Management research on fashion: A review and evaluation

Timothy Adrian Robert CLARK, Singapore Management University

Abstract

In recentyears there has been growing interest and debate amongst scholars with respectto the notion that management ideas are subject to recurrent swings in fashionin the same way that aesthetic aspects of life, such as clothing styles andmusical tastes, are characterized by surges of popularity and then decline. A numberof reasons for the increasing importance of management fashion as an area ofresearch have been identified. First, each wave of fashionable thinking inmanagement is seen as altering accepted definitions of the character of themodern organizational ideal with the consequence that few people who work inorganizations remain untouched by the consequence of the implementation of a fashionableidea.