1 HOW GENERAL MANAGERS HUMANIZE THEIR PROFESSION: EVIDENCE FROM PRACTICE.

Abstract: There is a prolific strand of executive literature that analyzes managers ´ daily activities. Nevertheless, research has remained silent about the managers ´ priorities that drive those numerous activities. The goal of this paper is, precisely, to gain a better understanding of which are those manager´s priorities, and to discover which is the place that occupies in those priorities the so called “humanizing dimension of management”. We base our study on an inductive analysis of in-depth interviews with 19 general managers of multinational firms. The analysis results in more than 200 priorities that are clustered in four broader groups of major managerial concerns: to develop the business model and the future of the firm, to manage the people, and to create an institutional strategy –composed of principles and values, purpose, working philosophy- that gives coherence to the organization. Far from what recent claims suggest, our analysis reveals a true preoccupation of executives to integrate a “humanistic dimension of management ” with their daily practice. Maybe academia has unfairly contributed to the delegitimation of management as a profession. Maybe it is scholars that must start the process of humanizing their theories.