Editorial

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1402
• Published date: 01 September 2016
• Date: 01 September 2016

Editorial

In my last editorial, I talked about the link between

business theory and management theory. Theories are

often guided by an ideology. Capitalism, communism,

socialism, conservatism, liberalism, along with their

variants, have all guided institutional behaviour in

society. Not surprisingly, managerialism seems to be the

dominant paradigm guiding management theory and

practice. I view managerialism as the belief that optimal

value can be extracted from resources using certain

processes, procedures, and techniques in a rational,

orderly, and eff‌icient manner to effectively serve the

interests of stakeholders in society. Knowledge and skills

needed to manage can be generated through research and

observation, and codif‌ied and used to educate, train, and

socialize management professionals, who, like other

professionals, have an ultimate responsibility to societal

welfare.

The nature of ideologies is such that they produceisms,

which are assumptions that give us comfort. We are

reticent to test them lest it upset established order for

which we are the custodians if not the enforcers! A Google

Scholar search returns few articles on managerialism

written by business or management academics or published

in business and management journals. On the other hand,

there are myriad books, essays, and studies that are very

critical of managerialism published in the f‌ields of

education, health care, public service, social work, and other

social science outlets. The critics vary in their focus. Some

address the heartless pursuit of eff‌iciency at the expense

of social justice; some its lack of concern with ethics;

some its reliance on the mathematization of its procedures

to the exclusion of human needs; some its abstract models

with scant understanding of concrete realities; others

question its positivist persuasions. The list is long and

the format common. Much of it can be reduced to the

unsuitability of managerialism’s assumptive structure to

guide the conduct of the service sector. These studies

discuss managerialism in terms of the potential harm that

can result from its pursuit, and attack the inadequacy

of its assumptions or its tendency to privilege its

protagonists.

Managerialism, much like capitalism, communism,

positivism, or any other ideological system, begins with

benign intent. Systems have limits and constraints and are

vulnerable to abuse. Managerialism as a philosophical

system will serve any purpose, any goal. The categorization

of a system as good or evil comes from how it is put to use

or abuse. While it is easy to make negative attributions and

blame the system, it can often be traced to either expecta-

tions beyond the system capabilities or simply ignorant

implementation. My reading of the critical literature on

managerialism seems to suggest the invocation of the “straw

man argument”more often than not. For this reason alone it

is important to research managerialism’s capabilities and

constraints in business schools. In my graduate seminar on

management theory, we discuss whether managerialism

can serve as a meta-paradigm transcending capitalism and

communism for creating wealth for society; the discussion

encourages students to examine managerialism from all

angles and to deconstruct it and the expectations that

surround it. I would like to see studies that question its

underlying assumptions in a business context and explore

various governance structures under managerialism—for

example its role in guiding postmodern industry and its

limits under globalization. There is much room for research

before we declare managerialism an anachronism or a

pernicious movement to privilege a professional class.

Fittingly, we publish here a special issue that examines

the sustainable development in Africa through the lens of

management theory. The research reported shows the useful

role managerialism can play in promoting sustainability.

With the ‘ism’stripped bare, I encourage you to read these

articles with that deconstruction in mind.

Until next time,

Vishwanath Baba

Editor-in-Chief

Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences

Revue canadienne des sciences de l’administration

33: 173 (2016)

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/CJAS.1402

Can J Adm Sci

33(3), 173 (2016)Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 173