TITLE:
Is a Management Revolution Possible?
AUTHORS:
Ross A. Jackson, Brian L. Heath
KEYWORDS:
Capitalism, Ideology, Reactionary, Revolutionary, Simulation, Solidarity
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.13 No.5,
September
18,
2025
ABSTRACT: Management, operating under capitalist ideology, enacts corporate policy. As traditionally defined, managers plan, organize, lead, and control organizational resources, applying them to maximize company profits and shareholder wealth in businesses or accomplish a defined mission and set of strategic goals in nonprofits. Neither aim includes an explicit focus on enhancing worker solidarity, the collective improvement of the working conditions, or the existential well-being of workers. In short, management as currently practiced is reactionary as it supports the propagation of the dominant capitalist ideology and the maintenance of the socio-political status quo. Whereas this is certainly the way things are, it is unclear if this is the way things must be. Is a management revolution possible? An agent-based simulation model was built in RStudio to mimic managerial responses to different sources of socio-organizational influence. Triangular distributions were used to model each of the seven input variables. In each case, the modeling of the parameters was done to favor the maintenance of reactionary managers over the generation of revolutionary managers. The initial model position was based on a small proportion of revolutionary managers, ranging from zero to six percent of the total management population. The model included variables for peer influence, revolutionary solidarity, pressure from radicalized workers, capitalist pressure to conform, reactionary pressure to revert to the capitalist ideology, and the potential for identification as a revolutionary manager and subsequent removal from the system. An adaptive run control approach was used to ensure that the 95% confidence interval in the result was no wider than ±0.5%. The model produced more reactionary than revolutionary managers. However, research suggests that a majority is not necessarily for a successful revolution. The simulation results of this study suggest that management, under these modeling conditions, can become sufficiently radicalized to achieve the critical mass necessary for a successful management revolution. The implications of this study are relevant to scholars and practitioners interested in transformative management, as they reveal the latent capacity within existing managerial frameworks to move towards more progressive, revolutionary aims.