Abstract
Looking back at Against management and engaging with the auto-critique of its author is a pleasure. I liked the book when it came out at the time critical management studies was in its infancy, and I still like it today. Both the book and the critique are engaging reads. It is the kind of writing that non-native speakers can only be jealous of. Fast paced, little jargon, clarity of argumentation, rocking the boat and downright funny at places, not what we tend to get in everyday academia where we often struggle over uninspired papers or highbrow treatises. I was particularly smitten with the interdisciplinarity in Against management, with the inclusion of political theory, sociology, geography, philosophy, and cultural studies perspectives to understand the problems of market managerialism. This is because I find that inspiration for the most interesting research questions does arise at the crossroads of disciplines, as is exemplary for feminist organization studies that I see as my academic home. Upon reading the auto-critique, I must confess that this is not the whole story of interdisciplinarity for me either. I recognize the element of embarrassment and sense of selling out to management and organization studies, and the need to spice it up with concepts and ideas derived from other corners of the academy. Nevertheless, I find that the interdisciplinarity of MOS cannot be reduced to being parasitic of ideas developed elsewhere; the contribution of multiple disciplines is needed to understand the complexity of organizations and organizing. Martin Parker also recognizes this, given the place of interdisciplinarity in his manifesto for the School of Organizing.
In this review of the review, I want to discuss two issues. The first concerns the tasks of academic scholars who are critical about management and the use for critical scholarship broadly. The second is my reflection on the provisional manifesto for the business school of tomorrow and the program it entails for that other crucial task of academics: education for a livable future.
It may be illustrative for the navel staring qualities of contemporary academics to start with the first, while the second evidently trumps its importance. The historical perspective of the review calls attention to how the emphasis of academic work has changed from doing research to writing to being published, not to be read. Martin Parker makes the argument that (critical) academic writing tends to fall short on doing politics, it is predominantly science for scientists’ careers, and has nothing to do with science for society. Never afraid of “grumpy swiping,” he thus sketches a particularly unflattering portrait of critical management scholars as a “hypocrite bunch of woke snowflakes” whose careers profit from their overproduction of writings, but who lack any impact on organizations and organizing. The critical performativity debate in CMS similarly questions the role academics can and should play intervening in managerial discourses and practices beyond intellectual discussions (Cabantous et al., 2016; King and Learmonth, 2015; Spicer et al., 2009), and whether or not they can contribute to achieving emancipatory change (Fleming and Banerjee, 2016). For feminist scholars, arguably a part of the larger CMS community, this debate is at odds with an academic praxis that always already puts change center stage. Feminist theories of organization are unapologetically political and performative (Calás and Smircich, 2006), their agenda goes beyond theoretical contributions, and they are committed to material and social change in organizations and society, a commitment that is shaped by offering alternative value systems and radically different ways of knowing (Benschop, 2021). In the words of Ferguson (Ferguson, 2017: 283): the main goal of feminist theory is to trouble power relations, imagine better worlds, and work to achieve them. Feminists have convincingly pointed at the performativity of theories, at how they constitute social realities, transform social norms, and institutional and social arrangements (Pullen et al., 2019). This confirms the role of academics as intellectual activists with knowledge of progressive politics and emphasizes their responsibilities for the articulation of alternative organizations and processes of organizing that foreground social, epistemic, and economic justice (Contu, 2020). There is at the very least world-making work to do for intellectual activists to change organizing practices close to home: to make a difference in academia, in universities, business schools, and journals, to actively call out practices of discrimination, racism, sexism, and to live up to values of equality, solidarity, and freedom in their own institutions (Contu, 2018; Dar et al., 2021; Mir and Zanoni, 2021).
This brings me to the second issue of reflecting on the manifesto for the business school of the future, the School of Organizing, a part of the auto-critique that I particularly enjoyed. This part importantly puts education center stage, making it about the students more than about the academics. This is a core area where academics can make a difference. Parker reminds us of the scale of business education world-wide, and its known tendency to reproduce the status quo of globalized capitalism rather than disrupt it. He does not call for a gentle tweaking of the curriculum, but for a fundamental rethinking of what students need to know about forms of organization and processes of organizing to basically make the world a better place. Imagine a School for Organizing that calls out dominant systems, structures, and cultures that sustain inequalities regimes, develops solutions for alternatives, and genuinely puts care center stage: it could be a School for the 99% (cf Fraser et al., 2019)!
The manifesto begins with the existential grand challenge of climate change. As I write this in the summer of 2021, when parts of Europe and Asia are flooding, parts of Africa are drying out, and parts of North America are burning in unprecedented ways, there is no arguing about the urgency of ecological responsibility or about its first place on the list. I agree with the principle that all modules need to teach about carbon reduction. It is vital though that carbon reduction is not reduced to a problem for which we need to develop scientific, rational, and technological solutions. We need to emphasize that climate change is a moral, affective, ethical, and political problem for and of organizations (Bee et al., 2015). That emphasis can serve as the entrance into an engagement with the social responsibility of organizations, which remains somewhat underplayed in the manifesto. Students of organizing explicitly need to put their thinking power into imagining emancipatory ways of organizing, of organizing for intersectional equality, fairness, and social justice for all. This includes a responsibility for the geopolitics of global supply chains, as inequalities tend to be outsourced to parts of the world that bear the burden of patriarchal and capitalist ways of organizing. As these parts are typically located in the Global South, teaching cases should indeed include organizing practices outside the Global North. This way, the manifesto is putting the economic responsibility of organizations in the perspective of thinking about global-local relations. It gives room to critical scrutiny of the hegemony of economic growth and may get students to imagine steady-state, green growth or degrowth scenarios (Banerjee et al., 2021). The call for attention for alternative forms of organization and ways of organizing cannot be underestimated here, many alternatives exist and there is a lot to learn from them.
Given the magnitude of the task of the School for Organizing to educate future generations of students to think about the simultaneity of and tensions between ecological, social, and economic responsibilities of organizations, it will not suffice to address the ethics and politics of business practice in one module per qualification only as the manifesto suggests. These elements need to feature more prominently in the curricula. If I were to add another element to the curriculum, it would be attention for how to ensure organizational change. The need for revolutionary change may be obvious, piecemeal change or small wins are current practice at best. This underlines the importance of developing knowledge on the design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions that can transform current ways of organizing. It also underlines the importance of collaboration between students, staff, and practitioners, as effective change cannot be taught from writings only, nor designed within the confines of the university.
Martin Parkers’ manifesto thus challenges critical management studies scholars to do the collaborative work and put their research and their teaching in the perspective of making the world of organizations a genuine better place. I anticipate him taking stock of where we are with that project and am sure we will not have wait 20 years before that happens.
