The metamorphosis of management approaches to instruments

Focusing on instrumentation in management, this chapter argues that it has also been inspired by Foucault and Science and Technology Studies. Examining the development of a research agenda on management instruments in the UK during the Thatcher era, it suggests that instrumentation raises questions and produces similar outcomes in large public and private organisations. Indeed, studies on the private sector as well as those on public policy have long favoured more or less rational decisions and decision-makers. Yet the chapter shows that the most political and critical perspective on management instruments has been adopted notably in two domains: first in Management Sciences, then in Public Policy research. First, it identifies how different points of convergence are highlighted; second, it argues that managerial instrumentation applies both to companies and to public policy; Third, it shows how instrumentation research has been fruitful to make sense of the transformation of both types of organisations.