[9]MANAGEMENT FASHION AS IMAGE-SPECTACLE

The Production of Best-Selling Management Books

TIMOTHY CLARK

University of Durham

DAVID GREATBATCH

University Of Nottingham

Drawing on the work of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle and Daniel Boorstin’s The Image, this article argues that aesthetic and management fashions are not separate forms, as both represent the preeminence of the image spectacle. Central to this is the increasing emergence of pseudoevents and synthetic products. Using empirical findings from a study of the production of six best-selling management books, it shows that they are manufactured coproductions that result from an intricate editorial process in which the original ideas are moulded in order for them to have a positive ...

Get The Aesthetic Turn in Management now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.