Beyond Prediction-Based Management Science

Management Science (MS) is a science concerned with the problem of the effective guiding of human systems. As a matter of fact, the word management comes from the Italian maneggiare meaning to guide something with the hand (Latin manus). Setting goals and making decisions in human systems to guide them to achieve these goals in the most effective and efficient way is a core activity of MS. Now, in order to fulfill this "guiding" task MS has to predict human behavior, i.e., it has to anticipate how people within and without a given organization will react to a particular policy, strategy or decision. In order to predict behavior MS has emulated science which has shown to be a powerful approach to the prediction and guidance (control) of natural and man-made systems. In so doing, MS has gained the reputation in the Western world of possessing real effective ("scientific") knowledge to guide human systems.

In this paper we want to argue that this reputation is ill-founded since it is based on a fiction, namely, that the behavior of human systems can be predicted or even anticipated (i.e., weak anticipation as defined by Dubois (2000))! Consequently, if this criticism is well grounded, at least two possibilities are opened to MS. One is to dismantle its whole fictitious project and "close the shop". Another possibility for MS is to rethink itself in the light of this criticism and orient its efforts towards a new whole endeavor. In this regard, a new conception of management is suggested, one that pays heed to the mystery of reality (i.e. reality is inherently unknowable) and the finitude of man and, accordingly, becomes concerned with the continuous, changing, unpredictable character of social reality.