Dissemination of management into politics: Michael Porter and the political uses of management consulting

Anu Kantola and Hannele Seeck

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The article contributes to the literature on management dissemination by looking at how management fashions are diffused into and circulated in politics. The ideas of management have been increasingly disseminated into the realm of politics during recent decades. To illustrate how this takes place, this article examines the spread of Michael Porter’s ideas on national politics. Porter’s work is considered a management fashion that has been skilfully packaged; a new form of the 20th-century tradition of state-led social engineering which takes the form of management fashion-style packaging. For this he is seen as a global guru in national politics, and this development is regarded as a new form of consultocracy in the realm of democracies. In consultocracy, the ideas of management consulting are often adopted into politics as a common justifying rationality of power for the political elites. Thus we call for further research on the underlying dynamics of the power involved as management fashions are disseminated into the realm of politics.

Keywords: consultocracy; management dissemination; management fashion; national competitiveness; social engineering; technocracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-02-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Management Learning, 2, February, 2011, 42(1), pp. 25-47. ISSN: 1350-5076

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