Managing in the Age of Gurus

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at the status of management theory through Eileen Shapiro's article "Managing in the Age of Gurus". There is a discussion of the ideas in "The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus" by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge and the paper examines the conflicting views of Shapiro.

From the Paper:

"In these times of ever-increasing struggles with management and as management, as well as an uncertain economic atmosphere, it is necessary to get to the bottom of corporate and accounting problems that deal with this mainstay in the business world. In a 1997 article for the Harvard Business Review, writer Eileen Shapiro attempts to do just that. She begins by mentioning a recently published volume on management gurus, The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge. Shapiro notes that in their haste to come up with a book on the status of management theory, the authors argue that it "is an immature discipline, one that lacks 'canonical texts and defining methodologies' and is 'bedeviled by contradictions that would not be allowed in more rigorous disciplines'" (Shapiro 4)."

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