seen as vital to the development
of “professional” managers.
But (and here comes the point), there is general consensus that an instrumental conception of
rationality dominates management studies, that is, a conception that pinpoints rational planning,
prediction and control in management. For example, Cassell & Lee (2011) states, in their
introduction to a recent anthology on Challenges and Controversies in Management Research,
that “a seemingly enduring feature of contemporary management research is the dominance of
an Anglo-American positivist tradition.” (Cassell & Lee, 2011:2). Similarly, Ann Cunliffe states
that management studies (in research and study programs) have been dominated by rational
models, which have defined the characteristics of managerial functions, activities, roles and
competencies in rationalistic terms. She describe this as the ideology of Managerialism, that is
“a kind of systemic logic, […] a way of doing and being in organizations which has the ultimate
goal of enhancing efficiency through control.” (Cunliffe, 2009:17)
This logic or ideology can be identified in the vast proportion of prescriptive models of
managerial work and activities, according to which rational planning, prediction and control is
the basis of managerial power and legitimacy. There is general agreement that it dominates
management textbooks and curricula. Gill & Johnson (2010:4) states that this “orthodoxy within
management research […] is maintained by very powerful institutional pressures.” These
institutional pressures come from management academics, management consultants and
management practitioners alike. They, or rather we, all want to be, or at least appear to be,
rational and right: We want to be in the lead of things in the sense of having the right answers to
management questions and the right solutions to management problems.
The Critique of Managerialism in Business Philosophy
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Throughout the history of management studies, though, and especially in the second part of the
20th century, a series of management studies have criticized the dominant view of management.
Studies of what managers actually do – e.g. from Carlson´s (1951) study of Swedish
executives, through Stewart´s (1967) study of UK managers, and to Mintzberg´s (1973) study of
US CEOs – have contradicted the rationalistic view of management, suggesting instead that
managerial work is subject to uncertainty, and that management activities are fragmented and
involve making choices within constraints and conflicting values.
The critique pinpoints that organizations are characterized by ambiguities, dilemmas and
incommensurable values. Thus, ambiguity is endemic in all organization. Over-reliance on
managerialism, which seeks to resolve ambiguities in the interests of control and accountability,
has made life difficult for managers and practitioners. Managerialism diverts practitioners from
their core task of providing and promoting goods or service into an expanding range of
managerialist roles. Thus, management could be constraining the very activity they are there to
provide and facilitate. Managers and front-line practitioners will live with these ambiguities and
cope with them on a daily basis.
To sum up: The first wave of management studies is dominated by an instrumental or
“managerialist” conception of rationality. A second wave of management studies have made
clear that this conception of rationality is reductionist, but the critique often dismisses rationality
altogether as the failed project of the Enlightenment.
In the final part of the paper I will argue that rationality should be seriously engaged with as a
concept, but that such a serious engagement will illuminate rationality as a multi-faceted
concept.
This conception allows us to engage with rationality in a theoretical fruitful and ethically
engaged manner that challenges us to see rationality as a form of activity or labor.
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As a methodological framework of analysis, the paper argues that what has been suggested as
the “The Stacey Matrix” (Brenda Zimmerman, following Stacey, 2000) might guide management
students in dealing or coping with, and in this broad sense “managing” the risk of managerialism
as well as other forms of reductionist tendencies within management studies. This framework
suggests that the tasks and issues of management can be more or less close to certainty and
more or less close to agreement. Only when the issues are close to certainty and close to
agreement, can managers use instrumental techniques of linear planning and control. This is
sound management practice for issues and decisions that fall in this area. But when issues are
not close to certainty or close to agreement, other forms of management are called for. Fx.
when issues have a high degree of agreement, but not much certainty as to the effects of
particular initiatives to create the desired outcome, technical monitoring against a preset plan
will properly not work. In such circumstances, a strong focus on shared missions or vision may
substitute for this kind of monitoring. Thus, the goal is to head towards an agreed upon future
state even though the specific paths cannot be predetermined. Other issues have a high degree
of certainty about how outcomes are created, but equally have a high degree of disagreement
about which outcomes are desirable. Thus, neither plans nor shared mission are likely to work
in such circumstances. Instead, politics become more important in the sense that negotiation,
coalition building, and compromise may be necessary in order to deal with the situation.
Situations where there are very high levels of uncertainty and disagreement. Stacey
denominates this the zone of complexity. In this zone of complexity the traditional management
approaches are not very effective, but it is the zone of high creativity, innovation, and breaking
with the past to create new modes of operating.
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Figure 1. The Stacy Matrix
Far from
Political
Chaos
agreement
management
Complexity
Close to
Technical
Value
agreement
management
management
Close to
Far from
certainty
certainty
Following The Stacey Matrix, what determines the form of management is to what extent the
tasks and issues of the management are more or less close to certainty and more or less close
to agreement. But the level of certainty and agreement can themselves be contested, and thus,
object of uncertainty and disagreement.
The Stacey Matrix provides a methodological framework for analyzing how different forms of
reasoning is relevant in different situations and circumstances. This allows teachers of business
philosophy us address how different forms of management exhibit their own distinctive and nonreducible forms of organized rationality, thus allowing for considerations on both rigor and
relevance, and, hence, for managing managerialism as other management problems – in
responsive and responsible ways.
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Thus, teachers of Business Philosophy should not be in the “trade” of promoting managerialism,
neither in the “trade” of diminishing it. Rather, illuminating business rationality as a multi-faceted
concept, allows us to teach Business Philosophy in a theoretical fruitful and ethically engaged
manner that challenges us to see rationality as a form of activity or labor.
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References
Bennis, Warren and Nanus, Burt. Leaders. 1985. The Strategies for Taking Charge. Harper and
Row: New York, 1985
Carlson, S. 1951. Executive Behavior. University of California
Cassell & Lee. 2011. Introduction. In Cassell & Lee (eds). 2011 Challenges and Controversies
in Management Research. London: Routledge
Cunliffe, A. 2009. A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about
management. London:Sage
Drucker, P. 1973. Management: Task, Responsibilities, Practices. New York: Harper & Row
Gill & Johnson. 2010. Research Methods for Managers. London: Sage (4th ed.)
Mintzberg, H. 1973. The Nature of Managerial Work. New York: Harper & Row
Mintzberg, H, B. Ahlstrand and J. Lampel (eds). 2010. Management. It isn´t what you think.
Canada: Person
Parker, M. 2004. Against Management. Cambridge: Polity Press
Stacey, R. 2000. Strategic management and organisational dynamics: the challenge of
complexity. Harlow: Prentice Hall, 2011
Stewart, R. 1967. Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the
Way Managers Spend Their Time. Basingstoke. The MacMillan Press, 1988
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