Ishak Saporta and Yehouda Shenhav
This article provides first‐hand, empirical data to demonstrate that during the Progressive period, mechanical engineers used labor unrest as a rhetorical device to increase…
Abstract
This article provides first‐hand, empirical data to demonstrate that during the Progressive period, mechanical engineers used labor unrest as a rhetorical device to increase public interest in management systems. This political strategy was necessary, given the objection of manufacturers to the installation of management systems in industrial firms. The study is based on systematic analysis of two magazines in which the study of management was first codified and crystallized: the Engineering Magazine, and the American Machinist.
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Michal Frenkel, Yehouda Shenhav and Hanna Herzog
The study of managerial ideologies focuses exclusively on the emergence of American models and their dissemination in other societies. Argues that the a‐political, scientific and…
Abstract
The study of managerial ideologies focuses exclusively on the emergence of American models and their dissemination in other societies. Argues that the a‐political, scientific and rational façade on which these models are premised is often incommensurate with the industrial experience of “non‐western” societies. Based on the historical case study of Palestine Potash Ltd (PPL), this study explores the development of managerial ideologies within the political and cultural context of pre‐state Israel in its formative stage (1920‐1948). While elaborating on the undocumented management history of Israel, demonstrates that American managerial ideologies were indeed imported, but their logic and casting were subordinated to national objectives. Furthermore, shows that Socialist‐National, idiosyncratic political ideology became a dominant ideology of employment management ‐ even in capitalistic firms ‐ allowing managers to acquire legitimation, control workers and increase profits of industrial enterprises.
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Beth Vanfossen and Frances Rothstein
The post‐World War ? period has been one of intense development activity throughout the world. Lesser developed countries have showed significant economic growth throughout this…
Abstract
The post‐World War ? period has been one of intense development activity throughout the world. Lesser developed countries have showed significant economic growth throughout this time‐span. Among the many consequences which are attributed to development, changes in gender relations are often mentioned. However, prior research has been unable to establish conclusively how economic development is related to gender inequality, particularly as this is referenced by women's participation in important economic activities. For example, some researchers have found that as development increases, women's participation in and return from the economy declines, others that it increases, and several have suggested it first declines then increases. Similar uncertainties exist about how an increasing emphasis on producing goods for export, and the often‐accompanying reliance on foreign investment, affects women's work. Recent research also suggests that the consequences of development are more diverse than previously thought. Recognition of the diversity requires greater specification of the links between developmental diversity and women's labor force participation.
The aim of this paper is to seek to reveal the familial roots of modern management thought, largely overlooked by a vast majority of management historians.
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to seek to reveal the familial roots of modern management thought, largely overlooked by a vast majority of management historians.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a hermeneutic approach, the early uses of the word “management” are analyzed, as well as the different literature where it is the most frequently employed.
Findings
“Management” does not mean primarily “business management.” Rather, the first meanings of this word refer to the family realm. As such, the development of early management thought is not a matter of technical or scientific innovation, nor is it a matter of institutional size or profit. For a long time, management practices have concerned things more than people. In the twentieth century, the principle of control comes to supersede the principles of care and self‐government.
Research limitations/implications
The paper's findings call for another history of management thought, as against the too narrow histories of modern business management and the too inclusive histories of management as an ancestral and universal practice.
Practical implications
This research sheds light on two forgotten roots of management thought: the principles of care and of self‐government, which management practitioners could bring up‐to‐date. By presenting the family as the first locus of true “management” thought, it is an invitation to draw from domestic ways of governing.
Originality/value
The historical material here analyzed remains largely unknown to management historians. The method, focusing on text analysis rather than on the study of practices, remains rare in the field of management history.
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This paper aims to contribute a qualitative analysis of practitioners' accounts to illuminate alternative approaches to social enterprise that tend to be neglected by predominant…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to contribute a qualitative analysis of practitioners' accounts to illuminate alternative approaches to social enterprise that tend to be neglected by predominant academic representations.
Design/methodology/approach
By analysing qualitative interviews, the paper examines the ways social entrepreneurs in Germany coproduce and reproduce the prevailing theoretical notions of social enterprise. The main themes of the interviews are elaborated upon to accentuate certain critical aspects that until now have not been the focus of attention in research. Alternative perspectives of the empirical data are developed which indicate patterns that are currently excluded from narrative practices of academia.
Findings
There are several insightful perspectives represented in the interview data: the (conspicuous) absence of managerialism as a dominant motivational feature; the complexity of the local political and social realm in which social entrepreneurs think and act in spontaneous, often “non‐rational” ways; and personal and biographical accounts of social entrepreneurs as an important self‐defining feature. The findings demonstrate the explanatory power of qualitative empirical accounts as a starting point to veer away from reductionist drawing‐board concepts of social enterprise.
Originality/value
These articulations of social entrepreneurs' own realities are important as they are sometimes at odds ideologically with managerial approaches to social enterprise which emphasize cost‐efficiency reasoning and financial independence.