Ideologías del management y perspectiva de género: la contribución de “Mujeres y discursos gerenciales” a unos estudios críticos de la gestión

Resumen: El objetivo de esta contribución es el de realizar una valoración del trabajo de Maria Medina-Vicent Mujeres y discursos gerenciales: hacia la autogestión feminista. En el texto se describirá la importancia que tienen las ideologías gerenciales como articuladoras del discurso pro-empresarial contemporáneo para, a continuación, señalar las principales contribuciones del libro de Medina-Vicent, que son la de no solo criticar el peculiar tipo de feminismo presente en los libros de literatura empresarial dirigidos a mujeres, sino proponer una reversión de los discursos neoliberales sostenida en las aportaciones de la teoría feminista. Abstract: This contribution aims at making an assessment of the work of Maria Medina-Vicent Mujeres y discursos gerenciales: hacia la autogestión feminista. The text will describe the importance of managerial ideologies as articulators of contemporary pro-business discourses. Besides, the main contributions of Medina-Vicent’s book will be highlighted. Those are not only the critique of the peculiar type of feminism underpinning in management books addressed to women, but also the proposal of a feminist theory-based rejection of neoliberal discourses. Palabras clave: ideologías gerenciales, feminismo, estudios críticos de gestión, mujeres líderes. Keywords: managerial ideologies, feminism, critical management studies, female leaders.

Towards emancipation through organizational (re)design? Exploring integral organizational renewal from a critical management perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a more pragmatic critical management studies (CMS), by exploring the emancipatory intent of organizational (re)design concepts and ideas from the modern sociotechnical approach integral organizational renewal (IOR). Design/methodology/approach This paper is of a conceptual nature in that it engages with relevant literature from the fields of CMS and IOR, guided by a focused conceptualization of emancipation from CMS literature. Findings It is found that although IOR can to a large extent be considered as an emancipatory project, it contains a number of dangers which jeopardize its emancipatory potential. Complemented with other sociotechnical approaches and ideas, however, it appears that IOR could make some valuable contributions to a pragmatic CMS. Originality/value This paper is unique in engaging in an exchange of ideas between CMS and IOR. By doing so, it contributes, first, to the debate on a more pragmatic CMS; second, to the dialogue between CMS and “mainstream” organization science; third, to the field of organizational (re)design.

Steering as Path Creation: Leadership and the Art of Managing Dependencies and Reality Effects

We develop a perspective on steering in governance which understands steering as intended path creation. Inspired by evolutionary governance theory, critical management studies and social systems theory, we argue that steering is shaped and limited by co-evolutions, disallowing for any formulaic approach. In order to illuminate the space for steering in governance, we analyze the interplay between different dependencies. Those dependencies are not just obstacles to path creation, they can also be pointers and assets. The steering discussion is further complicated by always unique sets of couplings between a governance system and its environment. After introducing the ideas of reality effects and governance strategy, we further develop our concept of steering and present it as the management of dependencies (in governance) and reality effects (outside governance) towards path creation. This management is ideally strategic in nature and requires leadership in a new role.

Critical Contextualized Studies of Human Resource Management

How can we study human resource management (HRM) from a critical point of view, without losing the ability to inform practice with relevant insights and engage in the process of developing better organizations for a broad range of stakeholders? Mainstream HRM studies accept, without much reflection, that “best practice” HRM is what is best for management and owners. Critical management studies turns this point of view upside down and holds the view that HRM is always about the exploitation of the weaker stakeholders in organizations. Showing how a contextual view can be critical, this chapter discusses how it is possible to be critical and practically relevant at the same time, drawing on current debates on relevance within critical management studies, under the labels such as “critical performativity” and “Reconstructive reflexivity.” The chapter presents three critical, but equally constructive, analyses of HRM practices. The first addresses how institutional logics affects the practice of HRM professionals; the second presents alternatives to best practice diversity management; and the third examines a case of meditation practices as expressions of managerial control. The merits of the three ways to perform contextualized critical HRM studies are summed up and discussed, thus setting the scene for how to move forward in critical contextualized HRM scholarship.

Enabling critical performativity: The role of institutional context and critical performative work

Critical performativity has become a promising notion for critical scholars who want to have concrete impact on society. Although the number of studies contributing to this literature has significantly increased in recent years, most of them are still restricted to theoretical debates. Rarely are those who have analyzed empirical cases and explored the institutional context that strengthen or limit the chances of critical projects to be successfully performed in practice. In this article we draw on the case of Popular Cooperative Incubators in Brazil to address this blind spot in current literature on critical performativity. We particularly focus on the institutional context for critical projects to be performative and on how actors shape the institutional context. We develop the notion of “critical performative work” to better show how the combination of institutional theory and critical management studies can help advance critical performativity. We offer both new theoretical contributions and practical suggestions for critical theory to have a larger impact in practice.

Critical Management Studies: Introducing A New Perspective

The Critical Management Studies, as an emerging perspective and research topic in management, has helped scholars to investigate management topics and issues with the perspective of Critical Theory of Frankfurt School. The Critical Theory itself is a synthesis of philosophy and social science which pioneered by several german philosophers in the beginning of 20th century. Although this perspective regained its relevancy and popularity recently, in Indonesia, the Critical Management Studies is quite alien and rarely be employed as a discussion topic or a research perspective. Therefore, in this study we want to offer Critical Management Studies to be an important alternative and it will be very relevant to the development of management theory and research in Indonesia. We conduct a literature-based research and our results are appeared in four themes: (1) The explanation about the birth and the thought of Frankfurt School thinkers, (2) The description about the development of Critical Management Studies, (3) The critiques against Critical Management Studies from the mainstream management thought, (4) The evaluatiion of the concept of Critical Management Studies from the researchers own perspective. We advise several potentialities and prospect for implementation of Critical Management Studies in the context of management theory development and research practice in Indonesia. However, as a conceptual study further effort still needed to apply this perspective.