Reader 1 Chapter 1 Thinking About Managing

Thinking about managing Reader 1 Chapter 1
B870 Managing in a changing world
Reader 1 Chapter 1
Thinking about managing
Written by Caroline Clarke, Tim Butcher and Charles Barthold
Page 2 of 50 13th January 2020

This publication forms part of the Open University module B870

Managing in a changing world. Details of this and other Open
University modules can be obtained from Student Recruitment,
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ISBN 978 1 4730 2471 7
1.1

Contents
 Introduction
 Structure of the chapter
 1.1 Why managing?
 1.2 Changing worlds
 Working towards the future
 1.3 The serious business of managing

 Inequalities at work
 1.4 Conceptualising managing as politically and socially

constructed
 Summary
 References

Introduction
Throughout B870, you will be provided with provocative and
challenging material to learn more about the issues that are being
raised in this introductory chapter, together with relevant academic
theories and models. In this sense, this chapter is a bit of a scene
setter, as it offers you some building blocks for other sessions to
expand on. It is possible that sometimes you may feel
uncomfortable about what you are reading, but that is good,
because it means you are learning, and developing your ability to
become a reflective practitioner and critical thinker.
Structure of the chapter

This chapter is divided into four sections:
Section 1.1 focuses on the term ‘managing’, as featured in the title

of the module, and explains why we chose it, as opposed to the
more common term ‘management’. The process of contemplating
what ‘managing’ could, should and might mean, and the
formulation of your own views will start here.
Section 1.2 concentrates on the meaning of the title ‘changing

world’, as we ask whether such an obvious phrase is helpful. In the
context of industry 4.0, we must start to think about the challenges
that may arise, and what this might mean for the practice of
managing.
Section 1.3 highlights how managing is a serious business, not only

in economic terms but in recognising that managing is a big
responsibility, with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Section 1.4 completes this chapter by explaining how managing can

be conceptualised as socially and politically constructed.

1.1 Why managing?
The title Managing in a changing world was selected for B870 partly
because of its double meaning. First, ‘managing’ indicates a
struggle, a form of coping that happens during chaotic or difficult
times where we can just about get by, if we can only ‘manage’ to
keep everything together in some form of order – in terms of our
personal or professional life. In order to manage, we might make
(and try to stick to) a form of plan to stave off worst-case scenarios
and to prevent things starting to unravel. Depending on the issue
we might choose a diet or commit to a savings plan, or take time
off to relax. Is this feeling of only-just managing and keeping some
form of control really that different from managing and working in
contemporary times? What do you think?
We also chose the term ‘managing’ because we see it as an

ongoing and active process of doing things – an action word, a
verb. This contrasts with the word management, a collective noun
sometimes used to infer anonymity and blame – ‘management
decided’; or as a mysterious but hierarchical gatekeeper – ‘we
need to ask management’. Management can also indicate a
passive detached observation of what others are doing from their
elevated out-of-touch position. It might also hint at a way of doing
things that is set in stone, finished, or ‘frozen’ in time, and therefore
not being capable of change.

Figure 1.1 Off the shelf management books sometimes simplify complex

matters
Much of what is written (and read) about management is like this,

particularly the ‘popular’ books you can buy ‘off the shelf’ (Figure
1.1). These texts deliberately treat management as ‘solid’ and
‘final’, because ‘answers’ or ‘recipes’ that claim to cure problems
are highly desirable for the reader. Simple solutions are what
clients want to buy, and what consultants claim to sell, and often
relate to issues that Grint describes as ‘tame’ problems, those with
‘only a limited degree of uncertainty … associated with
Management [and like] puzzles – for which there is always an
answer’ (Grint, 2008, p. 169). If some of this rhetoric seems both
familiar and seductive from your own experience, then you have
much in common with other students choosing to study

management. Searching for a final source of wisdom to provide

answers to ‘real world’ issues, to ease the practice of managing,
rendering it more effective, productive and rewarding is entirely
understandable. It is also a seemingly laudable goal to want to see
individuals and organisations reach their full potential.
However, finding answers to insidious and more complex issues in

our (working) lives is entirely different, and infinitely less satisfying.
These are what Rittel and Webber call ‘wicked problems’ (1973),
not because they are evil in content, but rather that ‘each attempt
to create a solution changes the understanding of the problem’, or
creates another problem, so that there is no final or linear
resolution. There are only ever attempts, or works in progress
requiring a tolerance of ambiguity, uncertainty and imperfection.
This requires an honest acknowledgement that not all issues can
be fully controlled or managed, which is actually the opposite of
what many off-the-shelf books advocate (plan, control, execute).
Examples of such issues might be poverty, health and crime, most
of which are relevant to managing in organisations.
Pause and reflect

