Beyond Critique: Towards Transformative Practice in Critical Management Studies. Editors’ Introduction

Evolution of a Strange Pathology: HRM as a Strategic Business Partner and Employee Advocate in the USA

“…From the realm of popular culture to the realm of politics there is wide spread suspicion regarding ideologies justifying various management techniques, and this suspicion gives rise to a concern that they serve the needs of the industrial systems and Bpower elites^rather than improving the general quality of experienced life or offering opportunities for meaning and community (Mclaran 2011). CMS scholars share a common principle that the use of power in any oppressive manner to benefit some groups to the determent of others is both unjust and socially destructive (Murphy et al 2013) and argue that we must disclose and make public the concealed power relations that structure and reaffirm the existing social, political, and economic environment (Mclaran 2011).…”

Decolonising management knowledge: A reflexive journey as practitioner and researcher in Uganda

“…First, the article provides an empirically-grounded example of the possibility of taking into account sensitivities coming from the PCT, CMS and CDS intellectual streams, usually known and sometimes criticised for their alleged distance from everyday practice. In this sense, it answers recent calls for a stronger engagement of critical scholarship in practical action (Murphy et al, 2013). Second, my research attempts to render the work of an interpretivism-oriented qualitative researcher as visible and transparent as possible, illuminating the relations between epistemology and methods, and between methods and metatheory (Westwood and Jack, 2007).…”

Does Brexit mean the end for Critical Management Studies in Britain?

“…But understood in terms of its broad political project, the omens for British CMS are not good. CMS has always stood in some way -complex, qualified, contested and varied, no doubt -for a politics that favours the marginalized, the oppressed and the powerless against the privilege and power of the elite (Adler, 2002;Murphy et al, 2013;Parker, 2013). Unfortunately, the marginalized, oppressed and powerless have in large numbers voted against much that CMS believes in and positioned CMS as part of a privileged and powerful elite establishment which they despise: perhaps that was always so, but Brexit makes it explicit and unavoidable.…”

“…emerged as a term. If there is a consensus view, it is that it is a 'composite beset by internal strains and tensions, not a unified movement' (Grey and Willmott, 2002: 411) with a 'sprawling as well as open, ill-defined nature' (Willmott, 2013: 138) making it 'difficult or even inappropriate to definitively "label" CMS' (Murphy et al, 2013: xiv) which alerts us to the fact that it cannot be spoken of in a homogeneous way. Still, there is a large body of literature which explicitly adopts the CMS label, along with conferences, handbooks and so on, and although this is very far from homogeneous, it is still meaningful to talk about CMS in a general way, just as one might for any other academic orientation.…”