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Critical Management Studies: Accountability and Authenticity Warren Smith Crit Sociol 2008; 34; 15 DOI: 10.1177/0896920507084619 The online version of this article can be found at: http://crs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/1/15

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Critical Sociology 34(1) 15-28 http://crs.sagepub.com

Critical Management Studies: Accountability and Authenticity Warren Smith University of Leicester, UK

Abstract The development of critical management studies (CMS) has been marked by much internal debate.

There are disagreements over its objectives and methods, and also in providing a positive sense as to what it should be for. Differences exist between a strategy of engagement with management and a radical approach that, fearing co-option, disengages from established practices. But both these strategies are influenced by CMS’s situation and participation in the business school. And both approaches have to respond to particular accusations stemming from the nature of their (dis)engagement. I argue that the reconciliation of difficulties of this kind is vital to the realization of CMS objectives. This reconciliation makes demands of accountability which, given CMS’s espoused commitments, are of crucial importance. Left unaddressed they undermine its very viability.

Keywords critical management, management education, authenticity, university, accountability, business ethics

Introduction The development of critical management studies (CMS) has, over the last few years, been marked by considerable debate. However, these debates have been characterized by largely ‘constitutional’ questions; in other words, preoccupied with the extent to which the objectives and methods of CMS can or should justify the claims of a distinct ‘disciplinary’ identity. Significant differences exist between a strategy of engagement with managers and management and a more radical approach that is inclined to disengage from existing structures and practices. Both approaches also imply significant differences in their attempts to state more positively what CMS should be ‘for’ in addition to merely stating what it is against. The result is a rather uncertain response to the question, ‘What is the point of CMS?’ © 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore)

DOI: 10.1177/0896920507084619

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In this article, I would like to argue that some of this uncertainty derives from the situation in which critique is produced. In the case of CMS, its involvement in particular forms of management education and, moreover, the management practices of the institutions in which it has emerged create significant tensions. Many of these issues derive from the institutional relationship in which CMS is caught up. Others are quite personal; many academics that are concerned to criticize management face some quite difficult issues of complicity.1 I suggest that if CMS wishes to establish a more ‘positive’ role, it must give greater attention to responding to issues of this kind. In particular, I wish to emphasize the importance of recognizing the implications of its position, and those who identify with its objectives, within the university business school. These implications raise some straightforward questions of accountability. That is not to say that this accountability cannot take different forms, but that, I believe, in whatever form, its importance is currently under-recognized.

The article is organized as follows. I begin by tracing a disjuncture in CMS between the pursuit of change through a strategy of engagement with managers and management and a more radical mode of critique that rejects established structures and practices. I show that these strategies have different consequences for the future prospects of CMS. However, in both cases these consequences are inadequately recognized. A number of difficulties therefore follow which serve to undermine its influence. These, I suggest, pose questions of accountability. Finally I argue that accountability could also become more central to critique.

But first it is necessary to review briefly these constitutional debates.

Constituting CMS Over the last ten years, something called ‘critical management studies’ has emerged in European and, to a lesser extent, US business schools.2 Perhaps it was inevitable that academics affiliated to these institutions who found themselves uncomfortable with the orientation of mainstream management research opted to strike out in a different direction and, in doing so, achieve a degree of separation from ‘traditional’ (and dominant) approaches. And yet, while many of the institutional necessities of academic territorialization have developed – conferences, journals and the like – there is still disagreement and division over constitutive questions.

To some extent, the existence of division should be of little surprise. Even in its traditional form, ‘management’ is a hardly a discipline;3 as a label it provides some semblance of commonality to a space where a number of different disciplines are located. Few would expect the inhabitants, accountants, marketers, organizational theorists, economists and so on, not to have divergent epistemological and ontological assumptions. Indeed management ‘departments’ reaching a certain size are usually re-organized into ‘subject areas’.

Those of a smaller size often have a somewhat fragmented academic culture. One is quickly reminded of this, on those occasions when a management department attempts

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to overcome its internal differences. For example, something like a seminar series often finds a consistent and coherent departmental constituency hard to locate and maintain.

