Introducing Critical Theory to the Management Classroom: An Exercise Building on Jermier’s “Life of Mike”

Abstract

This exercise invites critical consideration of domestication, exploitation, and hegemony. We enquired with participants into the ways in which these processes may be embedded in the taken-for-granted logics of organizational and personal decision making. We contrast participation or tolerance of these processes with commitment to often simultaneously held values of freedom associated with democratic societies. We seek places of resistance to exploitation of selves, others, and the environment. We encourage the transformation of the research, education, and practice of business and of management to explore what such a transformation would entail. References to published exercises that deepen this enquiry are provided in the text.Recent illegal and unethical behavior of corporate executives has gained the attention of the public, the media, and some of the more critical streams of the management academy. Scrutiny of the education of leaders and managers of corporations has properly become part of this criticism. We welcome this

Taking Stock of Management Education: A Comparison of Three Management Education Journals

“…Some exercises have received high honors for their valuable theoretical and practical contribution. For example, in 2006 an exercise won the Fritz Roethlisberger Memorial Award given for best article in JME (Humphries & Dyer, 2005): "Introducing Critical Theory to the Management Classroom: An Exercise Building on Jermier's 'Life of Mike.'" Thus, we suggest that the underlying definition of SoTL is an important consideration, which we discuss further in the last section.…”

Politics Even Closer to Home: Repositioning CME from the Standpoint of Communication Studies

“…These efforts have revealed, for example, guiding philosophies and tactics by which critical theoretical lenses can be feasibly translated for management studentpractitioner audiences (e.g. Cavanaugh and Prasad, 1996;Humphries and Dyer, 2005;Vince, 1996), lessons gleaned from empirical experiences with critical management courses (e.g. Grey et al, 1996;Hagen et al, 2003), and dilemmas in the development of critical management textbooks (e.g.…”

Really useful knowledge? Critical Management Education in the UK and the US

“…Hagen, Miller and Johnson (2003) tackle the perennial concern about what sort of reception critical academics get in the MBA classroom (see also Sinclair, 2000) and, in their case, also question whether the gender of the academic has a bearing on the outcome. Humphries and Dyer (2005) report on the introduction of critical and postmodern theoretical perspectives into their teaching and Fulop (2002) reflects on the additional difficulties of writing a textbook that incorporates critical perspectives. The oft-quoted article by Mingers (2000) is somewhat unusual in writing about critical theory alongside introducing the concept of 'criticality' to student.…”