Issue information

International Journal of Management Reviews · 2020-06-29

Fads and Fashions in Management Practices: Taking Stock and Looking Forward

International Journal of Management Reviews · 2020 · 122 citations

• Sociology
• Computer Science
• Political Science

Abstract Established management practices – such as Six Sigma or business process re‐engineering, as well as more recent practices such as agile management processes, HR analytics and beyond budgeting – are viewed by practitioners as the basic tools of their trade. Yet they have been known to wax and wane in popularity, often quite unpredictably, with one technique following the other in wave‐like fashion. The scholarly observation of this phenomenon has given rise to the literature on fads and fashions in management studies, which – building on earlier work in allied disciplines – has sought to explain the transience, persistence, and overall trajectory of management practices. In this paper, we review and integrate the existing literature on management fads and fashions, taking stock of the sizable body of work that has accumulated over the past three decades and which has, to our knowledge, never been reviewed comprehensively before. At the same time, we also note that technological change – with the advent of social media and the ubiquity of Internet connectivity, for example – has radically transformed how practitioners seek, consume, and engage with new practices, as well as the way in which such practices are broadcast and diffuse. In our review, therefore, we try to make this well‐established body of literature current by explicitly discussing how well its central tenets and theoretical arguments have stood the test of time, and propose useful directions for moving forward.

Statement of Intent: From the Founding Co-Editors

2020

• Political Science
• Political Science
• Law

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9. Big Business

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16. A New Way of Life

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The Lifecycle of Management Ideas

2019-03-28 · 10 citations

This chapter distinguishes five stages in the lifecycle of management ideas: innovation, diffusion, institutionalization, dormancy, and rebirth. Research at each stage can help research at other stages. It also examines the lifecycle stages of both abstract and specific management ideas. Studying these simultaneously can help address some of the most resilient and enduring questions about each. Finally, the authors conceptualize the conjunction of forces which must co-occur to cause stage transitions. They do so to avoid drawing conclusions about why transitions happen when the same conclusions might be drawn when they do not.

11. Southland Patrician

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Building Home

2019-06-06 · 2 citations

Building Home is an innovative biography that weaves together three engrossing stories. It is one part corporate and industrial history, using the evolution of mortgage finance as a way to understand larger dynamics in the nation‘s political economy. It is another part urban history, since the extraordinary success of the savings and loan business in Los Angeles reflects much of the cultural and economic history of Southern California. Finally, it is a personal story, a biography of one of the nation‘s most successful entrepreneurs of the managed economy —Howard Fieldstad Ahmanson. Eric John Abrahamson deftly connects these three strands as he chronicles Ahmanson’s rise against the background of the postwar housing boom and the growth of L.A. during the same period. As a sun-tanned yachtsman and a cigar-smoking financier, the Omaha-born Ahmanson was both unique and representative of many of the business leaders of his era. He did not control a vast infrastructure like a railroad or an electrical utility. Nor did he build his wealth by pulling the financial levers that made possible these great corporate endeavors. Instead, he made a fortune by enabling the middle-class American dream. With his great wealth, he contributed substantially to the expansion of the cultural institutions in L.A. As we struggle to understand the current mortgage-led financial crisis, Ahmanson’s life offers powerful insights into an era when the widespread hope of homeownership was just beginning to take shape.

4. The Common Experience

2019-12-31