Given this we might wonder why we would seem to require consistency in a critical approach to these areas. Nevertheless it does seem that CMS wishes to transcend boundaries. The bi-annual Critical Management Conference in the UK includes streams in strategy, economics and operations management.4 This integrative drive therefore produces a number of questions. What gives this ‘movement’ its integrity? What gives the ‘community’ its identity? Of course, the facile answer is to be ‘critical’. But what exactly does this mean? Or to turn the question around, what are the ‘uncritical’ approaches that are opposed?

While the question ‘what is critical’ has been rather well-rehearsed in the more introspective recent pieces on the development of CMS, it is nevertheless necessary to briefly revisit some of these points since they are central to attempts to give, or indeed deny, CMS a particular identity. Accordingly some characterizations of the objectives and methods of CMS are more forthright in their attempt to establish a coherent direction.

These are strongly supportive of CMS and wish to strengthen its identity, position and influence, confident of its value within and outside the academy (Adler, 2002). Others provide a more reflexive critique. They offer more conditional support and are somewhat preoccupied with plotting the internal divisions and differences within CMS (Fournier and Grey, 2000). They seem less convinced of the merits of formulating a strong (brand) identity5 and are uncomfortable with the expansionary tendencies that this implies.

There are however, some recurring precepts of which we might briefly remind ourselves. Firstly, and fundamentally, CMS research should not be ‘for’ managers, it does not desire to produce the solution to some management problem. It is not concerned with providing ‘tools’ to improve efficiency and is not driven to produce knowledge that allows more ‘output’ to be achieved with less ‘input’. CMS therefore does not strive to contribute to the effectiveness of management practice. Instead ‘management’ itself is the problem, something whose methods, manifestations and consequences invite analysis and examination. It is concerned that management is not seen as a neutral, objective tool, reminding us that there is nothing ‘natural’ or irresistible about these practices. Instead they should be regarded as the result of particular decisions; choices which invariably serve the interests of some group over another and which relate to specific and non-generalizable contexts. Finally this questioning of inevitability is applied to itself. It is reflexive about its methods and claims (Perriton and Reynolds, 2004: 65).

Difficulties clearly emerge if these formulations are intended to contribute to a stronger positioning of CMS; in other words, if they are intended to produce some disciplinary statement of intent. If they simply aim to describe all of the things done by academics who may be associated (or associate themselves) with a ‘critical approach’ to management then there is less difficulty. In this case we stop debating ‘what is CMS’ and resolve to pursue our particular interests and activities accepting that many of these may contradict those of others. But so far this characterization has spoken only of the orientation of critique; expressed in the negative it explains what CMS is not, and refers to that to which it objects. In fact, outlining the more positive aspects of CMS ambition

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while trying to maintain a coherent sense of identity is even more problematic. This leads to an even deeper unresolved question as to what CMS stands for. What positive effects can be attributed to CMS? Where are these to be found? In short, how should CMS be brought to account?

These are simple but incisive questions.

Good Intentions As we will see, we appear to live in times where disquiet about the effects of ‘business’ and by extension ‘management’ is growing. As a result it is particularly incumbent on us to consider the ambition and capacity of CMS to reach and influence a wider constituency. Here the evidence is rather mixed. Certainly debates about its internal constitution and direction serve only to accentuate this uncertainty, strengthening a sense that the wider influence of work is less important than whether it is produced consistent with some particular identity. We may produce a discipline, but it is one speaking to itself.

Despite this, Czarniawska (2001: 16) boldly provides a strong declaration of a radical liberatory programme. She claims, ‘Critical management theory has long had the aim of helping people to liberate themselves from … oppression, injustice, inequality and feelings of alienation.’ One might take issue with the rather exaggerated sense of history implied here, it is not overly negative to propose that the number of people ‘liberated from oppression’ directly because of the good works of CMS theory is still alas somewhat small, but there is, at least, a sure and unambiguous statement of intent. But such candour invites interrogation about how and when these intentions are realized. Who are the oppressed? How are they engaged? How has CMS helped to relieve their suffering?

