Foucault and the politics of critical management studies

Abstract

This paper explores the different ways in which we read Foucault in management and organisation studies but, more particularly, some of the features of his project that we seem often to exclude. In the context of a growing interest in more ‘engaged’ forms of scholarly practice among management academics, we argue that further consideration of Foucault might have something more to offer. Setting the main arguments in context, we suggest an outline of the dominant ways in which we read Foucault: the identities we assign to him. Hence we know Foucault primarily as a social theorist, genealogist, neo‐Weberian, and postmodernist. We then consider some of the engaged aspects of his project, focusing on his emergence as an activist intellectual in the 1970s. Possible implications for critical management scholars are then considered.