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근래 들어 경영학자들과 경영 구루들 사이에서 인본주의적 경영담론이 빠르게 확산되고 있다. 이러한 현상에 대해 일부 학자들은 패러다임의 전환이 일어나고 있다고 주장하지만, 또 다른 학자들은 지나가는 유행에 불과하다고 폄하하기도 한다. 이 논문은 이두 극단적 해석을 모두 지양하는 대신, 이 현상을 인본주의적 경영 패러다임의 꾸준한자기실현적 진화 과정의 일부로 파악한다. 이러한 주장을 뒷받침하기 위해 우선 경영패러다임의 사회적 기원에 대한 관점을 제시한다. 인류의 역사에는 바람직한 이상사회에 대한 두 가지 사상적 구성물, 즉 유토피아적 메타패러다임이 존재하는데, 이를각각 기술주의적 메타패러다임과 낭만적 메타패러다임으로 부를 수 있다. 경영 패러다임은 이 두 가지 메타패러다임이 조직의 맥락 속에서 구체화된 사고체계이다. 이 논문에서는각각의 메타패러다임에 상응하는 경영 패러다임을 기술주의적 경영 패러다임과 인본주의적 경영 패러다임으로 개념화한 뒤, 이 패러다임들이 가지고 있는 기본 전제들을비교하고 이들이 역사적으로 어떻게 경영담론과 경영현실에 구현되어 왔는지를 검토한다. 과학적 관리론은 기술주의적 경영 패러다임의 원형적 모습을 매우 높은 수준으로구현했으며, 그러한 이유 때문에 이후의 경영담론 진화의 경로를 상당 부분 결정했다. 기술주의적 경영 패러다임의 강한 구속력 때문에 인본주의적 경영 패러다임은 그 동안그 본원적 모습을 제대로 구현하기 쉽지 않았다. 그럼에도 불구하고 인본주의적 경영패러다임 내에서 생산된 담론들은 인간관계론 이후 꾸준히 그 본원적 모습을 향해나아가고 있다. 이런 관점에서 Barley & Kunda가 주장한 경영담론의 주기적 반복명제를 비판적으로 검토하고, 기술주의적 경영 패러다임으로부터 인본주의적 경영패러다임으로의 느리지만 지속적인 진화의 관점에서 새로운 경영담론을 해석하고 그미래를 예측해 본다.
Recently there has been a surge in management discourse calling for a humanistic approach to diverse managerial issues ranging from human resource management to corporate strategy. Some management scholars call it a harbinger of profound change in management thinking, while others dismiss it as simply a passing fad. By employing a philosophical, historical, and sociological approach to the nature and history of management thoughts, this paper proposes that management discourse has been moving slowly but steadily toward a humanistic paradigm ideal since the emergence of the human relations movement in the middle of the 20th century. The paper begins by tracing the social roots of the management paradigms from which a variety of management theories and discourse have arisen. Building on Karl Mannheim’s approach to the sociology of knowledge, I argue that management paradigms are rooted in the fundamental aspirations of human beings to lead ideal lives in ideal societies. The epitome of these aspirations coalesces in what I call a utopian meta-paradigm. Examining the utopian meta-paradigm more closely, two sub paradigms emerge with fundamentally different organizing principles and underlying assumptions: the technocratic utopian meta-paradigm and the romantic utopian meta-paradigm. I discuss and compare the technocratic versus romantic utopian paradigms via their fictional realizations in Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward and William Morris’ News from Nowhere, respectively. From this basis, I construct two separate managerial paradigms in the context of organizations and management, each of which is a secularized version of the corresponding utopian meta-paradigm:technocratic management paradigm and humanistic management paradigm. At one extreme, the technocratic management paradigm focuses on the accomplishment of material abundance through technocratic work process design and rational control of labor. According to this paradigm, people willingly subsume their autonomy, authority, and innate talents to the requirements of bureaucratic operations in return for material gain. At the other extreme, the humanistic management paradigm emphasizes self-actualization, self-expression, maximization of creative potential, collective performance, and trust-based mutual dependence within an organizational community. A historical review of management theories and discourses suggests that the two management paradigms have framed the development of management theories and discourses since the emergence of scientific management theory. Specifically, scientific management theory was not only the first embodiment of technocratic utopian ideals but also the theoretical construct that realized these ideals in an almost perfect fashion. Since scientific management theory had attained such a high degree of legitimacy early in the history of management, technocratic management projects that attempted to go beyond the reach of scientific management theory, such as system rationalization and reengineering, ended up being considered failures. At the same time, scientific management theory set the foundation for the evolution of the humanistic management paradigms. Although the human relations movement arouse as an alternative model of management to technocratic management (specifically, scientific management theory), its humanistic spirit rapidly wound down due to the strong allegiance practitioners and management scholars held for the technocratic view. Initially locked in the technocratic vision of utopia, however, human relations movement succeeded in making a path-breaking paradigm shift (though not the traditional sense of paradigm shift that involves the replacement of one with another), calling attention of management scholars and gurus to human-centered aspects of management such as human motivation and employee satisfaction. This early humanistic management discourse, which I call ‘commitment’discourse, evolved into ‘participation’ discourse around the turn of this century, and graduated to the ‘subject’ discourse observed in today’s management world. Given this evolutionary pattern of management discourse, this paper criticizes Barley and Kunda’s ‘swing of the pendulum’ thesis, and proposes a more uni-directioinal evolutionary model of management discourse. Based on this model, I provide a novel interpretation of current management discourse that emphasizes the subject’s ability to control and create working conditions, harmonic order, power balance, autonomy, role of the human spirit in work, community life, and the natural expression of the self. All of these are important elements of the humanistic management paradigm but were never touched seriously in the previous humanistic management discourse. Finally, I discuss the future of management discourse, suggesting three possible trajectories: return to the technocratic management discourse, progression toward a more humanistic vision, and a shift to a new, paradigm synthesis of these two seemingly irreconcilable camps.
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utopian meta-paradigm, technocratic management paradigm, humanistic management paradigm, evolution of management discourse