In their seminal account, Alvesson and Willmott (1996: 18) attempt to outline the direction of a critical project. This project does not ‘indulge in the utopian project of eliminating hierarchy, removing specialist divisions of labour or even abolishing the separation of management and other forms of work. Rather, its aspiration is to foster the development of organizations in which communications (and productive potential) are progressively less distorted by socially oppressive, asymmetrical relations of power.’ Under this formulation, CMS has the opportunity to intervene to help shape organizations so that they are ‘fairer’. It recognizes, it appears, the notional efficacy of certain organizational arrangements. It accepts that they can often lead to exploitation and inequality, but it does not believe that these outcomes are inevitable. In essence, it believes they are capable of change; CMS strives for reform through a process of positive engagement with the participants and institutions of the capitalist economy.

The question therefore follows how this positive engagement is to be achieved.

Seemingly, it must first depend on the existence of a degree of common ground between the different parties or, rather, the presence of receptivity in those ‘engaged’. There is certainly evidence that this exists. For instance, in Watson’s (1994, 1998) ethnographies, managers appear as individuals who are fully conscious of the ethical dimension of their activities. He finds little evidence that they wilfully separate the pragmatics of

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managerial activities from their moral consequences. Such individuals are therefore thoroughly amenable to progressive dialogue and are receptive to ‘critical’ perspectives not only because of their moral sensitivity but also because they are as likely to be victims of modern organizations as beneficiaries. In such circumstances there appears the opportunity for positive outcomes to emerge from an environment of mutuality where participants are fully aware of, and are open to, different positions and values.

However, the effectiveness and relevance of this influence can be questioned in the context of other contemporary movements of critique. The development of CMS has occurred at a time of almost unprecedented concern with the consequences of global capitalism. Recently a number of highly influential, and indeed ‘popular’, publications have emerged. These have exposed some of the devastating effects of Western methods of organizing and systems of ‘free trade’ that have allowed multi-national corporations to exploit cheap labour and resources while exporting environmental harm (e.g. Bello et al., 2000; Klein, 2000; Korten, 1995; Mander and Goldsmith, 1996). They expose dramatic changes to traditional lifestyles, local economies and the natural environment.

They are accounts of death and destruction. The questions that they raise are profound and moving. But these influential publications have emerged largely from outside of the academy. The role of CMS in exposing such ‘critical’ issues has been negligible; the participation and influence of its members has been at best marginal. In fact, CMS concerns seem centred in a different, milder domain. A characterization, albeit slightly tongue in cheek, of the dominant genre of its research would include empowerment programmes that are a façade, culture change programmes that mask domination with a softer rhetoric, workers’ appropriation of management symbols into acts of resistance – all wrapped in theory du jour. CMS has also largely, though not exclusively, concentrated on the effects of management and organizational practices as they emerge in the developed world. Moreover one might argue that its tendency is towards ‘micro’ analysis.

‘Management’ is examined as a collection of organizational practices that accumulate to create wider effects, rather than from a ‘macro’ perspective that focuses on the changes in the political economy that influence social and organizational realities. Again this can be compared with ‘popular’ critiques that tend to situate ‘management’ in the wider environment.6 Here one thinks of the effects of ‘structural adjustment policies’ – ‘management’ practices which emerge from supra-national institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization. One should not assume that the effects of these policies are necessarily confined to the developing world; Bello et al. (1994) have argued that the developed world has also been subjected to a process of ‘structural adjustment’ manifested through government privatization programmes, labour deregulation and reforms to social provisions which have served to depress wage rates and undermine worker rights.

