Traditional business management was the machinery of control for industrial organizations that had sprawled beyond the oversight of their founders, an organizational innovation that became a profession and a science. The aim was the stability and predictability the financial sector demanded. But control brought increasing costs: (1) slow response to market changes, leaving established firms behind innovative newcomers; (2) bureaucratic inertia that strangled flexibility; (3) disengaged employees who felt their creativity and agility stifled. These failures weakened firms and lowered economic productivity. In the Kuhnian framework of scientific revolutions, the management paradigm entered crisis mode. Consistent with the Kuhnian framing, businesses are moving beyond management. Self-organization and enterprise flow are revolutionizing business models. Interconnected ecosystems replace bounded industries. Experimentation and feedback replace traditional strategic planning. Dynamic, autonomous teams replace hierarchies of authority. Liberated companies embrace dynamic cohesion rather than the rigidities of business administration. They operate in a post-managerial era.
By:
Hunter Hastings (Bialla Venture Partners) Imprint: Cambridge University Press Country of Publication: United Kingdom Weight: 163g ISBN:9781009608114 ISBN 10: 1009608118 Series:Elements in Reinventing Capitalism Pages: 102 Publication Date:08 January 2026 Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format:Paperback Publisher's Status: Active
1. Introduction: a short history of management; 2. The consequences of managerial systems; 3. Shifting the paradigm: anomalies and crisis; 4. A scientific breakthrough: self-organizing systems; 5. Pioneers and experiments; 6. The emergent novelty: self-management; 7. Advanced experiments: the new business models of hyper-personalization; 8. The new integration of self-management and digital enablement; 9. Enabling cohesion: more freedom, less authority; 10. Conclusion: the emergent characteristics of the post-managerial paradigm; References.