This editorial, “From the Editors: Critical Management Studies and the Academy of Management Journal: Challenge and Counterchallenge,” penned by Dov Eden and published in The Academy of Management Journal in August 2003, offers a profound and insightful exploration of the Critical Management Studies (CMS) Interest Group, self-identified as the “critters,” within the broader Academy of Management.
Eden’s interest in the CMS perspective was ignited after attending a “Critical Management Studies” session at the 2002 Academy meeting. He encountered a group of highly dedicated members who were on the verge of obtaining official interest group status, having initially formalized their presence as a preconference workshop at the 1998 Academy meeting. The rapid ascent of CMS from a workshop to an interest group, and their anticipated request for division status, underscored their growing influence.
The “Critters” and Their Critique: Attendees at the 2002 session expressed strong sentiments, perceiving the Academy as presenting a “dull, one-sided show” with an uncritical, almost unthinking, pro-management stance. A notable observation was the prevalence of international members, with 43% of the CMS Interest Group being “international,” significantly higher than other divisions, and British, Australian, and New Zealandese accents being “overrepresented”. Many members seemed to harbor a “collective persecution complex,” believing that the “powers that be” within the Academy sought to suppress them to avoid alienating those who support university chairs, consultancies, and research opportunities.
Despite these perceptions, Eden clarifies that the CMS group is far from a fringe element. It includes “some of the most highly visible and respected scholars in the Academy,” naming figures such as Paul Adler, David Boje, Peter Frost, and Linda Smircich, among others. Eden, initially identifying as “Mr. Mainstream” and an associate editor for Academy of Management Journal, found their arguments “interesting, if not fascinating,” and believes there is a “far wider sympathy, albeit largely tacit,” for many of their positions within the broader Academy community. He suggests that their rise to interest group status, whether or not it represents “establishment cooptation,” will undoubtedly have a “significant impact on mainstream Academy values, thinking, and action”.
The Core of the CMS Agenda: When CMS members advocate for “critical” approaches, they are serious, correctly labeling their perspective as “radical,” derived from the Latin radix, meaning “root”. Their goal is to delve deeply to “expose, understand, and change the underlying causes of managerial and organizational phenomena that others study more superficially”. Their fundamental premise asserts that “structural features of contemporary society,” such as the profit imperative, patriarchy, racial inequality, and ecological irresponsibility, frequently transform organizations into instruments of domination and exploitation. Driven by a shared desire for change, CMS aims to develop critical interpretations of management and society, and to “generate radical alternatives”. Their critique explicitly links the practical shortcomings in management to the demands of a “socially divisive and ecologically destructive system”.
The scope of their approach is remarkably broad, extending beyond individuals, groups, and organizations to encompass “the whole of society.” Their explicit aim is not merely discovery, but to “generating change that will result in a societal system that better accords with their values”. This demonstrates that their agenda is “as much, if not more, politically driven than scientifically motivated,” with a clear intention to “reform or radicalize the Academy of Management” to use it as an instrument of change. This political engagement is evident in initiatives like the “Dark Side” Case-Writing Competition, which encourages submissions that “provoke reflection and debate on the ‘dark side’ of contemporary capitalism” and openly promotes “muckraking” to document “well documented worst-practices cases” for both teaching and research.
CMS’s Challenge to the Academy and Responses: Eden acknowledges that the issues CMS raises are “vital but easily ignored, overlooked, and downgraded”. He reflects on his own journey from youthful rebelliousness, influenced by works like Loren Baritz’s The Servants of Power (1960), which detailed how industrial psychology served owners at workers’ expense, and Blau and Scott’s (1962) Cui bono? (who benefits?), to a later realization of the power held by editors and the necessity of “critical” analysis for serious engagement with these issues.
CMS directly challenges the wider Academy of Management community with difficult questions concerning the vast disparity in executive salaries, the exploitation of disadvantaged populations by corporations, corporate accounting scandals, and the ethical responsibilities of scholars. Responses within the Academy have begun to emerge:
- Jean Bartunek, as Academy President, organized a special panel “The Crisis in Corporate Confidence” in 2002, where Tom Kochan analyzed the overemphasis on shareholder value, John Child highlighted international corporate governance issues, and Paul Adler (CMS coordinator) emphasized going beyond ethical considerations to address underlying social structural causes.
- Denny Gioia addressed the role of business education in these issues, stressing the belief in making a difference.
- Art Brief and Max Bazerman, in Academy of Management Review, called for a “consumer orientation” in management research, critiquing “management myopia” which serves primarily management interests and urging scholars to consider “consumer welfare as a desired goal”.
- The Academy of Management Code of Ethical Conduct also addresses some of these concerns, referencing “the needs of the poor and disadvantaged” and the responsibility to consider “the perspectives of those who are the least advantaged,” though Eden suggests CMS offers a more comprehensive answer.
The Academy of Management Journal‘s Counterchallenge: The Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), as a publication dedicated to “publishing the best available theoretically driven empirical research on management,” clarifies its role. It aims not to advance a political program, but to “promote openness to the issues that CMS has tabled” by encouraging and publishing “first-rate research into these issues”. The editorial acknowledges CMS’s complaint that the mainstream establishment uses “rigid and exclusionary rules of evidence and uncompromising standards of methodology” to shut out critical research.
In response, AMJ issues a “counterchallenge to the critters”: Now that CMS has gained legitimacy, they are urged to submit “top-quality, theory-based research articles to AMJ using current methods in the field”. Eden argues that AMJ, as a custodian of scientific publishing, is open to research regardless of its application—whether to maximize ROI or to “illuminate the ‘socially divisive and ecologically destructive system’ and how to remedy it”. He asserts that the lack of published critical management research is due to a dearth of submissions, not editorial policy. While AMJ is challenging for all, editors apply the same rigorous standards to every submission, and “view critical research with open minds”. The “countercharge” encourages CMS scholars to “stop using the demands of positivism as an excuse and start doing the kind of research that gets published,” even developing “novel critical theories that are amenable to empirical testing” to “beat the system using its own rules”.
Signs of Mutual Acceptance and Cross-Fertilization: There are positive indications that CMS is embracing this challenge and gaining acceptance within the mainstream Academy. Joint events at the 2003 Academy meeting, such as a professional development workshop on “Crafting Qualitative Fieldwork” co-sponsored by the Research Methods and Organizational and Management Theory Divisions, and a session on “Pursuing Critical and Ethical Agendas” co-sponsored by the Research Methods Division, demonstrate this growing collaboration. These events, announced through channels like the Research Methods Division’s electronic RMNet, signal “mutual respect and embrace” and a “process of mutual influence”. This “cross-fertilization” is expected to benefit all Academy participants, leading to the publication of “outstanding management research, undertaken from a critical perspective, using the methods that other researchers who publish their work here use” in AMJ. This, Eden concludes, would enrich the field with a “too-long neglected critical perspective without sacrificing theoretical and methodological rigor and AMJ’s standards of excellence”. The editorial ultimately poses the question: “Are the critters up to the challenge?”.
APA Reference: Eden, D. (2003). From the Editors: Critical Management Studies and the Academy of Management Journal: Challenge and Counterchallenge. The Academy of Management Journal, 46(4), 390–394. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30040634