scholarly journals Tech power: a critical approach to digital corporations

Teknokultura ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aitor Jiménez González
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
Critical Management ◽  
Sociological Approaches ◽  
Rising Power ◽  
Infrastructural Power ◽  
Critical Management Studies

This article explores different bodies of literature looking at the rising power of digital corporations. With this work I aim to provide a critical up-to-date approach to the topic. The first part of the paper introduces the phenomenon of digital capitalism, navigating different sociological approaches. Then, it proceeds by addressing the difficulties of naming the phenomenon and the attention that is gathering among politicians, academics and the general public. The second part of the work explores three different but complementary bodies of literature looking at tech power In the first place the paper explores critical management studies’ contributions describing the characteristics of digital corporations. Secondly, the text reflects critical legal scholars’ works analysing what has been identified as one of the essential features of digital capitalism: the infrastructural power enjoyed by corporations such as Facebook or Amazon. Finally the paper exposes two different Marxist perspectives looking at digital capitalism and its latest developments. The labour-focused Marxist contribution mainly represented by Christian Fuchs and Trebor Scholz and the postfordist approach of Maurizio Lazzarato or Matteo Pasquinelli, among others.

scholarly journals Antagonism, accommodation and agonism in Critical Management Studies: Alternative organizations as allies

2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (11) ◽  
pp. 1366-1387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Parker ◽  
Martin Parker
Keyword(s):  
Financial Services ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Organization And Management ◽  
Critical Management ◽  
Alternative Organizations ◽  
Critical Management Studies

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’.

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

Organization ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 737-760 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Epilogue: Rethinking digital literacy: Media education in the age of digital capitalism

2020 ◽  
pp. 230-239
Author(s):  
David Buckingham
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Media Education ◽  
Digital Learning ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Digital Capitalism ◽  
The Media ◽  
Digital Media Literacy

Advocates of digital education have increasingly recognized the need for young people to acquire digital media literacy. However, this idea is often seen in instrumental terms, and is rarely implemented in any coherent or comprehensive way. This paper suggests that we need to move beyond a binary view of digital media as offering risks and opportunities for young people, and the narrow ideas of digital skills and internet safety to which it gives rise. The article propose that we should take a broader and more critical approach to the rise of ‘digital capitalism’, and to the ubiquity of digital media in everyday life. In this sense, the paper argue that the well-established conceptual framework and pedagogical strategies of media education can and should be extended to meet the new challenges posed by digital and social media.This article presents some reflections as an epigraph of the special issue "Digital learning: distraction or default for the future", whose final result has allowed us to group a set of critical research and analysis on the inclusion of digital technologies in educational contexts. The points of view presented in this epigraph is also developed in more detail in the book "The Media Education Manifesto" (Buckingham, 2019).

scholarly journals IMAGINAÇÃO ADMINISTRATIVA: A CIDADE COMO ESPAÇO E FONTE DA APRENDIZAGEM

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 493
Author(s):  
Cintia Rodrigues de Oliveira Medeiros ◽  
Jacquelaine Florindo Borges
Keyword(s):  
Critical Management ◽  
Critical Management Studies

<p>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<br />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<br />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<br />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.<br /><br /></p>

scholarly journals Strategic Management as the Ideology of Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 5-11 ◽  
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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document