There is however a more radical version of CMS that doubts the prospect of achieving change through engaging with current systems and practices of organization. For example, speaking specifically of the practice and teaching of business ethics, Parker (2003) argues that unless it expands to include political issues it will continue to be a servant of power that believes that simply changing managerial education or making

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incremental modifications to organizational rules can have real effects. This scepticism invites a more fundamental critique in which CMS engages in a wider criticism of modes of production and governance, but disengages from involvement with processes that are felt to lead to the continuation of particularly hierarchical relations of power. This implies attempts to rethink the structures and legitimacy of business. This notion of disengagement does not however indicate a withdrawal into the ivory tower and the perpetuation of internal debate. In fact, the demands that follow are quite the opposite. The rejection of ‘sympathetic dialogue’ with practitioners means that no longer must CMS only interact with what exists, instead it must push towards producing alternatives.

But such rejections, the adoption of a more searching critique of the foundations of the modern corporation, mean that the institutional position of CMS is even more difficult and contradictory. This begs the question whether CMS, even when it finds ways of profitably engaging with some students, is undermined by position within its ‘host’ institution. For instance, a ‘critical’ course might be enjoyed, or tolerated, by students but is packaged and compartmentalized so that it does not actually threaten subsequent assumptions, desires or behaviours. One can perform ‘critical’ when required, but this performance has little transformative effect. In this situation, engagement with management, while not implying support of those practices, produces the danger of criticism being coopted and incorporated by the performative practices that it tries to oppose. We can derive a striking analogy from Memmi’s (1965) notion of the ‘colonizer who refuses’ (Perriton and Reynolds, 2004). This describes an individual who worked within colonial state management while being opposed to colonial rule. Critical management academics find themselves in a similar position; they do not share the aims of those that they are employed to serve even though they inevitably gain benefits from this position. There are short-term advantages in this precarious position. But compromised, its future is uncertain.

Contradiction and Complicity There are serious implications flowing from the uncertain position of CMS in both versions of CMS that have been outlined. The positive ‘engaged’ version of CMS relies on an audience entirely receptive to its intentions or one that can be steadily pushed towards more progressive behaviours. One does not doubt that such positive engagements are possible. The question is to what extent this is achieved and, more importantly, whether they are central to management education as it is conceived, practiced and experienced.

In contrast, the more radical academic seems somewhat compromised by his/her position. As Parker (2003: 155) confesses many, himself included, vent their anger at contemporary managerialism while being paid employees of business schools. This somewhat schizophrenic existence goes further. Not only do such academics find themselves in institutions whose stated objectives they do not share, they usually spend a significant portion of their professional life instructing managers (both aspiring and practising) whose ambitions are at odds with their own. Given these contradictions, how does the radical critical management academic deal with his or her situation? Perriton and

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Reynolds (2004: 67) argue that this is usually achieved by being able to ‘step outside’ the dominant managerialist culture that shapes the expectations of students and the practices of the hosting institutions.

Yet clearly this is a challenging manoeuvre, and the resulting position can be somewhat uncomfortable, not only in terms of ‘managing’ conflicting demands but also morally. Watson (2001: 386) argues that it is unrealistic for those employed in management education to turn their backs on the role that most of them are paid to fulfil as employees of business schools or management schools. This is a role in improving the quality of practices that the managers and would-be managers who enrol in these schools undertake … Given the underlying assumptions behind the employment contract which most management academics sign on joining a management school and given the expectation of the bulk of students who sign up for the courses that they will receive something more than a period of liberal studies, the critical management researcher and educator must come to terms with the basic logic of their occupational role.

I would argue that the contradictions stemming from this ‘basic logic’ and the mechanisms by which they are (usually uncertainly) reconciled are crucial to the integrity of CMS. They pose questions of accountability and present some rather old-fashioned challenges of (in)authenticity. There is the danger that for those with ‘critical’ sympathies but who are directly involved with management education, a particular story of engagement offers a comforting, perhaps conveniently comfortable notion. We are usually wary of issuing charges of hypocrisy, but it is something that swirls around. Tinker (2002: 424) shows no such reticence and takes aim at those teaching ‘nuance and estrangement to upwardly mobile MBAs, studying at elite British universities located in extremes of urban poverty, violence and deprivation.’ Watson (2001) exposes the compromised moral position of those employed by business schools but who reject their central purpose. Tinker provides the radical’s rejoinder.

