management

98: Managing Innovation — Burns & Stalker

February 14, 2023 Leonardo Melo Lins 0:04:01
Why do firms seemingly have difficulties converting new ideas into goods or services? The answer is in the classic book The Management of Innovation from Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker that explored the difficulties that firms, industries, and even nations had in innovating due to the disruptions that it brings to power structures and social fabric in organizations. They also explored key misunderstandings about innovation (such as that the false narrative that bureaucratic structures inherently cannot innovate) and the source of of conflicts across different departments and work groups trying to innovate. Read More

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52: Management in Practice – Rosemary Stewart

February 5, 2019 Ralph Soule
What do managers do in practice? How do they spend their time (or put another way, how does their time spend them)? Are there differences in the demands of managers in different positions, or withiin different organizations? These were the questions that famed management theorist Rosemary Stewart set out to uncover in her research back in the 1960s, resulting in the first edition of this episode's subject--her book Managers and Their Jobs: A Study of the Similarities and Differences in the Ways Managers Spend Their Time.Read More

45: Fate of Whistleblowers – C. Fred Alford

August 2, 2018 Ralph Soule
We discuss Fred Alford's book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power in 2001 to understand and make sense of horrible treatment often suffered by those who witness and report illegal or immoral acts and have the courage and persistence to speak up and stand for what is right. In workplace environments, we have a name for such heroic men and women – whistleblowers. But historically, the experiences of many other whistleblowers are discouraging – being ostracized, ignored, harassed, marginalized, physically attacked, socially isolated and ultimately defeated while the wrongdoers continue with their organizations. Alford's study brings these experiences to light in hopes of changing attitudes toward those who would speak up for what is right.Read More

37: Socrates on Management – Oeconomicus by Xenophon

December 5, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko
This episode takes us to ancient Greece and one of the great practical philosophers, Xenophon (pronounced ZEN-uh-phun), whose Oeconomicus may have been one of his "minor" works in the world of philosophy, but it is a fascinating work for those interested in management and organizational studies. The book is written as a dialogue, with Socrates playing a sort of narrator who engages with men and encourages them to become more virtuous, with varying success.Read More

29: Carnegie Mellon Series #3 – Designing Business Schools — Herb Simon

June 6, 2017 Dmitrijs Kravcenko 0:13:00
We discuss Herbert Simon’s article “The Business School: A Problem in Organizational Design,” published in 1967. This was written at a time when the business school enterprise was facing difficulties and wrestling over its identity. The paper framed these challenges as a design problem relating to a business school's purpose, what the business school should teach to its students, and what type of faculty would be needed to fulfill the purpose.Read More

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23: Influence of Institutions and Factor Markets — Mike Wright

February 7, 2017 Ralph Soule 0:10:02
This is an episode in our special series of Classics in the Journal of Management Studies. Mike Wright co-authored "Emerging multinationals from mid-range economies: the influence of institutions and factor markets" in 2013 that looked at the variety in the development of emerging economies and, through institution theory, increased understanding of competition between multinational economies and the respective national ones.Read More

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14: Simply Managing, by Henry Mintzberg

August 2, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko 0:11:18
The book we analyzed in this episode, Simply Managing (2013), is an updated study of managers conducted by Henry Mintzberg based on observing 29 managers at all levels of organizations across a range of industries and organizational structures: business, government, healthcare, and pluralistic organizations such as museums and non-governmental organizations.Read More

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Book Review of Henry Mintzberg’s “Simply Managing” (2013)

July 13, 2016 Ralph Soule
In this Note, Ralph reviews the Henry Mintzberg's work "Simply Managing," published in 2013. We covered the book and interviewed Mintzberg in Episode 14.Read More

8: The Ends of Men – Chester Barnard

March 29, 2016 Dmitrijs Kravcenko 0:10:47
Continuing with our discussion of Chester Barnard's master work - The Functions of The Executive (1938) - we look at parts III & IV of the book. Here he is going into more depth on a number of organizational aspects and on the process of management. Specifically, Barnard talks about the parts that make up an organization in Part III and, finally, the functions of the executive in Part IV.Read More

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4: Carnegie Mellon Series #1 – Organizational Routines

December 21, 2015 Dmitrijs Kravcenko 0:08:10
In our first episode on the Carnegie-Mellon School, we examine selected passages from March & Simon's book Organizations and Cyert & March's book A Behavioral Theory of the Firm to address the rise of scholarly thought on matters of organizational routinesRead More

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