Management in a Critical Context

Introduction
 Learning outcomes

– Identify key areas of concern in contemporary

management scholarship;

– Subject these issues (and similar ones) to critical

scrutiny;

– Demonstrate a critical understanding of power as

an enduring phenomenon in the contemporary
workplace.
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 Richard Hyman Strategy
or Structure? Capital, Labour and Control Work,
Employment and Society 1(1): 25–55 March 1987

Elucidating the contemporaneously popular notion of business

strategy, Hyman confronted the paradox of strategic choice; how to
reconcile management’s latitude in decision-making with apparently
deterministic economic forces. Emphasizing the Marxist concept of
contradiction – between forces and relations of production and the
production and realization of surplus value – strategy was best
conceptualized as ‘the programmatic choice among alternatives none
of which can be satisfactory’. In our era of irresolvable economic
crisis, Hyman’s analysis of managerial strategy and labour control
may yet deliver its most enduring insight. (Taylor, WES)

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 Key topic areas

• Globalisation;

• Technology;

• Conflict and co-operation.

 Key topic areas

• Sustainability / ethics
• Information / knowledge / learning
• Power / politics / conflict
• Change
• Organisational design / strategy
 Key problems in these issues
• Globalisation
– intense competitive environment?
• Sustainability / ethics
– compatibility with capitalism?
• Information / knowledge / learning
– opening Pandora’s box?
• Power / politics / conflict
– the haves and have-nots
• Change
– speed
• Organisational design / strategy
– maintaining control
 The study of power and politics
• Some find it uncomfortable to think about
• They are seen as malign forces, obstructive to organizational
effectiveness
• They are seen as phenomena of the ‘old’ Fordist world of
collective labour (unions), industrial conflict, bad industrial
relations and ‘class war’
• These problems have supposedly been solved! (Thompson
& Ackroyd, 1995)
• But these phenomena are eternal issues in human nature and
social organization and will not go away
• The contemporary manager must therefore understand them
and deal with them!
 Michel Foucault: Power
• Power is everywhere and
comes from everywhere;
• Power exists in
relationships, e.g. one
party cannot operate
without the consent of
another
• Power is never absolute or
one way – there is always
some capacity to resist.
 Antonio Gramsci: Hegemony
• The invisible power
exercised by ruling class
through cultural
reproduction;
• The values espoused by
the ruling class become
the ‘norm’;
• Seen as benefitting
everyone, but only benefit
ruling class.
See Prison Notebooks
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1. The intensely competitive global
environment

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 Neoliberal capitalism
• Market mechanisms are used to regulate all
aspects of the economy – individualism is a
dominant characteristics, short-term business
goals predominate;

• Capital markets are decentralised, open and

fluid;

• Shareholder value is everything!

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 Intense global competition
• Globalisation (however defined and viewed); colossal impact
on business and other aspects of life
• Rapid restructuring of production
– decline of manufacturing in west
– expansion of ‘emerging economies’
• Growth in power an influence of ‘BRIC’
• Is liberal capitalist prosperity inextricable from democracy?
(see Fukuyama, 1992)
• Who Governs??
– is there a coherent framework for global economic
activity?? Is it anarchy????

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2. Ethics compatible with capitalism??

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 Ethics compatible with capitalism?
• It’s about making money!
• Liberal shareholder model requires short-term
returns on investment
• Being nice can cost money!
– Milton Friedman said this is immoral
• Can ethics be made to pay?
• To what extent is it just window dressing
(Amazon)?

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 3. Opening Pandora’s Box!

• Rayhan Qadar - Sacked for tweeting

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 Pandora’s Box
• When Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the internet, he
gallantly threw it open for all to use, transforming the
world
• dotcom boom/bubble aside, almost every business in the
West benefits from it
– as do private citizens and communities
• How can the ‘information super highway’ (Castells,
1999) be governed??
– should it be??
– what about consumer rights, free speech, ethics??

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The haves and havenots

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 Models of employment relations
• Unitarism – employers and workers have the same
interests – organisational identification and
commitment;

• Pluralism – recognising different interests of

employers and workers accommodated through
institutions and negotiation – collective bargaining;

• Marxism – conflict between capital and labour

inevitable.
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 Your experience!!!
• Theory and practice

• Employee engagement?

• Organisational Commitment?

• Non-standard employment?

• HRM? 27
 Haves and havenots
• Equal societies are more healthy, happy, sustainable and
peaceful (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2000)
– e.g. Scandinavia, Canada
• Across the world, the elite get richer while the plight of a
precarious underclass grows more alarming (even within the
UK)
• This is good for Bentley and Rolex, but is a time bomb in
the longer term

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Speed of change

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 Speed of change
• With the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989, the USA seemed to
have it all their own way (see Fukuyama’s ‘End of
History’, 1992)
• By 2017, China’s GDP will overtake that of the US
– in very rapid fashion!
• In 2008, several leading (and hitherto profitable) banks
went bust - few predicted it (and nobody listened to the
ones that did!)
• Question: how can managers be expected to manage in
such a volatile environment??

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqG3ITMv1Q
• How the financial crisis of 2007–2008 was triggered by the
United States housing bubble - subprime home loans.
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Maintaining control?

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 Maintaining control
• Organisational theory tells us that bureaucratic and Tayloristic
techniques are not good ways to manage
– alienating
– stifle creativity
– unfriendly for customers
– inflexible in a fast-moving global environment
• Yet, these models endure! Why?
– will managers not trust their people??
• How can organisations be built that emancipate people but
deliver results? Is this possible??

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 Summary
• Session has highlighted some key
management problems
• Will be covered in more depth in the coming
weeks
• Should give food for thought for your essays!
• Tutorials!!

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