Management (handbook and student guide)

Contemporary management has yet to be invented. To achieve this, today's manager can draw on the history of management theories. They will find a wide variety of practical solutions and interpretative approaches. But because there is no such thing as a perfect theory, the manager has only partial and incomplete solutions.

Above all, his practical work must necessarily oscillate between two complementary poles. On the one hand, he must be efficient, and to achieve this, he has at his disposal a large number of administrative techniques and management rules which lead him to think of the organization in legal, strategic, structural and operational terms. On the other hand, he or she cannot be content with being a technician aiming solely for formal efficiency; he or she must also be profoundly human, embedding his or her action in the social fabric of an organization, and thereby glimpsing its political, symbolic, psychological and cognitive dimensions.

This management textbook is aimed at both management students and managers seeking a better understanding of management theory and practice. It features a wealth of historical and practical examples, and refers to theorists and practitioners alike.

Finally, this handbook looks at management from three complementary angles: formal management, based on formal reason and the ideal of efficiency; charismatic management, based on charisma and the ideal of creation; and traditional management, based on tradition and the ideal of harmony. The followers of management in the technical sense limit themselves to the former; the followers of leadership swear by the latter and, despite the fascination that novelty exerts in the world of management, tradition persists in many organizations. Yet, in a way, the manager is always confronted with these three logics.

Inventing contemporary management to meet the challenges of today's world means combining these three logics in an original way.