The Mechanisms of Agile Management (Routledge Studies in Innovation, Organizations and Technology)

This book is about the underlying mechanisms of agile management that control work processes in the context of industrial tech development.It challenges commonly held beliefs in adaptability, collaboration and flattened hierarchies claimed to be achieved by agile approaches.In asking how these promises are put into practice, this book offers novel insights into how work is controlled in times of increasing flexibility and constant change in the world of work and management. Through a rich analysis of a case study in industrial tech companies, Klara-Aylin Wenten argues that agility is deeply entrenched in ambivalences ranging between planning and improvising, caring and exploiting, intimacy and professional distance, accuracy and imperfection and autonomy and control.She illuminates the challenging expectations and invisible work efforts that employees are faced with to adhere to the promise of agility.In introducing the concept of ‘management scripts’, the author sheds light on how act