The Role and Place of the “Critical Management Studies” Michał Zawadzki
1. INTRODUCTION
T
he “Critical Management Studies” is a transdisciplinary field of humanistic critical reflection focused on the theory and practice of management and organization. This stream was institutionalized in the early nineties of the twentieth century – a landmark date is 1992 when publication edited by Mats Alvesson and Hugh Willmott containing a collection of critical texts under the title “Critical Management Studies” appeared [Alvesson, Willmott, 1992a]. Since then, a number of publications written from the perspective of critical studies in management sciences have been published, a lot of critical conferences around the world have been organized, separate research and expertise related to the critical mainstream have appeared as well as the separate spaces in the public discourse1. Although CMS is becoming increasingly popular in the western management sciences, in Polish – as well as in all of Central and Eastern Europe – is relatively poorly recognized [Sułkowski, 2006, 2009, 2010; Zawadzki, 2009b]. Therefore, it is necessary to characterize this extremely interesting, although controversial research field. The paper presents main characteristics of CMS: the reasons why this trend was established and main epistemological, normative and methodological assumptions of it. It will make possible to show CMS as a separate stream of the research, constituting a critical perspective for research activities undertaken in management sciences.
2. THE EMERGENCE OF “CRITICAL MANAGEMENT STUDIES”
O
ne of the reasons of a historical nature, which decided about institutionalization of the critical reflection in management was – visible from the eighties of the twentieth century in England – the phenomenon of “managerialization” of public sector, related to the adaptation of the principles of economic management to the field of public management [Fournier, Grey 2000, pp. 10-11]. It was associated with increasing awareness of the political nature of management (management as a normative activity), as well as with stressing the importance of the particular role of a manager, who came to be regarded as a holder of expertise knowledge which allows to increase the quality of the processes of democratization in the public services. With growing importance of management in the public space, it became the object of particular analyses and diagnoses. At the same time, a kind of internal crisis of management itself as a scientific discipline could be noted. From the seventies, it was connected with increasing awareness of the lost battle by the U.S. management (which is a dominant model for the management of the West in general) with the Japanese management, which was connected with a victory of Japanese organizations competing over U.S. As a result, the status of management as a science was weakened, and the number of publications connected with a popular science, which were designed to explain the phenomenon of Japanese management, increased. For example, publications
1 Particularly worth noting is the creation of a separate division “Critical Management Studies” in the American association “Academy of Management”. In Europe, since 1999 there is a biennial conference of CMS (in 2011 for the first time outside the United Kingdom – in Naples), a similar conference is organized in the United States by the “Academy of Management”. At the University of Lancaster you can get a degree “Master of Philosophy” in the field of “CMS”. Moreover, a number of websites which contain resources for critical mainstream have been created, such as www.criticalmanagement.org.
Culture Management 2012, Vol 5 (5)
Michał Zawadzki Sociologist and philosopher, in 2011 he defended his doctoral dissertation “Organizational culture in the perspective of the Critical Management Studies” at the Faculty of Management and Social Communication ( Jagiellonian University in Cracow). He is the author of several articles and book chapters published in established Polish journals and with respected publishers. The publications take up a range of topics within the area of Critical Management Studies, such as critical approaches to culture management, Critical Theory and its contribution to management sciences, Critical Management Education and about relation between music and management. He has also been active within the international academic community as reviewer for JCR journals such as Management Learning and the Journal of Organizational Change Management. He works in the Institute of Culture ( JU). He plays drums in a jazz-rock band UDA.