A Common Pitch and The Management of Corporate Relations: Interpretation, Ethics and Managerialism

This paper examines how good management can repair fractured relationships within organisations, addressing problems that if left unattended will threaten the future existence of many of these companies. It analyses why there is a mood for change in management thinking, and what direction that change can take. Part of the challenge is how managers can best satisfy the objectives of corporate social responsibility initiatives, and repair organisational and fractured community relationships. A possible role for management is to examine alternative ways of thinking about the potential benefits for the organisation that can be achieved by enhancing employee relationships. In this regard, this paper offers strategies to examine management’s adverse affects on workers’ life-plans. The art of interpretation is used to expose how bureaucratic logic ignores workers’ rights and potentially damages the corporation’s longevity. Interpretation, as opposed to procedure, suggests that organisations are not simply profit mechanisms, but active and dynamic civil societies. By better understanding the facilitating processes of administrative and management thinking, it is possible that we can develop alternative strategies that empower individuals to circumvent the negative consequences of instrumental rationality and enable them to act more responsibly in the public interest. Glen Lehman is Associate Professor, School of Commerce University of South Australia. He has published articles in Philosophy and Social Criticism Accounting, organization and society as well as Critical Perspective on Accounting.