"We Are All Managers Now; We Always Were: On the Development and Demise of Management"

by Grey, C (1999)

Abstract

The existence of an identi®able group of people who are labelled `managers' has been one of the most signi®cant aspects of the organization of work and society for well over a century. This separation of managers from others has been questioned for some years by critical writers, not least because it ignores the many managerial activities performed by non-managers both in and outside the workplace. This argument suggests that the development of the `special' status of managers is a construction which requires explanation. Accepting this, three broad types of explanation are reviewed in the paper: technical, elite and political approaches. Notwithstanding these explanations, in recent years the logic ± although not necessarily the actuality ± of organizational change programmes, and especially of the concept of empowerment, has been suggestive of the `demise' of management, most especially middle management. This demise has implied an erosion of the distinction between managers and managed. Now, organizational members are told that `we are all managers', and the three approaches have various ways of explaining this, which are reviewed. Critics may reply that `we always were', thus welcoming a more democratic notion of management, but this paper argues that such a reply re¯ects an inadequate, and potentially oppressive, understanding of management.

Keywords

Managerialism, Critical Humanism, Weber, Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Sociology

Themes

Critical Management Studies, Organisation and Management Studies, Capitalism

Links to Reference

• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-6486.00149
• https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-6486.00149

Citation

Share

How to contribute.