Department of Management and Organisation, Vaasa & Helsinki
Introduction to Management 2025, Vaasa & Helsinki (22082)
Credits: 8 cr
Type of course: Intermediate Studies
Recommended study level: First or second year of Bachelor studies
Teaching Period 4: 17.3–9.5.2025, Easter holiday: 17.4–23.4.2024
Available to students from Vaasa and Helsinki, as well as Open University students.
Exam Week for Period 4: 12–16.5.2025
Course delivery: Online lectures; One workshop on-site (in Vaasa and Helsinki, respectively)
On-site final exams in Vaasa or Helsinki.
‘The presumption that managerial activity exists independently from the activities of managers leads to a grouping of all kinds of disparate activities under the heading of management. In that case, rather than electing a democratic rescue of management (as a general human attribute) from colonization by a named group of people (managers), critics would be in danger of endorsing the colonization of all human activities by casting them in terms of management. Whereas the demise of management might suggest that `we are all managers now', the critical response should not be that `we always were'. Instead the response to the demise of the special status of management should be that notions of management are now to be regarded as redundant. This then opens up the space for the construction of forms of subjectivity which are not conceived in terms of the discourse of management and manageability, rather than closing down the space in which such alternatives might exist. To put these points rather differently, I am suggesting that visions of a `post- managerial' future need to be handled with considerable caution. They appeal to critical writers because they appear to address the unjustifiable separation of management as a special activity. The restoration of management to `everyone' seems to be democratic in that it disperses influence and power. But the crucial issue is the terms on which this occurs. The demise of management does not imply an end to the co-ordination and control of human activities: rather, it installs this co-ordination and control in an ever-wider set of activities. As noted earlier, it is in this sense that the demise of management is fully compatible with the ascendancy of managerialism. By drawing the many rather than the few into management, managerial power - if not the power of managers - is extended rather than diminished.’
(Grey, C. (1999). “We Are All Managers Now”; ’We Always Were’: On the Development and Demise of Management. Journal of Management Studies, 36, 561–585.)
Course description
Introduction to Management is a bachelor-level course, which introduces students to the fascinating world of management in the context of modern organizing. The course aims to develop capabilities for independent thinking about management as a phenomenon ultimately concerned with a particular relationship to the human subject at work. This is achieved through a course structure that recognizes the cultural-historical specificity of management in modern Anglo-Saxon and European cultures. The course content is organized along three thematics. The first theme locates the emergence of management within the historical context of modern and industrial capitalism. Students will be introduced to three lines of critique of early industrial society and its particular modes of organization. This includes the analytical categories of anomie, alienation, rationalization and the objects of division of labour, the labour process, work ethic and bureaucratic organization. A second theme allows students to engage in managerial ideas and practices in terms of their origins, intentionalities, development and effects in the course of the 20th century. This includes scientific management, human relations and organizational psychology, systems theory, the management of culture and Human Resources. A third and final theme considers the technological horizon of possibility and discusses the self and subjectivity in contemporary organization as well as imaginations of future modes of managing. The latter includes themes of self-management, and issues about self-work, privacy and surveillance at work.
The course is guided by the conviction of a learning experience where students are treated as ‘young adults’ whose independent thinking in the world of management and organization studies can be cultivated through a collaborative mode of learning, akin to that in other parts of the social sciences and humanities, where problematizing of the object of study is considered germane. As such the course aims at sophistication rather than simplification (or ‘dumbing down’) and problematizing rather than prescribing thinking and analysis of the thought-world of management.
Learning Goals
Upon the successful completion of the course students should be able to:
• have a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of management and the particular organisational modes it relates to.
• comprehend the historical conditions for the emergence of management thought and practices
• analytically apply key sociological concepts in examining modern capitalism and its management
• consider the continuities and sustained relevance of the critical thought of key thinkers about early modern capitalist society
• identify the conditions of possibility for key managerial practices
• recognize several of the social scientific sources that underpin the heterogenous character of thinking that make up management
• analyse critically the management of work in organisations
• analyse the particular point of view and assumptions inherent in managerial thought and the production of the human subject at work in the course of the 20th century and beyond
International Learning Experience
The course examines management as an international phenomena in trans-atlantic cultures. The course examines International cases and examples analyzed and discussed in the readings. The course emphasizes the strong international academic understanding of examined phenomena.
Literature and Course Material
Required course readings include journal articles and book chapters, to be announced in course description, lectures and through Moodle. Additional course literature may be provided during the course.
Learning activities
The course is delivered through (online) lectures and seminars. It requires independent study and collaborative work. Two workshops are held on site (one in Vaasa and one in Helsinki)
Principal Lecturer and Course administrator
Fredrik Weibull
Hanken School of Economics
Department of Management and Organization
fredrik.weibull@hanken.fi
Virtual office hours
Office hours by appointment only, and through Microsoft Teams.
Instruction:
Course sessions and assignments.
Course Assessment and Assignments
The course assessment comprises various individual and/or group-based assignments and a written classroom-based (in-person) exam.
Various individual and/or group-based assignments: 60%
Written on-site exam: 40%
Please note that the points you receive for the sub-parts are valid only this academic year.
Total Student Workload:
214 hours divided into
Scheduled contact hours: 32 h
Non-scheduled work: 182 h
