The Language of Managerialism: Organizational Communication or an Ideological Tool?

264 Pages·2023·6.181 MB·

by  Thomas Klikauer

Thomas Klikauer
The Language of
Managerialism
Organizational
Communication or an
Ideological Tool?
The Language of Managerialism
Thomas Klikauer
The Language of
Managerialism
Organizational Communication
or an Ideological Tool?
Thomas Klikauer
Sydney Graduate School of Management
Western Sydney University
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-031-16378-4 ISBN 978-3-031-16379-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16379-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
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This book is dedicated to
Alan Kurdi
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge the proofreading and editorial assistance and
support of, firstly, my adored and trusted proofreading friend, Meg Vista
who hammered the book into shape in the first place. Based on weeks of
her hard work, a fine-tuned book reached a presentable level.
Thanks also goes to my good friend Ralf Itzwerth without whom this
book—written between 2019 and 2022—would not have been possible.
Ralf sold an old Apple desktop computer to me on which this book was
written. Ralf also provided an on-going IT support.
Another thank-you goes to the German Foundation (boeckler.de/en)
that generously supported my transition from being a German country-
side boy who trained as a tool-maker and as a union representative to
eventually becoming an academic. I also thank the Union of Automobile
Workers in Detroit (uaw.org) where I learned, during an internship, how
to type with ten fingers.
A final thanks and, nonetheless, an equal thank-you also goes to the
following people for valuable critique over the past years: Stephen
Ackroyd, Herman Schwind, Henry Grioux, Richard Hyman, John
Trumpbour and Noam Chomsky.
A thank-you also goes to the Western Sydney University’s School of
Business because my workload granted me time for writing this book.
This book received no internal and external support. There was also no
funding, no institutional and editorial assistance. Nonetheless, I am
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viii Acknowledgement
grateful for the assistance of WSU’s Library and in particular, WSU’s
Document Delivery Service. A substantial thank-you goes to those col-
leagues who shielded me from the worst excesses of university
Managerialism. This allowed me to concentrate on the book rather than
filling in forms and write reports for corporate apparatchiks.
Furnished with time to engage in critical scholarship, this book is not
about empirical presentations. It is about an abstraction, the abstractions
of The Language of Managerialism. It is written in the spirit of the philoso-
pher Alfred Whitehead who once said, you cannot think without abstrac-
tions. Foremost, this book is written for people with the ability to think
in abstractions.
Contents
1 Introducing the Language of Managerialism 1
2 M odels of Managerialism 35
3 The Twelve Language Areas of Managerialism 65
4 The Language of Managerialism and Its Infiltration of the
Lifeworld 101
5 Business Schools and the Language of Managerialism 131
6 L anguage & Rationality 161
7 Corporate Apparatchiks and Superlatives 191
8 Conclusion: The Curse of the Language of Managerialism 223
I ndex 253
ix
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 The Organisational Model of Managerialism (M ).
A
M Management, M Managerialism 40
A
Fig. 2.2 The global model of Managerialism (M ). M Management,
A
M Managerialism 48
A
Fig. 2.3 The trident model of Managerialism (M ). M Management,
A
M Managerialism 50
A
Fig. 3.1 Neoliberalism’s and Managerialism’s language 67
Fig. 4.1 The language of management and Managerialism 102
Fig. 7.1 From Satanic Mills to ideology 205
Fig. 8.1 The structure of an ideal speech 243
xi
List of Tables
Table 1.1 The vocabulary of Managerialism 13
Table 3.1 Current fields with manifestations of Managerialism 68
Table 3.2 Comparing two approaches to Managerialism 69
Table 3.3 Different forms of Managerialism 69
Table 3.4 The twelve elements of the language of Managerialism 69
Table 5.1 The historical epochs of business organisations 138
Table 6.1 A classification of management journals 166
Table 7.1 Key actors and institutions of the interest symbiosis 192
Table 7.2 Some acronyms used by Managerialism 196
Table 7.3 QS world university rankings: global MBA rankings 2020 214
Table 8.1 A University’s mission statement, goals and values 232
Table 8.2 Three conditions for ideal speech 239
Table 8.3 Three forms of arguments 240
Table 8.4 Sentence formulation for discourses 241
Table 8.5 Four theories of truth 242
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