What Makes a Management Buzzword Buzz?
Abstract
Would organizations function better if managers did not use buzzwords? This paper traces a history of buzzwords and highlights three ways they help managers. First, managers use buzzwords to claim authority. Second, managers use buzzwords to facilitate action. Third, managers use buzzwords to displace responsibility for hard decisions. The paper concludes that there are benefits to using buzzwords and managers should be conscious of them.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Alvesson M. (2010). Self-doubters, strugglers, storytellers, surfers and others: Images of self-identities in organization studies. Human Relations, 63, 193–217.
Arnaud G. (2003). A coach or a couch? A Lacanian perspective on executive coaching and consulting. Human Relations, 56, 1131–1154.
Atkins R. (1997). Art speak: a guide to contemporary ideas, movements, and buzzwords, 1945 to the present (2nd ed.). New York: Abbeville Press.
Austin J. L. (1975). How to do things with words: the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bakan D. (1965). The mystery-mastery complex in contemporary psychology. American Psychologist, 20, 186–191.
Bauman Z. (2007). Consuming life. London: Polity Press.
Bouchillon P. (1976). Twelve rules for achieving distinction as a professor. Improving College and University Teaching, 24, 229–230.
Bourdieu P. (1983/1993). The market of symbolic goods. In The field of cultural production: essays on art and literature, pp. 112–141, London: Polity.
Brown A. D., Lewis M. A. (2011). Identities, discipline and routines. Organization Studies, 32, 871–895.
Carli L. (1999). Gender, interpersonal power, and social influence. Journal of Social Issues, 55, 81–99.
Cluley R. (2011). The organization of Santa: Fetishism, ambivalence and narcissism. Organization, 18, 777–792.
Collins D. (2000). Management fads and buzzwords: critical-practical perspectives. London: Routledge.
Collins D. (2004). Who put the con in consultancy? Fads, recipes and ‘Vodka Margarine’. Human Relations, 57, 553–572.
Collinson D. (2003). Identities and insecurities: Selves at work. Organization, 10, 527–547.
Cornwall A., Brock K. (2005). What do buzzwords do for development policy? A critical look at ‘participation’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘poverty reduction’. Third World Quarterly, 26, 1043–1060.
Cornwall A. (2007). Buzzwords and fuzzwords: Deconstructing development discourse. Development in Practice, 17, 471–484.
de Burgundy J. (1996). Shoot the messenger! Crazy management fads and faddish management “crazies”. Empowerment in Organizations, 4(4), 28–35.
Ellis N., Ybema S. (2010). Marketing identities: Shifting circles of identification in inter-organizational relationships. Organization Studies, 31, 279–305.
Evans W. (1977). Review: Language and the lay linguist. American Speech, 52(1), 134–145.
Feek W. (2007). Best of practice? Development in Practice, 17, 453–455.
Gabriel Y. (1998). The hubris of management. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 20, 257–273.
Garud R., Dunbar R. L. M., Bartel C. A. (2011). Dealing with unusual experiences: A narrative perspective on organizational learning. Organization Science, 22, 587–601.
Glaser S. (1997). Management duckspeak. Management Decision, 35, 653–655.
Godin B. (2006). The knowledge-based economy: Conceptual framework or buzzword? Journal of Technology Transfer, 31(1), 17–30.
Hallgren F. M., Weiss H. (1946). ‘Buzz words’ at the ‘B School’. American Speech, 21, 263.
Harney S. (2005). Why is management a cliché? Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 16, 579–591.
Harney S. (2007). Socialization and the Business School. Management Learning, 38, 139–153.
Huczynski A. (1993). Explaining the succession of management fads. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 4, 443–463.
Humphreys M., Brown A. D. (2002). Narratives of organizational identity and identification: A case study of hegemony and resistance. Organization Studies, 23, 421–447.
Hunter R., Barker T. (1993). BS and buzzwords: The new police operational style. American Journal of Police, 12(3), 157–168.
Jay M. (2004). The ambivalent virtues of mendacity. Index on Censorship, 33(2), 54–65.
Keenoy T., Oswick C., Grant D. (1997). Organizational discourses: Text and context. Organization, 4(2), 147–157.
Knights D., Willmott H. (1999). Management lives: power and identity in work organizations. London: SAGE Publications.
Lee L. (2000). Buzzwords with a basis. Nursing Management, 31(10), 24–27.
