The Collapse of the American Management Mystique

This is a book on the history and "mystique" of American management--its development and diffusion to other countries, and its subsequent eclipse by Japanese and German approaches. In this work, Robert Locke traces the evolution of American management in the postwar era--the phenomenon once described by Churchill as that "clear cut, logical, mass production style of thought." He goes on to discuss in detail the views of such business writers as Chandler, Reich, Senge, and Deming. But the force of his critique rests on a thorough examination of alternative forms of management that grew up in West Germany and Japan during the past decades. He argues that these alternative management forms have done a better job managing capitalist economies since the 1970s than has American managerialism. With an unusually wide-ranging knowledge of management and business thinking in the United States, Germany, and Japan, and the historian's ability to stand back and take the longer view, Locke has written a powerfully argued and challenging book.

Robert R. Locke is Professor of History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Reading.