Anxiety, Politics and Critical Management Education

Abstract

The focus of this paper is a discussion of anxiety and politics as they relate to business school pedagogy. Using ideas from critical management education (CME), the paper explores why and how to engage with the anxiety mobilized through attempts to learn. The aim is to discuss emotional and political dynamics that are generated, and too often avoided, in management education. Making these dynamics overt in the classroom can help managers to comprehend the political context within which management takes place. Examples informed by CME are presented, as well as reflections from the author on the anxiety and politics that emerge for the critical management educator in a business school context. The contribution in the paper is to show the way that anxieties and politics within the business school classroom offer opportunities to change how business schools approach the teaching of managers. CME adds value to management education because it challenges what and how individuals and groups expect to learn, and consequently it challenges assumptions about how learning takes place within business schools. Such challenges are seen as an important and integral part of ‘making the business school more critical’.

Drivers and Outcomes of Work Alienation

“…Ollman (1976, p. 120) also pointed to the broader social and economic context as the root of alienation, whereby social conditions are said to create a "psychological and ideological superstructure which is practically the same for all men and caught up in a given set of material circumstances." Critical management scholars have built upon this work by promoting the emancipation from the relations of power through a critique of mainstream management research and teaching (Alvesson & Wilmott, 1992;Antonacopoulou, 2010;Ford, Harding, & Learmonth, 2010;Russ, 2010). Related to this work is the perspective of critical human resource management (CHRM) scholars.…”

Action learning in international settings: Possibilities for developing organising insight

“…In addition to assessment requirements which demand recommendations for action and a well executed problem solving task, there might be an explicit requirement for students to also focus attention on the process of organising involved in action learning projects with a particular emphasis upon emotional and political aspects of learning and organising. As Vince (2010) argues educators rarely encourage reflection on the emotions and politics generated in management education and the paper here suggests that this ignores significant learning opportunities. As we have seen here, there was evidence of students' reflecting on emotional and political aspects of learning, however this was not an explicit requirement of the programme and much more could be made of this informal learning outcome.…”

Management educators in practice: to be critical or not to be critical, that is the question

“…Catherine spoke about how some educators who take on such programmes do not give enough thought to the anxiety that it can provoke both among students and can be reflected in the student. However, such anxiety was to be expected in the classroom (Vince, 2010).…”

“…The management classroom can also reveal the emotional and political 'dynamics' of the group and how these create structures for action and inaction (Vince, 2010: 33). Through experiential exercises, Vince (2010) explores ways to address anxiety and politics as an integral part of learning about management. He stresses, however, that 'Business Schools do not encourage reflection on the emotions and politics generated within the practice of management teaching and learning, or more generally within management practice' (Vince, 2010: 28).…”