The conduct of management and the management of conduct: contemporary managerial discourse and the constitution of the 'competent' manager

Article Abstract:

The character and conduct of the manager has formed a central focus of attempts to govern economic life throughout the present century. And current programmes of organizational change involve radical attempts to reconstitute the nature and conduct of management. This is attempted through the identification and implementation of management competencies. Discourses of organizational reform such as human resource management, total quality management and business process re-engineering all place a critical emphasis on anti-bureaucratic, organic and flexible forms of organization, which are also seen to require the development of particular capacities and predispositions among managers. Essential to their vision of 'managerial work' is a composite of 'entrepreneurial' attributes. Management competencies appear to offer a congenial method for the reconstitution of the manager along 'entrepreneurial' lines, not simply because they are inherently founded on managers' self-management and self-presentation of identified behaviors, but also because they represent individualized forms of business functions (and are often associated with the establishment of market relations within the organization). (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Executives, Executive ability

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Management control: the roles of rules, markets and culture

Article Abstract:

This paper addresses the question of efficacy of Management Control Systems in organizations. It shows that control systems are based on a combination of three underlying approaches - markets, rules and culture - in order to obtain desired behaviours from organizations' members. These three approaches are then discussed in terms of Hofstede's work-related values characterization. It is shown that each firm or organization defines its own balance among the three bases of control identified above. This balancing is dynamic and organizations must continuously adapt their Management Control Systems to changes in the overall culture(s), in technology and in the competitive forces. The general evolution of Management Control Systems is seen to be towards a lessening of the importance of rules-based controls and towards an increased reliance on controls imbedded in the organizational culture. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Organizational effectiveness, Work rules

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Scale, performance and the new public management: an empirical analysis of local authority services

Article Abstract:

The article examines the hypothesis of New Public Management (NPM) which posits that a negative relationship exists between performance and scale, using quality, service coverage, administrative effectiveness, speed of provision, and efficiency as assessment parameters. Findings indicate no negative correlation between performance and organization size.

Performance

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