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The two faces of management. The Janus factor
Book reviews / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 511}524
513
text except on rare occasions when the author gets too involved with her sources and forgets to help the reader with the translation. My critical eye has detected only two (minor) errors (Gogol, not Dostojevsky (Dead Souls); Ross Ashby, not Karl Weick (law of requisite variety)). Recommended reading! Sten JoK nsson Go( teborg School of Economics and Commercial Law, Go( teborg University, Vasagatan 3, Go( teborg 41124, Sweden References Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Bruner, J. (1986). Acts of meaning. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Latour, B. (1996). Aramis or the love of technology. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Smircich, L. (1985). Is the concept of culture a paradigm for understanding organizations and Ourselves? In P.J. Frost, L.F. Moore, M.R. Louis, C.C. Lundberg, J. Martin, Organization culture. (pp. 3}72) Beverly Hills: Sage. Yanow, D. (1996). How does a policy mean? interpreting policy and organizational actions. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. PII: S 0 9 5 6 - 5 2 2 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 5
The two faces of management. The Janus factor Sven-Erik SjoK strand; International Thomson Business Press, London, 1997 The Internet bookstore Amazon.com lists 32,000 books that concern `managementa. It may be thought impudent in a scholarly journal of management to ask a question such as this: Do we need yet another book? Do not most of the new books we read make us ever more convinced that they add little new to our already rather fragmented picture of the indistinct and variable praxis of management? And yet new books are produced every day, and we buy them. Seemingly, the tricky practice of management catches our interest, exactly because it is so di$cult to grasp, to teach and to study, and because we believe * not only as scholars of (others) attempts of management but also because as individuals we try to manage our own organizations and own selves * that it is or should be an important part of our lives. This interest of ours is of course well known to the writers of management books, as can be seen from the numerous texts that seek to teach us what good management is and how management can be improved. Typically, the didactic of prescriptive and normative texts is based on the assumption that management practice is di$cult and complex and needs to be described in a greatly simpli"ed manner to become useful, i.e. translated into action and organizational change. The Two Faces of Management, however, di!ers from the standard books on management. It departs from and sticks to the assumption that managing organizations is a complex activity, and that we should understand and accept this complexity rather than trying to avoid it by simpli"cation. Sven-Erik SjoK strand relates his argument to two fundamental challenges that face managers: to organize people and to establish a shared strategy * both of which are especially challenging
514
Book reviews / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 511}524
under the uncertainties of today's strategic conditions. Contrary to many management books, this one describes the manager as a living human being who not only has thoughts but also feelings of uncertainty when he or she tries to "nd ways of handling these challenges. One important aspect * and even a driving force * of the manager's job, the author claims, is in fact to deal with these uncertainties. SjoK strand's case descriptions of the manager's subjective uncertainty show little resemblance to the dominant literature on uncertainty and risk, where the concepts refer to decision theory and relate to cognitive activities. Here, instead, the author has a more common-sense and broader view. He distinguishes between `rationala ways (cognition and habit) and `irrationala ways (emotion, intuition, and aesthetics) of dealing with uncertainty. However, in his choice of labels for the two ways of handling uncertainty, SjoK strand shows that he does not want to depart altogether from the traditional and dominant literature on decision making in organizations. Why, then, does he want to pour new wine into old bottles? Perhaps it is a deliberate choice in an attempt to be understood by practicing managers, who are less alert to the di$culties involved in using this terminology than many researchers nowadays. As I read the book, I get a picture of the author standing with one foot in academia and the other among business people, that he shares and is stimulated by their e!orts and experiences, and also sees this particular group of people as important readers. Thank God, the author introduces a didactic trick, a good proxy for the rational/irrational duality of management, which makes the rationality terminology a little less prominent even though the book is about rationality and the rationales of management practice. The god Janus with two faces facing di!erent ways is used as a metaphor for the managing of complex organizations, whereby attention and action, simultaneously and in an integrated way, are directed towards past and future and towards internal and external things and events. By introducing the omnipotent Janus the author at the same time cleverly challenges the claim that (bounded) rationality alone, regarded as intellectual skills or technical logic, is not only possible but also to be preferred. SjoK strand's picture reveals instead a manager who seems more like the human we know, in sharp contrast to the typical heroic image that we meet all too often in popular management literature. The author devotes one chapter to a discussion of management strategy. This consists mainly of the usual descriptions of the strategy schools that deal with strategy as a planned or emerging process. What, then, is the author's own view on strategy? He sees strategy as complex process that simultaneously represents both analyses and interaction and that uses both calculative and idea-based or genuine rationales in which past, present and future merge and are almost impossible to keep separate. In addition, strategic e$ciency and meaning are also considered, as are cognitive, emotional, intuitive and aesthetic aspects: all these qualities matter, and all are practically inseparable dimensions of strategic (inter)action. Further, to make the concept even more complex, organizational strategy is also seen as existing in an implicit form in the minds of one or more individuals, and in an explicit form as intersubjectively shared. A general theory of management such as this one, builds * as a general theory should do * on very general, broad concepts. The author's strategy in building his
