About the Book
In this book, Monika Kostera discusses management education, examining its underpinning ideas and practical implications in context. She explores how current key educational objectives can be redirected towards robust ecosystemic and humanistic agendas rather than serving as ideology supporting managerial systems.
Adopting an innovative approach to the goals of business education, Kostera draws on existing knowledge to work towards much needed change in the face of global issues such as climate change, inequality, and discrimination. Presenting concrete ideas and signposts on how to teach management to extend learning outcomes into actionable values, this How to guide also includes thought experiments and case studies to demonstrate how these principles may work in practice. Kostera recognizes that a change of perspective is required in management education, moving from a purely business standpoint against the background of rapidly deteriorating global institutions to a more sustainable solution.
How to Teach Management Differently is an enlightening read for scholars and students of management education. It is also a beneficial resource for higher education policymakers and readers interested in business and management education.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Foreword x
1 Demanagement: from learning outcomes into values
2 From sustainability to life
3 From decision making to weak management
4 From motivation to work
5 From communication skills to cooperation
6 From innovation to imagination
7 Home
Bibliography
About the Author :
Monika Kostera, Professor of Management, University of Warsaw, Poland, Guest Professor, Södertörn University, Sweden and Professeure Invitée à L'université Rennes, France
Review :
‘Too often management education is dominated by an unquestioned assumption of the dominance of market capitalism and its associated pathologies. Monika Kostera turns management education on its head, convincingly showing how management can and should be taught differently. Expounding the value of “de-management”, Kostera lays out a values-based approach focussed on developing bold visions that account the vicissitudes of context, presence, meaning. A must-read for management educators who want to make a difference.’
‘If you’re interested in traditional management education, Kostera’s book is for you. If critical management education is of your interest, this book will also resonate with you. However, it may be particularly compelling if you hold a management role at a business school and are open to discussing, with yourself and your team, the values, ethos, and purpose of business and management education. Through a quasi/self-ethnographic approach, Kostera highlights the lack of emphasis on fostering a (sic) “culture of cooperation” in business schools, which are often more focused on individualisation and less inclined to promote rich and meaningful organisational collaboration.’
‘Organizing, of whatever kind, involves tangling the world, human and non-human, embracing its joys and pains. Yet business schools reduce organization to management, to the cool sciences of control. In this beautiful book, Monika Kostera shows us how “management” education might be remade with poetry, trees and cracks that let the warm light in. Read this, and de-manage yourself.’
‘How To Teach Management Differently challenges conventional approaches to management studies, opening up a world of possibilities for more critical and socially engaged perspectives. Through a blend of creativity and humor, the book draws from a diverse range of ideas and literature, making it both enlightening and delightful to read. Monika Kostera effectively combines experiences from various geographies and situations, many of which are deeply personal and embodied, in order to present real-life, current alternatives for a better world, embracing complexity rather than shying away from it. Through compelling stories, it humanizes business and management studies, transforming the way we think about and relate to these fields.’
‘It was intense to read, and very personal, questioning and challenging my very being and becoming as a management educator. The claims to be creative and independent, while researching and educating, were realised and acknowledged to be personal and political, at the same time. The personal was becoming political in the consciousness that this read evokes, about the positionality of the management educator, produced in the postmodern, capitalist educational organization. This reading was also a realisation and strengthening, that I am not alone, that I have a community that ensures that we strive for freedom for each other, for all, in the collective existence, together… A meaningful read for every manager and the management educator.’
‘This is an important book, urging us to rethink management - its knowledge, teaching and praxis - in ways that leave behind traditional, arid, neoliberal and utilitarian ways of understanding management. Instead, we are invited to rehome management into a space filled with values and humanity, where the “Other” is included and supported in its flourishing. As such, de-management is rooted in a relationality that is not simply focussed on rational goals, performance and metrics, but on people themselves. This book offers important lessons in managing differently, which are essential for individuals and organizations.’
