Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking PDF
Preview Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking
FASHION AND UTOPIA IN MANAGEMENT THINKING Advances in Organization Studies Advances in Organization Studies includes cutting-edge work in comparative management and intercultural comparison, studies of organizational culture, communication, and aes- thetics, as well as in the area of interorganizational collaboration — strategic alliances, joint ventures, networks and collaborations of all kinds, where comparative, intercultural, and communicative issues have an especial salience. Purely theoretical as well as empirically based studies are included. General Editors Stewart Clegg School of Management University of Technology Sydney Quay Street, Haymarket P.O.Box 123 Broadway, NSW 2007 Australia [email protected] Alfred Kieser University of Mannheim D 68 131 Mannheim Germany [email protected] Volume 6 René ten Bos Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking Fashion and Utopia in Management Thinking RENÉ TEN BOS JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American 8 National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1984. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bos, René ten. Fashion and utopia in management thinking / René ten Bos. p. cm. -- (Advances in organization studies, ISSN 1566-1075 ; 6) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Management. I. Title. II. Series. HD31.B625 2000 658--dc21 00-056450 ISBN 90 272 3303 9 (Eur.) / 1 55619 996 1 (US) (Pb: alk. paper) © 2000 – John Benjamins Publishing Company No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 75577 · 1070 AN Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 27519 · Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 · USA “The peculiar thing about men of learning is exactly that they are never impressed by what they know: would they be capable of having this feeling, they would not have become men of learning.” Jan Emmens (Dutch poet and professor of art, 1924–1971) “The only thing worse than slavishly following management theory is ignoring it completely.” The Economist (26 Februari 1994) Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xi Chapter 1 Fashion, utopia, character, and gurus 1 Chapter 2 Strategy and the proliferation of realities 27 Chapter 3 Longing for leadership 65 Chapter 4 Culture, metaphor, and domestication 97 Chapter 5 Weltfremdheit and escapism 129 Chapter 6 Hard work, real work, friendship, and forgetfulness 157 Chapter 7 Escaping fashion? 181 Afterthoughts 203 References 207 Index 219 Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following three persons in particular: Juliette Helmer (for being there), Ton Wentink (especially for having the idea to bring together my ideas in a PhD-thesis and for detailed discussion), and Jac Geurts (for meticulously reading the first drafts of the manuscript and for discussions that went further than management theory as such). Other persons whom I would like to thank are Alfred Kieser (for close reading of later versions of the manuscript), Martin Parker (for delightful and friendly commentaries on my rhetoric), Frits Haselhoff (for his insistence on clarity), Stewart Clegg (for the idea to publish it and encouragement), Aernoud Witteveen (for lengthy discussions by phone), Wim van Beers (for disliking chapter five very much), Hugh Willmott (for having inspired me, in ways perhaps unclear to himself, to become involved with organization theory), Jos Benders (for providing me with articles I did not know or could not find), Kees van Veen (for a splendid night in Groningen), Joost van der Wal (for encouragement and human interest), Ton Voogt (for inspiration), Julia ten Bos (for beautiful drawings behind the computer and simply for being there), Willem de Wijs (for being such a terrific colleague), Monique van der Heijden (for doing many things that I myself would have screwed up), Monique Lindzen (for assistance with the PhD- version), Ruud Kaulingfreks (for being a splendid philosopher who, finally, did become a colleague), Jan Schouten (for enthusiasm and warmth), Boris ten Bos (for splendid colorfield paintings and for being there), Bert van Heesch (for detailed comments on chapter five), Frans Roovers (for having organized a meeting with which it all started), and, finally, my colleagues at Schouten & Nelissen (for their lack of consensus with respect to what I am doing in this text).
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