Management’s New Paradigms

Abstract

Basic assumptions about reality are the paradigms of a social science, such as management. For a social discipline such as management, the assumptions are actually a good deal more important than are the paradigms for a natural science. The paradigm—that is, the prevailing general theory-has no impact on the natural universe. Whether the paradigm states that the sun rotates around the earth or that, on the contrary, the earth rotates around the sun has no effect on sun and earth. For most people, inside and outside management, this assumption is taken as self-evident. Indeed management writers, management practitioners, and the laity do not even hear the word “management”; they automatically hear business management. This assumption regarding the universe of management is of fairly recent origin. Management, both in theory and in practice, deals with the legal entity, the individual enterprise—whether the business corporation, the hospital, the university, and so on. The scope of management is thus legally defined.

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