critique
Writing dangerously: Creating fictional narratives as an alternative form of critique within business schools
The piano man and other cocktails best stirred
I know a management scholar who’s also a concert pianist! Should he be allowed to present his research as a concerto?
Capitalist unrealism: Countering the crisis of critique and imagination
Introduction: Capitalism, unpacked
How does capitalism – in its various guises – capture the value that we produce in society? There are many ways to answer this question, because capitalism has many ways to extract value from us (Chertkovskaya et al., 2016; Hanlon, 2017). On the surface, everything seems above board. Businesses erect factories and offices for us to work in; workers sign contracts and receive wages for their daily efforts; and shareholders put in the capital and get a return on their investments. But below the surface, things are not quite so straightforward.
Open issue
Issue editors: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya and Ozan Nadir Alakavuklar
ephemera welcomes open submissions, outside of special issues, that address themes relating to the theory and politics in organization.
Critiquing corruption: A turn to theory
The world is waging war on corruption. Accompanying this war, there is also a growing academic interest in corruption. This research, however, has tended to operate with a nearly undisputed understanding of what corruption is and how to fight it. It has refrained from theorizing corruption, possibly as a consequence of the perceived urgency involved in identifying, raising awareness about and fighting corruption. This special issue of ephemera seeks to re-emphasize the relevance and importance of theorizing corruption.
Managing the human? Towards diverse, engaged and critical HRM studies
Issue Editors: Frans Bévort, Per Darmer, Mette Mogensen and Sara Louise Muhr
Today considerations about the management of so-called ‘human resources’ is taken up almost routinely both in governmental programs, in organizations as well as in the private lives of citizens (Jackson et al., 2014; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2009). This, in tandem with the increasing power of HRM practices in contemporary corporations, signals how HRM has succeeded to construct itself as a ‘serious’ and ‘established’ field of research.
There is always an alternative: Outlaws for contemporary resistance
Introduction: Alternatives as critique
Terrorist/anarchist/artist: Why bother?
Labels are often flashy conduits for hasty assumptions and partial truths. At the time when I was writing Action and Existence: Anarchism for Business Administration in the late 1970s, the term anarchism served as a handy synonym for mess, chaos, and disorder. In this context the word cropped up in public debates about the Baader-Meinhof terrorism in Germany in the aftermath of Paris 68, for example. In putting my book together, I set out to explain what I had learned through my own reading and discussion about this often short-changed term.
Making choice, taking risk: On the coming out of Critical Management Studies
Introduction
Critical Management Studies (CMS) has been quite successful at establishing a respectable place for itself within the academic community; at least in the UK, it is associated with well-recognised journals, conferences and key figures (Grey and Willmott, 2002; Rowlinson and Hassard, 2011).
