In Defence of Human Nature. A review of Managing the Human Animal
| Author | Lívia Markóczy |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2003.00386.x |
| Published date | 01 December 2003 |
| Date | 01 December 2003 |
In Defence of Human Nature. A review of
Managing the Human Animal
Lı
´via Marko
´czy
University of California, Riverside
Nicholson, N. (2000). Managing the Human
Animal: Why People Behave the Way They
Do in Corporate Services, Texere Publishing,
316pp. ISBN 1587990318
Nigel Nicholson’s advocacy and application of
Evolutionary Psychology (EP) to the body of
management advice is not without flaws. I say
that as an advocate and supporter of EP in the
study of management and organization. And I
say this believing that his book is very well
researched, beautifully presented and informative
and insightful. Indeed, I normally find the writing
in practice-oriented books cringeworthy, but this
was remarkably enjoyable and engaging.
I wish to discuss one of the flaws first because I
know that there are people who will seek any
excuse to dismiss this approach and this book,
and so it is best to be upfront about the flaws and
explain why they do not prevent this book from
being a very valuable contribution. It is the case
that EP and its cousin, sociobiology, are much
maligned, and unfairly so. An unfortunate
consequence of those attacks is that my discus-
sion here must take on a defensive tone.
Snake oil?
The book’s target audience is not the manage-
ment scholar (though it may be useful to some as
a way to get into EP), but the management
consultant or the practising manager. With that
target audience the only reasonable way to treat
this book is as offering advice to the practice of
management. This is dangerous. As Dennett
(1995, §7.1) puts it:
‘[T]he ‘‘cutting edge’’ [of science] is almost always
composed of several rival edges, sharply competing
and boldly speculative. Many of these speculations
soon prove to be misbegotten, however compelling
at the outset, and these necessary by-products of
scientific investigation should be considered to be as
potentially hazardous as any other laboratory
wastes . . . If their misapprehension by the public
would be apt to cause suffering . . . scientists should
be particularly cautious about how they proceed,
scrupulous about labeling speculations as such, and
keeping the rhetoric of persuasion confined to its
proper place’.
No matter how strongly I believe that EP will
prove itself very useful to practice down the road,
I remain reluctant to speculate about applications
to practice. So for me, the biggest problem with a
book intended for management practitioners
using EP is the fact of the book itself.
But before this criticism be used to dismiss
Nicholson’s effort or as a general condemnation
of EP, we must remember that what Nicholson
has done in this regard is no worse than what the
field does at large. Even academic management
journals explicitly ask authors to discuss practical
implications even in the most speculative of
research papers. If scholars working in other
applied fields such as medicine or engineering
were to offer advice with the alacrity that
management scholars do they would be con-
demned as dangerous quacks.
So is Nicholson selling snake-oil? The answer
must be that in comparison to acceptable practices
in the field of management, Nicholson’s book is a
pillar of caution and sobriety. Any management
scholar who would condemn Nicholson for the
speck of incautiousness in his eye ought betterfirst
r2003 British Academy of Management
British Journal of Management, Vol. 14, 376–380 (2003)
To continue reading
Request your trial