‘We Are All Managers Now’; ‘We Always Were’: On the Development and Demise of Management
质疑管理者与非管理者的传统区分，回顾技术、精英和政治三种解释，并分析组织变革和赋权概念如何暗示管理（尤其是中层管理）的消亡，最后批判“我们一直都是管理者”这一回应。
The existence of an identifiable group of people who are labelled ‘managers’ has been one of the most significant aspects of the organization of work and society for well over a century. This separation of managers from others has been questioned for some years by critical writers, not least because it ignores the many managerial activities performed by non‐managers both in and outside the workplace. This argument suggests that the development of the ‘special’ status of managers is a construction which requires explanation. Accepting this, three broad types of explanation are reviewed in the paper: technical, elite and political approaches. Notwithstanding these explanations, in recent years the logic – although not necessarily the actuality – of organizational change programmes, and especially of the concept of empowerment, has been suggestive of the ‘demise’ of management, most especially middle management. This demise has implied an erosion of the distinction between managers and managed. Now, organizational members are told that ‘we are all managers’, and the three approaches have various ways of explaining this, which are reviewed. Critics may reply that ‘we always were’, thus welcoming a more democratic notion of management, but this paper argues that such a reply reflects an inadequate, and potentially oppressive, understanding of management