Worlds of Management: Transregional Perspectives on Management Knowledge, 1950s - 1970s

Management has been considered a key signifier for understanding capitalist industrial societies of the Global North. This special issue argues for a decentred and transregional approach to management knowledge and shifts the focus to management in the centrally planned economies of Eastern and South-eastern Europe as well as in ‘developing’ economies of the Global South. The contributions shed light on the significant role that managerial knowledge played in socialist planning, Cold War entanglements, and development policies. Instead of reiterating the story of Western capitalism conquering the world, they show how managerial knowledge circulated in polycentric networks across East–West–South divides and shaped economic practices in close conjunction with locally situated discourses about efficiency and productivity. There was not one world of management; there were manifold worlds of management. 

The special issue is of interest to historians of planning, development management, and the circulation of economic knowledge as part of the global Cold War. Those interested in how these themes connect with the history of socialist Romania, India, West Africa, and the Soviet Union, will find ample material in the individual articles.