Management Fashions

This work presents the phenomena of management fashions as being the key driver for the development of the management knowledge industry, consisting of consulting companies, computer firms, publishing houses, professional institutes, and other organiations involved in the launching and the promotion of new management techniques. The author supplements the existing body of knowledge by focusing on the supply-side of management fashions, particularly the strategies and marketing techniques of solution vendors, and proposes a model of relations between management ideas and tangible solutions, explaining how bestselling ideas are turned into objects and institutions. The empirical research described in this volume involves multiple methods, including discourse volume analysis and qualitative historical techniques.