Defining Management

Defining Management charts the expansion of management as an idea and practice from a time when it was limited to churches and households to its current ubiquity, focusing in particular on the role of business schools, consultants, and business media in this process.

How did an entire industry develop around business schools, consultants, and business media who are now widely considered the authorities regarding best management practice? This book shows how these actors – on their own and in interaction –

1. became taken-for-granted and gained such definitional power over management and managers,
2. expanded across the globe from often modest and not always respected origins, and
3. impacted, and continue to impact businesses and, increasingly, the broader economic and social context.

Building on extant and some new research, the book is unique in bringing together issues and actors that have been examined elsewhere separately.

Any student or professional of management interested in the evolution of their field or the rise of business schools, consultants and business media will find this book both novel and thought-provoking.

Lars Engwall is Professor Emeritus of Business Studies at Uppsala University, Sweden. He has published widely on institutional change and the diffusion of management ideas, in particular the role of management education and of the media.

Matthias Kipping is Professor of Policy and Chair in Business History at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada. He has published many articles and co-edited two books on the consulting business.

Behlül Üsdiken is Professor of Management and Organization at Sabancı University, Turkey. His work on business education and organizational research has appeared in various journals, including the Journal of Management Studies, as well as in edited collections.