How might these issues be relevant in your everyday working life?
If you are working in the NHS or in very deprived areas, you will
encounter problems that are multiple in their origin, so people may
have medical issues that are also social – for example they may
not be able to afford to eat a well-balanced and nutritious diet. If

you were managing a retail outlet in a high crime area, shoplifting
could be a more frequent event than in other geographical
locations. More commonly, colleagues may become ill or not be
able to work from stress, or may experience poverty on some level.
Wicked problems are partly the reason why focusing on managing

as a verb is so important. Of course, the proper noun, ‘the
manager’, is also important, as is ‘management knowledge’, but
neither are static or objective despite appearing to be. In this
module we focus less on the identity of those managing
(managers), and more on the process or activity of managing.
Some scholars argue (Ekman, 2013) that a preoccupation with self
and status means being more concerned with identity than what
we are ‘doing’. This could mean more of a focus on titles such as
‘senior manager’, portraying the right ‘image’, or craving indicators
of esteem such as reserved parking spaces, a bigger chair or first-
class travel, than the practice of managing, or caring for others.
We are not inferring all managers are motivated by their status, but
in a contemporary and individualistic culture it is hard not to
escape the pressure to make something of ourselves.

Too much of a focus on the self might create other issues too,
perhaps by contributing to the mythical representations of super-
human managers, who are infallible and should somehow be
beyond reproach. This in turn fosters impossible expectations
about performance and what can be achieved. Management
scholar Ghislain Deslandes captures this eloquently:
what we are told by the theologians who wrote about management

… is that it is first characterized by a dose of negativity, weakness,
struggle and the difficulties inherent in the task, in the manager’s
mission (Mondzain, 2005). Although managerial strength often
appears to be omnipotent, flawless, effective, even irresistible, the
reality is, in fact, less cut and dried. Managers are capable, but
they are also fallible and vulnerable. This is what the theologians of
the Middle Ages perceived about the act of managing and which

has almost completely disappeared from today’s analysis of

management.
(Deslandes, 2018, p. 2–3)
While James Dyson and Richard Branson may sell books

declaring that failure is the best teacher, much that is written about
management reinforces idealised, almost sacred images of
managers capable of achieving the impossible. You will explore
how this has metamorphosed into expectations underpinning
‘great’ leaders in more detail in Unit 3 of this module. What is
perhaps more surprising is the extent to which these unrealistic
ideals and aspirations have spilled over into the working lives of
many professions. Research has shown that in contemporary life
many members of professions such as doctors, dentists and
veterinary surgeons are increasingly chasing perfection (Clarke
and Knights, 2018a) as a way of countering anxiety. Research by
Clarke and Knights (2018a) shows that practising veterinary
surgeons seem to experience more than their fair share of doubt,
anxiety and mental health issues, which has led to a surprisingly
high exit rate from the profession and even an elevated suicide
rate, partly because they (and their clients’ owners) perceive any
imperfection as a personal and professional failure.

These are serious and important issues in terms of managing our

own working lives, as well as those of others. Potentially grave
consequences for employees cannot just be dismissed by
introducing corporate yoga classes, mindfulness or wellbeing
initiatives into the working place after the damage has been done –
or even while it continues. Such initiatives are probably the
equivalent of ‘putting a sticking plaster on a cancerous wound’
(Clarke and Knights, 2018b). Part of the problem is that common
sense and macho language about what it is to ‘manage’ or ‘lead’
tends to treat vulnerability negatively, often as weakness or loss of
control, as if work is one great contest (Sinclair, 2005). As a
consequence, managing risks being defined only in narrow terms
based on ‘conventional success’, including the need to be strong.
However, the ancient philosopher Marcus Aurelius inverted these
views, advising us that it is precisely in our vulnerability that we
become more capable, so in a sense our wisdom is knowing that

there are severe limitations surrounding us all. In Unit 3 you will
look at some of these problems in more depth, particularly the way
that subscribing to fantasies of perfection at work can be
problematic.
In this sense, the verb ‘managing’ reflects how any form of practice
is a never-ending work in progress, which can never be complete.
This applies to any aspect of life: for example, being fit (when is
that moment?), having a tidy house (how long did that last?) or
reaching the pinnacle of our careers (have we already done this
but don’t know it yet?). As we are continually thinking about work in
new ways, this shapes the innovative or different (note that we
steer clear of the term ‘better’) possibilities we might have for
getting things done.
Whether we realise it or not, we are also embedded in debates

about what work is – what type of work gets remunerated and what
doesn’t (childcare, housework, care work in general). This is
especially complex as we cannot simply demarcate activities of
work and non-work by defining it as something we do only for a
financial reward, as voluntary work clearly disrupts this simplistic
view.
Pause and reflect

Think about the activities you carry out every day. How many of
these are rewarded financially? Would you consider the remaining
activities work or leisure?

