The Ideology of Managerialism

The term “managerialism” is widely used not only in the world of business and government and this book details the theory behind the illusive idea. It distinguishes between management and managerialism and highlights the two groups pushing managerialism, namely corporate apparatchiks and the apostles of managerialism, and outlines twelve key ideas shaping managerialism. These twelve ideas range from profits to ideology, from economic growth and markets to business ethics and corporate social responsibility, from quantification to dehumanisation, from exploitation to short-termism, environmentalism, and homogenisation. Ultimately, this research volume illuminates the pathologies of managerialism and its impact on society, business, government, and the defining issue of our time – global warming.

The objective of this book is to move simply beyond using the term “managerialism” by creating a better understanding of it. This means exploring the theory behind managerialism as well as the ideologies that define it. It will be of value to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students looking to gain a deeper understanding of managerialism and how managerialism can be overcome, with particular interest to those in the fields of critical management studies, leadership, corporate governance, and organisational studies.

“[This book] establishes Thomas Klikauer as today’s authoritative voice on managerialism. [It] explores the important distinction between managerialism as an ideology and as a set of practices. Much of the writing on managerialism fails to recognize how the former infuses the latter. I recommend this book to organizational scholars and others interested in the evolution of the modern corporation.”

- Sanford M. Jacoby, UCLA, USA

“Thomas Klikauer’s new book is the third one on managerialism – in so far forms a trilogy. The two earlier ones – “Managerialism: A Critique of an Ideology” from 2013 and “The Language of Managerialism: Organizational Communication or an Ideological Tool?” from 2023 – set already the pace, making him the expert on the topic worldwide. He limited himself until now in describing the phenomenon and its dangerous invasion not only into the company but the whole society. Now he confronts himself with the theoretical challenges to understand and analyse managerialism. Nevertheless he remains modest in just providing fragments of a future theory. This endeavour is fully successful as he brings together the main challenges for a sustainable, democratic society with elements to overcome them by a well-known strategy, i.e. intellectual self-defence against the ideology of managerialism on the basis of the Frankfurt School of critical sociology, in one word: Bildung/education. In reading this book for example. Apparently this is not something, which should only be done in business schools, however, within the whole educational system – as managerialism penetrates the whole society. Therefore the book is strongly recommended not only to experts, but to a large public.”

- György Széll, Osnabrück University, Germany

Born on the foothills of Germany’s Castle Frankenstein, Thomas Klikauer (MA Boston and Bremen, PhD Warwick) is the author of over 1,000 publications including two books on managerialism. He is a senior lecturer who teaches MBAs and PhDs at Sydney Graduate School of Management at Western Sydney University, Australia.

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