Competing perspectives on the 'Managerial Revolution': From 'Managerialist' to 'Anti-Managerialist'

Michael Rowlinson, Steven Toms and John F. Wilson

Business History, 2007, vol. 49, issue 4, 464-482

Abstract: Debates about the role of capitalist corporations depend ultimately on their response to the enduring question of 'who controls the large modern corporation'. This article aims to identify various competing schools of thought that can be classified as 'managerialist' and 'anti-managerialist', 'mainstream' and 'radical', which have emerged over the course of the last 70 years, moving on to consider how each has impacted on the discipline of business history. The paper utilizes a two-by-two matrix that divides theories along two dimensions to set out four alternative perspectives. Along the horizontal dimension, anti-managerialism is opposed to managerialism; along the vertical dimension, mainstream and radical perspectives are opposed. The article then assesses the extent to which these conflicting perspectives have influenced the work of business historians, from Chandler's earliest work through to more recent thinking on the links between corporate governance, accountability and broader market forces. Empirical examples are included highlighting these competing perspectives and their potential contribution to our understanding of business change.

Keywords: Managerial Revolution; Managerialist Paradigm; Capitalist Systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00076790701296100 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:bushst:v:49:y:2007:i:4:p:464-482

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FBSH20

DOI: 10.1080/00076790701296100

Access Statistics for this article

Business History is currently edited by Professor John Wilson and Professor Steven Toms

More articles in Business History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().