Abstract
By introducing an intentionally provocative critique of managerialist regimes which typify contemporary UK business school culture, we argue that current business school management practices generate a climate of mistrust and alienation amongst academics. Such a climate is not conducive to a reformative agenda that business schools should be pursuing if they are to improve staff morale and the educational environment. Drawing on Ghoshal's ‘smell of the place’ metaphor to structure this argument, we court deliberate irony and paradox. Rather than draw on heterodox theory to inform our critique we, instead, turn relatively mainstream management and organization theory against itself. Our argument is that even when examined through orthodox lenses, managerialist practices are found wanting and contradict the precepts of much mainstream normative theory.
Highlights
Intellectual debate about the increasing alienation of the UK academic community in contemporary ‘Austerity Britain’ has been scant
Our focus here is not so much on curriculum and pedagogy, these are both indirectly implicated; rather, we offer a snapshot of the ‘culture’ of contemporary UK business schools
After having clarified the theoretical and methodological rationale alongside the boundaries of the objection we raise with respect to managerialism, we offer a discussion of how the organizational climate within many UK business schools resonates with the ‘Calcutta-insummer’ oppressive atmosphere referred to by Ghoshal in his framework
Summary
Intellectual debate about the increasing alienation of the UK academic community in contemporary ‘Austerity Britain’ has been scant.
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