Managerialism

Managerialism, on one level, involves belief in the value of professional managers and of the concepts and methods they use. Contemporary writers on management such as Thomas Diefenbach associate managerialism with hierarchy. But scholars have also linked managerialism to control,to accountabilityand measurement, and to an ideologically determined belief in the importance of tightly-managed organizations,as opposed to individuals or to groups that do not resemble an organization.' Managerialism combines management knowledge and ideology to establish itself systemically in organisations and society while depriving owners, employees (organisational-economical) and civil society (social-political) of all decision-making powers. Managerialism justifies the application of managerial techniques to all areas of society on the grounds of superior ideology, expert training, and the exclusive possession of managerial knowledge necessary to efficiently run corporations and societies.' Management + Ideology + Expansion = Managerialism ' the main genesis of managerialism lay in the human relations movement that took root at the Harvard Business School in the 1920s and 1930s under the guiding hand of Professor Elton Mayo. Mayo, an immigrant from Australia, saw democracy as divisive and lacking in community spirit. He looked to corporate managers to restore the social harmony that he believed the uprooting experiences of immigration and industrialization had destroyed and that democracy was incapable of repairing.' Business executives are society's leading champions of free markets and competition, words that, for them, evoke a world view and value system that rewards good ideas and hard work, and that fosters innovation and meritocracy. Truth be told, the competition every manager longs for is a lot closer to Microsoft's end of the spectrum than it is to the dairy farmers'. All the talk about the virtues of competition notwithstanding, the aim of business strategy is to move an enterprise away from perfect competition and in the direction of monopoly.'What occurs when a special group, called management, ensconces itself systemically in an organization and deprives owners and employees of their decision-making power (including the distribution of emolument), and justifies that takeover on the grounds of the managing group's education and exclusive possession of the codified bodies of knowledge and know-how necessary to the efficient running of the organization.' Managerialism, on one level, involves belief in the value of professional managers and of the concepts and methods they use. Contemporary writers on management such as Thomas Diefenbach associate managerialism with hierarchy. But scholars have also linked managerialism to control,to accountabilityand measurement, and to an ideologically determined belief in the importance of tightly-managed organizations,as opposed to individuals or to groups that do not resemble an organization. Following Enteman's 1993 classic on Managerialism: The Emergence of a New Ideology,American management experts Robert Locke and J C Spender see managerialism as an expression of a special group – management – that entrenches itself ruthlessly and systemically in an organization. It deprives owners of decision-making power and workers of their ability to resist managerialism. In fact the rise of managerialism may in itself be a response to people's resistance in society and more specifically to workers' opposition against managerial regimes. Building on Enteman (1993) and Locke/Spender (2011), Thomas Klikauer in “Managerialism – Critique of an Ideology” (2013) defined managerialism thus: As the simple management of Henri Fayol (1841-1925) and Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) mutated into managerialism, managerialism became a full-fledged ideology under the following formula: Two examples of the extension of management into the non-management domain – the not for profit sphere of human existence – are public schools and universities. In both cases, managerialism occurs when public institutions are run “as if” these were for-profit organization even though they remain government institutions funded through state taxes. In these cases, the term new public management has been used. But the ideology of managerialism can even extend into more distant institutions such as, for example, a college of physicians. Albert A. Anderson summarized managerialism as the ideological principle that sees societies as equivalent to the sum of the decisions and transactions made by the managements of organizations.