Book reviews / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 511}524
515
theory is to be inclusive rather than exclusive. This means including many aspects to show that everything matters and what is more, all at the same time. The book demonstrates that SjoK strand is himself able to deal with such complexity, to attend simultaneously to dualities and paradoxical conceptual relations. Students in search of way to simplify their "eld reports, however, may be less helped by this theory. It is obvious that the author has chosen a social constructivist perspective on management of a Berger & Luckmann type. At the same time, by introducing the notion of rationality, he focuses on reasons for action, on the `reasonablea. Such a combination of perspectives provides, I believe, the starting-point for a common understanding of reality among both practitioners and students. It resembles everyman's `theory of realitya. It will therefore probably make sense to many scholars in management, and especially in strategic management. But to what extent is this text likely to be useful to, and used by, practitioners in business organizations? The book contains a report on a "eld study, The Iggesund Contrest, a hostile takeover bid of a Swedish company. It is described as an example of a complex strategic process of a typical Janus character. The study concerns a process that includes many aspects of uncertainty and gets unpredicted outcomes. The author asks whether or not these outcomes are a product of &irrationalities'. The ex ante calculations obviously did not prove right; rather, speci"c ideals seem to have played an important part in the merger process. SjoK strand's case story is one of the few valuable texts that describe the plurality of local rationales in strategic processes. At one and the same time SjoK strand classi"es phenomena and tries to overcome the duality that such classi"cations construct. This task of his is complicated, and in line with the principle that complexity has to be accepted and visible. The results are both convincing and complicated for the reader. The complication is due to the detailed argumentation. It is also contingent on the author's ambition to present a general theory of management, which in this case means a great number of references and associations with theory and practice. This book is also a result of many years of study and re#ection about the practice of management. Is it a `di!erenta book about management? Yes. It is not just another book on management. Does it give advice about how we are to become better managers? No, but it o!ers relief to managers and support for doing what they are already doing, and as such can have a `therapeutica e!ect on those who are concerned about their di$culty justifying their complex actions. For students stu!ed with the simpli"ed and unrealistic pictures of management that are presented at business schools, it will serve as a good source of information about management practice. The principles of management practice, which are clearly advocated and illustrated, do `make sensea, and I predict that this book will be widely read and discussed. Guje SevoH n Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, PB 479, Fin-00101 Helsinki, Finland PII: S 0 9 5 6 - 5 2 2 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 1 8 - X
513
text except on rare occasions when the author gets too involved with her sources and forgets to help the reader with the translation. My critical eye has detected only two (minor) errors (Gogol, not Dostojevsky (Dead Souls); Ross Ashby, not Karl Weick (law of requisite variety)). Recommended reading! Sten JoK nsson Go( teborg School of Economics and Commercial Law, Go( teborg University, Vasagatan 3, Go( teborg 41124, Sweden References Barnard, C. I. (1938). The functions of the executive. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Bruner, J. (1986). Acts of meaning. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Latour, B. (1996). Aramis or the love of technology. MA: Harvard University Press: Cambridge. Smircich, L. (1985). Is the concept of culture a paradigm for understanding organizations and Ourselves? In P.J. Frost, L.F. Moore, M.R. Louis, C.C. Lundberg, J. Martin, Organization culture. (pp. 3}72) Beverly Hills: Sage. Yanow, D. (1996). How does a policy mean? interpreting policy and organizational actions. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. PII: S 0 9 5 6 - 5 2 2 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 1 0 - 5
The two faces of management. The Janus factor Sven-Erik SjoK strand; International Thomson Business Press, London, 1997 The Internet bookstore Amazon.com lists 32,000 books that concern `managementa. It may be thought impudent in a scholarly journal of management to ask a question such as this: Do we need yet another book? Do not most of the new books we read make us ever more convinced that they add little new to our already rather fragmented picture of the indistinct and variable praxis of management? And yet new books are produced every day, and we buy them. Seemingly, the tricky practice of management catches our interest, exactly because it is so di$cult to grasp, to teach and to study, and because we believe * not only as scholars of (others) attempts of management but also because as individuals we try to manage our own organizations and own selves * that it is or should be an important part of our lives. This interest of ours is of course well known to the writers of management books, as can be seen from the numerous texts that seek to teach us what good management is and how management can be improved. Typically, the didactic of prescriptive and normative texts is based on the assumption that management practice is di$cult and complex and needs to be described in a greatly simpli"ed manner to become useful, i.e. translated into action and organizational change. The Two Faces of Management, however, di!ers from the standard books on management. It departs from and sticks to the assumption that managing organizations is a complex activity, and that we should understand and accept this complexity rather than trying to avoid it by simpli"cation. Sven-Erik SjoK strand relates his argument to two fundamental challenges that face managers: to organize people and to establish a shared strategy * both of which are especially challenging
514
Book reviews / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 511}524
