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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 20 hours
    Level: Masters

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • This unit looks at the management of local knowledge-generating practices. You will explore the processes that link practices to global contexts and learn to identify the key dimensions of globalisation...
 

1 The management of local knowledge-generating practices

  • 1.1 The wider context Resource
  • This unit explores the management of local knowledge-generating practices with regard to their wider contexts. Although these local practices might be considered in terms of individuals acting and thinking...
  • 1.2 Aims Resource
  • The aims of this unit are:
 

2 The dimensions of globalisation

  • 2.1 Introduction Resource
  • Globalisation is used in different contexts to mean quite different things. According to the prestigious Economist magazine's Pocket Strategy: The Essentials of Business Strategy from A to Z, globalisation...
  • 2.2 Standardised products Resource
  • While Theodore Levitt's (1983) classic article about the globalisation of markets accepted that there are fundamental disparities across different local contexts that have to be accommodated (for example,...
  • 2.3 McDonaldisation Resource
  • George Ritzer (1993; 2004) has coined the term ‘McDonaldisation’ to describe the way in which, increasingly, things are produced in similar, standardised ways, updating, amplifying and extending Weber's...
  • 2.4 Glocalisation Resource
  • ‘Glocalisation’ combines the words ‘globalisation’ and ‘localisation’ to emphasise the idea that a global product or service is more likely to succeed if it is adapted to the specific requirements of local...
  • 2.5 Clusters Resource
  • A striking contradiction of the internet revolution is that, although cyberspace allows firms to be located anywhere, they still seem to cluster together in global cities such as New York, London and Sydney...
 

3 Institutional rules of practice

  • 3.1 Interconnectedness Resource
  • In making sense of the stretch from the here-and-now to the wider context, social science has often seized on distinct levels: the micro – dealing with things that happen in organisations, for instance...
  • 3.2 Institutions in flux Resource
  • Although the implosion of the Soviet Union, after the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, has extended the flow of global capitalism, de Soto (2000) argues that the lack of capitalist institutions...
  • 3.3 Asian alternatives Resource
  • After the Second World War, the commander of the allied occupation of Japan (1945–52), General Douglas MacArthur, proclaimed in a September 1945 interview with the New York Times that ‘Japan will never...
 

4 Rational solutions

  • 4.1 Scientific management Resource
  • Frederick Winslow Taylor, who is often regarded as the father of modern management, was an engineer, born of a wealthy Pennsylvanian family. He was expected to go into the law or some other genteel profession:...
  • 4.2 Bureaucracy Resource
  • Bureaucracy as a concept has had an interesting career: it begins in France in the eighteenth century. By the nineteenth century, the German state constructed by its first Chancellor, Bismarck, was a model...
 

5 Postmodern rationalities

  • 5.1 Decision making Resource
  • Decision making is understood as management's main task. Usually, the model of decision making is described as a perfectly well-organised, rational and logical process. First, the problem is defined. Second,...
  • 5.2 Institutionalising French bread Resource
  • The context-specific nature of rationality is such that, as we have just indicated, many insider norms are not apparent to outsiders. From the point of view of an organisation, the institutional rules...
 

6 Conclusion

  • 6 Conclusion Resource
  • We have covered a lot of ground in this unit – yet, at one level, the message is simple: knowledge involves knowers – people – who learn how to think and act in the here-and-now of specific contexts. Practice...
 

References and Acknowledgements

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