An Overview of the Discipline

Management studies the principles and practices of business administration. Management has four subdisciplines. As described on Wharton's Management Website:

• "Strategic management emphasizes forecasting, planning and control, allocating resources, the appraisal of competition, and implementation strategies.
• Multinational management focuses on operating in worldwide and heterogeneous national environments under conditions of economic and political risk.
• Human resource and organizational management explores individual and group behavior and how these dynamics influence an organization's performance and structure.
• Entrepreneurial management provides individuals with skills, analytical tools, and concepts to prepare them for a career as an autonomous entrepreneur, a family-business owner, or an innovator in new corporate ventures."

Writing in the Discipline

Goal

Advise managers on how to:

• Plan, organize, control and lead a firm
• Use resources efficiently to achieve business goals
• Understand firm's direction, policies, and goals while exercising personal leadership in managing employees

Reasoning

• Justificatory: causal or prescriptive arguments
• Explanatory: explaining a phenomenon by presenting and analyzing data (but not necessarily making recommendations)

Evidence

• Data about companies and industries
• Data can be self-collected or publicly available, quantitative or qualitative
• Anecdotal evidence and logical reasoning

Authorship

• Management inherently revolves around collaborative work
• Papers can be written individually or collaboratively

Writing Tips

Important Criteria for Student Writing

Dr. Greenhalgh emphasized how both having original ideas and demonstrating mastery of ideas are essential parts to any paper. In her opinion, this was the most important aspect to any paper within the discipline. The next most important thing in a student paper is the structure used. Dr. Greenhalgh made specific reference to how important organization is to any student paper in management. After that comes the evidence used. Dr. Greenhalgh feels that the reasoning and evidence clearly needs to be coherent to create a successful paper within the discipline. Because it is not as much of a quantitative side of business as, say, finance, the reasoning used is crucial to crafting an argument. Following evidence comes audience, which Dr. Greenhalgh feels in this case corresponds to following the instructions of the assignment, which in turn should deliver a message to the proper audience. Finally comes control of language. Dr. Greenhalgh emphasized that although she ranked control of language is less important than the other criteria, it is crucial to know the discipline’s citation practices. Among the items not as crucial to a paper in management are the style, the control of grammar and mechanics, and the type of formatting used.

Explanatory vs. Justificatory

Management writing should persuade the reader that something should be done in a particular way. According to Professor Mauro Guillen, "When it comes to management prose, it's always about persuasion. That's the whole purpose. It may include explanation, it may include prediction, it may include description, or several other things. But I think all of those things are about persuasion."

Writing Process

During the early stages of writing, the writer should come up with a clear statement (i.e. proposition) detailing what the paper will accomplish. The ideas developed throughout the paper must stem from and directly relate to this common statement.

"No matter the length, you should have a clear statement about what you intend to accomplish in that piece of writing. There has to be a common thread running through the writing—some argument, some theme that runs through the whole thing. So you can see that it's a self-contained piece." - Professor Guillen

Common Errors

Dr. Greenhalgh notes, "The most common error I see is students not accounting for their audience. Like good speaking, good writing requires stepping out of your own shoes and putting yourself in your audience's position. Imagine what you've written from the point of view of the person receiving."

Not only is audience awareness a common area where students make mistakes on management papers, but it is also one of the most vital aspects of the writing process. The writer needs to be cognizant of who he or she is writing to at all times, both during the actual writing process and when making revisions.

Style

According to Professor Greenhalgh, writing in management is very practical and succinct. "Business writers are pragmatic. People worry less about grammar than about effectiveness, so people in my field are forgiving on technical errors as long as the writing is effective." Furthermore, the tone of management papers is commonly authoritative, critical, and matter-of-fact. The use of metaphors and technical jargon is expected in management papers.

Genre

Student Assignments

• Take home essays
• Research papers
• Reaction papers
• Memos
• Self-reflection essays
• Team and individual case studies and analysis
• Letters

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Meet the Professors

Dr. Mauro Guillen

"Sometimes you start with something in the middle and then you work your way backwards..."
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Dr. Anne Greenhalgh

"I write whenever I can. It is also very seasonal..."
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