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From International Socialism, No.23, Winter 1965/66, p.33.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Investment Proposals and Decisions
Bruce R. Williams and W.P. Scott
Allen & Unwin, 21s (cloth), 15s (paper).
Thrusters and Sleepers, A Study of Attitudes in Industrial Management
Political and Economic Planning PEP/Allen & Unwin, 35s.
The first title under review consists of 14 case studies, too submerged in anonymity to give a sense of reality and too few in number to sustain generalisation. In effect, the authors have labelled different types of management response to different stimuli, dressed them with wan appraisal and so, without offending anyone, advertised the Centre for Business Research at Manchester University. Their Appendix on Investment Criteria is useful for non-accountants. The authors of the PEP report were also handicapped by the smallness of their sample – 47 firms – and by the anonymity of its population, but have compensated handsomely by the detail of their inquiry – 300 interviews – and their sense of the complexity of the issues they take up. Particularly interesting for readers of this journal is their chapter on Managers and Men in which the dangers for shop-floor cohesion from ‘enlightened’ management practice are – quite unintentionally – made as apparent as is the vastness of the areas untouched by anything faintly resembling ‘enlightenment.’
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Last updated on 8.10.2007