How Do I Improve the Quality of My Management?

Abstract

Action research approaches to professional development have had a greater influence in education and health care than in business management. This paper describes and analyses a joint initiative between a university school of education and a school of management to offer a programme of participatory action research to assist senior, local authority managers to improve the quality of their management. From practical questions of the kind, `How do I improve the quality of my management practices and processes?', and drawing on issues concerning local government studies, critical social policy and public policy and administration, it is argued that management researchers can use their experience of market forces to create a new, living form of management theory for understanding and protecting the values of educational management in the workplace.

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