ABSTRACT
The idea of management itself lacks sharpness of detail because of its multidisciplinary nature. Management has acquired a trade deficit with other disciplines: it has borrowed more from them than it has contributed to them. Many who regard themselves as teaching or researching in management are, understandably, making their primary careers in other fields. This adds excitement, broadens their outlooks, and furthers the aims of their primary discipline, fortunately also illuminating the field of management. Problems of clarity and focus in delineating the field of management are complicated by the mixture of other disciplines that have helped to enlarge and enrich the field as they sought to accomplish purposes of their own. Management remains a discipline without boundaries, fragmented and searching for greater unity and sharper focus. Teaching and research in management need more and better critical analyses from inside the field, as well as more and better external appraisal.