1.2 Changing worlds
The second part of the module title [Managing] in a changing world
might seem obvious, as the world is never static. However, the
word changing is as important as managing – they both represent
dynamic, ongoing processes with no end. So, there is no ‘final’
point where we have sorted out ‘management’ and ‘change’
forever, as illustrated by our earlier description of managing as a
verb. Where we do find solutions, other changes will present more
challenges. However, that is also what is so exciting about
managing – few jobs remain the same over a long period of time.
Working towards the future

With this in mind, it is important to contemplate what the future of

work will look like. Nobody knows the answer to this, but it has not
stopped many predicting how we are about to enter the fourth
industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0 as it has come to be known
(Schwab, 2016). The fourth industrial revolution (Figure 1.5) is
based heavily on extending technology and connectivity, so that
mundane everyday objects can be controlled from afar via the
internet and mobile phones. This is referred to as the internet of
things. In the home, this will include processes such as cooking,
activating lights, running baths and turning on the central heating,
wherever you may be situated. Outside the home, autonomous
(driverless) vehicles and other forms of transport will become
standard.
Figure 1.2 Is life changing so much that we are at the start of another
industrial revolution?

Cyber-physical systems involve a blend of human and technological

power, where computational systems become integrated with other
mechanical or chemical systems and human physical interaction. A
cyborg (a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts)
will end up with super-powers, and in combination with different
systems connecting with each other, will have the potential to
transform every aspect of life. The fourth industrial revolution will
be a convergence between many types of different technologies,
for example artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and it is
predicted that ‘smart factories’ will create and share ‘big data’ (see
also Unit 2). This term is entering common parlance, but what does
it mean? According to Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, ‘big data
refers to things one can do at scale … to extract new insights or
create new forms of value, in ways that change markets,
organizations, the relationship between citizens and governments,
and more’ (2013, p. 6).
It is claimed that the benefits of big data are endless, ranging from
predicting the spread of a flu virus (by harnessing data using
Google searches tracked to specific locations), to estimating the
best time to buy the cheapest plane ticket or receiving a text
message telling you what ski run or beach is less busy than the
one you were heading for. It also facilitates the type of business
modelling and marketing used by Walmart where data established
that just before a hurricane, customers stocked up on pop-tarts, so

when future hurricanes were predicted, staff positioned these items

at the front of the store.
Returning to the idea of the smart factory, data will be used to

maximise productivity and minimise waste, while autonomous
technologies and artificial intelligence are designed to mimic the
process of deep learning by getting increasingly smarter and more
streamlined through digital connectivity. In this sense,
contemporary managing may become an activity that is rather
more ‘hands off’ and less visible, for example looking at data rather
than in the more traditional sense of being present and watching
employees.
The ‘dark side’ of such data is how the information is collected and
from who. The answer is of course all of us. This news suddenly
catapults us into more philosophical debates around marketing, the
ethics of surveillance and the right to privacy (see Chapter 3 of

Reader 3). More sceptically, ‘technological innovations and the
digital age’ have been criticised by some scholars, for merely
representing ‘the ideological products of globalization’ (McCann,
2018, p. 105). In his book A very short, fairly interesting and
reasonably cheap book about globalization, Leo McCann raises
difficult issues, such as asking just ‘how much profit is enough?’ (p.
54), while also challenging ‘the power over life and death’ that will
be invested in fallible ‘algorithms and machines’ (p. 105).
Worryingly, he predicts that big data, virtual organisations and

horizontal networks will all make it far more difficult in the future to
pin down accountability and responsibility regarding organisational
actions, processes and outcomes. Simultaneously, working
conditions could become harsher, more exploitative and less
interesting for employees, as more and more ‘McJobs’ (Ritzer,
2002) are created. These could exacerbate the already pervasive
and precarious working practices known as the ‘gig’ economy and
zero-hours contract work, several of the issues that will be
explored further in this unit and Unit 3. One unintended
consequence of working under these conditions might be the risk
that organisations become targets for workplace retribution, as the
desire for revenge through acts of sabotage are enacted, if only to
give employees ‘a modicum of moral recovery and an antidote to
inevitable frustrations and injustices’ (Fineman, 2017, p. 106). On
the other hand, if robots are going to take on much of what we as
humans do, might we have more time to spend not working? The
promise of the three-day week has been made before (in the
1970s and 80s), but never did materialise.
Figure 1.3 A precarious worker characterised by unstable work and no

