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.