A Handbook of Management Techniques

Author: Michael Armstrong
Price: £29.95
Publisher: Kogan Page
Pages: 640
ISBN: 0749447664

Michael Amstrong’s prolific output of handbook-style texts has been a feature of the management writing landscape for years. This book is organised along functional lines, with bite-sized and snapshot commentaries on various aspects of marketing, operational, financial and human resource management. There are also sections on management science, planning, resource allocation and efficiency and effectiveness.

This is all laudable material, but it is also looking rather dated. Although functional divisions and structures in organisations still exist, businesses are just as likely now to be moving towards – for example – hybrid, matrix, outsourced, teleworking, learning organisational and dynamic capability structures and settings. There is little sense of this in the text.

Although the material seems a little monochromatic, it will prove useful for people who wish to refresh ideas or rapidly glean a thumbnail sketch of a model. It is less strong on the application or contextualisation of such information.

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Useful? Four out of five stars
Well-written? Four out of five stars
Practical? Three out of five stars
Inspirational? Three out of five stars
Value for money? Three out of five stars
Overall? Three out of five stars

Reviewed by Peter Stokes, principal lecturer/division leader, Lancashire Business School, University of Central Lancashire