What is management and how do the people who become managers take on a managerial identity? How does text inform the manager's identity? From cultural studies we understand that the relationship between text and reader is not passive but that each one works upon the other, and that text is active in forming the identity of the reader. This books is the first to analyse how many management textbooks construct their readers. It analyses management textbooks published since the 1950s and shows they construct a world in which chaos is kept at bay only by strong management, and in which strong management is based upon the rationality of modernity. This book exposes and analyses such claims-to-truths, and theorizes their arguments using the work of Butler and Foucault, the sociology of scientific knowledge, critical legal studies, art history and queer theory. By revealing a postmodern turn in management textbooks, The Social Construction of Management is both a critical and empirical study that explores the constitution of managerial identities in the age of mass education in management. An exciting contribution to the growing body of knowledge within critical management studies, this book challenges the way we think about organizations and their management, and about management education as a whole. This is thought provoking reading for anyone studying management, or working in the managerial organization.

The Social Construction of Management (Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society)

Business & Money

Harding, Nancy

Management & Leadership

Routledge

Inspired by the work of the philosopher Judith Butler, influenced by Marx’s theory of alienation and intrigued by theories of death, this book develops an anti-methodological approach to studying working lives. Distinctions are drawn between labour (the tasks we do in our jobs) and work (self-making activities that are carried out at the workplace): between the less than human, zombie-like laborer and the working human self. Nancy Harding argues that the experience of being at work is one in which the insistence on practising one’s humanity always provides a counter-point to organisational demands.

On Being At Work: The Social Construction of the Employee (Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society)

Business Culture

Gender and the Organization

Discussions of feminism and gender in organizations and management studies, have, with some notable exceptions, become stuck in something of a time-warp. This lies in stark contrast to the developments in the fields of feminism and gender theory more generally. Management and organization studies needs new applied topical gender theories that challenge the limits on what can be said about working lives in organizations.  Gender and the Organization: Women at Work in the 21st Century looks to update management organizational studies with the recent developments in gender theory, including theories of embodiment, affect, materiality, identity, subjectification, recognition, and the intertwining of political, social and the psyche. As well as looking backwards at existing feminist and gender theory, this exciting book also looks forward, developing an organizational feminist theory for the twenty-first century. Exploring what feminist ethics of an organization would look like, this volume shows what a revivified feminist organization studies could offer to gender theorists more generally.  This book will be of interest not only to management and organization theorists, but also more generally to feminist and gender theorists working across the social sciences, arts and humanities. It will appeal to postgraduate and research students and also to established organization and management scholars working in business schools across the world.

Gender and the Organization: Women at Work in the 21st Century

Fotaki, Marianna

The Social Construction of Management (Inquiries in Social Construction series)

What is management and how do the people who become managers take on a managerial identity?How does text inform the manager's identity?From cultural studies we understand that the relationship between text and reader is not passive but that each one works upon the other, and that text is active in forming the identity of the reader. This books is the first to analyse how many management textbooks construct their readers. It analyses management textbooks published since the 1950s and shows they construct a world in which chaos is kept at bay only by strong management, and in which strong management is based upon the rationality of modernity. This book exposes and analyses such claims-to-truths, and theorizes their arguments using the work of Butler and Foucault, the sociology of scientific knowledge, critical legal studies, art history and queer theory. By revealing a postmodern turn in management textbooks, The Social Construction of Management is both a critical and empirical study that explores the constitution of managerial identities in the age of mass education in management. An exciting contribution to the growing body of knowledge within critical management studies, this book challenges the way we think about organizations and their management, and about management education as a whole. This is thought provoking reading for anyone studying management, or working in the managerial organization.

Sage Publications Ltd.

Social Construction of Management

In this study the social construction of dementia is examined closely for the first time. Nancy Harding and Colin Palfrey show how Western society sees dementia as a disease, rather than a natural part of the ageing process. They take issue with the constructed view of the body as a machine, whose parts 'break down' and need replacement. Furthermore, the authors argue, the various explanations of the causes of dementia are nothing but speculation dressed up as theories, which serve only to confuse the carers.
Based on an intensive three-year-long evaluation of a community care service for older people with dementia, `The Social Construction of Dementia' looks at the experience of users and providers alike, and provides a refreshing new viewpoint on the `disease' of dementia.

The Social Construction of Dementia: Confused Professionals?

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Jessica Kingsley

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Harding, Nancy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Harding, Nancy

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Harding, Nancy. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Social Construction of Management (Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society)

On Being At Work: The Social Construction of the Employee (Routledge Studies in Management, Organizations and Society)

Gender and the Organization: Women at Work in the 21st Century

The Social Construction of Management (Inquiries in Social Construction series)

The Social Construction of Management (Inquiries in Social Construction series)

Social Construction of Management

The Social Construction of Dementia: Confused Professionals?