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The Scope of Management in Socieoconomic Affairs

  • 1.  The Scope of Management in Socieoconomic Affairs

    Posted 02-11-2009 16:39
    Dear Colleagues

    Mindful of Milton Friedman's (1970) diatribe against business involvement in the wider socioeconomy, but at the same time bearing in mind the current public-private partnership bank bailout in the USA, I was wondering if colleagues knew of any literature regarding the scope/role of private managers or the management profession in the wider socioeconomy? In a 2001 paper in the Journal of Economic Issues, myself and Chris Nyland considered the role of business people in the stabilisation/regularisation of the business cycle and employment in interwar America. We focused here on the relationship between progressive Taylorists and scientific managers and the 'original' institutionalist economists. Elsewhere I have written of "proto-Keynesian" measures taken by progressive business people during the Great Depression.

    In the midst of a socioeconomic crisis of greater magnitude than that of 1920-21 downturn and perhaps larger than that of the 1930s, we wish to reconsider or revisit the role of management - if any - in the current discourse vis-a-vis recovery and restoration. Is there a literature out there, as it were, that discusses the scope of business managers per se or in times of crisis? Why is it that we rely largely if not entirely on elected representatives and public adminstrators to restore order? Why is the role of business managers seemingly circumscribed to what we have called microeconomic stabilisation measures?

    Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

    Best,

    Kyle Bruce

    ________________________________
    Kyle Bruce
    Senior Lecturer in Strategy
    Economics and Strategy Group
    Aston Business School
    Birmingham B4 7ET
    UK

    Ph. +44-(0) 121- 204 3038
    Fax +44-(0) 121- 204 3306
    Mobile +44-(0) 7891497260
    Skype (VOIP) ID: kdbruce
    http://www.abs.aston.ac.uk/newweb/staff/detail.asp?sfldStaffID=A0000527

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