Buscando a renovação: a nova onda administrativa

Abstract

Seminal books of the early eighties, Peters and Waterman's In Search Df Excellence and Kanter's The Change Masters set in train what the authordescribes as a new wave of management theory. This article explores its development in the late 1980s, the distinctiveness of the new wave, and the role of social science within it. The new wave is characterized by its emphasison: a) maintaining high performance through "learning to love change" and the achievement of excellence through continuai renewal; b) a bias to action and fostering new attitudes through senior management's actions, as opposed to the more long-term soul-searching strategy of organizationaldevelopments; and c) prescriptions for organizational forms which are flatter, less hierarchical and rigid than the previously dominant bureaucratic form.