Making Sense of Management

Mats Alvesson is Professor of Organization Studies at the University of Bath, and also affiliated with Lund University, Stockholm School of Economics and Bayes Business School, City, University of London.

Sophisticated, insightful, incisive and yet accessible, Making Sense of Management does exactly that: cuts through the claims and assumptions of mainstream understandings of management. Written by the pioneers of ′critical management studies′, this new and substantially revised edition is indispensible reading for all at a time when both the power and the failure of conventional approaches to management are all too evidentChristopher GreyProfessor of Organizational Behaviour, University of Warwick What is management? Is it an attempt to organize the world efficiently, or the domination of the many by the few? In this imaginative and well written text, Alvesson and Willmott show how we must understand the politics of management if we are to be able to think past the various crises that currently face usMartin ParkerProfessor of Organization Studies, Warwick Business School and Editor-in-Chief of ′Organization′ The second and greatly revised edition of this text arrives in a world deeply troubled by ′business as usual′, a world in which many people feel extraordinary powers and privileges have been abused by very ordinary managers recklessly running major banks, financial institutions, government organizations and enterprises generally. In understanding the underlying reasons why protests such as ′Occupy Wall Street′ are happening across the world, and are the manifestation of a deep malaise, this book is highly recommendedStewart CleggResearch Professor and Director of the Centre for Management and Organization Studies, University of Technology, Sydney This is a critically important book for anyone interested in management theory. Alvesson and Willmott bring a discerning voice of clarity to the cacophony of contemporary management texts by placing management theory in its proper ethical, social and historical context. The authors challenge our understanding of business organizations and management practices by asking fundamental questions about the role of business in modern societyRoy SuddabyEric Geddes Professor of Business, Alberta School of Business, Canada This second edition cannot be more timely. It offers students a concise, in-depth critical understanding of the urgent need to transform both theory and management practice in the 21st centuryStella M NkomoUniversity of Pretoria, South Africa

• Introduction PART ONE: INTRODUCING CRITICAL THEORY TO MANAGEMENTManagement in Critical PerspectiveCritical ThinkingForms of Knowledge and the Limits of CritiquePART TWO: MANAGEMENT SPECIALISMS IN A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVECritical Conceptualizations of ManagementCritically Assessing Management Specialisms IOrganization Theory, HRM and LeadershipCritically Assessing Management Specialisms IIMarketing and Strategic ManagementCritically Assessing Management Specialisms IIIAccounting, Information Systems and Operational ResearchPART THREE: RECASTING CRITICAL THEORY AND MANAGEMENT Recasting Emancipation in Management and Organization StudiesCritical Theory and Management PracticeAppendix: Brief History of the Frankfurt School