An exploration of the social thinking on management tools. Studying how management tools are infused by social norms and how they influence individual and group behaviours in organisations and society, this book provides an indispensable guide for scholars of management and social sciences, and professionals working with management 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.
'Organised along the distinction between different paradigms and based on illuminating empirical examples, this unique book comprehensively restores the theoretical, epistemological and methodological foundations of the diverse ways of knowing and inquiring on management tools and on tools of government. This brilliant tour de force is a must-read for all students and academics in the field of management, sociology, organisation theory and public policy and for all those fascinated by the power of instruments at the heart of capitalism, science and politics.' Philippe Bezes, Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Sciences Po
