Apologies for any cross-posting
Human Relations is pleased to announce a new virtual special issue that brings together several articles looking at critical performativity.
All included content will be free to access until 20 March and can be found here:
http://hum.sagepub.com/site/misc/VSI/critical_performativity.xhtml
We hope you enjoy reading these articles.
At the Critical Moment: Conditions and Prospects for Critical Management Studies
Valerie Fournier and Chris Grey
Human Relations January 2000, 53(1): 7–32, doi: 10.1177/0018726700531002
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/53/1/7.full.pdf+html
Abstract
We have recently witnessed a growing, if still arguably marginal, interest in `Critical Management Studies' (CMS). Our aim in this paper is to reflect upon the popularization of CMS; more specifically, we propose to examine the various factors that have contributed to its emergence, and to review the significance of its project. We start by exploring the conditions of possibility for CMS and point to a combination of political, institutional and epistemological trends. In the second part of the paper, we consider what constitutes `CMS' and suggest that whilst it draws upon a plurality of intellectual traditions, CMS is unified by an anti-performative stance, and a commitment to (some form of) denaturalization and reflexivity. Finally, we articulate the polemics around which CMS politics have been contested, in particular we review the debates between neo-Marxism and post-structuralism, and discuss the issue of engagement with management practice.
Critical performativity: The unfinished business of critical management studies
André Spicer, Mats Alvesson, and Dan Kärreman
Human Relations April 2009, 62(4): 537–560, doi: 10.1177/0018726708101984
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/62/4/537.full.pdf+html
Abstract
We argue that critical management studies (CMS) should be conceptualized as a profoundly performative project. The central task of CMS should be to actively and pragmatically intervene in specific debates about management and encourage progressive forms of management. This involves CMS becoming affirmative, caring, pragmatic, potential focused, and normative. To do this, we suggest a range of tactics including affirming ambiguity, working with mysteries, applied communicative action, exploring heterotopias and engaging micro-emancipations.
Critical leadership studies: The case for critical performativity
Mats Alvesson and André Spicer
Human Relations March 2012, 65/(3): 367–390, doi: 10.1177/0018726711430555
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/65/3/367.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Existing accounts of leadership are underpinned by two dominant approaches: functionalist studies, which have tried to identify correlations between variables associated with leadership; and interpretive studies, which have tried to trace out the meaning-making process associated with leadership. Eschewing these approaches, we turn to an emerging strand of literature that develops a critical approach to leadership. This literature draws our attention to the dialectics of control and resistance and the ideological aspect of leadership. However, it largely posits a negative critique of leadership. We think this is legitimate and important, but extend this agenda. We posit a performative critique of leadership that emphasizes tactics of circumspect care, progressive pragmatism and searching for present potentialities. We use these tactics to sketch out a practice of deliberated leadership that involves collective reflection on when, what kind and if leadership is appropriate.
Subversive functionalism: For a less canonical critique in critical management studies
Rasmus Koss Hartmann
Human Relations May 2014, 67(5): 611–632, published online before print October 10, 2013, doi: 10.1177/0018726713497522
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/67/5/611.full.pdf+html
Abstract
Critical management studies (CMS) is increasingly recognized as a distinct and institutionalized field of research within organization and management scholarship. That institutionalization, however, has been a cause for both optimism and concern about what holds the project together and how it might develop in the future. In an effort to provide a constructive direction for further development, Spicer et al. (2009) suggest the orienting concept of 'critical performativity' and several tactics for realizing it. I contend that realizing a critically performative agenda is likely to be impeded by the increasingly institutionalized canon of acceptably critical perspectives in CMS, and suggest how it might alternatively be realized by expanding existing canons to include subversive readings of mainstream theory. To this end, I present a set of tactics for this sort of 'subversive functionalism' focused on deeper theoretical engagement and exploration of implications, alternatives and integration.
Towards a progressive understanding of performativity in critical management studies
Christopher Wickert and Stephan M Schaefer
Human Relations January 2015, 68(1): 107–130, published online before print February 24, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0018726713519279
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/1/107.full.pdf+html
Abstract
A central debate in critical management studies (CMS) revolves around the concern that critical research has rather little influence on what managers do in practice. We argue that this is partly because CMS research often focuses on criticizing antagonistically, rather than engaging with managers. In light of this, we seek to re-interpret the anti-performative stance of CMS by focusing on how researchers understand, conceptualize and make use of the performative effects of language. Drawing on the works of JL Austin and Judith Butler, we put forward the concept of progressive performativity, which requires critical researchers to stimulate the performative effects of language in order to induce incremental, rather than radical, changes in managerial behaviour. The research framework we propose comprises two interrelated processes: (i) the strategy of micro-engagement, which allows critical researchers to identify and 'ally' with internal activists among managers, and to support their role as internal agents of change; and (ii) 'reflexive conscientization' − that is, a dialogic process between researchers and researched that aims to gradually raise the critical consciousness of actors in order to provide spaces in which new practices can be 'talked into existence' through the performative effects of language.