His rather pointed criticism is important I think for two reasons. Firstly, its reminder of some rather stark circumstances forces recognition of the dreadful consequences of modes of production that are found in ‘popular’ critiques of capitalism. These exposés, he sarcastically insinuates, are rather less prominent in CMS mainstream research.

Secondly, his comments personalize some of the debates about the direction of CMS and serve to scrutinize individual commitments. Both directly challenge the strategy of engagement. Even the existence of the local moralities of managers would seem something of a sideshow given the horrors of the global system of production (Mander and Goldsmith, 1996). Clearly this requires a more ambitious approach to criticism, re-focusing on wider social problems emerging from modern organization and management.

Producing more reflective practitioners would appear to be somewhat missing the point and rather marginal to effective intervention, significant influence or ‘serious’ critique.

But these ambitions make Watson (2001: 386) ‘quake’ at the moral superiority on display. While this is a fair point, it does not follow that a less ambitious approach is automatically less morally problematic. The more powerful question is that of moral

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consistency and whether ‘ambitions’ can be connected meaningfully to action. If we consider these requirements with respect to teaching, this might require what Adler (2002: 390) calls ‘muckraking’, or persuading students ‘to renounce personal shareholder wealth and devote themselves to worthier causes’. But we can enquire as to how these antagonisms would be fitted into the structures and curriculum of established programmes. Realistically, and I shall turn to these institutional realities shortly, the likelihood is they would constitute guerrilla style provocations that might be indulged in the name of ‘balance’ and tolerated because their marginal status means that they offer no real threat or, more positively, a little local colour.

Clearly ‘moral consistency’ would only be achieved with a similarly antagonistic approach to the rest of life as a CMS academic and business school employee. We should perhaps ask ourselves how many of us attempt, much less realize, such consistency. Yet it seems to me that the (attempted) reconciliation of these questions is vital to the integrity of CMS objectives. This resolution makes demands of accountability which, given CMS concerns, are of particular significance. Left unaddressed they undermine its very viability. And perhaps they are irresolvable without some institutional and individual sacrifices.

Institutions and Individuals Whether a radical or more engaged approach to CMS is adopted, I suggest that there are wider questions that stem from our institutional and individual commitments. It is the reconciliation of these that will determine the effectiveness (and indeed moral substance) of our academic work.

With respect to the relationship between CMS and the wider institutions in which its colonies are situated, Grey and Willmott (2002) openly concede that CMS is presently parasitic on the business schools in which its members are employed. They do not deny financial dependence upon corporations, nor that these funds are generated in a manner counter to the principles of CMS. This dependence requires a second area of reform.

Thus ‘the project of CMS should be the transformation of management practice in tandem with the transformation of B-schools. The latter without the former means impotence of CMS, the former without the latter is all but unthinkable.’ (Grey and Willmott, 2002: 417) Jacques (2002: 36) argues that these dangers are strong in the business school where productive linkages tend not to be found between disciplines but with vested (corporate) interests who are inevitably tied to the preservation of the status quo. In this environment, critical ideas are marginalized.

So it follows that in order to transform management, CMS is also required to work towards the transformation of the institutions in which it resides. Previously, I outlined differences in the CMS project regarding its (dis)engagement with current structures and practices of management. Similar differences can be seen with regard to the related issue of changing its host institutions. One can certainly conceive of a strategy of engagement that could be relevant here. Such an approach would attempt to change institutions from within. Accordingly the CMS community should work to consolidate and strengthen its

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position and influence in these institutions. Through positive engagement it is intended to push teaching curricula and research programmes incrementally in a direction sympathetic to CMS concerns. As Zald (2002: 374) remarks, ‘As we think about the prospects of CMS we must think about how it may be institutionalized and its position in the stratification order of management education and research. What journals are respected and how open are they to CMS works? How are critical works of different kinds likely to be evaluated in hiring and tenure decisions at the Department, the school and university level?’ In short, the strategy is to play the game by its rules until CMS is in a position to change the rules of the game.

