Seminar 1 – Critical thinking in the field

of Management and Organisation

Seminar activity 1:
 What does critical thinking mean to you?

Critical thinking for me is a process of thinking and debating, not directly accepting what you hear or
what you see, but learning to question the information or ideas that you find in the research.

 Why do you think being a critical scholar is important?

Being Critical scholar can engaged in different situation.

 Can you think of any barriers to us being good critical scholars? In other words, what makes
it difficult to be a critical scholar?

Bring your answers to the seminar, ready to discuss

Seminar activity 2:
In advance of the seminar please read the article:

Mingers, J. (2000). What is it to be Critical?: Teaching a Critical Approach to Management

Undergraduates. Management Learning, 31(2), 219–237.

Feel free to read the whole article but, for the purpose of the seminar, you must have read page 223
(from the section What is a critical approach? A framework for critical learning) to the beginning of
page 228.

In small groups:

 Summarise the four ‘critiques’ Mingers outlines in his framework for critical learning. Discuss
your understanding of these four critiques with your classmates.

 Now that you understand what these four critiques mean, think of examples of where we
could apply these critiques/take a questioning or sceptical approach to aspects of our
society and our knowledge?

o Where/by whom do we see rhetoric being used?

o What traditions (at work, in our homes, in our cultures) can/should we question?
o Where/when do we see authority being used to control what is seen as “true”?
o Where/when do we see claims of objectivity that we should question?
 Why is critical thinking (and the framework above) important in the study of organisational
behaviour?
 As a group, choose a well known organisation and apply the Mingers framework to critically
analyse the organisation