When performativity fails: Implications for Critical Management Studies

Abstract

This paper argues that the recent call in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies (CMS) scholars to embrace rather than chide performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone CMS researchers to resignifiy management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives (Bulter, 1993(Bulter, , 2010 to extend this argument and discuss its implications for critical organizational inquiry. If CMS seeks to make a practical difference in business and society, and realize its ideals of emancipation, we suggest alternative methods of impact must be explored.

Supporting alternative organizations? Exploring scholars’ involvement in the performativity of worker-recuperated enterprises

“…To address this question, we rely on prior studies of the WREs Vieta, 2012) as well as recent debates about the critical performativity concept Fleming and Banerjee, 2016;Schaefer and Wickert, 2016).…”

Pragmatism, Critical Theory and Business Ethics: Converging Lines

“…This could entail that Pragmatist Critical scholars are directly and actively involved in their own university, for example in employee councils, work groups and departmental meetings; that they apply Critical pedagogy in their classes whenever possible or necessary, for example by discussing different paradigms and bringing in Critical perspectives in mainstream business, economics and accounting courses and by engaging students in thinking outside their ''mental boxes'' (Fleming and Banerjee 2016); that they are vigilant in safeguarding an open, experimental and productive learning atmosphere against closed and defensive ideological reasoning from both the right and the left (Magala 2006); that they do not tacitly accept existing management hierarchies as given (Cabantous et al 2016;Klikauer 2015), but actively explore alternative forms of organization, for example in cooperatives (Leca et al 2014;Paranque and Willmott 2014), communities (Adler 2001) or anarchical forms (Wigger 2016).…”

En torno al potencial transformador de los CMS (Critical Management Studies)

“…Esto nos remite a las ciencias sociales que se ocupan de tales factores macro y a disciplinas como las mencionadas anteriormente. Por otra parte, si la denuncia y la iluminación de la «oscuridad de las prácticas contemporáneas de gestión, la sociedad de consumo y el capitalismo» (Spoelstta y Svensson, 2016: 75) son un objetivo de los critters, entonces deberían buscar una audiencia más amplia, lo que es una invitación para convertirse en intelectuales públicos (Smith-Lovin, 2007;Parker, 2013;Fleming y Banerjee, 2015).…”