THE MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

The Management Discussion and Analysis

The Management Discussion and Analysis

Introduction

Management - its principles, processes, and techniques - is central to the advance of human civilization. It is a ubiquitous concept, universal across cultures and relevant over time. Its centrality is such that a search on Google produces 830 million results; more salience by the millions than most other words, including: 'faith' (747), 'sex' (580) and 'leadership' (141). It is not surprising that the concept of management garners robust debate in academe, in particular as to its epistemology and pedagogy.

The organization of 'management' as a body of knowledge is eclectic, representing philosophical tension across a diversity of epistemological paradigms. The bipolar distinction between objective and subjective reality (positivism and constructivism) lies at the centre of the debate. Numerous scholars have proposed organizing frameworks, including Burrell and Morgan (1993) who developed a four-element matrix as follows: functionalist, focusing on utility/objectivity; interpretative, focusing on phenomenological/subjective attributes; radical humanist, focusing on ideal potential in terms of human fulfillment; and radical structuralism, focusing on change through the interplay of competing forces. French (2009) provides a comprehensive review of epistemology in relation to strategic management, including explanation of recent postmodern and critical theorist perspectives. It is not the purpose of this paper to reconcile competing epistemological positions; however, it is important to recognize the diversity and position the paper. The philosophical stance of this paper is within the 'realism' paradigm which defines reality as 'real', but only imperfectly and probabilistically apprehensible such that triangulation from many sources is required to know it (Guba & Lincoln, 1994; Perry, 2004).

Similar debate ensues in the literature as to how management should be taught. Seers (2007) provides a complete review of issues in management education and argues that management education needs to fit within the larger, evolving context of the emerging knowledge economy.

A Conceptual Perspective On Management

Addressing the question of 'what is management' presents a significant pedagogical challenge amidst current volatility and change. What defines modern management is very much open to debate (Hamel, 2009).

The task is not helped by the etymology of the word whose Latin root, manus, means hand (Wensley, 1996). Implicit in the word's origin is the notion of supervisory/visual control over less intelligent entities. While this connotation may have been appropriate in the industrial age when the common moniker for a worker was a hired 'hand', it is a constraint in an information age in which the human brain forms the source of value creation.

One of the first to challenge the industrial age view of workers was eminent management guru Peter Drucker. Specifically, he was an early proponent for the concept of 'knowledge worker' (Drucker, 1958). Drucker advocated the notion of 'respect' for the worker at a time when most were considered incidental to the machinery. He challenged organizations to invest in their people as assets and not simply as costs. Perhaps, most importantly, he conceptualized management as a 'relationship' between humans, not an economic ...