ABSTRACT
For many general texts on management, a discussion of management thought and practice would amount to little more than a tour of the familiar schools of management thought (Thompson and McHugh, 1990, 1995). Indeed general texts on management tend to portray management thought and practice as following an evolutionary path of development. In this form of presentation the classical school is presented and in turn tends to be portrayed as giving way to human relations approaches, which might in turn be portrayed as giving way to contingency theory. In its turn, contingency theory might be portrayed as giving way to current management ideas, or what some term ‘guru theory’ (see for example Burnes, 1992, 1996) with its attendant baggage of buzzwords such as empowerment, TQM, re-engineering, downsizing or some other buzzwordreaders may select from the vast array of buzzwords that infest current forms of discussion!
