A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Management

Ann’s book is everything a good textbook about leadership and management should be: It is thought-provoking, challenging, reflexive, packed with knowledge, and mostly, a fresh read in a jungle of boring, slight-variations-over-the-same, management books. Also, Ann is doing an important job in advocating for much-needed critical thinking within the field by challenging conventional assumptions and mainstream literature, and the book reflects this ambition in a good way. 

This intellectually stimulating and practically relevant book offers a refreshing take not only on management, but also communication, culture, identity, and ethics. Rather than repeating well-worn ideas, this book offers a fresh perspective that can help address the daunting challenges that organizations face in the aftermath of COVID-19. Written in an accessible and friendly tone, this book is essential reading not only for management students, but also for practitioners who want to learn how to be more ethical, responsible, effective, and ultimately better managers. 

This is an excellent introduction to management thought and Organizational Theory. The book is nice to read, very informative and covers all main topics in our field. I strongly recommend it to everyone interested in understanding management thinking. 

Ann Cunliffe’s book provides a profound and articulated reinterpretation of managing as a relational, reflexive, and moral practice. At stake is a careful review of traditional management theories, which opens unexplored horizons on landscapes and organizational orographies.



The thought-provoking reference to authors such as Ferdinand de Saussure, Paul Ricoeur, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mikhail Bakhtin and Judith Butler, enriches, embellishes, and acts as a solid anchor to the reflections proposed by the author.



In a world scourged by turbulence, uncertainty, the COVID-19 pandemic, protests, division, climate change, social and economic sustainability challenges, Ann Cunliffe’s proposal of a different, innovative, and responsible/responsive paradigm of management opens glimmers of hope and a look towards the future.

Ann Cunliffe is Professor of Organization Studies at the Escola de Administrao da Fundao Getulio Vargas, Brazil and Visiting Professor at the Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; Aalborg University, Denmark; and the University of Bath, UK. She previously held positions as 50th Anniversary Chair at Bradford University, UK, as Professor at the University of Leeds, UK, the University of New Mexico, USA, and California State University, USA.

Her current research interests include ethical leadership, embodied sensemaking, non-traditional qualitative research methods, and reflexive approaches to research, practice and learning. In particular, she is interested in exploring how we can engage in collaborative, responsive and ethical ways of managing organizations.

Anns recent publications include co-editor of the Sage Handbook of Qualitative Business and Management Research Methods (2018), and articles in Organizational Research Methods, the British Journal of Management, Human Relations, and the Journal of Business Ethics. She received the 2016 Lasting Impact Award from Sage Publications for her 2004 article in the Journal of Management Education and was the 2017 CMS Division Distinguished Keynote Speaker at the Academy of Management. Ann organizes the biennial Qualitative Research in Management and Organization Conference.

Chapter 1 Management, Management Studies and Managerialism Chapter 2 Communication, Language and Relational Managers Chapter 3 Who are Managers? Discourses of Identity-Work Chapter 4 Managing Culture - Managing Hearts, Minds, Bodies and Souls Chapter 5 Managing Relational, Ethical and 'Just' Organizations