But, worryingly, many inequalities are justified by the belief that prosperity will eventually flow to the less privileged. The rhetoric of the prophets of globalization rests on such ideas. The signs from around the world are that this still must be taken on trust. Is the institutional strategy of engagement proposed for CMS an intellectual version of ‘trickle-down’ economics? Will the benefits of privilege lead to the perpetual deferment of radicalism? As it stands, one wonders, as always, about the prospect of change emerging from positions of privilege. The danger is that the institutions in which CMS uncomfortably sits will overcome, reject or absorb its progressive initiatives. One is therefore sceptical that CMS could realize any of its objectives working with, or indeed simply surviving within, these institutions as they are currently predicated. I would like to suggest that whatever the movements that are made towards ‘criticality’, there are certain, perhaps unpalatable, ‘realities’ that must be faced. These realities seem to reflect what Watson (2001) calls our ‘basic occupational logic’.

CMS emerged out of and exists within the business school. Such institutions employ the majority of those who associate themselves or are associated with CMS. If one inspects the major ‘indicators’ of business schools’ ‘missions’, one finds little obvious commitment to the reform or change of management practice except in terms of efficiency or effectiveness. If CMS seeks knowledge about management then business schools are unambiguously predicated on providing knowledge for management. Their students (and corporate clients) are not attracted by sober accounts of intellectual criticism and reflection but by shiny promises drawn from the rhetoric of the knowledge economy. The schools (and the wider university) greatly depend on the finances derived from these ‘customers’. Profitability clearly depends on having (or the perception of having) something worthwhile to sell whether to individuals or companies. One is left of no doubt of this when one inspects the course recruitment advertisements of business schools (including those with CMS colonies). They are characterized in terms of the instrumental benefits that will accrue from the ‘knowledge’ on offer. Attending the business school is an investment that will produce significant (personal) returns. There is rarely the indication of even the mildest form of reflectivity, let alone a promise to criticize managerialism. And when movements are made towards criticality, they are usually communicated through such proxies as ‘thoughtfulness’ or perhaps formulated as a rejection of prescriptive approaches that are clearly inappropriate in our ‘complex, contemporary world’. It is clear that more ‘challenging’ commitments to critique are considered with respect to their market impact. Crucially, the dependence of the wider university on

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the financial contribution made by the business school means that its recruitment targets are always heavily scrutinized. Any threat to achieving these targets is received nervously since it is accepted that overtly critical programmes are less ‘popular’. Stated bluntly, critique is acceptable in the business school if the bottom line is not affected.

Yet this is not just a matter for the university. These consequences are also a matter for the CMS ‘department’. Benefits that derive from student numbers achieved by offering attractive programmes also accrue to the department itself. Critical colleagues are recruited from funds generated from these activities. Their critical scholarship is similarly resourced, as is their conference travel. One could argue that this is a productive example of détournement, a rather effective method of money laundering. But this is an argument that tends to underplay the ongoing contradictions and complicities that exist.

Worse, it allows them to be elided.

Perhaps then, in order to achieve critical engagement CMS academics must interrogate their own relationship with their institutional environment. In other words, academic life is not only about producing critique but also about realizing it. And in the particular circumstances facing the CMS academic, an obvious and essential place for this critique to be realized is within our own organizational circumstances. Questions of accountability can then be applied to the manifestation of particular principles both externally and, importantly, internally. I mean here that it is not acceptable for these ideas to be applied to external organizations but rather forgotten with respect to our own organizational and ‘managerial’ activities. It is not as though alternatives to dominant patterns of managerial behaviour and modes of organization are unavailable. Such ideas challenge the moral distancing (Bauman, 1989) that is produced by the mechanics of the modern organization and its hierarchical structure (Blaug, 1999). Alternative proposals encompass smaller, more localized, structures and a rejection of the growth imperative, a refusal of strict division of labour, hierarchy and the compartmentalization of knowledge in favour of self-management and self-governance (Fournier, 2002; Parker, 2002). How might the CMS academic translate such principles and practices into her/his institutional and professional existence?