employment rights
These are some of the ideas that will shape the future of work, a
future in which you will be managing, while also being managed
and attempting to make sense of what it all means.
Future working
There is no doubt that every generation might claim to be in the
throes of the biggest upheaval since time began (Sturdy and Grey,
2003). There is some credibility to this claim, because by definition
most generations have entered unchartered territory. We have the

added benefit of historical analysis to understand the effects of
something like the printing press, whereas in real time we have no
hindsight. Our foresight is also limited, as we cannot know all of
the outcomes of the decisions we might make. A relevant and
current example is the debate regarding the use of both mobile
phones and social media, in terms of ‘stunting’ our social relations
and the potentially cancerous effects on our bodies.
Constant reflection on how we do things means alterations and

adjustments that will change how we might do things in the future.
This leads to further reshaping and so on ad infinitum. We have
already outlined some of the possibilities for the future of work, but
managing is not simply about learning a set of ‘solutions’ to work in
all contexts and over long periods of time, for much is contingent,
unknown or unpredictable.
Pause and reflect

Do you think there is always a set of solutions if only you can
identify them? Can the learning you gain be extrapolated to a
similar set of problems in a different context?
Managing could become relatively more predictable in terms of

identifying patterns if big data delivers on its promise. However, the
consequences of all changes are very difficult to pinpoint with any
certainty. Let us take one example of change that we might have
been vaguely aware of, but perhaps did not fully realise its
significance. This relates to methods of purchasing, consuming
and marketing, and the material effects they have on the
architectural landscape. The British high street, once the hub of the
community, has changed visibly and significantly in a short period
of time.
Figure 1.4 A typical high street in the UK
Traditionally, high streets consisted of a wide range of shops such

as bakers, grocers and ironmongery (Figure 1.8). There would
often be a confectionery shop, bank, travel agent, haberdashers,
estate agent, bike/toy shop and even a pet shop. Over the last 30
years, a number of different factors have come together to change
the type of shops that now feature on the high street.

These include, but are not limited to, particular changes taking
place in many countries, at least in the West: the advent of out-of-
town shopping malls; the rise of the hypermarket; high rental costs
and increased parking charges in towns; a digitised entertainment
industry; the opportunity to procure financial and other services
through the internet such as online banking, insurance and house
purchases; giant internet retailers such as Amazon; austerity
measures; and the expansion of coffee drinking (at the time of
writing 10,000,000 tons of coffee are consumed worldwide each
year (The World Counts, n.d.)).
Pause and reflect

Think about your local community where you grew up. Can you
remember any shops that used to be there but have now
vanished?
You might also be able to think of other changes.
If you live in, or come from, a country outside the UK, has a similar
metamorphosis taken place?
Here are some examples of both departures and arrivals from the
high street in the last 40 years, businesses that are either
newcomers or a thing of the past.

Figure 1.5 The changing landscape of consumer behaviour
As you can see, things move fairly fast in business, and these
examples of the changing context give only a small insight into a
myriad of changes that are less visible. For example, retail
presence on our streets have rather more of a global pattern than
you might imagine.
Box 1.1 The McDonaldization of everything?

In his McDonaldization thesis (1992) George Ritzer states that

processes similar to those used in the fast food industry are
increasingly being transferred to other industries. The four
characteristics are: predictability, calculability, efficiency and control
(of both employee and customer) as a rationalized process. He
also includes the transfer of labour onto the customer-as-employee
(e.g. clearing away our own fast food trays and using automated
telephone system menus and self-service checkouts). One
consequence of McDonaldization is to see how the same shops
pop up in whatever country you visit (McDonald’s being the
obvious one), so that the shopping experience becomes familiar
and predictable wherever you go. The downside is that unique
cultural features and local craft skills traditionally encountered
within different countries are being eradicated.

While the future evolves in ways that can often be unpredictable,

managing forecasts, creating plans and composing strategy
documents are still valuable activities, so long as we recognise
how such documents are not guarantees of future events.
Unpredictability (other than Acts of God) lies partly with issues
such as technological innovation, environmental changes or
legislature:
A good example of all three of these conditions coalescing is the

electric car. According to Co-op Energy (2017), at the current rate
of consumption petrol and oil will run out by 2052, so this,
combined with innovative technological work, has brought about a
new form of transportation – the electric car (Figure 1.6). In some
countries such as France, the government has now legislated that
diesel cars will be prohibited from entering Paris altogether by
2024, with petrol cars being completely outlawed by 2030.

Figure 1.6 An electric car: is this the future of transport?
What will this conversion to electric cars mean for the constantly
changing world of transportation and manufacturing? For example,
electric cars have no gears, so if you currently make a living by
selling clutches or manufacturing and selling petrol pumps this is
not good news – what plans could you make to ameliorate the
situation? There will soon need to be a whole new electrical
infrastructure stretching across multiple countries, but how will
each country generate enough electricity? To make it ‘eco’ it will
need to come from a sustainable source such as solar or wind.
How will the road system need to be changed to accommodate
driverless cars? Will the UK and other countries who drive on the
left continue to need different cars? These are all changes that will
need managing.

