Towards Conceptual History of Management: The Language of the 1950s Textbooks in Finland

• Autorzy: Tuomo Peltonen

Warianty tytułu

W stronę konceptualnej historii zarządzania - język podręczników z lat pięćdziesiątych w Finlandii

• Języki publikacji: EN

Abstrakty

EN

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to add to the emerging body of conceptual histories of management by undertaking a reading of three leading Finnish textbooks from the 1950s.

Design: Management concepts are analysed through the linguistic dynamics of a set of historically situated Finnish textbooks. The semantic dimension of analysis is concerned with the conceptual structures behind particular linguistic constructions. The pragmatic dimension, on the other hand, is attuned to the speech act aspects of conceptual formations.

Findings: The analysis shows that the current concept used for "management" in Finnish does not feature as the key word in the 1950s textbook articulations. Instead, concepts such as "business caretaking", "administration", "arranging" or "education" are employed to signify the reality of organizational and managerial structures and processes. Furthermore, the texts strove to legitimize management mainly in terms of the moral character of managers and the management process.

Research implications: Conceptual histories of linguistically non-English contexts offer interesting contrasts to the dominant Anglo-American discourses of management and related phenomena. More empirical studies of conceptual history of management are needed.

Originality: This article adds to the limited body of empirical investigations of conceptual history of management, organization and related issues. (original abstract)

Cel: celem artykułu jest uzupełnienie powstającego zbioru literatury na temat konceptualnej historii zarządzania na przykładzie trzech czołowych fińskich podręczników z lat pięćdziesiątych XX wieku.

Postępowanie badawcze: koncepcje zarządzania przeanalizowano przez pryzmat dynamiki językowej kilku historycznie osadzonych podręczników fińskich. Semantyczny wymiar analizy dotyczy struktur pojęciowych kryjących się za określonymi konstrukcjami językowymi. Natomiast wymiar pragmatyczny jest dostosowany do aspektów aktu mowy związanych z kształtowaniem pojęć.

Wyniki: z analizy wynika, że obecne pojęcie "zarządzania" w języku fińskim nie występuje jako słowo kluczowe w podręcznikach z lat 50. Zamiast niego do określenia realnych struktur i procesów organizacyjnych i zarządczych stosowane są takie pojęcia, jak "dbałość o biznes", "administracja", "organizacja" lub "edukacja". Ponadto w podręcznikach starano się potwierdzić istnienie zarządzania głównie w kategoriach moralności menedżerów i moralnego charakteru procesu zarządzania.

Implikacje badawcze: konceptualne historie nieanglojęzycznych kontekstów językowych prezentują interesujący kontrast wobec dominujących anglo-amerykańskich dyskursów zarządzania i powiązanych zjawisk. Potrzebne są szersze empiryczne badania konceptualnej historii zarządzania.

Oryginalność: artykuł stanowi uzupełnienie niewielu badań empirycznych dotyczących konceptualnej historii zarządzania, organizacji i zagadnień pokrewnych. (abstrakt oryginalny)

Słowa kluczowe

EN

Management; History; Education

PL

Zarządzanie; Historia; Edukacja

• Czasopismo: Problemy Zarządzania
• Rocznik: 2020
• Tom: 18
• Numer: nr 2 (88) Management as a Historic Symphony - Historic Approach to Organizational Studies
• Strony: 34--54

Twórcy

autor

Tuomo Peltonen

• Aalto University School of Business, Finland

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Identyfikatory

DOI

10.7172/1644-9584.88.2