(Self) Confidence Trick: Management Ideas, Education and Identity Work

Volume 13(6): 841–860 ISSN 1350–5084 Copyright © 2006 SAGE (London, Thousand Oaks, CA Management as a (Self) and New Delhi) Confidence Trick: Management Ideas, Education and Identity Work articles Andrew Sturdy Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK Michael Brocklehurst Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, London, UK Diana Winstanley* Formerly of Kingston Business School, University of Kingston, Kingston upon Thames, UK Margaret Littlejohns Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, London, UK Abstract. Debates on the impact of management ideas tend to assume a mechanistic view of knowledge with its value or threat conceived of in terms of the extent to which it is directly applied in practice. This is echoed in policies and practices of management education in terms of an emphasis on practical relevance. Such debates typically neglect processual views of knowledge and, in particular, the existential and associated emotional aspects of ‘acquiring’ knowledge—learning as becoming. This article explores managers’ reflections on the consequences of studying a range of explicit management ideas within the context of the MBA. Some direct translation, combination and application of ideas is evident, along with the more indirect discursive construction of an identity as ‘strategic’ or managerial in content. However, the reverse is more evident, where opportunities for application to organizational practices are seen as inappropriate or impeded within the organization. Instead the principal outcome of ideas acquisition and the process of ‘acquiring’ them is an (albeit necessarily precarious) sense of ‘self-confidence’, which is reinforced through discourse. The MBA thus becomes a means for acquiring appropriate language fluency in management and the self-confidence to gain legitimacy and social privilege in senior management. The article DOI: 10.1177/1350508406068501 http://org.sagepub.com Organization 13(6) Articles points to the analytical value of exploring the translation of knowledge beyond that of the transformation of ideas and of the discursive content of identity towards the existential-emotional transitions associated with ‘identity work’. It also has significant implications for our understanding of management, management education and the centrality and bound- aries of knowledge as an organizing concept. Key words. identity; knowledge; management; MBA; ‘self-confidence’; translation The search for means through which ostensibly useful ideas and techniques can be acquired and then applied to improve organizational effectiveness has become somewhat of a holy grail. Longstanding debates about innovation and training have been complemented by more recent concerns with learning and with knowledge management, intensive firms and societies. Aside from the issue of evaluating the claimed utility of ideas and techniques, the question of their transfer and application has troubled practitioners and policy makers as well as academics. In the contexts of national governments and public and private sector organiza- tions, facilitating the development and ‘acquisition’ of practically appli- cable or relevant knowledge has become a dominant imperative (e.g. Alvesson, 2004; Becker, 2001;). A concern over the applicability of management ideas and techniques is as old as the emergence and ‘scientisation’ of management itself (Littler, 1982) and continues to inform the development of management education and training (e.g. Locke, 1989). Within the UK for example, damning public reports on the quality of managers in the late 1980s combined with employers’ continued frustrations over the lack of practical relevance of formal management education (e.g. Constable and McCormick, 1987, Handy, 1987) led to various proposals to develop managerial competencies (e.g. the Management Charter Initiative). This also fuelled an era from the 1990s to date of a massive expansion of MBA programmes. Here, the emphasis in terms of marketing, syllabi and student expectations is (perhaps more so than seemingly less ambiguous vocational subjects) on providing practically relevant knowledge. The MBA Handbook (Cameron, 1997: 24) as an example of this functional skill based approach, states that ‘Ideally an MBA should develop functional, problem-solving and communication skills, as well as strategic awareness, making you more effective in your work as a manager’. Another example of the way this expectation is raised is in the marketing information for the MBA programme discussed in this research, which presents the MBA as an academic means to a business end. The means are enhanced business skills . The end is an exceptional business career . it helps you handle issues of corporate life more competently . gaining from your increasing knowledge . assisting in the future performance of the organisation by contributing fresh approaches and improved skills . 842 Management as a (Self) Confidence Trick Andrew Sturdy et al. While the UK context has its own dynamics, not least in terms of the historically tense relationship between academia and commerce, such developments have been evident elsewhere in Europe and beyond, in the expansion of MBAs especially (see Sturdy and Gabriel, 2000). Moreover, as managerial discourses such as strategy, customer service and entrepre- neurship come to be less contested more generally, the competitive imperative becomes more focused on the application, rather than critical evaluation, of relevant tools and techniques. This is further reinforced by a progressive managerial scepticism of ‘fads’ or ‘hype’ towards a more ‘grounded’ concern with the implementation of management ideas (Nohria et al., 2003). There is a substantial and growing literature on the ‘diffusion’ of management ideas (e.g. see Grint, 1997). Much of this focuses on the rhetoric of various promoters and neglects the ‘audience’ to which it is presented (Sturdy, 2004). There are, however, a number of studies exploring whether ideas are adopted or developed as a practice/ technique (e.g. Appelbaum and Batt, 1994; Guillen, 1994; Sturdy and Fleming, 2003) and assessing the impact of implementation on organizational performance (e.g. Staw and Epstein, 2000). At the same time, there is increasing recognition of the necessary, but varied adaptation or transmutation processes through which the form of ideas changes or is ‘re-invented’, especially in relation to institutional and cultural contexts (e.g. Kostova and Roth, 2002; Lillrank, 1995; Rogers, 1995). This links with the broader notion of translation, where ideas are not only trans- formed, but also change the objects and other (i.e. human) actors they come into contact with in networks of ongoing relations (Bloomfield and Best, 1992; Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996). However, in an effort to emphasize the activity of ‘inanimate’ objects, such as technological hardware, in the translation process, the transformation of human actors is underplayed and seen largely in terms of how the idea transforms the content or label of who they are or become. This transformation of actors through management ideas connects with a more critical literature. Here, attention has shifted from more tradi- tional and structural concerns with the legitimatory or ideological power of management knowledge for (male) managerial and functional prerog- atives (e.g. Braverman, 1974; Hales, 1993; Morgan, 1983) as well as individual careers (Watson, 1986). Rather, the focus is on managerial discourses and their power effects through a more or less de-centred subject. Here, discourses shape or regulate identity, making up entrepre- neurial, strategic and customer oriented ‘narratives of self’ (du Gay and Salaman, 1992; Fairclough, 1995; Grey, 1999; Parker, 1995). However, what is neglected in studies of the ‘travels’ of management ideas or discourses generally is how they transform not only the discursive form or content of identity, but also the related existential or emotional experience of it. 843 Organization 13(6) Articles This article seeks to begin to address such a neglect by drawing on research on the perceived relationship between managers’ formal studying and their day-to-day organizational practices—‘learning into practice’. It suggests that conventional notions of acquiring, translating and applying management tools and frameworks are barely significant. Rather, what we might consider to be the learning of explicit management knowledge is more the development of a form of self-confidence, but a form which both disguises and reproduces the fragility of knowledge and identity. In this sense, it might be seen as a ‘trick’ of confidence in that it is not so much what you know, but what you and others think and feel that you know and can say and that managerial (and others’) confidence is partly deceptive in terms of obfuscating its necessarily fragile nature in social contexts. The article is structured in the following way. Firstly, we introduce our processual conception of identity as it relates to management and management knowledge. We then briefly outline the research which was conducted in the context of MBA education in the UK, where one might expect the practical utility of knowledge to be especially important in terms of student expectations. We then explore this theme, moving towards a focus on identity work and the notion of self-confidence in particular. In the discussion and conclusion, we draw out some initial research and policy implications and questions for management, knowledge and management

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