Book Review: Critical Management Research: Reflections from the Field by Emma Jeanes and Tony Huzzard (eds.)

Abstract

Emma Jeanes and Tony Huzzard (eds.) Critical Management Research: Reflections from the Field, Sage Press, London, 2014; ix + 246 pp: 9781446257432, 30 [pounds sterling] (pbk) This collections 13 chapters are written by 17 authors. They provide a comprehensive overview of the current stage of critical management research (CMR). The editors have divided CMR into four parts: approaching the field, in the field, out of the field, and reflections on the field. Following the editors' introduction, the chapters discuss 'mystery creation, learning from experience, negotiations, being native, asking until it makes sense, research online, qualitative research, over-interpretations, elusive facticity, what can be said', and finally 'reflexive ethics'. The editors' introduction starts by stating, 'the idea for this book emerged from a number of conversations among colleagues', mentioning ethics, fairness and giving voice (with the voice of workers, for example, being stunningly absent!), equity, autonomy and collective responsibility, as well as 'Jurgen Habermas [who] has termed emancipatory knowledge interests' (p. 3). His key reference (Knowledge and Human Interests 1987) is missing, as is a critical application of Habermas's knowledge-creating interest to CMR. Even though Habermas is initially mentioned, this collection is not written in any understanding of Habermas, nor of Horkheimer's (1937) key writing on 'Traditional and critical theory', nor on the application of Horkheimer and/ or Habermas to CMR (e.g. Morrow 1994). Despite the editor's announcement--'a further antecedent of CMS [Critical Management Studies] is critical theory itself' (p. 5)--and the implied claim that the collection is dedicated to critical theory and Habermas, the CMR collection carries some connotations to advancing Habermas's technical-empirical control and his historical-hermeneutical interest. But CMR seems to avoid Habermas's critical-emancipatory interest that highlights domination with the telos of human emancipation. The Jeanes/ Huzzard collection does none of this (Klikauer 2011). Instead, CMR represents management research with the prefix 'critical' attached to it. For the most part, it appears to stabilise management, rather than challenging the dominant and domineering managerial paradigm. Perhaps it might even be supportive of some aspects of management's key ideology: managerialism (Clegg 2014; Klikauer 2013; Locke & Spender 2011). The objective, not of critical theory but of CMR, is 'to develop new ideas and theoretical contributions' as Alvesson and Sandberg recognise while also mentioning 'Marxism' (p. 25). Perhaps the two references to Marx in the entire collection indicate that management as well as managerialism remain largely unchallenged by CMR. Perhaps the non-challenging character of CMR is exemplified in Alvesson and Sandberg's claim to be attempting 'to make research more interesting and influential' (p. 38). In line with being non-challenging, Jeanes et al. don't contest the UK's 'research excellence framework--REF' (p. 43) but offer 'how to do' advice with no discussion on the fact that managerial instruments like REF have the potential to destroy solidarity by enhancing competition among academics. The political implications of REF as support instruments of neoliberalism 'vanish into thin air', as an old friend of mine would have said. Perhaps equally ground-breaking is Nyberg and Delany's claim that 'we argue that most ethnographies have ... political impacts' (p. 63). Many have known that research has political implications, ever since the Catholic Church showed the instruments of torture to Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) in order to shut him up roughly 400 years ago. Thankfully, research, Enlightenment and modernity are not confined to CMR's 'micro-emancipation' (p. 81, 97) but support full and comprehensive emancipation from religious-ideological asphyxiation. Not surprisingly, for Skrutkowski, 'there is an interpretive bias in the core stream within the CMS research tradition that draws on critical theory and the Frankfurt School' (p. …