Introducing Critical Theory to the Management Classroom: An Exercise Building on Jermier’s “Life of Mike”

Abstract

This exercise invites critical consideration of domestication, exploitation, and hegemony. We enquired with participants into the ways in which these processes may be embedded in the taken-for-granted logics of organizational and personal decision making. We contrast participation or tolerance of theseprocesses with commitment to often simultaneously held values of freedom associated with democratic societies. We seek places of resistance to exploitation of selves, others, and the environment. We encourage the transformation of the research, education, and practice of business and of management to explore what such a transformation would entail. References to published exercises that deepen this enquiry are provided in the text.