Critical Management Studies: what they are and how they apply to psychology
Critical management studies are a set of works that draw on critical theory to formulate different ways of understanding the livelihoods and daily functioning of the organizations.
In this article We will see in more detail what critical management studies are, or critical management studies., where they come from and what are some of their main proposals.
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What are Critical Management Studies?
The Critical Management Studies (critical studies of management), are a set of works that apply critical theory in the analysis and functioning of organizations.
In other words, it is a series of studies on management, organizations and work that, from a critical perspective, address social issues relevant to these areassuch as gender, power, identity, etc. (Baleriola, 2017). Some of its main objectives are, broadly speaking, the following:
- Offer an alternative vision to the traditional proposal in management studies.
- Use methodologies other than quantitative and experimental analyses.
- Study power relations and ideology within organizations.
- Study aspects of communication between the people that make up an organization, as well as the implicit values.
We will see below where critical management studies come from and what are some of their contributions to the management of organizations.
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Critical theory applied to management
Critical theory is a current of philosophy and social sciences that was born in the middle of the 20th century. Establishes a break with traditional theory, based on a project of scientific objectivity and typical of the natural sciences; since, beyond generating explanations or descriptions of the phenomena it studies, the theory critique intends to value them under a political component omitted from the theory traditional.
This theory considers that every object of investigation, and everyone who investigates, have been socially constructed, that is, they are found in a particular vision of the world that corresponds to a specific historical and cultural context. Consequently, people and the social sciences have a transformative potential that critical theory addresses in terms of power and domination especially.
With this, crises, debates, objects and research methodologies were opened both in the social sciences and in other fields, such as the world of work and organizations. Specifically, the opportunity was given to problematize some fundamentals of business management tradition, as well as its consequences in the daily activity of those who integrate the organizations.
three fundamental elements
Baleriola (2017) tells us that the contributions of critical theory to business management, and the proposals that derive from this, can be summarized in the following points:
1. Criticism of technical and self-limiting positions
They question the scientific foundations and methodologies that had been transferred to the activity and management of the organizations, since they ended up reducing the explanations about their functioning to variables or categories related to each other by numbers. These were moving away from what actually happens within organizations, that is, the existence of more variables was not considered, or the ability of people to interpret what others say and do, etc.
From now on new methodologies for the analysis of organizations are proposed.
2. Criticism of the power and ideology of traditional theory
Related to the above, critical management studies analyze the impact of language, implicit values and actions in interpersonal relationships, organizational culturegoals and objectives, etc. The above was omitted by the traditional theory, or it was considered as a secondary element.
3. the pursuit of ideals
It is about thinking and building other ways of acting, that is, reconsider what is taken for granted or has become natural within organizations. From there, look for alternatives, in this case critics and with approaches to ethics.
Methodology and ethical practice
Critical management studies are intended to carry out in-depth analyzes of the phenomena they study. For this reason, they are based on a primarily qualitative methodology, which supports a possibility of critical choice. In other words, critical management studies make explicit political use of the study and analysis of the phenomena that occur in organizations (Baleriola, 2017).
Some of the techniques and methodological foundations used by critical management studies are the ethnography and discourse analysis, as well as the possibility of transformation at the very moment of investigating the freak.
In relation to this, the researcher positions himself as an empowerment tool, and finally, they analyze the ethical commitment in organizational activity, which implies understanding the tensions between the demands of the organization itself and its members.
In the same sense, critical management studies criticize the traditional postulates of corporate social responsibility, who generally insist on individual responsibility, and hold a special concern for the image they project in their context immediate.
Likewise, they problematize reductionist biases regarding ethical practice, for example, the idea that ethical responsibility is an exercise that only applies to the highest levels of the organization (Tired and Galvez, 2017). On the contrary, they seek make visible that individuals actively and daily constitute themselves as moral subjects, which implies analyzing ethics not as a universal reality, but in the specific context in which this occurs.
