Using Critical Management Studies to Advance Mentoring Theory and Practice

Critical Management Studies has long been engaged in discussions about the purpose of critique and the possibilities of engagement. A recent expression calls for Critical Management Studies to moderate its ‘negative’ critique of management and instead use words like care, engagement and affirmation in order to enable ‘progressive’ engagement with managers. This ‘performative turn’ has been poorly received by some who see it as a dilution of radical intent. We argue for a middle ground between the antagonistic versions of Critical Management Studies that appear to want to oppose management, and ‘performative’ scholars who appear to accommodate with managerialism. We do this by planting the debate firmly within an empirical setting and a crisis that the first author experienced as a ‘critical scholar’ when conducting an ethnography at a sustainable financial services firm. In order to do this, we explore Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonism to establish a particular mode of political engagement that acknowledges a space between being ‘for’ and being ‘against’. We conclude by suggesting that the exploration of alternative forms of organization and management, themselves already involved in struggle against a hegemonic present, should be the proper task of a discipline that wishes to engage with the present and remain ‘critical’.

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CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES Conference Symposia Abstracts.

Academy of Management Proceedings ◽

10.5465/ambpp.2006.22897580 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 2006 (1) ◽

pp. 1-11

Keyword(s):

Critical Management ◽

Critical Management Studies

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Governing workplace safety through apparatuses: A historical study of the French construction industry in the 20th century

Organization ◽

10.1177/1350508416665473 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 24 (6) ◽

pp. 737-760 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Thibault Daudigeos ◽

Stéphane Jaumier ◽

Amélie Boutinot

Keyword(s):

Construction Industry ◽

20Th Century ◽

Workplace Safety ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Historical Study ◽

Workplace Accidents ◽

Critical Management ◽

Composite Nature ◽

Power Arrangements ◽

Critical Management Studies

Critical management studies have largely failed to offer a comprehensive understanding of the devising and implementation of workplace-safety policies and of the complex power arrangements these may imply. By primarily studying forms of control in relative isolation, these studies have instead produced various puzzles, namely, the persistence of a disciplinary treatment of workplace safety within the current neo-liberal era and the paucity of resistance to this. Drawing on the Foucauldian concept of apparatus and related analytical framework, we propose to remedy this through analysing the successive arrangements governing workplace accidents in the French construction industry during the 20th century. We evidence three successive regimes of control in which distinct apparatuses interact in various ways across different settings. Our study testifies to the composite nature of regimes of control governing workplace safety, and shows how it may impinge upon power relations, ultimately allowing more relevant struggles for a safer workplace to be envisaged. Additionally, by proposing an operationalization of the so-far-overlooked concept of apparatus, our study elaborates on the relevance of the governmentalist tradition for critical management studies.

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IMAGINAÇÃO ADMINISTRATIVA: A CIDADE COMO ESPAÇO E FONTE DA APRENDIZAGEM

Administração Ensino e Pesquisa ◽

10.13058/raep.2010.v11n4.127 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 11 (4) ◽

pp. 493

Author(s):

Cintia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros ◽

Jacquelaine Florindo Borges

Keyword(s):

Critical Management ◽

Critical Management Studies

Em estudo clássico, em 1954, Mills (1975) chamou de imaginação sociológica uma qualidade de espírito imprescindível para que os indivíduos pudessem, a despeito da agitação de sua experiência diária, superar a falsa consciência de suas posições sociais. Nós nos inspiramos no conceito de Mills, nos estudos da pedagogia crítica e nos Critical Management Studies para propor o conceito imaginação administrativa: uma habilidade requerida dos administradores que lhes permite conhecer, sentir, refletir, aprender e ter esperança sobre a sua condição histórica, sua posição social, suas perturbações pessoais e sua participação cidadã nas questões públicas da estrutura social. Neste artigo, descrevem-se a utilização e os resultados de uma prática pedagógica sustentada nesse conceito. Para a condução dessa atividade pedagógica, os estudantes de uma turma do curso de graduação em Administração são estimulados e orientados a utilizar a arte fotográfica, a pesquisa de campo e o arcabouço conceitual da área de formação para analisar situações reais da cidade em que vivem. Os resultados deste estudo mostram que essa atividade promoveu a imaginação administrativa dos estudantes ao estimular a reflexão sobre o compromisso do gestor com a sociedade e seu papel social.

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Strategic Management as the Ideology of Power

Journal of Intercultural Management ◽

10.2478/joim-2013-0014 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 5 (3) ◽

pp. 5-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Łukasz Sułkowski

Keyword(s):

Strategic Management ◽

Critical Management ◽

Critical Management Studies

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to present the key themes of strategic management from the perspective of Critical Management Studies [More: Sułkowski, 2012]. Strategic management seen as the most advanced and sophisticated form of targeting reseved only for the elite top menagement is interpreted by critical scholars as an ideology of power exercised by elites. The article presents the analysis of the foundations of the CMS, and then puts these issues in the field of strategic management.

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