As we have illustrated, managing in a changing world is more

complex, uncertain and nuanced than it might appear. You are
probably already aware of this, not only as a worker, but as a
consumer and citizen experiencing changes that affect both your
personal and professional life. It might also be partly why you
decided to study an MBA, to find out more about the subject, and
try to make sense of some of these changes. Studying the practice
of managing can be potentially exciting and satisfying, but it’s
worth remembering that none of us can accurately prophesy what
the future of work will look like or how people will ultimately
behave.

1.3 The serious business of managing
Figure 1.7 Progress at any price?
So far, we have discussed some optimistic and pessimistic views

of how our world is changing. Most examples contain a degree of
ambivalence; more sophisticated robots may reduce the tedious
tasks humans have to do at work, but does this mean they will be
redundant? Big data will be able to predict and reduce some
uncertain aspects of work, and health, in beneficial ways, but this
might mean increased surveillance and loss of privacy. Those
controlling this data can shape our actions, giving us a feeling
perhaps that Big Brother is watching us, or that we are starring in
our very own Truman Show. Convenience comes with a cost. A lot
of possibilities are bubbling under the surface, some of which may
come to fruition and others that will stumble, fail or change over
time, but there will potentially be significant transformations for

working life as we currently know it.
It is clear that managing at work is a serious undertaking, because

all our actions have consequences for others. These ‘others’ may
be known to us, or they may be people we will never meet, or they
might be non-human animals. What we do could detrimentally or
positively alter life-sustaining resources, such as forests, oceans
and the ever-burgeoning landfill sites of noxious plastic waste (see
Figure 1.7)
We already know a fair amount about the consequences of many

organisational practices, for example chemical pollution, the
marketing of unhealthy fast food, and the physical and mental
effects on employees around their conditions of work. Part of the
problem is that it is difficult to confront issues arising from the deep
pressures of capitalism, because they are unpalatable, scary or
inconvenient to our own desires.
Inequalities at work
Traditionally, some countries (for example the US) used to cap the
ratio between the lowest employee wages and the remuneration of
the CEO. In 1965, the difference between the highest and lowest
paid employee in an organisation was 20:1. This meant that the
highest paid employee earned 20 times more than the lowest paid.
As we moved into the 21st century this ratio soared to 344 . To
clarify, this means that if the lowest employee wages are used as a
baseline, the salary of the highest paid employee (usually the
CEO) is 344 times this amount.
Figure 1.8 CEO-to-worker compensation ratio
Pause and reflect

Do you know the lowest to highest earnings ratio in your
organisation? You may find it interesting to check this information.
Nowadays, corporations are having to be more transparent about

these huge inequalities in pay, as well as others such as the
gender pay gap (Figure 1.8). In the UK as of June 2018, it is
incumbent on organisations with more than 250 employees to
publish the pay ratios between the CEO and average employee
remuneration. Meanwhile, in the US, an organisation called
Inequality.org reveals this information publicly on a website.
Unequal structures such as the disparity in senior salaries
combined with large differences in pay associated with gender,
age and ethnicity often make organisations very unequal arenas
for both pay and promotion opportunities. To some extent, this

level of inequality reflects, and also shapes, wider global trends
where the richest one per cent of the world’s population now own
half of the total wealth.
This article about ‘Fat Cat’ chief executives earning more money
by the fourth day of the new year than the average person receives
for the whole year (see Figure 1.9) sets up a stark comparison with
other workers. It might be useful to imagine how you would justify
this kind of remuneration if you were asked to. What kind of
arguments would you use to defend this decision, particularly if you
are managing those who are on a low pay or zero-hour contract?
Is it sufficient to draw from neo-liberal discourses about ‘market
transfer rates’ for CEOs and how they ‘add value’ to organisations?

Figure 1.9 ‘Fat Cat Thursday’: top bosses earn workers’ annual salary by
lunchtime
You will explore ideas relating to such questions in Unit 3 of the

module, specifically concerning issues such as our fundamental
human rights at work. More positively you will also examine
organisations who use alternative ways of ‘doing business’, for
example co-operatives and employee-owned companies.

Even though we divide up ‘ethical managing’ in two sessions for

studying purposes, we argue that all aspects of managing involve
ethics. Many contradictions and tensions in working life come from
issues of trying to ‘balance’ demands for profit, the diverse needs
and desires of people, and concerns for the environment. In other
words, managing these contradictions is inherent to working life, or
should be.
Figure 1.10 Managing involves many different aspects that are often

competing and conflicting.

