Management Fads in Higher Education: Where They Come From, What They Do, Why They Fail by Robert Birnbaum
This is just an outstanding book. Although the focus is on the USA, the messages are eminently translatable to the UK context. Birnbaum carefully analyses and deconstructs the big management fads to have hit US universities including:
Management by objectives
Zero-based budgeting
Strategic planning
Benchmarking
TQM
Business process re-engineering.
The reasons behind the popularity of each and the vulnerability of institutions and managers to their charms are also explored at length.
Despite the fact that he demonstrates their failures in the USA on all terms, Birnbaum concludes, surprisingly perhaps, that their introduction in a controlled and measured way can have positive benefits in forcing managers to think differently about the way in which they tackle big challenges. The conclusion of the book includes a strong exhortation to a humane and pragmatic approach to management in universities. Such an approach he argues, whilst not easily seduced by fads such as these, is capable of positive adaptation to changing environments.
