Critical Learning: An Exploration of the Roles and Development of Early Career CMS Academics

Abstract

Drawing on a study of 30 CMS Early Career Academics (ECAs) this paper explores how they learn to practice according to their own CMS motivations and maintain such endeavours within environments and evaluation systems which increasingly require high levels of conformity to mainstream managerialist thinking and practice. Applying a Bourdieusian lens to this issue, we focus on the tensions of co-existing between two positions (field and subfield) and explore practices which develop a habitus suited to functioning well in such conditions. The concept of tempered radicalism is used to identify practices and five new strategies which, we argue, constitute a critical habitus of CMS ECAs: recognising the bottom line, finding balance, political savviness, strategic networking and critical friendship, and critical reflexivity. The paper concludes by discussing how support systems might be necessary to ensure the development and growth of the incoming CMS community at a time when it faces increasingly uncertain working conditions and against a backdrop of a growing homogenisation of academic practice within business and management schools.