The book on Managerism

Managerism
Corporate Leadership in Distress

First Edition 2010, 247 pages, 10 figures, bound
ISBN13: 9783527504602
ISBN10: 3527504605
Publisher: Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany
Out of Print
getAbstract International Book Award 2011

Managerism

Managerism: profound deformation of management; empowered corporate management and disempowered stakeholders.

The phenomenon occurs mostly in large publicly traded corporations; it is global and exhibits diverse national characteristics.

Manfred Hoefle describes the emergence of Managerism and analyses the causes. He names the corporations, actors and collaborators in this aberration from the market system and explains why the latest economic crisis was inevitable, and the damaging influences that persist.

In Managerism, Manfred Hoefle also paints a positive picture: the world of robust entrepreneurs and timeless aspects of responsible corporate leadership. He sees its representatives as beacons of hope for an economic system which embodies human dignity and innovative value creation. Hoefle advocates an urgently needed renunciation of Managerist practices and describes how a reformation of management can begin.

The term Managerism, coined by Manfred Hoefle and others, describes a frequently encountered form of management: how corporations are controlled, the appropriation of created value, and the treatment of people and moral values. Advised by external consultants and encouraged by finance analysts, many managers have become remote from employees. They refer to the latter merely as 'FTEs', 'the headcount' or 'human capital'.

The causes of Managerism are:

• advance of (global) capital markets
• divergence of nominal and real economy
• monopolization of markets
• systemic impact of major organizations
• contemporary human behavior or the 'organization men' (striving for power, greed)
• 'neo-corporatist' political intervention.

However, Hoefle also describes approaches and case studies from another world of business, which is centered on robust enterprises. Robust means they can survive in dynamic economic circumstances based on timeless principles and relations with people, community and property, built on tried-and-tested business practices, which are being continually developed. Compared with corporations headed by Managerists the differences become clearly apparent.