Global Tensions Between Mainstream Economic Discourse and Humanistic Management Agendas

Abstract

There are continuing long-standing critiques, populist and academic, often humanistic, challenging the hegemony of mainstream, orthodox, neoclassical economic discourse for a variety of technical, political, and social reasons. Persistent globalization and international business practices have intensified these concerns around mainstream economic doctrine, as cultures buy in or respond to it in their own specific ways, leaving humanistic issues of environment, democracy, inequality, and poverty unstable and uncertain. In this paper we propose that the overarching problem of a hegemonic economic discourse can be summarized and broken down into four more accessible, manageable problems facing humanistic agency: it is dehumanizing, mystifying, a priori specifying, and totalizing. Structuration and sensemaking are two established theoretical traditions that might be brought to bear on these problems. Closer examination of these four critical tensions and related bodies of social science research reveals how they can be addressed to release forces of agency more democratically and constructively. We conclude with recommendations for researchers and practitioners seeking to empower market stakeholders who may wish to understand and challenge tenets of the economic status quo in relation to globalization.