1818 Society WBG History TG and WBG Library event
Management and ‘leadership’ roles are often well rewarded, but management is not a widely trusted profession. Business schools often aspire to develop a ‘profession’ of management intended to ‘serve society’, but the academic debate about management has tended to be sceptical of these claims. The career of Robert S. McNamara vividly illustrates this tension. Based on a close study of documentary sources, Leo McCann explores McNamara’s managerial worldview and style of practice. Teaching materials at Harvard Business School show the beginnings of the management accounting techniques that became central to McNamara’s operating style. Archived documents at Ford Motor Company reveal the growing complexity and uncertainty involved in managerial decision-making. Public statements of McNamara as Secretary of Defence provide insights into how such complexity was ‘rationalized’ through techniques such as ‘Planning’ and ‘Programming,’ techniques that subsequently informed McNamara’s approach to managing the World Bank. World Bank documents shed light on staff concerns about how this approach was applied to the Bank’s lending strategy. Leo’s forthcoming book on McNamara’s management style links to broader discussions about the complex and contested roles played by management in contemporary society, posing the question: What makes for good management?
Presenter: Leo McCann, Professor of Management at the University of York, UK. He is currently working on a British Academy funded project into the career history of Robert S. McNamara.
Discussant: Steven Conn, W.E. Smith Professor of History, Miami University and author of Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools (Cornell University Press, 2019)
Moderator: John Heath, Chair, WBG History Thematic Group
If you will attend in person, please RSVP. Venue: MC C3-214
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On June 13th, you can directly join the session by using the link/details below:
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Meeting number: 2313 872 0792
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