1.4 Conceptualising managing as
politically and socially constructed
Some scholars believe the world consists of facts, and a single
truth or objective reality, which is ‘out there’, waiting to be
discovered if only the right theory or method could be found.
Others dismiss these ideas, particularly in relation to the social
world of unpredictable human behaviour, believing that knowledge
is never fixed, or ‘natural’, because it is always socially
constructed – so events and actions are open to multiple
interpretations. Those who subscribe to social constructionism
(constructionists) claim that little, if anything, has any objective
reality. Rather, people assemble meanings and shared
understandings in a specific time and place, where they become
culturally embedded.
It may seem like a taken-for-granted assumption that people are

shaped by their social and cultural worlds, but what is less obvious
is that they also shape them. In the same way, while organisations
are shaped by contemporary life and conventions, or what we like
to call vaguely ‘the external environment’, they are also shaping it,
because ‘one is inseparably part and parcel of the other’ (Grey,
2013, p. 127). What it means to work in the 21st century then is
dynamically constructed, constantly changing and evolving, where
organisations are not just passive recipients of these changes, but

also agents of it (Sturdy and Grey, 2003). They are mutually

constitutive.
We can relate this example easily to the study of management

because one taken-for-granted piece of wisdom in our
contemporary society is the central importance placed on
managing. However, management is not something that merely
‘exists’ out there, rather it is made, according to particular agendas
and the prevailing zeitgeist (spirit of the times). This is why
management theory is often open to accusations of being
concerned with fads and fashions (Abrahamson, 1996), and there
is continual debate about how we define management or
managing. This depends on your views; for example do you
believe that managing is simply finding the best way to control
processes with a particular aim in mind? Is it about watching others
to make sure that they do what they are supposed to? Or is it
simply taking a back seat, letting employees become creative and
autonomous?
In 1993, Henry Minztberg published his own ideas about managers

and what they do – listing what he called folklore
(representations) against what he called the facts (realities) of their
everyday jobs. He noted that the idea of management as a science
and profession was a myth, for there is little in the way of
systematic procedures and often little or no formal training. The
view that we intend to convey is that managing is a set of dynamic
and diverse practices performed in the moment, which are plural in

meaning, rather than singular. You will read more about these
ideas in the remainder of this session as well as Chapters 2 and 3
of this Reader.
To return to our debate about socially constructed knowledge,

things can appear to ‘pre-exist’ once we speak about them in a
particular way (e.g. management or family). They seem very ‘real’
and obvious, or, in academic terms, naturalised', even though
they are not. For example, we might come to think of clock time
and calendars as real things, rather than representations constructed
to carve up cycles of light and darkness to give them more
meaning. In the same way, management – a relatively young
discipline in terms of study – has rapidly become a popular choice
for those choosing to study a degree.
Pause and reflect

Why do you think studying management is so popular?
Let us leave the topic of management for a moment and explore

an example of something familiar that seems real, but is actually
socially constructed: countries.
Box 1.2 Out of this world? Representations

and realities

Figure 1.11 Nothing is ever quite as it seems.
Imagine … you are in space looking at the earth. What do you

see? A mixture of land, water and mountains. That is all. (Note that
‘land’, ‘water’ and ‘mountains’ are just agreed labels in a few parts
of the world.)
How would you explain to an alien why we have imposed borders

and artificial constructions called countries? Some, such as Great
Britain, seem obviously demarcated because they are surrounded
by water, but even this piece of land is further divided into other
countries called Scotland, Wales and England. A large piece of
land to the east is called Europe, which is a group of countries
known as a continent.
What makes a country a country? Each adopts certain conventions

that help to identify it such as: a flag (different colours and patterns
on a piece of material tied to a stick); a language; a national

anthem; and most have a form of currency. Many have a capital
city that houses the government – official people who decide what
the people in the land can and cannot do.
Many countries have a leader: a prime minister, queen or

president. Some gain their titles and position through birth, others
by popular vote. To a certain extent (but not as much as is
claimed) people in each country share some meanings and values.
From time to time countries get together to play games, to win a

metal cup or medals. At other times, certain people in one country
want a bit more land and so they try and take some from another
country – although they cannot actually take it anywhere. If this
happens, the invaded people might get a different coloured flag, a
new anthem or even a different language. To get this extra piece of
land, some people might try to kill the people who already live
there, but they might also get killed themselves. This sounds
serious and it is.
Especially as there aren’t really any countries at all – just

constructions to help us make sense of things.
If people understood countries as a socially constructed space

