This paper seeks to illuminate ways in which the introduction and use of management knowledges and practices in U.K. universities overlaps, intersects and confronts established knowledge and practice in these sites. While broadly supportive of the general directionality of work in this field by other authors (Parker and Jary 1995; Winter 1995; Miller 1995) who argue that U.K. universities are becoming increasingly corporately managed around a 'Fordist' mass production arrangement, the paper offers an empirically based exploration of some of the contradictions and struggles that make this broad shift unstable, partial and by no means inevitable. In particular the paper critiques and extends points made by Parker and Jary's discussion (1995) of the changing character of U.K. universities. To do this, the paper begins by reviewing a range of conceptual resources that can be brought to bear on this issue. Following a brief discussion of Bourdieu and Giddens, we suggest that a framework outlined by Fiske (1993) offers a potentially illuminating resource for addressing the changing character of universities in the U.K. This conceptual resource is used to interpret empirical materials drawn from discussions with nearly 40 senior post-holders in two pre-1992 and two post-1992 universities. In the analysis of this material, we argue for the relevance and value of foregrounding the way that management knowledge is at work in processes of change that are underway. We conclude that management knowledge and practice, which provides resources through which the life of the university is thought and done in new ways, at best only partially reconstitutes and displaces existing knowledge and practice.

In broad terms the critical tradition in organization studies (Marsden & Townley, 1996) is concerned with understanding and questioning the elaboration of power relations in worksites, particularly as they induce oppressive and exploitative practices. This paper begins by outlining some of the key features of what might be regarded as a traditional critical reading of creativity in work organizations. This initial discussion is presented via an analysis of two texts from Fortune magazine’s account of the performance of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Without dealing in detail with some of the problematics and limitations of these approaches, the paper then outlines the key features of a Foucauldian critical discourse approach to the analysis of creativity. The discussion proceeds to identify key features of such an account. These include the position of academic experts as agents of knowledge in the production of ‘creativity’, the organizational prescriptions and devices used to visualize and normalize ‘creative’ managers and professionals, and the ontological and epistemological tradition that is drawn on in the production of both the agents of knowledge of creativity and the devices that identify, classify and regulate ‘creativity’ with respect to managing and organizing workplaces. Using the term ‘economy of identity’, the concluding section discusses the implications of this approach, including the oppressive and exploitative dimensions of ‘creativity’.

This article suggests that alongside the seeming remasculinisation of U K further education management reported recently in Gender and Education, there is also a little-reported but prevalent feminisation of lower level managerial positions across this sector. T o support this assertion the article draws on empirical work done by the Further Education Development Agency, and two interview-based studies of woman and men college 'managers'. Conceptually, the article draws on both labour process and post-structuralist understandings of feminisation. In general the article suggests that, as with public sector restructuring more generally, some limited recruitment of women to management posts is involved. In further education, such recruitment cannot be simply seen either as celebrating the proof of increasing equity between men and women in educational work, or of demonstrating the desire by women to secure career advancement. T he article suggests that, as with the feminisation of other forms of work, this recruitment of women to middle level management posts is a key aspect of restructuring itself. In part it is suggested that women's previous 'outsider' positioning provides a basis for recruitment to such position s in the con text of new job descriptions and tasks. Yet as well as taking on much of the new managerial work of the sector, often alongside heavy teaching loads, these postings also demand what is, for some women, a highly problematic loyalty to the commercial ethos of the corporate colleges.

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This article addresses a long-established yet still contentious question in international management scholarship—Is it possible and desirable to create a universal theory of management and organization? Scholarship about the boundary conditions of endogenous theory and the need for indigenous theories of management as well as geopolitical changes in the world order have animated this debate. Five leading scholars discussed this topic at a symposium held at the 2009 Academy of Management meeting. This article presents an analysis of their viewpoints. Three key perspectives were identified in the debate: the refining perspective, the reinforcing perspective, and the reimagining perspective. Using excerpts from the symposium transcript, we outline, compare, and critically evaluate the characteristics and significance of each perspective to advancing theory development. The distinctive contribution of this article lies in its meta-theoretical debate about the relationship between theory, context, and power in the production of global management knowledge.