Managerialism is the idea that organizations should be managed by people who are professional managers, and usually with the aim of achieving particular results that can be measured.
It is an organizational philosophy and practice that emphasizes the application of management techniques and business-oriented approaches across various types of organizations, including private companies, public sector institutions and non-profit entities. The concept centers on the belief that organizations can be optimized through systematic management processes focused on control,For example: accountability, measurement, and strategic planning. Managerialists often justify it on the grounds of improving organizational efficiency, and management has become an academic discipline in its own right. Management scholars view management as a skill or unique style to be developed if one is to successfully manage an organization.
However, critics of the idea argue that managerialism is in fact a worldview similar to neoliberalism where each human is assumed to be an economically motivated homo economicus.
New Public Management is one example of managerialism, where public services were reformed to be more 'businesslike', using quasi-market structures to manage areas such as public healthcare. A common critic is that public facilities being managed by profit motives is antagonistic to human welfare.
History Managerialism emerged from the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom when the putting-out system was replaced by the factory system, creating large workforces that required administration.
Notwithstanding any respectable origins and popularity in practice, managerialism has encountered criticism.For example:
The introduction of managerialism in the public sector is associated with the New Public Management (NPM) movement of the 1980s.
Perspectives on managerialism In usage the term management is generally used neutrally, to refer to management practices within an organization. Managerialism (with the -ism suffix) is usually used disapprovingly in contexts where the worldviews behind management structures are critiqued from a left-wing, welfarist, anti-corporate, or libertarian perspective.
There are many perspectives on managerialism. Following Enteman's 1993 book on Managerialism: The Emergence of a New Ideology, Robert R. Locke and J. C. Spender see managerialism as an expression of a special group – management – that entrenches itself ruthlessly and systemically in an organization. In their view, it deprives owners of decision-making power and workers of their ability to resist managerialism. Locke and Spender state the rise of managerialism may in itself be a response to people's resistance in society and more specifically to workers' opposition against managerial regimes.
Enteman (1993), Locke and Spender (2011) and Klikauer (2013) explain Managerialism in three different ways:
Enteman (1993) Locke and Spender (2011) Klikauer (2013) Ideology The Business School Managerialism and Society Capitalism Management Science Ideology and Social Change Socialism and Marxism Managerialism and Morality Culture and Authoritarianism Democracy The US Automobile Industry Management Studies Democratic Capitalism The Financial Crisis Managerialist Thinking Ethics, Economics and Business Balancing Managerialism Post-Managerial Living
Building on Enteman (1993) and Locke/Spender (2011), Thomas Klikauer in “Managerialism – Critique of an Ideology” (2013) defined managerialism thus: "[....] Managerialism combines management knowledge and ideology to establish itself systemically in organisations and society while depriving owners, employees (organisational-economical) and civil society (social-political) of all decision-making powers. Managerialism justifies the application of managerial techniques to all areas of society on the grounds of superior ideology, expert training, and the exclusive possession of managerial knowledge necessary to efficiently run corporations and societies."As the simpler yet already highly organised management of Henri Fayol (1841-1925) and Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) mutated into managerialism, managerialism became a full-fledged ideology under the following formula:Management + Ideology + Expansion = Managerialismhttp://amr.aom.org/content/39/4/566.extractTwo examples of the extension of management into the non-management domain – the not for profit sphere of human existence – are public schools and universities. In both cases, managerialism occurs when public institutions are run “as if” these were for-profit organization even though they remain government institutions funded through state taxes. In these cases, the term new public management has been used. But the ideology of managerialism can even extend into more distant institutions such as, for example, a college of physicians. Albert A. Anderson summarized managerialism as the ideological principle that sees societies as equivalent to the sum of the decisions and transactions made by the managements of organizations. Compare what the historian James Hoopes wrote (2003):
"[...] the main genesis of managerialism lay in the human relations movement that took root at the Harvard Business School in the 1920s and 1930s under the guiding hand of Professor Elton Mayo. Mayo, an immigrant from Australia, saw democracy as divisive and lacking in community spirit. He looked to corporate managers to restore the social harmony that he believed the uprooting experiences of immigration and industrialization had destroyed and that democracy was incapable of repairing."
Managerialist ideology The managerialist society responds to the managements of various organizations in relation to their transactions with each other. The needs, desires and wishes of the individual are heard through their membership of an organization. Furthermore, managerialism is both a process and a substantive ideology. Managerialism says that the fundamental social units are not individuals, as capitalism would declare, but rather that the fundamental social units are organizations. Ultimately, managerialism specifically denies that the fundamental nature of society is an aggregation of individuals.
Instead, managerialism sees the core building-block of contemporary society as the modern business company or corporation. To further business, companies, and corporations is the ideological goal of managerialism. How managerialism functions as such an ideology has been expressed by one of managerialism's main ideological flagships – the Harvard Business Review – when former editor Joan Magretta made the following revelation:
Political Managerialism in political science is a set of beliefs, attitudes and values which support the view that management is the most essential and desirable element of good administration and government. It follows that in all enterprises and services, both private and public, expertise in management must be taught by training and by incentives to excel. In the political world this may take the form of asserting that much conflict and argument are unnecessary for solving problems. All that is needed is a rational assessment of the problem and this involves gathering and collating information, listing the options, calculating costs of each, evaluating consequences and choosing the best course of action. Recent managerialism has included such devices as "performance indicators" (purporting to measure the relative efficiencies of different managers) and "market testing" (which compares public sector managers' responsibilities and tasks with those of managers in the private sector in order to assess their pay). Managerialism is criticized for weakening the public-service ethos.
Economic Economically, managerialism is the application of managerial techniquessee e.g.http://smallbusiness.chron.com/management-techniques-2589.html in businesses. Managerialism in this regard has to do with the strategic approach of goal-setting. In order to achieve previously unimagined levels of accumulation and production, businesses within a capitalist economy needed a way of connecting their strategic plan of actions to desired implementations of those plans. Within an organization, the individuals at the top of the organizational hierarchy determine a mission or set of goals, which is then strategically analyzed by individuals lower on the hierarchy (managers) to devise local goals to carry out the overall mission. Put simply, the managerial standard is to receive goals from above and to create new goals for those below.
There is a belief that in managerialism, organizations have more similarities than differences, and thus the performance of all organizations can be optimized by the application of generic management skills and theory. To a practitioner of managerialism, there is little difference in the skills required to run a college, an advertising agency or an oil rig. Experience and skills pertinent to an organization's core business are considered secondary.
The term "managerialism" can be used disparagingly to describe organizations perceived to have a preponderance or excess of managerial techniques, solutions, rules and personnel, especially if these seem to run counter to the common sense of observers. It is said that the MBA degree is intended to provide generic skills to a new class of managers not wedded to a particular industry or professional sector."Managerialism Explained." Managerialism Explained. Web. 25 Apr. 2016.
There have been mixed reviews on the efficacy of managerialism, explored extensively in university studies of the State. Some have accepted the flaws in the theory, building upon it and putting it forth as a valid theory of the State. Others have outright rejected such a proposition, responding that – regardless of the few similarities – such a system could not be successful on a political level.
The word "managerialism" can also be used pejoratively, as in the definition of a management caste. Robert R. Locke defines it accordingly as:
"What occurs when a special group, called management, ensconces itself systemically in an organization and deprives owners and employees of their decision-making power (including the distribution of emolument), and justifies that takeover on the grounds of the managing group's education and exclusive possession of the codified bodies of knowledge and know-how necessary to the efficient running of the organization."
New Managerialism For details on New Managerialism, see New public management.