The Work of Managers Towards a Practice Theory of Management

Managers are significant actors in contemporary organizations and yet there is very little deep-level analysis of what managers do, and how they understand their managerial selves and social situations. Instead of evaluating management techniques according to their internal logic and systematic qualities, this book advances the 'practice perspective', using behaviour and activities of successful, experienced, and skilled managers as the primary data for theorizing good management. In this book, academics review classic literature on managerial work, discuss methodological and theoretical approaches, and present empirical studies on various kinds of managers at different levels of organizations, in different roles, and different sectors, from construction site managers and CEOs of large companies to university vice chancellors and front-line health care managers. It makes the case for studies of managerial work that look beyond the rational and ordered world to the challenges presented by, inter alia, work and information overload, complexity, performance pressures, unintended consequences, and irreconcilable expectations.

Part One: Framework. 1. Overcoming the Rationalist Fallacy in Management Research. 2. Management in Practice: Overview of Classic Studies on Managerial Work. Part Two: A Practice Perspective on Leadership and Managerial Work. 3. Well Then - What Now? An Everyday Approach to Managerial Leadership?. 4. Managerial Leadership: Identities, Processes, and Interactions. 5. Multi-framing as a Tool in Top Management Teams. Part Three: Operational Managerial Work. 6. Work Activities and Stress Among Managers in Health Care. 7. Leadership as Muddling Through: Site Managers in the Construction Industry. 8. Raamp,D Managers Leading Knowledge Workers with Care. Part Four: Administrative Managerial Work. 9. Managers at the Municipal Top. 10. The Swedish Municipality Director: A Managerial Function between Politics and Administration. 11. Leaders of Modern Universities: Primi Inter Pares or Chief Executive Officers?. 12. Managerial Work at the Top: Tracing Changes in Work Practices and Efforts Towards Theory Development. Part Five: Managerial Work in Small Businesses. 13. Managerial Behaviour in Small Firms: Does it Matter What Managers Do?. 14. The Duality of Strategic Managerial Work in SMEs: A Structuration Perspective. 15. Managerial Practices in Family Owned Firms: Strategizing Actors, their Arenas and their Emotions. Part Six: The Way Forward. 16. Refining Shadowing Methods for Studying Managerial Work. 17. Bridging the Management Theory and Practice Gap. 18. Conclusion and the Way Forward: Towards a Practice Theory of Management.

Stefan Tengblad is Professor in Business Administration at University of Skövde, Sweden. He has written several articles on leadership and managerial work, which have been published in the Journal of Management Studies, Organization Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Scandinavian Journal of Management and Qualitative Research in Accounting & Management.