The highways and byways of organisation studies: reflections on 30 years of critique

Abstract

PurposeOne obvious and troubling phenomenon in critical organisation studies (OS) is the lack of impact that the new epistemologies had on organisational practice. After about two decades of demonstrating the biases, poor explanatory power and latent dangers of the orthodoxy, a declining utility in further revelations of this kind is sensed. Whereas, there may have been insufficient attention paid to the power aspect of the power/knowledge nexus, it is suggested that this is changing with an emergent focus on the role of political economy, which, hopefully, presages a new revolutionary urge in critical OS. This paper seeks to explore the issues.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is a necessarily selective review of the developments within OS, within a historical context, that briefly examines the fate of other attempts to challenge the dominant managerialist paradigm. The authors look at evidence from an emergent literature on political economy and from a more general set of concerns, both expert and lay, regarding (physical and social) global depredations.FindingsCause for both optimism and pessimism is found within emergent developments in OS. The attention being paid to political economy offers a prospect of overcoming the experienced impotence of the preceding epistemological critique. However, the authors fear that the capitalist interest, together with its apologists, will continue to resist insights and evidence that might require them to change for the benefit of humanity.Originality/valueStimulated by the widespread concern about the impotence of critical OS, this paper, by looking at the trajectory of the epistemological revolution, seeks to illustrate the potentiality and pitfalls facing an emergent political economy perspective.