Managements Tools

No organization is immune from the influence of management tools. Such tools as norms, indicators, ranking, evaluation grids and management control systems have moved outside the managerial and consultancy realm within which they were first developed to reach public administrations and policy-makers, as well as a range of other governmental and non-governmental organizations. Taking management tools out of the practical and utilitarian contexts to which they are often consigned and approaching them from a social analytical perspective, this book gives primacy to these everyday objects that constitute the background of organizational life and remain too often unquestioned. Bringing together developing streams of research from anthropology, political science, social psychology, sociology, accounting, organisation theory and management, Ève Chiapello and Patrick Gilbert offer an unprecedented theoretical synthesis that will help managers, scholars and policy-makers to unpack the functional and dysfunctional roles and effects of management tools within and across organizations.

► Delivers a comprehensive survey of the wide-ranging research about management tools

► Provides the first study of management tools from a social scientific perspective

► Will be of use to both scholars of management, social sciences and professionals working with management tools

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I. Theoretical Foundations for Thinking about Management Instrumentation:

1. Theoretical foundations: from the study of technique to the analysis of management tools

2. Traditional approaches: management tools in the history of organisation theory

Part II. Three Major Types of Social Science Approaches:

3. Critical perspectives on management tools

4. Institutionalist perspectives on management tools

5. Interactional perspectives on management tools

Part III. Synthesis:

6. The agency of management tools

Conclusion