dependent on a specific moment in time, but just part of one world
– would things be different? Might people pay more attention to
problems likely to threaten the planet, such as climate change, or
become more concerned with issues like poverty that affect many
countries, even if it were not their own country? When we think of
the world as a place we ourselves socially construct and divide up,
it feels very different from our everyday understandings. In
recognising how countries are not ‘real’ entities, we might conclude
that too much energy is channelled into beliefs about national
identity, sometimes creating a divisive combative arena as well as
engendering joy and pride. We know that if we take our own
constructions too seriously, this results in fighting and working
against each other, undermining the greater good.
With very little effort we can apply this to the different departments
in our own organisations, all with their own managers and leaders,
and sometimes their own language: specific jargon, acronyms and
symbols that are inclusive, but can also become exclusive to non-
members. The idea that these departments all work for the same
organisation can be easily forgotten. Often each department gets
preoccupied with its own identity or how well it is doing; how its
success is measured might perversely depend on it being in
competition with other departments, instead of cooperating. As an
example, marketing departments are judged and rewarded by
sales (volume), whereas quality control departments are measured
against different standards such as safety. Sections of an
organisation like sales might even resort to becoming hostile
against quality departments, forgetting how their own areas are
simply representations of the realities of the larger organisation.
We could take these ideas further by thinking about something

even larger than organisations – the planet. As each organisation
focuses on its own success and survival, it may forget how the
world’s natural resources are finite. In the process of managing it is
easy to lose sight of this, focusing on socially constructed ideas of
profits, growth and return on investments. We could be lured into
acquiring valuable resources because ‘if we don’t acquire these
useful resources (such as oil), then our competitors will’. An
organisation might construct its own short-term justification for
pumping waste directly into a river or sea, given how expensive it
is to dispose of waste from manufacturing. These pressures are
common, for all workers are constantly under the imperative to
maximise profits for shareholders, or reduce costs to the taxpayer
if they are public service or voluntary (third-sector) organisations.
Imagining that sustainability is just ‘someone else’s’ problem is
simply one interpretation, for in practice the damaging effects of
pollution are a shared global problem.
Pause and reflect

Can you think of instances in your organisation where there may
be unhelpful internal competition between different areas? Why do
you think individuals might focus on these tiny representations of
what is a larger whole?
There are numerous (political) explanations for why we might

attend to the micro details, rather than the larger picture.
1. The resource-based theory of power (Morgan, 2006)

suggests that these actions are just attempts to
control ‘scarce resources’ – for example there are only
so many car park spaces, large offices or top jobs in
an organisation, so we need to compete for them.
2. Individuals might be preoccupied with ambitions,
striving to make themselves (or their group) ‘the best’,
even at the expense of the collective. As being ‘best’
is possible only for a very limited part of the
population, disappointment and frustration are
common, and this often results in blame (Fineman,
2015), or fuels insecurities, pushing us to be ever-
more productive (we call this self-regulationor self-
discipline).
3. Focusing on the whole organisation, particularly a
multinational company, is difficult if it is too large, too
abstract and too far removed to be able to connect
with. By contrast, groups or departments are tangible
and familiar, and usually a space for meaningful social
relations, where people can gain a sense of
‘belonging’. This means that those outside of this
sphere become Other.
You will notice from these examples that managing at work cannot
simply be separated out from the political ideas, which brings us

right back to the myth of managing as a neutral activity. These

ideas will become more familiar as you study the module.

Summary
This chapter started with a focus on our choice of the verb
managing, as being distinct from management or being a
manager, because it is allied to action – the doing – rather than the
title of ‘manager’. As such, we refocused the discussion away from
the ‘personality’ of managers, and towards the decisions and
actions, with all their consequences, that are taken in pursuit of a
particular aim or goal. Following this, attention was then given to
what we mean by ‘changing worlds’, including issues of
globalisation and the term industry 4.0, acknowledging how these
are relatively unpredictable in terms of how they may reshape the
realities of everyday working life. We then introduced the serious
business of managing, including the responsibilities and
consequences of inequalities that may flow from managing in
contemporary and future organisations, as well as benefits such as
efficiencies and an antidote to tedious work. The chapter finished
by outlining how managing is both political and socially
constructed, and how to think more critically about how knowledge
is ‘made’.

References
Abrahamson, E. (1996) ‘Management fashion’, Academy of
Management Review, 21(1), pp. 254–285.
Clarke, C. and Knights, D. (2018a) ‘Practice makes perfect? Skillful

performances in veterinary work’, Human Relations, 66(9), pp.
1159–1181.
Clarke, C. and Knights, D. (2018b) ‘Who’s a good boy then?’

