Management Alchemy: The Philosopher's Stone of Management

Managers and alchemists have a lot in common. Alchemists look for the philosopher's stone to find wisdom, while managers seek their inspiration in theories. Much of business literature presents a form of management alchemy.

In management, there is a vast disconnect between the popularity of theories and their empirical evidence. Popular theories usually suffer from a lack of empirical validation, while empirically supported theories published in peer-reviewed management journals remain obscure and unknown.

In a recent paper, Mata Alvesson and Jörgen Sandberg lament the field of management studies is stronger in producing rigour than in creating exciting and influential theories.

The infamous Boston Consulting Group Matrix, which is taught to business students worldwide, has been called the "philosopher's stone of the consulting business". The BCG matrix has been used as a rationalisation to fire people or undertake a merger. The matrix legitimises action through symbolic references to the mystique of strategy.

Humbug in management is, however, not a recent development. Management guru Chester Barnard expressed it in 1938 as such:

I believe that a good deal of conflicting bunk is taught in these fields. This argues for improvement and development, not against teaching what can be taught. In the time of Newton, or even much later, a great deal of modern physics, and much that is fundamental in it, was not known, and for this reason perhaps a good deal of bunk was then taught in the field.

Management is historically speaking a very young field of endeavour. Formal studies of how people behave in a professional environment only started when Frederick Taylor analysed labourers logging pig-iron.