This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (1) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Landau, O. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Cold War political culture and the return of systems rationality

Tel Aviv University, Israel, olan{at}netvision.net.il

This study places systems rationalism - the most important phase in managerial systems discourse’s dissemination - within the context of Cold War’s incipience in the United States. Quantitative and qualitative analyses are offered based on primary data collected systematically from the Harvard Business Review and Advanced Management, supplemented by additional macro-data and secondary historiographic sources. The study’s findings indicate that systems rationalism was shaped by a formative event, short but intensive, combining two processes: the eruption of the Cold War political culture and concurrent managerial struggles over hegemony. Managerial discourse appropriated Cold War ideological concepts and national myths and translated them into rational-instrumental terms. The resultant discursive formation hybridizing particularistic-ethnocentrism and universal-rationalism became the birthplace of systems rationalism. Systems rationalism’s possible contributions to the enhancement of managerial power are discussed, as well as implications for the understanding of present managerial discourse

Key Words: Cold War • ethnocentrism • hybridization • managerial power • organizational discourse • systems rationality

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				B. Cooke and A. J. Mills The right to be human and human rights: Maslow, McCarthyism and the death of humanist theories of management Management & Organizational History, February 1, 2008; 3(1): 27 - 47. [Abstract] [PDF]