It is indisputable that the realization of these principles by CMS would place it directly at odds with the market-managerialism of the modern university and certainly the rest of the business school. The question is whether we are reconciled to the consequences that follow and therefore whether we wish to be held accountable for these actions. While they may not commit CMS to the complete dissolution of the business school (Parker, 2002: 132), there are, quite obviously, serious implications. These alternatives foresee smaller departments and the diminishing of the privileged position (at least financially rather than intellectually) that the business school, and some members, enjoy. I suggest that they also invoke an antagonism to the career structure operating within these institutions, a system which serves to link individual aspirations with ‘corporate’ objectives. In this respect, we have to accept, without necessarily being overly cynical, that the significance of much CMS work lies not only with its potential for liberation or the intellectual value of ideas, but with its marketability within the professional structures of the academic career. In this respect, the knowledge that is produced

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also has a significant ‘performative’ aspect. The establishment of, or identification with, a fertile research ‘project’ or the publication of an article in an ‘influential’ journal yields points on the scorecard of advancement.7 Moreover, work produced in a particular format has more ‘utility’ than if it was produced for a different audience following different conventions.8 This work however may not reach the constituency necessary to achieve significant influence nor provoke change. In fact, quite the contrary, there are strong institutional pressures to conform to particular expectations. These pressures serve to shape the development of the discipline.

All this is before we begin to consider the more overtly cynical institutional game playing that sometimes accompanies the realization of career projects in a collective environment. Within the UK, the nefarious effects of the research assessment exercise (RAE) have been oft cited. We hear of its various consequences, the sapping bureaucracy it entails, the perversion of academic freedoms and deleterious effects on collegiality. But how have individuals responded to it? How many have rejected it and refused to submit to its requirements? Of course, to do so would be to withdraw from the system of promotion it supports and a rejection of the benefits that this provides.9 But such deeds would require principled acts of individual and collective will.

‘We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us’: Conclusions and Commitments Differing strategies of engagement and disengagement are found within the broad church of CMS. These strategies are also relevant to CMS’s situation and participation in the business school. Both approaches have to respond to particular accusations. Engagement encounters the dangers of complicity and co-option. Disengagement is challenged by marginalization and irrelevance. Both face moral challenges. Inevitably these internal differences serve to undermine any attempt to shape a ‘strong’ identity for CMS or a ‘discipline’ that is not fundamentally divided.

This ‘lack’ is not necessarily to the objection of everyone. Perhaps more significant is that these questions go to the heart of any attempt to realize a positive role for CMS – to decide what it should be for. These attempts inevitably raise questions of accountability. I would concede that these choices have been rather over-simplified and that there are many complexities and commitments in life that make such cold calculus rather unrealistic. We usually have a wide set of commitments which limit certain choices. Nevertheless these choices may not be as limited as we might pretend.

It is rather telling therefore, in the context of the developing disciplinary ambitions of CMS to follow through the implications of critical positions particularly as they apply to institutional and individual positions. I have argued that this requires us to recognize the benefits that we derive (collectively and individually) from the systems that we also criticize. Watson’s (2001) moral question is well made, but so is Tinker’s (2002). Both call to account differing approaches to criticism. Those wishing to continue to identify with a CMS discipline that meaningfully realizes its aspirations would appear to have to make some choices. These imply a greater emphasis on accountability. This might be met by a

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greater attention to the realization of these ambitions in our own contexts. Without this we cannot be surprised by the cynicism of students who see privilege when they hear radicalism (Pas, 2003).

However there is a further, related step. Accountability could become more central to critique itself. Contemporary theory seems preoccupied with the dissolution of boundaries. It seems to have become received wisdom that no longer is ‘there a “pure” outside from which an outside politics can be conducted’ (Parker, 2002: 180). The view is frequently expressed that it is increasingly difficult to discern where corporate culture ends and ‘real’ culture starts, that authenticity and inauthenticity are now indecipherable and undecidable. The consequence of this dissolution is that it becomes hard to identify what we are against. For some the implications of this condition are not entirely pessimistic.

