In Search of Management: Culture, Chaos, and Control in Managerial Work. - book reviews

Administrative Science Quarterly,  March, 1997  by Meryl Reis Louis

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Tony Watson's In Search of Management is as notable for its method of inquiry and exposition as it is for the insights it offers into the dilemmas and activities associated with being a manager and doing a manager's job. The managers through whose eyes and linguistic frames the reader comes to see the world work in the middle of an enlightened though resource-stretched enterprise - ZTC Ryland - trying to survive and thrive after restructuring in a highly competitive industry. By listening closely to what managers say, probing for the logics underlying their practices and beliefs, and bringing to bear relevant insights from a wide range of social and organizational science thought, Watson sheds light on contemporary challenges to managers and organizations alike. He brings before us the lives of a set of individuals in the process of making sense of their biographies, of their significance in the world, and of what they are doing as managers.

Watson focuses in closely on a set of core issues. In particular, he is concerned with the nature of management and managing, how managers act to shape their own lives, and ways an organization is shaped by managerial processes. In pursuit of each question, he draws together relevant perspectives from traditional and current management writings, along with listening closely to the managers at ZTC Ryland. Verbatim excerpts from transcripts of conversations are printed in bold and in a different typeface. Commentary punctuates the managers' reflections, conveying the author's reflections on the managers' meanings. We listen in, as it were, to the sense the author was making at the time as well as hear the further questions his reflections led him to pursue.

Beyond the considerable knowledge gains Watson's inquiry yields about the particular managerial and organizational issues under investigation, the work can serve as example and guide in pursuit of two other important and urgent scholarly goals: (1) how to reach a managerial as well as a scholarly audience and (2) how to report on methods and findings of qualitative organizational inquiry. Although we, as a profession of organizational researchers, have become increasingly aware that reaching managers as well as fellow researchers is among our obligations, guidance in how to accomplish this is scarce. In Search of Management demonstrates quite clearly a way of doing this. Similarly, researchers continue to struggle with how and where to represent methods and findings in doing qualitative organizational research. In writing to inform practicing managers as well as confirmed academics, Watson lays out and ably fulfills an intention to integrate within the body of the narrative details of method, past scholarship, and what he learned from the fieldwork. His respect for his managerial audience is foundational as well as addressed explicitly in the discussion. This work should serve as inspiration and initial template for those among us who might otherwise lack the courage and/or competence to pursue these most challenging goals.

Understanding of each particular facet of the phenomena - the meaning of managing when it is done well, how managers shape meanings and purposes in their lives and from their careers, how organizational purposes are crafted, etc. - is built up layer upon layer as the author probes more deeply into actors' logics and the local theories underlying presenting behaviors. As I read, I was repeatedly reminded of the experience of peeling an onion, peeling back the surface onionskin to look closely at the next deeper layer, then peeling back the already-examined one. That is how it seemed Watson conducted his inquiry and how he narratively took me along with him in doing so, in reconstructuring his inquiry process on the page. Simultaneously, I was reminded of the experience of building up a painting on canvas, making an initial penciled sketch of major features, then successively adding detail and shading and tone. That is how I felt my grasp of the phenomena grew as I read, through a kind of gradual cumulation of ever-deepening appreciation.

By the end of In Search of Management, I found I was eager to try out my learnings - substantive, methodological, and narrative - in settings beyond ZTC Ryland. I wished to gauge their strength and reach as explanations and useful practices. I found as well that I was left with the experience of having been on a journey in the company of the author, a journey less into ZTC Ryland than into the phenomena of managing. I recommend the journey represented by joining Watson on his quest as one that is richly rewarding as a resource for inquiry and for action, whether readers travel in their inquiring or action-taking life roles.

Meryl Reis Louis Organizational Behavior Department School of Management Boston University Boston, MA 02215

COPYRIGHT 1997 Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group