The Collapse of the American Management Mystique

This is a book on the history and mystique of American managementits development and diffusion to other countries, and its subsequent eclipse by Japanese and German approaches.In this work, Robert Locke traces the evolution of American management in the postwar erathe phenomenon once described by Churchill as that clear cut, logical, mass production style of thought. He goes on to discuss in detail the views of such business writers as Chandler, Reich, Senge, and Deming. But the force of his critique rests on a thorough examination of alternative forms of management that grew up in West Germany and Japan during the past decades. He argues that these alternative management forms have done a better job managing capitalist economies since the 1970s than has American managerialism.With an unusually wideranging knowledge of management and business thinking in the United States, Germany, and Japan, and the historians ability to stand back and take the longer view, Locke has written a powerfully argued and challenging book.