Crossroads—Mediating the Fact-Value Antinomy: Patterns in Managerial and Legal Rhetoric, 1890–1990

Abstract

In this paper, we provide an account of past trends and future possibilities in management theorizing that sharply departs from Barley and Kunda's (1992) powerful and troubling “cog in the clock” metaphor. In their important recent historical account, they interpret managerial theory as an ideology designed to uphold managerial control. The current paper extends Barley and Kunda's (1992) inasmuch as it shares their methodology of explaining developments in management theory as ideological responses to underlying contradictions. However, our history departs from theirs in several important respects that, taken as a whole, constitute a challenge to their work.