under the uncertainties of today's strategic conditions. Contrary to many management books, this one describes the manager as a living human being who not only has thoughts but also feelings of uncertainty when he or she tries to "nd ways of handling these challenges. One important aspect * and even a driving force * of the manager's job, the author claims, is in fact to deal with these uncertainties. SjoK strand's case descriptions of the manager's subjective uncertainty show little resemblance to the dominant literature on uncertainty and risk, where the concepts refer to decision theory and relate to cognitive activities. Here, instead, the author has a more common-sense and broader view. He distinguishes between `rationala ways (cognition and habit) and `irrationala ways (emotion, intuition, and aesthetics) of dealing with uncertainty. However, in his choice of labels for the two ways of handling uncertainty, SjoK strand shows that he does not want to depart altogether from the traditional and dominant literature on decision making in organizations. Why, then, does he want to pour new wine into old bottles? Perhaps it is a deliberate choice in an attempt to be understood by practicing managers, who are less alert to the di$culties involved in using this terminology than many researchers nowadays. As I read the book, I get a picture of the author standing with one foot in academia and the other among business people, that he shares and is stimulated by their e!orts and experiences, and also sees this particular group of people as important readers. Thank God, the author introduces a didactic trick, a good proxy for the rational/irrational duality of management, which makes the rationality terminology a little less prominent even though the book is about rationality and the rationales of management practice. The god Janus with two faces facing di!erent ways is used as a metaphor for the managing of complex organizations, whereby attention and action, simultaneously and in an integrated way, are directed towards past and future and towards internal and external things and events. By introducing the omnipotent Janus the author at the same time cleverly challenges the claim that (bounded) rationality alone, regarded as intellectual skills or technical logic, is not only possible but also to be preferred. SjoK strand's picture reveals instead a manager who seems more like the human we know, in sharp contrast to the typical heroic image that we meet all too often in popular management literature. The author devotes one chapter to a discussion of management strategy. This consists mainly of the usual descriptions of the strategy schools that deal with strategy as a planned or emerging process. What, then, is the author's own view on strategy? He sees strategy as complex process that simultaneously represents both analyses and interaction and that uses both calculative and idea-based or genuine rationales in which past, present and future merge and are almost impossible to keep separate. In addition, strategic e$ciency and meaning are also considered, as are cognitive, emotional, intuitive and aesthetic aspects: all these qualities matter, and all are practically inseparable dimensions of strategic (inter)action. Further, to make the concept even more complex, organizational strategy is also seen as existing in an implicit form in the minds of one or more individuals, and in an explicit form as intersubjectively shared. A general theory of management such as this one, builds * as a general theory should do * on very general, broad concepts. The author's strategy in building his
Book reviews / Scand. J. Mgmt. 17 (2001) 511}524
515
theory is to be inclusive rather than exclusive. This means including many aspects to show that everything matters and what is more, all at the same time. The book demonstrates that SjoK strand is himself able to deal with such complexity, to attend simultaneously to dualities and paradoxical conceptual relations. Students in search of way to simplify their "eld reports, however, may be less helped by this theory. It is obvious that the author has chosen a social constructivist perspective on management of a Berger & Luckmann type. At the same time, by introducing the notion of rationality, he focuses on reasons for action, on the `reasonablea. Such a combination of perspectives provides, I believe, the starting-point for a common understanding of reality among both practitioners and students. It resembles everyman's `theory of realitya. It will therefore probably make sense to many scholars in management, and especially in strategic management. But to what extent is this text likely to be useful to, and used by, practitioners in business organizations? The book contains a report on a "eld study, The Iggesund Contrest, a hostile takeover bid of a Swedish company. It is described as an example of a complex strategic process of a typical Janus character. The study concerns a process that includes many aspects of uncertainty and gets unpredicted outcomes. The author asks whether or not these outcomes are a product of &irrationalities'. The ex ante calculations obviously did not prove right; rather, speci"c ideals seem to have played an important part in the merger process. SjoK strand's case story is one of the few valuable texts that describe the plurality of local rationales in strategic processes. At one and the same time SjoK strand classi"es phenomena and tries to overcome the duality that such classi"cations construct. This task of his is complicated, and in line with the principle that complexity has to be accepted and visible. The results are both convincing and complicated for the reader. The complication is due to the detailed argumentation. It is also contingent on the author's ambition to present a general theory of management, which in this case means a great number of references and associations with theory and practice. This book is also a result of many years of study and re#ection about the practice of management. Is it a `di!erenta book about management? Yes. It is not just another book on management. Does it give advice about how we are to become better managers? No, but it o!ers relief to managers and support for doing what they are already doing, and as such can have a `therapeutica e!ect on those who are concerned about their di$culty justifying their complex actions. For students stu!ed with the simpli"ed and unrealistic pictures of management that are presented at business schools, it will serve as a good source of information about management practice. The principles of management practice, which are clearly advocated and illustrated, do `make sensea, and I predict that this book will be widely read and discussed. Guje SevoH n Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration, PB 479, Fin-00101 Helsinki, Finland PII: S 0 9 5 6 - 5 2 2 1 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 1 8 - X