The Emergent Manager

The Emergent Manager looks closely at the lives of managers in a range of settings and how they make sense of their pasts, presents and futures as managers and as people with identities outside the workplace. This book provides a new understanding of the nature of management work and of the way people make sense of their lives as managers across a range of workplaces from civil service departments and building societies to shops, restaurants and schools. The Emergent Manager examines the process of becoming a manager within organizations and considers how people relate the ways in which they ′manage′ their lives to their development as managers in the workplace. At the heart of the book is the idea of the individual engaged in a continual process of ′becoming′. Focusing on the reported experiences of managers, the book is richly illustrated throughout with examples drawn from a variety of workplaces, including the civil service, academia, the retail industry, construction and engineering, banking and the prison service. Tony Watson and Pauline Harris together provide a new understanding of the nature of the management role and the ways in which people make sense of their lives as managers. Accessible and innovative, this book will be of interest to students and academics in management and organization studies as well as practising managers. "The Emergent Manager examines the process of becoming a manager within organisations and considers how people relate the ways in which they 'manage' their lives to their development as managers in the workplace." "At the heart of the book is the idea of the individual engaged in a continual process of 'becoming'. Focusing on the reported experiences of managers, the book is illustrated throughout with examples drawn from a variety of workplaces, including the civil service, academia, the retail industry, construction and engineering, banking and the prison service."--BOOK JACKET To provide a new understanding of the nature of management work The Emergent Manager concentrates on the lives and identities of real life managers inside and outside the workplace, whether that is a civil service department, a shop or a bank