The human cost of a management failure1996
organizational downsizing at General Hospital
by Seth Allcorn
This book presents a unique, in-depth examination of the effects that the popular approaches to management organizational change - downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering - had on a major American hospital. The Human Cost of a Management Failure shows what can happen when management insists on accomplishing its ends strictly by the numbers. The authors ask why top management so often, and with seemingly such a cavalier attitude, selects downsizing and similar methods when research indicates that they are all too often such poor choices. Based on a year-long longitudinal study, Allcorn, Baum, Diamond, and Stein report on their interviews with 23 senior and mid-level hospital administrators, then interpret their findings from a psychoanalytic perspective, to make clear that the human...
