In this lively and entertaining book, Robin Wensley guides the reader through the basic analytical approaches to decision making required for more effective management practice.
Packed with diagrams, anecdotes and examples which bring the book to life, Effective Management in Practice:
– clearly presents a wide range of management tools, techniques and theoretical insights in just the right amount of depth for current and future managers
– illustrates the need for a balanced approach, emphasizing the importance of the questioning process in clarifying the nature of action proposals and any underlying assumptions
– eschews any approach which advocates one right way but at the same time encourages a greater appreciation of practical issues through analysis and theory
Students of management, academics and any practitioner interested in exploring a range of different approaches to management will enjoy and treasure this book.
Tabella dei contenuti
INTRODUCTION
The Four Starting Issues
The Four Strands
The Chapter Sequence
CHAPTER 1: EXTENDING ANALYSIS IN EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT
The Legacy of the Sixties
Extended Analysis: Both Analysis and Synthesis
The Interrogative Mood
Issues of Representation
Introducing Time and Movement
Choices, Decisions and Action
Rationality in Practice: Simplification Approaches
Conclusion: Coping with Complex Rationality
CHAPTER 2: NEVER STOP LEARNING
Some Basic Ideas
The Reflective Practitioner
Sources of Learning beyond One′s Own Practice
Conclusion: Reprise on the Reflective Practitioner
CHAPTER 3: EVIDENCE AND ENGAGEMENT
Evidence-Based Management
Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
The Wisdom of Crowds (Sometimes)
Isomorphism and Lemmings
Unexpected Events and Isolating Mechanisms
Dialectic, Rhetoric and Consensus
Engagement and Management: Scientific Knowledge and Folk Wisdom
The Nature of Academic Practice: Statistical Analysis and Evidential Claims
Learning from the Clinical Medical Experience of Evidence-Based Practice
Return to Managerial Relevance and the Issue of Timeliness
Conclusion: Getting the Best out of Engagement
CHAPTER 4: TOOLS FOR THINKING
Introduction: Comparing Perspectives in 1975 and 2009
Complexity and Chaos
The Structure of Systems: The Ubiquitous Tree
Open and Closed Systems
Modularisation and Loose-Tight Linkages
Basic Game Theory
Insights from Simple Experimental Games
Conclusion: Bounded but not Restricted
CHAPTER 5: MAKING SENSE OF THE NUMBERS
Concentration and Dispersion of Variables
Forms of Representation: Frquency Plots and Box Diagrams
Understanding Outliers
Significance, Correlation and Causality: What′s Significance Got to Do with It?
Type I and Type II Errors
Type III Error: Answering the Wrong Question
Type IV Error: Asking the Wrong Question
The Rule of 10 Per Cent
Mediators and Moderators
Time Series Datasets: Lead and Lag Structures
Casual Causality
Conclusion: Half a Stratistical Loaf may Be Beter than the Whole
CHAPTER 6: RETURNING TO PRACTICAL WISDOM: THE FRAMEWORKS FOR ANALYSIS
Practical Wisdom: Reasoned Analysis and Deliberate Action
Watching Out for Boxes, Linear Diagrams and Other Simplifying Tools
Introducing Dynamics into a Static Representation
Dr Who and the Time Dimension
Specific Representations and Implicit Assumptions
Contradictory Common Sense
Conclusion: Common and Uncommon Sense
CHAPTER 7: THE CENTRAL ROLE OF STORIES
Organisational Success and Failure: The Perils of ‘Learning from the Past’
Fads and Fashions
Revisiting the Onus of Proof Issue
When and How Does the Decision Get Made?
The Narrative Approach
Conclusion: An Effective Role for Analysis in Management Practice
CHAPTER 8: LINKING THE CLASSROOM TO THE WORKPLACE
Learning from Case Studies
The Challenge of Simulating and Learning from Management Practice
Video Material
Experiential Exercises: Simulations and Projects
Conclusion: Learning through Questioning
CHAPTER 9: AN ONGOING DECISION PROCESS OF QUESTIONING AND DISSONANCE
Thinking, Seeing and Doing
The Case for Slow Thinking and Procrastination
Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow
In Praise of Dissonance
Debates, Dialectics and Dissonance
Making Some Sense of Innovation
Questions and Answers: the Central Role of ‘Interrogation’
CHAPTER 10: PUTTING THE MASTERS BACK INTO MANAGEMENT EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Administration, Management and Leadership
Stress Testing and Analysis
Innovation as Hard Work: The 3M Post-it Story
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Understanding Strategic Leadership
Useful Insights from Writings on Military Strategy
Good Management Research as a Means to Useful Insights
Getting Beyond the False Rhetoric
Circa l’autore
Robert Wensley is Emeritus Professor of Policy and Marketing at the Warwick Business School. Professor at Warwick since 1986 and Chair of the School from 1989 to 1994, and Chair of the Faculty of Social Studies from 1997 to 1999. Most recently Director of the AIM Research initiative from 2004 to 2011. He was previously with RHM Foods, Tube Investments and the London Business School and was visiting Professor at UCLA (twice) and University of Florida. He was Chair of the Council of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations from 1998 until 2003 and a member of the Sunningdale Institute (2008 -11)He is a Fellow of the British Academy of Management (FBAM), the Chartered Institute of Marketing (FCIM) and The Academy of Social Sciences (FAc SS). He was awarded the BAM Richard Whipp Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 and previously awarded the 1981 and 1988 Alpha Kappa Psi prize for the most outstanding article in the US Journal of Marketing and the Millennium Prize for the best paper in the Journal of Marketing Management He was appointed to the Council of the ESRC from 2001 to 2004 and was a Board member of the ESRC Research Grants Board from 1991 to 1995. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Warburg Institute and the Academic Advisory Board of the Chartered Management Institute. Over his academic career, he has been involved with consultancy and management development for many major organisations.
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