Management Strategies: A Critique of Theories and Practices

The task of management has become increasingly complex at the end of the 20th century. Chief executives and senior managers are confronted with the daunting challenge of making sense of a myriad of variables that affect the performance of business systems and of determining causal relationships that underlie seemingly unstructured problems. A wide gulf now exists between theory and practice in the field of management. Pronouncements by theorists have become increasingly unintelligible to practitioners, while practical propositions by management consultants - often presented as recipes derived from experience and case studies - often lack any firm theoretical foundation and are largely based on limited and unreliable hard evidence. This has given rise to many fashions in the way management is practised. The trouble with fashionable doctrines is that they come and go. And while they are in vogue, they can lead to the adoption of what may be regarded as management mispractices, namely practices rooted in questionable beliefs, which are based on false premises. This book is written for managers, management consultants, and students of management, including business school faculty. The range of topics included here should provoke the reader to ponder on the complexities of the multi-faceted managerial scene and to question the basis of many managerial practices as well as the validity of theories propounded in management literature.

Table of Contents:
1 Structuring the unstructured.- 2 Mission incomplete.- 3 Board size and corporate failure.- 4 Determinants of corporate performance.- 5 Prominent performance ratios.- 6 A simple formula.- 7 A misleading performance ratio.- 8 Use and misuse of productivity ratios.- 9 The bottom-liners.- 10 In pursuit of market share.- 11 Intrepid gurus.- 12 On competitiveness.- 13 OR at the top.- 14 Managing change.- 15 Closing the gap.- 16 Measuring quality of information systems.- 17 Divide and rule.- 18 Centralism versus federalism.- 19 Hondaism — myth and reality.- 20 A cake can be cut in many ways.- 21 Time management.- 22 Management performance appraisal.- 23 What makes Sammy run.- 24 Don’t spit in the soup, we all have to eat.- 25 The role of business schools.- 26 Business policy for beginners.

About the Author :
Professor Sam Eilon was formerly head of the Department of Management Science at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London, a former Member of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in the UK and a founder Chief Editor of Omega, the International Journal of Management Science. He has been a director of several public companies and a management consultant for many years, concentrating on corporate strategy and analysis of corporate performance.