The Conduct of Management and the Management of Conduct: Contemporary Managerial Discourse and the Constitution of the ‘Competent’ Manager*

Abstract

The character and conduct of the manager has formed a central focus of attempts to govern economic life throughout the present century. and current programmes of organizational change involve radical attempts to reconstitute the nature and conduct of management. This is attempted through the identification and implementation of management competencies. Discourses of organizational reform such as human resource management, total quality management and business process re‐engineering all place a critical emphasis on anti‐bureaucratic, organic and flexible forms of organization, which are also seen to require the development of particular capacities and predispositions among managers. Essential to their vision of ‘managerial work’ is a composite of ‘entrepreneurial’ attributes. Management competencies appear to offer a congenial method for the reconstitution of the manager along ‘entrepreneurial’ lines, not simply because they are inherently founded on managers'self‐management and self‐presentation of identified behaviours, but also because they represent individualized forms of business functions (and are often associated with the establishment of market relations within the organization).