Defining Management ─ Business Schools, Consultants, Media

Providers of Management Knowledge traces the development of management knowledge from a time where management was considered an art – based on intuition and experience – to the commodification that we see today.

How did an entire industry develop around business schools, consultants and business writers who are considered the authorities in good practice? The book charts the rise of these new ‘providers’ of management knowledge, and their increasing power over organizations and society at large. Explaining the business models that drive each of them, the book shows where and when they originated, and how they spread across the globe. This examination of the roles of each of these actors, along with an exploration of the interaction between them, demonstrates their impact in the broader economic and social context. Including new research in the field, this book is unique in bringing together issues that have been examined elsewhere separately.

Students of management knowledge or management history, as well as professionals interested in the evolution of management ideas and practice, will find this book both novel and thought-provoking.

Lars Engwall is a senior professor of business administration at Uppsala University, Sweden. He has published numerous books, and over a hundred journal articles. He has also been on the editorial boards of theEuropean Management Review and Organization Studies.

Matthias Kipping is professor of strategic management and chair of business history at York University, Canada. He has published in leading journals, includingBusiness History Review, and written several books.

Behlul Usdiken is professor of management and organization at Sabanci University, Turkey. His research interests include organization theory, history of management thought, and management education.