The Emptiness of Business Excellence: The Flawed Foundations of Popular Management Theory

117 Pages·2022·1.634 MB·English

by  David Collins, Jack Collins

‘This book is written with a wonderful sense of accessibility to the real
world of practice and with a nod to the relevance of big ideas, rendered
through a careful interpretation through the lens of “pracademia.” In taking
me back, it has propelled me forward, as all good books of this nature should
do. I recommend it wholeheartedly to any student, academic or practitioner
interested in progressive, real and accessible business thinking.’
Ian Robson, University of Dundee, UK
‘David Collins is my favourite writer on the cult of Excellence. In this book,
he and Jack Collins show that from day one it was a seriously flawed and
dangerous concept that ignored evidence of its unsound nature and lack of
substance. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know
why so many big companies serve their employees, their communities, and
the planet so very badly.’
Bernard Burnes, University of Stirling, UK.

The Emptiness of Business
Excellence
In Search of Excellence was the book that launched a thousand popular
management books. In this concise book, David and Jack Collins
demonstrate the emptiness of business excellence and in so doing reveal the
flawed foundations of popular management theory.
Focusing upon the conduct of those organizations vaunted as ‘exemplars
of excellence’ the authors build upon insightful case reports to demonstrate
wholesale misconduct at the very heart of the excellence project. Indeed,
The Emptiness of Business Excellence demonstrates that the exemplars
of excellence indulged bribery, corruption, racism, sexism and anti-
Semitism . . . and more besides! Furthermore, the book demonstrates that,
despite their claims to knowledge, Peters and Waterman often knew little
about the financial performance of their excellent organizations and were
either unaware of or had chosen to overlook reports which highlighted
deeply problematic conduct within those formations, which they offered
as beacons for change and renewal.
This book will be of interest to researchers, scholars and students with
an interest in business and management, especially those focusing on the
realities of managerial practice.
David Collins is Professor in Management at Northumbria University, UK
and Visiting Professor in Management at the University of the Faroe Islands.
Jack Collins is a student within the School of History, Classics and
Archaeology at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.
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The Flawed Foundations of Popular Management Theory
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The Emptiness of
Business Excellence
The Flawed Foundations of Popular
Management Theory
David Collins and Jack Collins
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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© 2023 David Collins and Jack Collins
The right of David Collins and Jack Collins to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-37623-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-37624-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-34108-6 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003341086
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
1 Introduction: The Enduring Significance of
In Search of Excellence 1
2 In Search of Excellence in Theory 8
3 In Search of Excellence in Practice 36
4 Conclusion: The Emptiness of Business Excellence 91
Bibliography 97
Index 102

1 Introduction
The Enduring Significance of
In Search of Excellence
On October 15 1982, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman (1982) published
In Search of Excellence.1 This book has, Kiechel (2010) suggests, become
iconic. It offers, he advises, perhaps the closest thing that the field of man-
agement studies has to an overarching organizing paradigm.
The book you now hold in your hands has been timed to coincide with
the 40th anniversary of the first publication of this iconic text. It has been
designed to offer an historical account of the development of In Search of
Excellence. In addition it has been arranged to offer a distinctive, critical
review of its core claims, orientations and, perhaps uniquely, its practices.
Going beyond the limitations of conventional critiques (see Chapter 2),
which focus upon excellence in theory, this book will offer critical reflec-
tions on the practice of business excellence and upon the lived experience
of those who have toiled within the (so-called) exemplars of business excel-
lence. These reflections on the practice of business excellence, as we shall
see, demonstrate, both, the emptiness of the excellence project and the
flawed foundations that it laid for popular management theory.
This introductory chapter has been designed to preface our core concerns.
It will demonstrate the reach and significance of In Search of Excellence
so that readers will understand why it is vital that we understand the core
philosophy advanced by Peters and Waterman in 1982 and the legacy of
their iconic text.
* * * * *
In Search of Excellence was written by two, largely anonymous manage-
ment consultants – Tom Peters and Robert (Bob) Waterman – who met
while working for and McKinsey Co. during the 1970s. By the mid-1980s
however this publication had transformed the lives of its authors. Indeed by
1985 Tom Peters and Bob Waterman were famous: in demand and indeed
widely feted as ‘gurus’ of management (see Collins, 2021). Today Peters
DOI: 10.4324/9781003341086-1