Unmasking Health Management : A Critical Text

Although governments believe that the key to efficient health services lies in organisations run by inspiring leaders who stimulate the most efficient forms of management, many people working in health services, including managers, and an increasing number of academics, are discomforted by such a belief system. This books aims to provide a language in which such discomfort may be articulated. Its objectives are to nurture scepticism about the benefits of management, to debunk the notion that management is merely a technical device to promote efficiency, and to reveal the oppressiveness of managerialism. It thus challenges mainstream management texts, which seek unthinkingly to guide people in the impossible task of good management. Contributors, many of whom were experienced health managers before becoming academics, are drawn from across the social sciences. They illustrate how beliefs in ''grand practices'' such as economics or evidence-based medicine are misplaced, and explore the potential of an ethical management of health services. They investigate the experiences of managers doing management and reveal that it is impossible for managers to do management. This book should be of interest to graduate students of public sector management, to lecturers and researchers in public sector management and to public sector managers themselves -- or those working with them.