Everybody’s Business: Reclaiming True Management Skills in Business Higher Education | springerprofessional.de

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2014 | Buch

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Everybody’s Business: Reclaiming True Management Skills in Business Higher Education

verfasst von: Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

Everybody's Business is a succinct analysis of the factors that led to the founding of American business schools and why they are the way they are. Mitroff, Alpaslan, and O'Connor consider why current business schools do not give students the knowledge and the tools they need to deal with today's complex, messy problems and systems.

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. The Argument

Abstract

Every important problem in business—and in life—is essentially a management problem. Our prime intent is to improve business schools so that all of us can better deal with the complexities of today’s world. This chapter presents the central argument of the book. It consists of three main parts: (1) the intellectual content of business schools, (2) the mindset that business schools inculcate in their students and faculty, and the kinds of psychology that are taught in them, and finally, (3) the philosophical underpinnings of business schools. In brief, we are concerned with the intellectual, emotional, and philosophical foundations of business schools.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

2. Digging Deeper—Jungian Psychology

Abstract

We argue that business schools accelerate and reinforce intellectual, emotional, and philosophical fragmentation. They compartmentalize knowledge in disciplines that have no explicit connections to one another and with no incentives to make connections. They reduce knowledge ultimately to a single school of thought such as classical economic theory, and in particular, theories of short-term, self interested profit maximization. Then they treat this single school of thought, which is not robust enough to account for everything, as a “totality” or “reality.”

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

3. What Is a System? What Is a Mess?

Abstract

The idea and nature of “systems” and “messes” are central to the concept of Schools of Management. For this reason alone, we concentrate on the theory of systems and systems thinking. We argue that management is a system, not a conglomeration or loose confederation of separate disciplines. Thus, merely improving the parts (such as curriculum, faculty, disciplines, etc.) of a system will not improve the status of the whole (such as management, or even business). We also argue that every important management problem is in fact part of a “mess” that is, a system of problems, and the Management Mess includes all the messes that besiege modern, complex societies.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

4. The Nature of Human Nature—The Psychodynamics of Everyday Life

Abstract

Business schools split reality and favor one aspect of reality over another. They overemphasize the economical drivers of human behavior but they either ignore or are unaware of the effects of unconscious forces on human behavior. In this chapter, we concentrate on psychoanalysis almost exclusively because it still does not receive the recognition it deserves, and one cannot get to the heart of and hence treat complex social messes unless one can analyze and understand the immense and largely unconscious fears, anxieties, and paranoia that unfortunately are an important aspect of many messes. Dealing with messes fundamentally demands that we question why we have split the world into different disciplines, factors, professions, variables, the arts versus the sciences, etc. It demands that we question the ways in which we have divided up the world, and that we come up with ways to put them back together.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

5. The Management of Knowledge—Systems Age Inquiry

Abstract

One of the most important philosophical assumptions of the Machine Age is that the true (epistemology), the good (ethics), and the beautiful (aesthetics) are separable. Business schools not only accepted but promulgated further the division between the true, the good, and the beautiful. In the Systems Age, however, truth is that which makes an ethical difference in the quality of one’s life. The most general question we want to pursue in this chapter is, “What kinds of systems of inquiry (knowledge systems) are appropriate for studying and managing messes?” The general topic of Inquiry Systems is central to answering this question. We argue that truth, goodness and beauty are the results of the Management of Inquiry.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

6. Heuristics for Managing Messes

Abstract

There are no ironclad rules or procedures for guaranteeing the complete and perfect management, resolution, and/or treatment of messes. If there were, we would not be dealing with messes. In this chapter, we present a list of “systems heuristics” which are tools and “rules for experimentation” that enable the discovery of problems and more importantly the questioning of our deep-seated assumptions about ourselves and the nature of messes with which we deal. We proceed in two steps. First, we list the heuristics as briefly as we can. Second, we illustrate them based on one of the most important messes of our time, to which business schools have contributed significantly: the Great Financial Mess/Crisis.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

7. How We Got into the Mess and Prospects for Getting Out

Abstract

Business schools are broken. They split research, teaching, and learning. They split mind, body, and soul. They split business, ethics and society, and ultimately the true, the good, and the beautiful. As a result, they do not and cannot develop knowledge about how to grow ourselves in and through a dynamic society in which messes are intertwined and where recognition of intertwining is a fundamental part of the solution. In this chapter, we trace historically how business schools became the engines of fragmentation that they are today. In addition, we suggest that future Schools of Management (SOMs) will not just teach how to manage messes, but messes will be the prime idea around which they will be organized.

Ian I. Mitroff, Can M. Alpaslan, Ellen S. O’Connor

Backmatter

Titel: Everybody’s Business: Reclaiming True Management Skills in Business Higher Education
verfasst von: Ian I. Mitroff
Can M. Alpaslan
Ellen S. O’Connor
Copyright-Jahr: 2014
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-41205-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-48941-1
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137412058

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