One possibility is that our absorption within the system means that new points of weaknesses are produced, that incorporation creates ‘openings’ in structures of power that may ultimately produce change (see, for example, Hardt and Negri, 2000).

But actually, the lesson we should perhaps take from the success of ‘popular’ critiques of corporate capitalism is that these boundaries are not as indistinct as ‘theory’ would suggest. Many of these critiques warn of spaces being invaded and borders transgressed.

Monbiot (2000) speaks of the ‘corporate takeover’, Korten (1995: 181) of ‘corporate colonization’, and Hertz (2001) of the ‘silent takeover’. The sense of colonization remains a powerful and persuasive message. The influence of such books surely must mean that they have connected with meaningful experience. This is not to insist that there can be agreement about these circumstances, nor that these ‘effects’ will be identified and interpreted the same way and for many well-founded epistemological reasons, CMS shies away from such simplifications. But perhaps it is easier to see what ‘belongs’ and decide what is (in)appropriate than once we might have thought (Smith, 2001). And perhaps authenticity is less problematic than we might want to think.

‘Simplifications’ like accountability and authenticity challenge indifference; they demand a form of choice that cannot be separated from consequence. In Naming the Enemy, Amory Starr (2000) makes a blunt point about certain critics. She insists that they must begin to commit us to the material consequences of their humanitarian sympathies. Some ‘seem to fantasize that first worlders can maintain their current living standards, consumption and technology while relieving third world debt, destroying the military industrial complex, and rescuing third world workers from inhumane working conditions on the global assembly line’ (2000: 79). Interestingly, those on the other side of the argument make similar points to different ends. For example, critics of the ‘corporate responsibility’ agenda argue that it should be rejected because it surreptitiously implies a radical reinterpretation of the role of private business. Such a reinterpretation will, for economist David Henderson (2001: 28), ‘worsen economic performance and … make people in general worse off ’. His argument is that these policies should not be pursued because we do not appreciate, and will not accept, the consequences.

Similarly in making a general point about the consequences of criticism, I have been concerned to apply this specifically to CMS. I have argued that it is not only a question of the radicalism of our approach to CMS that is relevant to its viability, but also our

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Smith: Accountability and Authenticity

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preparedness to countenance the consequences of this radicalism. Moreover we can (and should) do more to apply these lessons to our own academic life. The first point has been well debated, the second less so. While the different approaches to CMS teaching and research are important constitutional debates, these have not been readily examined as specific challenges of individual accountability.

Notes 1 The author has spent his student and academic career in institutions and departments associated with a critical approach to the study of management and organizations. It is perhaps unusual therefore that it is the so-called functionalist approach that is more alien.

2 I use the term ‘business school’ loosely while recognizing that it sometimes indicates a particular approach to organizing, management research and teaching that might be distinguished from other organizations that teach and research management.

3 The term ‘discipline’ is used advisedly. The extent to which CMS seeks ‘disciplinary’ status is questionable. This and the consequences of the term are highly germane to debates that follow. However I will use the term in order to represent some sense of a ‘movement’ or ‘community’ with a degree of agreement (and debate) over aims, methods and objectives.

4 Conversely the ‘traditional’ British Academy of Management conference includes a stream in ‘critical management’.

5 For example, members of the Critical Management Studies Workshop within the United States Academy of Management have adopted the nickname ‘Critters’.

6 There is also an epistemological explanation here. The origins of CMS tend to be in forms of poststructuralist critique. Such approaches, inclined to theorizing subjectivities, are therefore somewhat at odds with broader structural critiques of this kind.

7 Including, of course, the article you have before you.

8 One also has to recognize the ‘academic’ virtues of this research versus the journalistic indulgences of the popular polemic.

9 It is amusing that one of the favoured topics of CMS is the internalization of control induced by the career project of self.

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Critical Sociology 34(1)

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For correspondence: University of Leicester School of Management, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK. Email: ws8@le.ac.uk

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