Can critical management studies ever be 'practical'? A case study in engaged scholarship
Daniel King and Mark Learmonth
Human Relations March 2015, 68(3): 353–375, published online before print June 3, 2014, doi: 10.1177/0018726714528254
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/68/3/353.full.pdf+html
Abstract
What happens when you try to engage with management practice as a critical management scholar by actually doing management? Although there have been calls for critical scholars to attempt such engagement, little is known about the practical challenges and learning that may be involved. This article therefore provides a case study that details some of the experiences one of us had when working as a manager while trying to remain true to his critical sensibilities. The story suggests that transforming management practice will be a constant struggle, and that the difficulties of achieving even small changes should not be underestimated. However, change is not impossible. Following Foucault, we argue that critical perspectives, when engaged in particular ways, offer resources through which we might challenge the dominance of managerialist thinking on a practical level − at least in the long run.
Critical Essay: Reconsidering critical performativity
Laure Cabantous, Jean-Pascal Gond, Nancy Harding, and Mark Learmonth
Human Relations February 2016, 69(2): 197–213, published online before print August 12, 2015, doi: 10.1177/0018726715584690
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/2/197?etoc
Abstract
In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of 'critical performativity', a concept designed to debate relationships between theory and practice and encourage practical interventions in organizational life. Notwithstanding its laudable ambition to stimulate discussion about engagement between critical management studies researchers and practitioners, we are concerned that critical performativity theory is flawed as it misreads foundational performativity authors, such as Austin and Butler, in ways that nullify their political potential, and ignores a range of other influential theories of performativity. It also overlooks the materiality of performativity. We review these limitations and then use three illustrations to sketch out a possible alternative conceptualization of performativity. This alternative approach, which builds on Butler's and Callon's work on performativity, recognizes that performativity is about the constitution of subjects, is an inherently material and discursive construct, and happens through the political engineering of sociomaterial agencements. We argue that such an approach – a political theory of organizational performativity – is more likely to deliver on both theoretical and practical fronts than the concept of critical performativity.
On the potential of progressive performativity: Definitional purity, re-engagement and empirical points of departure
Stephan M Schaefer and Christopher Wickert
Human Relations February 2016, 69(2): 215–224, doi: 10.1177/0018726715608931
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/2/215?etoc
Abstract
In this article, we respond to Cabantous, Gond, Harding and Learmonth's (2016) critique of recent conceptual contributions that employ the concept of performativity for prompting progressive changes in organizations. All in all, we seem to share the general unease concerning the marginal impact of Critical Management Studies on re-defining organizational realities. At the same time, we largely disagree on how critical scholars could support effective, progressive changes. In this rejoinder, we respond to but also absorb Cabantous et al.'s critique of progressive performativity and sketch three ways of how to advance discussions of Critical Management Studies' role in organizational scholarship.
Extending critical performativity
André Spicer, Mats Alvesson, and Dan Kärreman
Human Relations February 2016, 69(2): 225–249, doi: 10.1177/0018726715614073
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/2/225?etoc
Abstract
In this article we extend the debate about critical performativity. We begin by outlining the basic tenets of critical performativity and how this has been applied in the study of management and organization. We then address recent critiques of critical performance. We note these arguments suffer from an undue focus on intra-academic debates; engage in author-itarian theoretical policing; feign relevance through symbolic radicalism; and repackage common sense. We take these critiques as an opportunity to offer an extended model of critical performativity that involves focusing on issues of public importance; engaging with non-academic groups using dialectical reasoning; scaling up insights through movement building; and propagating deliberation.
Moving critical performativity forward
Mark Learmonth, Nancy Harding, Jean-Pascal Gond, and Laure Cabantous
Human Relations February 2016, 69(2): 251–256, doi: 10.1177/0018726715620477
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/2/251?etoc
Abstract
In this rejoinder, we draw attention to some of the possible performative effects of Spicer et al.'s (2016) commentary and reaffirm the importance, in our eyes, of the fundamentally political and material dimensions of performativity.
When performativity fails: Implications for Critical Management Studies
Peter Fleming and Subhabrata Bobby Banerjee
Human Relations February 2016, 69(2): 257–276, published online before print November 27, 2015, doi:10.1177/0018726715599241
http://hum.sagepub.com/content/69/2/257?etoc
Abstract
This article argues that recent calls in this journal and elsewhere for Critical Management Studies scholars to embrace rather than reject performativity presents an overly optimistic view of (a) the power of language to achieve emancipatory organizational change and (b) the capability of lone Critical Management Studies researchers to resignify management discourses. We introduce the notion of failed performatives to extend this argument and discuss its implications for critical inquiry. If Critical Management Studies 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.
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WHY PUBLISH IN HUMAN RELATIONS?
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Human Relations is an A* journal – the highest category of quality – in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) Journal Quality List 2013. It is also ranked 4 in the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) Academic Journal Guide 2015. Human Relations is a top 5 interdisciplinary social sciences journal:
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Source: 2014 Journal Citation Reports® (Thomson Reuters, 2015)
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CALLS FOR PAPERS
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Special issue: Conceptualising flexible careers across the life course – submit by 1 March 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Flexible%20careers.html
Special issue: Global supply chains and social relations at work – submit by 30 April 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Global%20supply%20chains.html
Special issue: Politicization and political contests in contemporary multinational corporations – submit by 30 September 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Politics%20and%20MNCs.html
Special issue: Organizing feminism: Bodies, practices and ethics – submit by 30 November 2016
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Organizing%20feminism.html
Special issue: The changing nature of managerial work – submit by 31 January 2017
http://www.tavinstitute.org/humanrelations/special_issues/Managerial%20work.html
Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays:
- Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria.
- Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal's scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief.
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Claire Castle
Managing Editor, Human Relations
The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Email: c.castle@tavinstitute.org
Website: www.humanrelationsjournal.org