An Introduction to Management Studies. Thomas Bieger

Grand, 2017, p. 2). They defined management as a reflective design practice aimed at supporting entrepreneurial tasks and challenges. The fourth-generation SGMM complements the third generation’s process orientation by highlighting systematic reflection and ongoing enactment as core management tasks. The main reason for this emphasis is the increasing complexity, uncertainty, and dynamics of today’s world. These factors require organizations and their managers to incorporate the expected consequences of their own actions into their decision-making, which is subject to great uncertainty today.

      The fourth-generation SGMM (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2017), introduced briefly above (Section 1.2), has been operationalized since 2019 by adding a working tool (see Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2020). Its “task perspective” (Figure 1-1) comprises the same six key categories as the third-generation SGMM (environmental spheres, stakeholders, interaction issues, processes, structuring forces, and development modes). Its “practice perspective” contains four categories:

      – Value creation (differentiation, resource configuration, value creation processes, decision-making practice, relationship culture)

      – Orientation framework (operational, strategic, and normative orientation)

      – Management practices (managerial communities, design platforms, design practices, language of reflection).

      – Environment (environmental spheres, stakeholders, conditions for existence)

      This latest edition of the current SGMM (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2020) is intended to supplement to the basic textbook (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2017) in the sense of a didactic working tool and as a means of reflecting more in-depth on management.

      1.4 Integrative Management

      [28] The St. Gallen tradition has consistently understood management as integrative. Integrative management can be defined as the design and steering of an organization as a purpose-oriented socio-technical system that consciously and responsibly handles significant force fields and conflicting goals (Bieger et al., 2021). These force fields and conflicting goals include the different perspectives of the individual corporate functions, but also different stakeholder expectations, or the deliberation between short-term, operational, and long-term strategic views, and, in particular, an integrated execution of all management tasks (analysis, planning, control). Management models, as simplified representations of a complex reality, are intended to support managers in performing these tasks.

      1.4.1 Origins of Integrative Approaches to Management

      Developing a new product requires the interaction of various factors: marketing (incorporation of customer needs), development, production, finance and controlling (securing the necessary investments), and compliance (with rules and legislation). In contrast, preparing a company takeover requires finance and compliance specialists to provide valuations and due diligence (careful examination of the acquisition object), to draft contracts (legal competence), and to support internal and external communications (communication competence). These two examples show that an integrative view is necessary for solving management tasks at every level of the organization. This principle applies not only to the required competencies and the associated corporate functional areas, but also to assessing how one’s own actions impact the various environments and stakeholders. Actors must also take into account the short- and long-term consequences of their actions — which points to the three dimensions (functions, stakeholders, time horizons) of integrative thinking.

      Accordingly, various exponents of classical management research (e.g., Peter Drucker and Henry Mintzberg) followed an integrative approach. For example, in Concept of the Corporation (first published in 1946), Drucker described management as “a specific organ doing specific kind of work and having specific responsibilities” (Drucker, 1993). In his view, the rise of management as a discipline is probably the most important development in the 20th century: “In this century, [29] society has become a society of organizations. Every major social task in this society is being performed in and through large, managed institutions” (Drucker, 1973, p. 545). Other scholars have also highlighted that management is a decision-making and acting organ, i.e., actor. For instance, Henry Mintzberg’s remarkable Mintzberg on Management (1991) describes how managers cope with various tasks at the same time. Based on an observational study, he concludes that managers briefly hold problems in their hands like a juggler, before processing and sending them back into “orbit” for further processing (Mintzberg, 1991, p. 33).

      St. Gallen management research has also explored the needs and requirements of management as an acting organ. Thus, Ulrich, Krieg, and Malik (1976) observed that “the purpose of business studies is to provide actors with the knowledge needed in specific problem situations” (p. 135).

      Thus, in order to best serve management and managers, researchers often prioritized “relevance” (i.e., whatever serves life and efficiency) over “rigor” (i.e., scientific substantiation) — well, at least until business studies also began developing a stronger scientific approach. For instance, Gulati (2007, p. 776, based on Gorden & Howell, 1959; Pierson, 1958), noted that “The question first arose in the 1950s and 60s with multiple voices suggesting that management research was aspiring to be relevant at the expense of the rigor observed in other social sciences” (see also, e.g., Gordon & Howell, 1959; Pierson, 1959). There was an increasing orientation toward social science principles and theories, for example, from economics or sociology. One example was the development of strategies based on industry economics such as economies of scale, economies of scope, and economies of density. This approach was associated with a differentiation of management research, as evident in various disciplines. More and more, research became oriented toward individual functions and subdisciplines. For example, marketing as a research area differentiated itself as part of business studies; within marketing, other research areas (e.g., customer insight or brand management) emerged as subdisciplines with their own research communities.

      [30] While this stronger scientific orientation enabled placing findings more strongly on micro-foundations, it made a deeper problem orientation more difficult (Nickerson & Argyres, 2018). For example, marketing research developed increasingly sophisticated explanations for constructs and theories such as perceived fairness or perceived customer value. However, 1980s heuristics (e.g., the dominance standard model) are still used in practice to tackle essential questions such as designing an integrated marketing mix (cf. Kühn, 1985).

      1.4.2 Management as a Profession

      This progressive differentiation of management as an independent activity and the specialization of management knowledge are also reflected in management practice. Management is developing into a profession in its own right, one based increasingly on scientific principles. It is also seen more and more as an activity that is not only necessary for companies, but which is also penetrating ever wider areas of business and society. Management methods are increasingly entering public administration, churches, the military, and nongovernmental organizations. Many such organizations long considered management a kind of “art” (Lynn, 1996). In hospitals, for instance, chief physicians or chief medical officers were typically entrusted with running the organization: They were considered best suited to management tasks on account of their personality or life experience (e.g., in the military).

      Today, management is a profession in its own right. In Bourdieu’s sense, it possesses characteristics typical of professions: an independent language, independent rituals, and professional values (Bourdieu, 1972). Today, managers are prepared for their duties and responsibilities in management training courses. Managers also switch between different companies, industries, regions, and cultures. Today, not only professional managers move from airlines to pharmaceutical companies, but professional deans move between universities in different countries and cultures.

      Combined with the specialization of management research, and because ever-increasing management tasks also demand a division of labor and thus the specialization of management itself (Rüegg-Stürm & Grand, 2019a), an increasing function