What is Management? An Outline of a Metatheory

SUMMARY Drawing on a realist ontology and epistemology, a metatheory of management is outlined in this paper as a way of (a) redescribing the nature of management, and (b) delineating the scope of application of various perspectives on management. Four perspectives are briefly reviewed, and the claim is put forward that each one of them deals with issues arising at a different ontological layer of management. Management is shown to consist of four layers with each one exhibiting its own characteristics and dynamics. Deeper theoretical descriptions penetrate deeper into the nature of management and capture new layers. The metatheoretical outline proposed here moves beyond the ‘either/or’ polarization that management literature has exhibited so far, namely conceiving management either as a collective institutional necessity or as a set of individual practices. Indeed, it is argued that management is both of these things plus a few more, and that an appreciation of its nature is possible within a realist ontology and epistemology.