Lilley S. (1997). Stuck in the middle with you. British Journal of Management, 8(1), 51–59.
Lutz W. (1981). Doublespeak: from ‘revenus enchantment’ to ‘terminal living’ – how government, business, advertisers, and others use language to deceive you. London: Harper & Row.
Lutz W. (1996). The new doublespeak: why no one knows what anyone’s saying anymore. New York: HarperCollins.
Lutz W. (1999). Doublespeak defined: cut through the bull**** and get the point. New York: Harper Resource.
Miles J. (1969). Words, words, words. Journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 17, 282–285.
Mueller Robert Kirk (1974). Buzzwords: a guide to the language of leadership. London: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Nicklin J. (1995). The hum of corporate buzzwords. Chronicle of Higher Education, 41(20), 33–34.
Orwell G. (1949/1987). Nineteen eighty-four. London: Penguin.
Oswick C., Keenoy T., Grant D. (2002). Metaphor and analogical reasoning in organization theory: Beyond orthodoxy. Academy of Management Review, 27, 294–303.
Parker M. (2002). Against management. London: Polity Press.
Prasad A., Prasad P., Mir R. (2011). ‘One mirror in another’: Managing diversity and the discourse of fashion. Human Relations, 64, 703–724.
Reading B. (1996). The university in ruins. London: Harvard University Press.
Richards I. (1929/1991). Practical criticism: a study of literary judgement: London: Routledge.
Røvik K. A. (2011). From fashion to virus: An alternative theory of organizations’ handling of management ideas. Organization Studies, 32, 631–653.
Scully M. (2002). Confronting errors in the meritocracy. Organization, 9, 396–401.
Shaw J. (2010). Papering the cracks with discourse: The Narrative identity of the authentic leader. Leadership, 6(1), 89–108.
Simberloff D. (1983). Competition theory, hypothesis-testing, and other community ecological buzzwords. American Naturalist, 122, 626–635.
Svendsen L. (2008). Work. Stocksfield, UK: Acumen.
Sveningsson S., Alvesson M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56, 1163–1193.
Sveningsson S., Larsson M. (2006). Fantasies of leadership: Identity work. Leadership, 2(2), 203–224.
Thomas P. (1996). Beyond the buzzword: Coping with change in the public sector. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 62(1), 5–29.
Watson T. J. (2008). Managing identity: Identity work, personal predicaments and structural circumstances. Organization, 15, 121–143.
Zisk B. H. (1970). The compleat jargoner: How to obfuscate the obvious without half trying. Western Political Quarterly, 23(1), 55–56.
Biographies
Robert Cluley is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Nottingham. His research focuses on the ways that language structures our behaviour in organizations and markets. He has recent publications and forthcoming research on the role of narcissism among consumers, the ways that language shapes the production of art and how downloading music has been constructed as a deviant activity.
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: January 11, 2013
Issue published: January 2013
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Article usage*
Total views and downloads: 965
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Altmetric
See the impact this article is making through the number of times it’s been read, and the Altmetric Score.
Learn more about the Altmetric Scores
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 16 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 0
-
Reconsidering the Moral Dimension of Managerial Authority: A Review an...
-
Gene Drives in the U.K., U.S., and Australian Press (2015–2019): How a...
-
A Probe Into the Psychological Mechanism of Generation Z College Stude...
-
The strange case of ‘Ugo Fantozzi robot’: Control and resistance throu...
-
Making sense of “buzzword” as a term through co-occurrences analysis
-
“Considered Language” in Public Service: Changing Discourses and Their...
-
Trends and New Challenges in the Green Supply Chain: The Reverse Logis...
-
Have the Reports of TQM’s Death Been Greatly Exaggerated? A Re-Examina...
-
Content analysis of resilience in forest fire science and management
-
The Evolutionary Trajectory of the Agile Concept Viewed from a Managem...
-
“Considered Language” in Public Service: Changing Discourses and Their...
-
Examining the Emergence and Evolution of Blue Ocean Strategy through t...
-
La mode est à la transformation : transformer, mimer ou innover ?
-
Human Resource Management bei und von XING
-
Examining the popularity trajectory of outsourcing as a management con...
-
The emergence and evolution of benchmarking: a management fashion pers...
-
Examining customer relationship management from a management fashion p...
-
Big Data viewed through the lens of management fashion theory
-
The emotional dimensions of metaphors of change
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
EGOS members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
EGOS members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