Anthropocentric masculinities in veterinary practice’, Special Issue:
The non-human animal, Gender, Work and Organization, pp. 267–
287. doi: 10.1111/gwao.12244.
Co-op Energy (2017) When will fossil fuels run out? Available at:
www.cooperativeenergy.coop/customer-service/frequently-asked-
questions/green-energy/green-energy-faqs/when-will-fossil-fuels-
run-out
(Accessed: 23 April 2019).
Deslandes, G. (2018) ‘Weak theology and organization

studies’, Organization Studies. doi: 10.1177/0170840618789209.
Ekman, S. (2012) ‘Fantasies about work as limitless potential –

how managers and employees seduce each other through
dynamics of mutual recognition’, Human Relations, 66(9), pp. 1159–
1181.
Fineman, S. (2015) The blame business: the uses and misuses of

accountability. London: Reaktion Books.
Fineman, S. (2017) Revenge: a short enquiry into retribution. London:

Reaktion Books.
Grey, C. (2013) A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably

cheap book about studying organizations. 3rd Edn. London: Sage.
Grint, K. (2008) ‘Wicked problems and clumsy solutions: the role of

leadership’, in Brookes, S. and Grint, K. (eds.) The new public
leadership challenge. . Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 169–
186.
Mayer-Schonberger, V. and Cukier, K. (2013) Big data: a revolution

that will transform how we live, work and think. New York: Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt.
McCann, L. (2018) A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably

cheap book about globalization. London: Sage.
Morgan, G. (2006) Images of organization. 3rd edn. Thousands

Oaks, Calif.: Sage.
Rittel, H. W. and Webber, M. M. (1973) ‘Dilemmas in a general

theory of planning’, Policy Sciences, 4(2), pp. 155–169.
Ritzer, G. (1992). The McDonaldization of society. Newbury Park

Calif.: Pine Forge Press.
Ritzer, G. (2002) ‘McJobs. McDonaldization and its relationship to

the labor process’, in Ritzer, G. (ed.) McDonaldization: the reader.
Thousand Oaks, Pine Forge Press, pp. 141–150.
Schwab, K. (2017) The fourth industrial revolution. London: Penguin

Random House.
Sinclair, A. (2005) Doing leadership differently: gender, power and

sexuality in a changing business culture. Melbourne: Melbourne
University Publishing.
Sturdy, A. and Grey, C. (2003) ‘Beneath and beyond

organizational change management: exploring
alternatives’, Organization, 10(4), pp. 651–662.

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Thinking about managing Reader 1 Chapter 1

B870 Managing in a changing world

Page 2 of 50 13th January 2020

This publication forms part of the Open University module B870

Alternatively, you may visit the Open University website at

The Open University,

First published 2019.

Copyright © 2019 The Open University

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

Page 3 of 50 13th January 2020

Open University materials may also be made available in

Except as permitted above you undertake not to copy, store in any

Edited and designed by The Open University.

Page 4 of 50 13th January 2020

ISBN 978 1 4730 2471 7

Page 5 of 50 13th January 2020

 1.3 The serious business of managing

 1.4 Conceptualising managing as politically and socially

Page 6 of 50 13th January 2020

Structure of the chapter

Section 1.1 focuses on the term ‘managing’, as featured in the title

Section 1.2 concentrates on the meaning of the title ‘changing

Section 1.3 highlights how managing is a serious business, not only

Section 1.4 completes this chapter by explaining how managing can

Page 8 of 50 13th January 2020

We also chose the term ‘managing’ because we see it as an

Page 9 of 50 13th January 2020

Figure 1.1 Off the shelf management books sometimes simplify complex

Much of what is written (and read) about management is like this,

Page 10 of 50 13th January 2020

management. Searching for a final source of wisdom to provide

However, finding answers to insidious and more complex issues in

Pause and reflect

not be able to afford to eat a well-balanced and nutritious diet. If

Wicked problems are partly the reason why focusing on managing

Page 12 of 50 13th January 2020

what we are told by the theologians who wrote about management

Page 13 of 50 13th January 2020

has almost completely disappeared from today’s analysis of

(Deslandes, 2018, p. 2–3)

While James Dyson and Richard Branson may sell books

Page 14 of 50 13th January 2020

These are serious and important issues in terms of managing our

become more capable, so in a sense our wisdom is knowing that

Whether we realise it or not, we are also embedded in debates

Pause and reflect

Page 16 of 50 13th January 2020

Page 17 of 50 13th January 2020

Working towards the future

With this in mind, it is important to contemplate what the future of

Page 19 of 50 13th January 2020

Cyber-physical systems involve a blend of human and technological

Page 20 of 50 13th January 2020

when future hurricanes were predicted, staff positioned these items

Returning to the idea of the smart factory, data will be used to

ethics of surveillance and the right to privacy (see Chapter 3 of

Worryingly, he predicts that big data, virtual organisations and

Figure 1.3 A precarious worker characterised by unstable work and no

most generations have entered unchartered territory. We have the