Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Management Fashion As Image-Spectacle: The Production Of Best-Selling Management Books, Timothy Adrian Robert Clark, David Greatbatch

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Drawing on the work of Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle and Daniel Boorstin's The Image, this article argues that aesthetic and management fashions are not separate forms, as both represent the preeminence of the image spectacle. Central to this is the increasing emergence of pseudoevents and synthetic products. Using empirical findings from a study of the production of six best-selling management books, it shows that they are manufactured coproductions that result from an intricate editorial process in which the original ideas are moulded in order for them to have a positive impact on the intended audience. Central to this …