Management Studies and a Changing World

Abstract

Management studies, standardized and relative ly unchanged for a long time, are an endorsement of the power of human agency as the only determinant in bringing about desired futures, albeit restricted to the business world, or so it would seem. In reality these studies, and the implementation of the ideas based on faith in the power of human agency, have been the driving force in human affairs affecting all other domains, political, social, cultural, and legal. The justification for the entrenchment of the content of such studies and the faith in the power of human agency have been assumed to be proven by a set of metrics that are spread across all the major domains. (An examination of the underlying bases for the belief in the power of human agency is a vast subject and not included in the scope of this paper.) However, conditions and contexts have emerged on the planet that now threaten our very ex istence as a species. An exhausti ve litany of the adverse contexts and conditions is also not part of the scope of this paper, but I am referring to issues such as globali zation and its discontents, climate change, end of oil , burgeoning human populations and sustainability, pandemics, etc. A convincing argument can be made that at this juncture a thoughtful reexamination of management studies premised on the power of human agency needs to be undertaken with a view to making a drasti c modification, if we are to have any success in reversing the adverse contexts and conditions that prevail, assuming, of course, that it is not too late and that they can indeed be reversed . The following is an attempt to present that argument. Keywords: Management, chaos, curriculum design, evolution, futures thinking.