What is management and how do the people who become managers take on a managerial identity? How does text inform the manager's identity? From cultural studies we understand that the relationship between text and reader is not passive but that each one works upon the other, and that text is active in forming the identity of the reader. This books is the first to analyse how many management textbooks construct their readers. It analyses management textbooks published since the 1950s and shows they construct a world in which chaos is kept at bay only by strong management, and in which strong management is based upon the rationality of modernity. This book exposes and analyses such claims-to-truths, and theorizes their arguments using the work of Butler and Foucault, the sociology of scientific knowledge, critical legal studies, art history and queer theory. By revealing a postmodern turn in management textbooks, The Social Construction of Management is both a critical and empirical study that explores the constitution of managerial identities in the age of mass education in management. An exciting contribution to the growing body of knowledge within critical management studies, this book challenges the way we think about organizations and their management, and about management education as a whole. This is thought provoking reading for anyone studying management, or working in the managerial organization.

Smart Strategies Series Invisible Management presents eleven empirical investigations into managerial leadership based on the frame of reference called social constructionism. The theoretical conclusions from these disclose a range of previously concealed aspects of management and leadership, which aim to inspire the practitioner and challenge the theoretician. Invisible Management follows the theme that managerial leadership is an interactional phenomenon, that managers are regarded as one of several important constructors and practitioners of organizational leadership, rather than exclusive helmsmen. The novel approach of Invisible Management revises the agenda for the discourse on management and leadership as currently conducted among academics and practitioners. It introduces three ingredients that are not widely recognised in existing research. These are, small talk, 'invisible' or unrecognised arenas and institutional dynamics. These three themes have been brought together in a deliberate attempt to rethink and reformulate both strategic management and (managerial) leadership theory.

In this conceptual guided tour of contemporary public administration, Jong S. Jun challenges the limitations of the discipline which, he argues, make it inadequate for understanding today's complex human phenomena. Drawing on examples and case studies from both Eastern and Western countries, he emphasizes critical and interpretive perspectives as a counterforce to the instrumental-technical rationality that reduces the field to structural and functionalist views of management. He also emphasizes the idea of democratic social construction to transcend the field's reliance on conventional pluralist politics. Jun stresses that public administrators and institutions must create opportunities for sharing and learning among organizational members and must facilitate interactive processes between public administrators and citizens so that the latter can voice their problems and opinions. The future role of public administrators will be to transcend the limitations of the management and governing of modern public administration and to explore ways of constructing socially meaningful alternatives through communicative action and the participation of citizens.

"The impact of technology on society is clear and unmistakeable. The influence of society on technology is more subtle. The 13 essays in this book have been written by a diverse group of scholars united by a common interest in creating a new field - the sociology of technology. They draw on a wide array of case studies - from cooking stoves to missile systems, from 15th-century Portugal to today's Al labs - to outline an original research program based on a synthesis of ideas from the social studies of science and the history of technology. Together they affirm the need for a study of technology that gives equal weight to technical, social, economic, and political questions"--Back cover.

A watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.

Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Ian Hacking’s book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality—especially regarding the status of the natural sciences.

There are many different forms of rationality. In current economic discourse the main focus is on instrumental rationality and optimizing, while organization scholars, behavioural economists and policy scientists focus more on bounded rationality and satisficing. The interplay with value rationality or expressive rationality is mainly discussed in philosophy and sociology, but never in an empirical way. This book shows that not one, but three different forms of rationality (subjective, social and instrumental) determine the final outcomes of strategic decisions executed by major organizations. Based on an argumentation analysis of six high-profile public debates, this book adds nuance to the concept of bounded rationality. The chapters show how it is socially constructed, and thus dependent on shared beliefs or knowledge, institutional context and personal interests. Three double case studies investigating the three rationalities illustrate how decision makers and stakeholders discuss the appropriateness of these rationalities for making decisions in different practice contexts. The first touches more on personal concerns, like wearing a niqab or looking at obscene art exposed in a public environment; the second investigates debates on improving the rights and position of specific minorities; and the third is based on the agreement on instrumental reasons for two kinds of investments, but the cost arguments are regarded less relevant when social norms or personal interests are violated. The Social Construction of Rationality is for those who study political economy, economic psychology and public policy, as well as economic theory and philosophy.

Why do I write about organizations in poetry? / Caroline Ramsey -- Making your way / Dian Marie Hosking and Sheila McNamee -- Organizational science and the promises of postmodernism / Kenneth J. Gergen and Tojo Thatchenkery -- Organizations, organizing, and related concepts of change / Dian Marie Hosking -- Patterns of engagement / Christopher James Blantern and Murray Anderson-Wallace -- Subject-object relations, knowledge and power / Dian Marie Hosking and Sheila McNamee -- Auditive leadership culture: lessons from symphony orchestras / Niina Koivunen -- Reflections on power in organization / John Lannamann -- Abilities, competencies and selection decision-making / Len Holmes -- The group-in-the-making: from "group dynamics" to "relational practices" / Rene Bouwen and Johan Hovelynck -- Narrative approaches to inquiry / Sheila McNamee and Dian Marie Hosking -- Voicing differences and becoming other: life-stories of immigrants in an organizational context / Lars Nellmann Thisted and Chris Steyeart -- The social side of innovation: a process perspective / Bart Van Looy, Rene Bouwen and Koenraad Debackere -- Learning organizations: the emergence of a relational-interpretive view of organization / Mark Addleson -- Appreciative evaluation in an educational context: inviting conversations of assessment and development / Sheila McNamee -- Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, management and the dialogical / Ann L. Cunliffe and John Shotter -- Consulting: new language, new possibilities? / Klaus G. Deissler --Metaphors / Dian Marie Hosking and Sheila McNamee -- Lev Vygotsky and the New Performative Psychology: some implications for business and organizations / Lois Holzman -- Living in organizations: lessons from jazz improvisation / Frank Barrett -- Dialogue, talk, and debate / Sheila McNamee and Dian Marie Hosking -- Disturbing patterns of engagement / Christopher James Blantern and Murray Anderson-Wallace.

A critical and empirical study that explores the constitution of managerial identities in the age of mass education in management and challenges the way we think about organizations and their management.

This illuminating book explores the theme of social constructionism in legal theory. It questions just how much freedom and power social groups really have to construct and reconstruct law.