In this article, the authors discuss the relevance of critical theory for management education. They begin by distinguishing critical theory from critical thinking and then highlight the main features of critical theory: social construction, power and ideology, totality, and praxis. The article then introduces the remaining articles that constitute the special segment on critical theory and management education.

In the past decade, managerial skills training has become an increasingly important part of management education. In this article, the authors propose that the current model typically used for managerial skills training would benefit from a significant review and revision. They illustrate how a critical perspective can make managerial skills classrooms both more relevant and more lively. In particular, they suggest that managerial skills training be designed to encourage students to learn two broad categories of skills, self-reflexivity and cultural critique, so that they can become more effective managers and more critical consumers of managerial knowledge.

In this article, I contend that the well-intentioned discourse of work/life balance in the popular and scholarly press actually may undermine women’s and men’s attempts to live fulfilling lives. Drawing on feminist and critical perspectives, as well asmyown efforts to find “balance” in a two-career family with two children under the age of 4, I illustrate (a) how the work/life discourse reflects the individualism, achievement orientation, and instrumental rationality that is fundamental to modern bureaucratic thought and action and (b) how such discourse may further entrench people in the work/life imbalance that they are trying to escape.

In this article, I contend that the well-intentioned discourse of work/life balance in the popular and scholarly press actually may undermine women's and men's attempts to live fulfilling lives. Drawing on feminist and critical perspectives, as well as my own efforts to find "balance" in a two-career family with two children under the age of 4, I illustrate (a) how the work/life discourse reflects the individualism, achievement orientation, and instrumental rationality that is fundamental to modem bureaucratic thought and action and (b) how such discourse may further entrench people in the work/life imbalance that they are trying to escape.

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