‘MOT Your Life’: Critical Management Studies and the Management of Everyday Life

Abstract

This article attempts to reflect critically on the extent to which the discourses, techniques and imperatives associated with the management of work organizations are increasingly colonizing the everyday sphere of human communication and sense-making. Drawing on critical social theory and particularly Habermas’s account of ‘the rational organization of everyday life’, as well as what has come to be known as critical management studies (CMS), the article begins by locating itself within contemporary debates on management and everyday life. It then proceeds, drawing on recent research involving a critical analysis of post-Excellence management books, to map out the discourse commonly encountered in such texts before going on to explore the presence of a notably similar discourse appearing within contemporary cultural resources such as self-help manuals and, more notably, lifestyle magazines. It is then argued that such texts constitute a material signifier of what is an ongoing managerialist colonization of the everyday life world. This argument is substantiated with reference to a series of (group and individual) semi-structured interviews focusing on the lived experience of management, highlighting the encroachment of management discourse, techniques and imperatives on life outside work organizations. The article concludes by reflecting critically on some of the philosophical and political issues this potentially raises and, in doing so, aims to contribute to a critical discussion of the diffusion of management knowledge and ideology, particularly in relation to the subjective impact of managerialism on human relations.